Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T13:30:32.611Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

THE INFORMAL ECONOMY OF CREDIT IN EARLY MODERN VENICE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2018

JAMES E. SHAW
JAMES E. SHAW*
Affiliation:
University of Sheffield
*
Department of History, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, s3 7ra[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Evidence from the Piovego, the fraud magistracy of early modern Venice, offers a critical perspective on the documentary record of credit and the ways in which this was used in practice. Although it was formally illegal to charge interest on personal loans, a variety of legal fictions were employed to evade the ban. Such fictions significantly reduced the transparency and certainty of exchange, pushing personal loans into a world of semi-legality. This was a ‘baroque economy’, in which people were aware of the potential discrepancy between surface form and underlying substance, and private agreements might be contested on grounds of substantive fairness. The ‘hidden transcripts’ presented by litigants indicate that the formal record must be interpreted through a ‘thick description’ that considers its role as a resource in a broader process of negotiation. Far from being a ‘market’, characterized by price competition, choice, and transparency, the informal economy of credit was embedded in long-term power relationships. Rather than celebrating intermediaries such as brokers and notaries as facilitators of ‘market’ relations, we need to understand them as part of a hierarchical network of power and wealth, embedded in long-term relationships.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 61 , Issue 3 , September 2018 , pp. 623 - 642
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Hart, Keith, ‘Informal income opportunities and urban employment in Ghana’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 11 (1973), pp. 61–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hart, Keith, ‘Kinship, contract, and trust: the economic organization of migrants in an African city slum’, in Gambetta, Diego, ed., Trust: making and breaking cooperative relations (Oxford, 1988)Google Scholar; Hart, Keith, ‘Bureaucratic form and the informal economy’, in Guha-Khasnobis, Basudeb, Kanbur, Ravi, and Ostrom, Elinor, eds., Linking the formal and informal economy: concepts and policies (Oxford, 2006)Google Scholar, ch. 2.

2 Portes, Alejandro, Castells, Manuel, and Benton, Lauren A., eds., The informal economy: studies in advanced and less developed countries (Baltimore, MD, and London, 1989), p. 11Google Scholar.

3 Hufton, Olwen, The poor of eighteenth-century France, 1750–1789 (Oxford, 1974)Google Scholar; Lane, Penelope, ‘Work on the margins: poor women and the informal economy of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Leicestershire’, Midland History, 22 (1997), pp. 85–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fontaine, Laurence and Schlumbohm, Jürgen, eds., Household strategies for survival, 1600–2000: fission, faction and cooperation (Cambridge, 2000)Google Scholar; Verdon, Nicola, Rural women workers in nineteenth-century England: gender, work and wages (Woodbridge, 2002)Google Scholar; King, Steven and Tomkins, Alannah, eds., The poor in England 1700–1850: an economy of makeshifts (Manchester, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Hart, ‘Bureaucratic form’; Buchner, Thomas and Hoffmann-Rehnitz, Philip R., ‘Introduction: irregular economic practices as a topic of modern (urban) history – problems and possibilities’, in Buchner, Thomas and Hoffmann-Rehnitz, Philip R., eds., Shadow economies and irregular work in urban Europe: sixteenth to early twentieth centuries (Berlin, 2011)Google Scholar; Williams, Colin C., ‘Tackling employment in the informal economy: a critical evaluation of the neoliberal policy approach’, Economic and Industrial Democracy, 38 (2017), pp. 145–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Portes, Castells, and Benton, eds., Informal economy, pp. 27–9; Harvey, David, A brief history of neoliberalism (Oxford, 2005)Google Scholar; Meagher, Kate, Identity economics: social networks and the informal economy in Nigeria (Oxford, 2010), p. 2Google Scholar.

6 Bromley, Ray, ‘Introduction – the urban informal sector: why is it worth discussing?’, World Development, 6 (1978), pp. 1033–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 1034; Portes, Castells, and Benton, eds., Informal economy, pp. 4–5; North, Douglass C., Institutions, institutional change and economic performance (Cambridge, 1990), p. 46CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Palmer, Robert, The informal economy in sub-saharan Africa: unresolved issues of concept, character and measurement (Edinburgh, 2004), pp. 25–7Google Scholar; Hart, ‘Bureaucratic form’, p. 22; Keshavarzian, Arang, Bazaar and state in Iran: the politics of the Tehran marketplace (Cambridge, 2007), p. 62CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Davis, James and Stabel, Peter, ‘Formal and informal trade in the late middle ages: the Islamic world and northwest Europe compared’, in Nigro, Giampiero, ed., Il commercio al minuto: domanda e offerta tra economia formale e informale, secc. XIII–XVIII (Florence, 2015), pp. 37–8Google Scholar.

7 North, Institutions. See also Soto, Hernando de, The other path: the economic answer to terrorism (new edn, New York, NY, 1989; orig. edn 1986), p. 19Google Scholar.

8 De Soto, Other path, p. xviii; Hart, ‘Bureaucratic form’, p. 26; Williams, Colin C., ‘Tackling Europe's informal economy: a critical evaluation of the neo-liberal de-regulatory perspective’, Journal of Contemporary European Research, 9 (2013), pp. 261–78Google Scholar, at p. 264; Williams, ‘Tackling employment’, p. 151.

9 North, Douglass C. and Thomas, Robert Paul, The rise of the Western world: a new economic history (Cambridge, 1973)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; North, Institutions; Greif, Avner, ‘Contract enforceability and economic institutions in early trade: the Maghribi traders' coalition’, American Economic Review, 83 (1993), pp. 525–48Google Scholar; Greif, Avner, Institutions and the path to the modern economy: lessons from medieval trade (Cambridge, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For criticism, see Boldizzoni, Francesco, The poverty of Clio: resurrecting economic history (Princeton, NJ, 2011), p. 18Google Scholar; Sewell, William H., ‘What's wrong with economic history?’, History and Theory, 51 (2012), pp. 466–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 For example, Acemoglu, Daron and Robinson, James A., Why nations fail: the origins of power, prosperity, and poverty (New York, NY, 2012)Google Scholar, and critical historical perspectives in Ogilvie, Sheilagh C., ‘“Whatever is, is right”? Economic institutions in pre-industrial europe’, Economic History Review, 60 (2007), pp. 649–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Clemente, Alida and Zaugg, Roberto, ‘Hermes, the Leviathan and the grand narrative of new institutional economics: the quest for development in the eighteenth-century kingdom of Naples’, Journal of Modern European History, 15 (2017), pp. 109–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Granovetter, Mark, ‘Economic action and social structure: the problem of embeddedness’, American Journal of Sociology, 91 (1985), pp. 481–510CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at pp. 496–8; Shipman, Alan, The market revolution and its limits: a price for everything (London, 1999), p. 200CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Kadens, Emily, ‘Pre-modern credit networks and the limits of reputation’, Iowa Law Review, 100 (2015), pp. 2429–55Google Scholar.

13 Fontaine, Laurence, The moral economy: poverty, credit, and trust in early modern Europe (Cambridge, 2014; orig. edn Paris, 2008), p. 113Google Scholar.

14 Kadens, ‘Pre-modern credit’, p. 2444.

15 Muldrew, Craig, ‘From a “light cloak” to the “iron cage”: an essay on historical changes in the relationship between community and individualism’, in Shepard, Alex and Withington, Phil, eds., Communities in early modern England: networks, place, rhetoric (Manchester, 2000), pp. 165–6, 171Google Scholar.

16 Ben-Amos, Ilana Krausman, The culture of giving: informal support and gift-exchange in early modern England (Cambridge, 2008), pp. 12–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Safley, T. M., ed. The history of bankruptcy: economic, social and cultural implications in early modern Europe (New York, NY, 2013)Google Scholar.

17 Atiyah, Patrick, The rise and fall of freedom of contract (Oxford, 1979), pp. 140–1, 147–8Google Scholar; Gordley, James, The philosophical origins of modern contract doctrine (Oxford, 1993)Google Scholar; Gordley, James, ‘Good faith in contract law in the medieval ius commune’, in Zimmermann, Reinhard and Whittaker, Simon, eds., Good faith in European contract law: the common core of European private law (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 115–16Google Scholar.

18 Gordley, ‘Good faith’, p. 108.

19 Ago, Renata, Economia barocca: mercato e istituzioni nella Roma del seicento (Rome, 1998), pp. xviii–xix, 108–9Google Scholar.

20 See for example the anonymous Dialogo nel quale si ragiona de’ cambi et altri contratti di merci (Genoa, 1573)Google Scholar, quoted in Savelli, Rodolfo, ‘Between law and morals: interest in the dispute on exchanges during the sixteenth century’, in Piergiovanni, Vito, ed., The courts and the development of commercial law (Berlin, 1987), p. 83Google Scholar, ‘la forma sia scorza et non spirito’.

21 Kirshner, Julius, ‘Some problems in the interpretation of legal texts in the Italian city-states’, Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte, 19 (1975), pp. 16–27, at pp. 18–20Google Scholar; McSheffrey, Shannon, ‘Detective fiction in the archives: court records and the uses of law in late medieval England’, History Workshop Journal, 65 (2008), pp. 65–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Nussdorfer, Laurie, ‘Lost faith: a Roman prosecutor reflects on notaries' crimes’, in Findlen, Paula, Fontaine, Michelle M., and Osheim, Duane J., eds., Beyond Florence: the contours of medieval and early modern Italy (Stanford, CA, 2002), pp. 101, 111Google Scholar.

23 Hardwick, Julie, The practice of patriarchy: gender and the politics of household authority in early modern France (University Park, PA, 1998), pp. 19–21Google Scholar.

24 Hoffman, Philip T., Postel-Vinay, Gilles, and Rosenthal, Jean-Laurent, Priceless markets: the political economy of credit in Paris, 1660–1870 (Chicago, IL, 2000), p. 25Google Scholar for the quote. See also Hoffman, Philip T., Postel-Vinay, Gilles, and Rosenthal, Jean-Laurent, ‘Information and economic history: how the credit market in old regime Paris forces us to rethink’, American Historical Review, 104 (1999), pp. 69–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 90.

25 Hoffman, Philip T., Postel-Vinay, Gilles, and Rosenthal, Jean-Laurent, ‘Private credit markets in Paris, 1690–1840’, Journal of Economic History, 52 (1992), at p. 298CrossRefGoogle Scholar n. 8, dismisses the possibility that notarial records were manipulated.

26 Burns, Kathryn, ‘Notaries, truth, and consequences’, American Historical Review, 110 (2005), pp. 350–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 353.

27 Girolamo Savonarola, Prediche nuovamente venute in luce,…sopra il Salmo Quam bonus Israel Deus (Venice, 1528), xlii verso, from a sermon of 1493, ‘notai che fanno cattivi contratti & usurai’.

28 Hardwick, Practice of patriarchy, p. 22.

29 Garzoni, Tommasso, La piazza universale di tutte le professioni del mondo (Venice, 1665), p. 97Google Scholar, ‘ne meno si fa[nno] pregar talvolta a formare un'istrome[n]to usurario’.

30 Hoffman, Postel-Vinay, and Rosenthal, Priceless markets, pp. 14–15, 30, acknowledges that notaries played a key role in concealing illicit interest, but interprets these techniques as being commonly practised and therefore transparent to all parties.

31 Marco Ferro, Dizionario del diritto comune e veneto (2 vols., Venice, 1845; orig. edn 1778–81), ii, p. 440, ‘piovego’, ii, pp. 529–30, ‘processo’.

32 Cassandro, Giovanni I., ‘La curia di petizion e il diritto processuale di Venezia’, Archivio Veneto, 5th ser., 20 (1937), pp. 1–210, at pp. 2–4Google Scholar; Fusaro, Maria, ‘Politics of justice/politics of trade: foreign merchants and the administration of justice from the records of Venice's giudici del forestier’, Mélanges de l'École Française de Rome: Italie et Méditerranée modernes et contemporaines, 126 (2014), para 7Google Scholar.

33 von Stryk, Karin Nehlsen, ‘“Lus comune”, “consuetudo” e “arbitrium iudicis” nella prassi giudiziaria veneziana del quattrocento’, in von Stryk, Karin Nehlsen and Norr, D., eds., Diritto comune, diritto commerciale, diritto veneziano (Venice, 1985)Google Scholar. For similar interpretation of English equity courts, see Lobban, Michael, ‘Contractual fraud in law and equity, c. 1750 – c. 1850’, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, 17 (1997), pp. 441–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Macnair, Mike, The law of proof in early modern equity (Berlin, 1999)Google Scholar.

34 Volumen statutorum legum, ac iurium dd. Venetorum (Venice, 1678)Google Scholar, fo. 55r, 2 Sept. 1328, ‘Contra i contratti illiciti, & fraudolenti auttorità sumaria commessa a tutti i zudesi, come per sua conscientia i dieno procedere, considerato non la scrittura, ma la qualità del fatto.’ Piovego, b. 141, filza G.

35 Volumen statutorum legum, fo. 156r, 29 Mar. 1357; Ferro, Dizionario, ii, p. 828, ‘usura’; Mueller, Reinhold C., The Venetian money market: banks, panics and the public debt, 1200–1500 (Baltimore, MD, and London, 1997), pp. 337–8Google Scholar.

36 Jones, Norman L., God and the moneylenders: usury and law in early modern England (Oxford, 1989), pp. 120–1Google Scholar. See also Shatzmiller, Joseph, Shylock reconsidered: Jews, moneylending, and medieval society (Berkeley, CA, 1990)Google Scholar.

37 Piovego, bb. 27–39.

38 Piovego, bb. 146, 148, 150, 152.

39 Piovego, bb. 27–39.

40 Petizion, Dimande, b. 42, register for 1 Mar. 1660 to 31 Aug. 1661.

41 Beltrami, D., Storia della popolazione di venezia dalla fine del secolo xvi alla caduta della repubblica (Padua, 1954), p. 72Google Scholar, gives the nobles as 3.7 per cent of the Venetian population in 1642.

42 For women at English equity courts, see Stretton, Tim, Women waging law in Elizabethan England (Cambridge, 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43 Nani, Filippo, Prattica civile delle corti del Palazzo Veneto (Venice, 1668), p. 198Google Scholar.

44 For complaints contesting sales of land as fraudulent many years later, see for example Piovego, b. 28, 22 Sept. 1622 (twenty-three years later), b. 40, 24 Mar. 1745 (twenty-nine years later), b. 40, 9 Sept. 1745 (fifty-three years later).

45 Davis, Natalie Zemon, Fiction in the archives: pardon tales and their tellers in sixteenth-century France (Stanford, CA, 1987)Google Scholar; Bailey, Joanne, ‘Voices in court: lawyers' or litigants'?’, Historical Research, 74 (2002), pp. 392–408CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 407.

46 Scott, James C., Domination and the arts of resistance: hidden transcripts (New Haven, CT, 1990), p. 14Google Scholar. I use the term ‘hidden transcripts’ to refer to power relations within civil society, rather than resistance towards the state.

47 Piovego, b. 34, Baldin Guerra vs. Salamon Camis, 17 Mar. 1670.

48 Jones, God, pp. 124–5, 131.

49 Emery, Richard W., The Jews of Perpignan in the thirteenth century: an economic study based on notarial records (New York, NY, 1959), p. 86Google Scholar; Heers, Jacques, ‘The feudal economy and capitalism: words, ideas and reality’, Journal of European Economic History, 3 (1974), pp. 609–53Google Scholar, at p. 617; Helmholz, R. H., ‘Usury and the medieval English church courts’, Speculum, 61 (1986), pp. 364–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Braunstein, Philippe, ‘Le prêt sur gages à paduoe et dans le paduoan au milieu du xve siècle’, in Cozzi, Gaetano, ed., Gli ebrei e Venezia: secoli XIV–XVIII: atti del convegno internazionale organizzato dall'istituto di storia della società e dello stato veneziano della fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venezia, isola di San Giorgio Maggiore, 5–10 giugno 1983 (Milan, 1987), pp. 654Google Scholar, 657; Francesca Zen Benetti, ‘Prestatori ebraici e cristiani nel padovano fra trecento e quattrocento’, in Cozzi, ed., Gli ebrei e Venezia, p. 629; Jones, God, p. 131; Gazzini, Marina, ‘Dare et habere’: il mondo di un mercante milanese del cinquecento (Milan, 1997), pp. 147–8Google Scholar; Ray, Nicholas Dylan, ‘The medieval Islamic system of credit and banking: legal and historical considerations’, Arab Law Quarterly, 12 (1997), pp. 43–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hoffman, Postel-Vinay, and Rosenthal, Priceless markets, p. 14; Munro, John H., ‘The medieval origins of the financial revolution: usury, “rentes”, and negotiability’, International History Review, 25 (2003), pp. 505–62, at p. 512CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a comparative perspective, see Hart, ‘Kinship’, p. 185.

50 Here I differ from Ago, Renata, ‘Enforcing agreements: notaries and courts in early modern Rome’, Continuity and Change, 14 (1999), pp. 191–206CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 197.

51 The Venetian term stocco specifically referred to credit transactions using overpriced goods. Literally, a stocco (Eng. tuck, Fr. estoc) was a thrusting sword; this was evocative of the way that a ‘stab’ might be concealed beneath the cloak of ‘bazaar’ transactions where prices were negotiable. Stocchi, scrocchi, bazari, or barocchi were related terms. For Venetian usage, see Piovego, b. 29, Campana siblings vs. Pietro Maria Tassi, 2 Dec. 1627, where a mortgage contract for a loan in the form of overpriced iron was described as ‘uno stocco di tanto ferro’; Piovego, b. 27, Sebastian di Honorai vs. Alessandro di Grandi, 23 Dec. 1613, c. 21r–v, on ‘stochi’ and ‘bazzarri’; Piovego, b. 140, denunciation vs. Altobello Bon, 17 June 1648, c. 62r, ‘baratti bazari’; Piovego, b. 30, denunciation vs. Zuanne Pandolo & Zuanne Fuga, 19 May 1633, ‘contratto sive bazarro’. See also Garzoni, Piazza, p. 672; Priori, Lorenzo, Prattica criminale secondo il rito delle leggi della serenissima republica di venetia (Venice, 1738; orig. edn Venice, 1622), p. 183Google Scholar; Boerio, Giuseppe, Dizionario del dialetto veneziano (2nd edn, Milan, 1971; orig. edn Venice, 1856)Google Scholar, ‘stocho’; Brian Pullan, ‘Jewish moneylending in Venice: from private enterprise to public service’, in Cozzi, ed., Gli ebrei e Venezia, pp. 677–8; Jones, God, pp. 122–3; Brackett, John F., Criminal justice and crime in late Renaissance Florence, 1537–1609 (Cambridge, 1992), p. 121CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Farolfi, Bernardino, ‘Brokers and brokerage in Bologna from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries’, in Guenzi, Alberto, Massa, Paola, and Caselli, Fausto Piola, eds., Guilds, markets and work regulations in Italy, 16th–19th centuries (Aldershot, 1998), pp. 308, 315–16Google Scholar; Goldberg, Edward L., Jews and magic in Medici Florence: the secret world of Benedetto Blanis (Toronto, ON, 2011), pp. 109–10Google Scholar; Mellyn, Elizabeth W., Mad Tuscans and their families: a history of mental disorder in early modern Italy (Philadelphia, PA, 2014), pp. 117–18Google Scholar.

52 Fontaine, Moral economy, p. 95, for an example from Molière.

53 Compilazione Leggi, ser. 1, b. 303, c. 220v, 11 Dec. 1479; Piovego, b. 141, filza G.

54 Goldberg, Jews, pp. 109–10.

55 The Calimani were heavily involved in the second-hand trade and had substantial property interests in the ghetto – see Boccato, Carla, ‘Testamenti di israeliti nel fondo del notaio veneziano Pietro Bracchi seniore (secolo XVII)’, La Rassegna Mensile di Israel, 3rd ser., 42 (1976), pp. 281–97Google Scholar, at p. 294; Pullan, ‘Jewish moneylending’, p. 680; Pullan, Brian, ‘The conversion of the Jews: the style of Italy’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 70 (1988), pp. 53–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 66.

56 Piovego, b. 29, Bortolo Cardinal vs. Michiel Calimani, capitolo of 29 Oct. 1627, ‘ha voluto finger cosi per coprir l'usura, che fà cresser la summa dalli ducati trentasette alli ducati sessanta, ch’è quasi il doppio’.

57 Ibid., ‘usura d'usura’.

58 Piovego, b. 34, Baldin Guerra vs. Salamon Camis.

59 Rothman, E. Natalie, Brokering empire: trans-imperial subjects between Venice and Istanbul (Ithaca, NY, 2012)Google Scholar.

60 Fontaine, Moral economy, pp. 101–22.

61 Piovego, b. 33, S Zaccaria vs. Francesco Grana, 11 Jan. 1665 mv, cc. 43r, 110v.

62 Ibid., c. 47r, ‘Menachen Coen venne ad offerirmi li soprad[ett]i ducati due mille per far servitio più tosto al grana, che à me.’

63 Ibid., cc. 51r, 120r.

64 Ibid., c. 11v, ‘queste cose di quattordeci per cento et altre usure passano in quattro occhi’.

65 Ibid., c. 43r. This was the only case identified where the Piovego had a witness tortured (with the strappado), a very unusual situation linked to ethnic prejudice and the court's determination to obtain a conviction.

66 Ibid., c. 24r, ‘ho detto la verità da huomo legale, e di tutta integrità, ne per tutto l'oro del mondo porteria alcuna delle parti, ove si tratta di riputat[io]ne’.

67 Ibid., c. 23v, ‘fu esborsato alla mia p[resen]za due sacchetti d'oro’.

68 Ibid., c. 25v, ‘e sufficiente la confessione dei debitori, cosa che giornalm[en]te si prattica, et li Protocolli de nodari son pieni di tali instrum[en]ti’.

69 Ferro, Dizionario, ii, p. 204, ‘livello’.

70 Piovego, b. 33, S Zaccaria vs. Francesco Grana, c. 34r, ‘essendo suo compadre e amico’.

71 Ibid., c. 49v, ‘bisogna trovar modo che apparisca ch'io havessi maggior debito’.

72 Piovego, b. 29, Libanoto vs. Gambirasi, 23 Nov. 1627, ‘questo non si può fare, mà bisogna, che voi portate et contate il denaro alla sua presentia de testimonij’.

73 Ibid., ‘fece dichiarire al nodaro, che mi haveva esborsato il denaro alla presentia del nodaro, et testimonij, mà in fatto non corr[s]e dalla sua alle mie mani denaro alcuno’.

74 Ibid., c. 22, 11 Jan. 1627 mv, ‘riposando l'havere & facolta d'ogni famiglia sopra la fede notariale, la quale no[n] si deve, ne si puo metter in dubbio’.

75 Ibid., 11 Aug. 1627, ‘vidi ori…p[re]supongo che fossera la vera quantita espressa nell'instr[omen]to perche anco vidi che s[igno]r Libanoto se ne contento’.

76 Garzoni, Piazza, p. 97, ‘senza un'o[n]cia di coscie[n]za’.

77 Piovego, b. 33, S Zaccaria vs. Francesco Grana, c. 38r, ‘ogni g[ior]no mi faceva esser testimonio’.

78 Ibid., c. 35v, ‘non sò che cosa contenessero’.

79 Ibid., c. 34v, ‘circa il prezzo solito costume è che fra li contrahenti si stabilisce e sopra l'informat[io]ne de med[ese]mi si forma l'instrum[en]to, onde non sò se valessero di più o meno di quello parla l'instrum[en]to stesso’.

80 Piovego, b. 156, denunciation vs. Gerolemo Baldissini, 15 Jan. 1644 mv, ‘huomo tristo senza cognitione del s[igno]r Iddio privo di conscienza’.

81 Avogaria di Comun, b. 4034, filza 287, no. 14; Cowan, Alexander, Marriage, manners and mobility in early modern Venice (Aldershot, 2007), p. 143Google Scholar.

82 Piovego, b. 33, S Zaccaria vs. Francesco Grana, c. 48r, ‘questi per verità non sono stati che prò corsi sopra detti D[uca]ti 6 m[ila] raguagliati a 14 per c[en]to’.

83 Ibid., c. 58v, ‘Com’è possibile ch'il mutti si chiami debitore di d[uca]ti 6 m[ila] mentre non li havesse ricevuti.’

84 Ibid., c. 62r, ‘non fù contato pur un bagattino, a benche mostrassero con sachetti, non so di che ripieni, che vi fosse il denaro’.

85 Piovego, b. 29, Giacomo Gabrieli & Antonio Rubboni vs. Dario Solfin, 18 Sept. 1627.

86 Avogaria di Comun, b. 4132, 14 Nov. 1675, ‘estremo bisogno’.

87 Testamenti, b. 1196, no. 111, 31 Oct. 1648.

88 Piovego, b. 38, Loredan vs. Roncalli, 20 Sept. 1698, referred to the ‘contratti usuratici’ manipulated ‘con studiata accortezza de sansali’ which ‘inceneriscono i pretiosi capitali delle famiglie’.

89 Ibid., ‘per esser vecchi fatti lustri con arte’, ‘bevuto il mar beverò anco questo marino’.

90 Ibid., ‘dovevano restar à libera dispositione di detto Roncali come mezano per farne vendita’.

91 Ibid., capitoli of 19 Nov. 1698.

92 Ibid., ‘lasciar scritto un veridico testimonio per poter in qualunque tempo aggravarmi à tribunali di giustitia di tale infetto scandaloso contratto’.

93 Ibid., ‘havendo anco ciò diffamato con le più vive doglianze in secreta confidenza con più d'una persona’.

94 Piovego, b. 35, Andrea Cantin vs. Carlo Forella, 4 July 1670.

95 Kuran, Timur, ‘The logic of financial Westernization in the Middle East’, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 56 (2005), pp. 593–615CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 600.

96 Koyama, Mark, ‘Evading the “taint of usury”: the usury prohibition as a barrier to entry’, Explorations in Economic History, 47 (2010), pp. 420–42, at p. 438CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

97 Hoffman, Postel-Vinay, and Rosenthal, Priceless markets, p. 25.

98 Geertz, Clifford, ‘The bazaar economy: information and search in peasant marketing’, American Economic Review, 68 (1978), pp. 28–32, at p. 31Google Scholar. See also Hart, ‘Kinship’, p. 179; Shipman, Market revolution, pp. 196–238.