Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T16:53:15.289Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Household Debt in Early Modern Germany: Evidence from Personal Inventories

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2012

SHEILAGH OGILVIE ,
MARKUS KÜPKER  and
JANINE MAEGRAITH
SHEILAGH OGILVIE*
Affiliation:
Professor of Economic History, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge CB3 9DD, United Kingdom. E-mail: [email protected].
MARKUS KÜPKER*
Affiliation:
Research Associate, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge CB3 9DD, United Kingdom. E-mail: [email protected].
JANINE MAEGRAITH*
Affiliation:
Research Associate, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge CB3 9DD, United Kingdom. E-mail: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The “less-developed” interior of early modern Europe, especially the rural economy, is often regarded as financially comatose. This article investigates this view using a rich data set of marriage and death inventories for seventeenth-century Germany. It first analyzes the characteristics of debts, examining borrowing purposes, familial links, communal ties, and documentary instruments. It then explores how borrowing varied with gender, age, marital status, occupation, date, and asset portfolio. It finds that ordinary people, even in a “less-developed” economy in rural central Europe, sought to invest profitably, smooth consumption, bridge low liquidity, and hold savings in financial form.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 72 , Issue 1 , 12 March 2012 , pp. 134 - 167
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2012

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

REFERENCES

Attanasio, Orazio P., and Weber, Guglielmo. “Consumption and Saving: Models of Intertemporal Allocation and Their Implications for Public Policy.” Journal of Economic Literature 48, no. 3 (2010): 693–751CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Basu, Kaushik. Analytical Development Economics: The Less Developed Economy Revisited. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Béaur, Gérard. “Credit and Land in Eighteenth-Century France.” In Credit and the Rural Economy in North-Western Europe, c.1200–c.1850, edited by Schofield, Philip R. and Lambrecht, Thijs, 153–68. Turnhout: CORN, 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benscheidt, Anja R.Kleinbürgerlicher Besitz: Nürtinger Handwerker-Inventare von 1660–1840. Münster: Lit-Verlag, 1985.Google Scholar
Blessing, Werner K.“‘Ökonom’ und Geld. Zum bäuerlichen Kredit im Bayern des 19. Jahrhunderts.” Zeitschrift für Bayerische Landesgeschichte 60 (1997): 861–88.Google Scholar
Blömer, Maria. Die Entwicklung des Agrarkredits in der preußischen Provinz Westfalen im 19. Jahrhundert. Frankfurt am Main: Knapp, 1990.Google Scholar
Boelcke, Willi A.“Zur Entwicklung des bäuerlichen Kreditwesens in Württemberg vom späten Mittelalter bis Anfang des 17. Jahrhunderts.” Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik 176 (1964): 319–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boelcke, Willi A. “Der Agrarkredit in deutschen Territorialstaaten vom Mittelalter bis Anfang des 18. Jahrhunderts.” In Kredit im spätmittelalterlichen und frühneuzeitlichen Europa, edited by North, Michael, 193–216. Cologne/Vienna: Böhlau, 1991.Google Scholar
Brunner, Otto “Das Ganze Haus und die Alteuropäische Ökonomik.” In Neue Wege der Sozialgeschichte, edited by Brunner, Otto, 103–27. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1968.Google Scholar
Chayanov, Aleksander V. “On the Theory of Non-Capitalist Economic Systems.” In A. V. Chayanov on the Theory of the Peasant Economy, edited by Thorner, Daniel, Kerblay, Basile, and Smith, R.E. F., 1–28. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1986.Google Scholar
Clemens, Gabriele B., and Reupke, Daniel. “Kreditvergabe im 19. Jahrhundert zwischen privaten Netzwerken und institutioneller Geldleihe.” In Schuldenlast und Schuldenwert. Kreditnetzwerke in der europäischen Geschichte 1300–1900, edited by Clemens, Gabriele B., 211–38. Trier: Kliomedia, 2008.Google Scholar
Fertig, Christine. “Kreditmärkte und Kreditbeziehungen im ländlichen Westfalen (19. Jh.): Soziale Netzwerke und städtisches Kapital.” In Schuldenlast und Schuldenwert. Kreditnetzwerke in der europäischen Geschichte 1300–1900, edited by Clemens, Gabriele B., 161–75. Trier: Kliomedia, 2008.Google Scholar
Fertig, Christine. “Urban Capital and Agrarian Reforms: Rural Credit Markets in Nineteenth-Century Westphalia.” In Credit and the Rural Economy in North-Western Europe, c.1200–c.1850, edited by Schofield, P.R. and Lambrecht, T., 169–96. Turnhout: CORN, 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Figes, Orlando. Peasant Russia, Civil War: The Volga Countryside in Revolution (1917–1921). Oxford: Clarendon, 1989.Google Scholar
Fontaine, Laurence. L’économie morale, pauvreté, crédit et confiance dans l'Europe préindustrielle. Paris: Gallimard, 2008.Google Scholar
Frey, Dennis A. “Industrious Households: Survival Strategies of Artisans in a Southwest German Town During the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries.” In Household Strategies for Survival, 1600–2000: Fission, Faction, and Cooperation, edited by Laurence Fontaine and Jürgen Schlumbohm, 115–35. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Gilomen, Hans-Jörg. “L'endettement paysan et la question du crédit dans les pays d'Empire au Moyen Âge.” In Endettement paysan & crédit rural dans l'Europe médiévale et moderne, edited by Berthe, Maurice, 99–138. Toulouse: Presses Universitaires de Mirail, 1998.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guinnane, Timothy W.“Cooperatives as Information Machines: German Rural Credit Cooperatives, 1883–1914.” The Journal of Economic History 61, no. 2 (2001): 366–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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 the Transition to Capitalism.” American Historical Review 104, no. 1 (1999): 69–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoffman, Philip T., Postel-Vinay, Gilles, and Rosenthal, Jean-Laurent. “Révolution et évolution: Les marchés du crédit notarié en France, 1780–1840.” Annales: histoire, sciences sociales 59, no. 2 (2004): 387–424.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holderness, B.A.“Credit in English Rural Society Before the Nineteenth Century, with Special Reference to the Period, 1650–1720.” Agricultural History Review 24, no. 2 (1976): 97–109.Google Scholar
Kriedte, Peter, Medick, Hans, and Schlumbohm, Jürgen. Industrialization Before Industrialization: Rural Industry in the Genesis of Capitalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.Google Scholar
Lambrecht, Thijs. “Rural Credit and the Market for Annuities in Eighteenth-Century Flanders.” In Credit and the Rural Economy in North-Western Europe, c.1200–c.1850, edited by Schofield, Philip R. and Lambrecht, Thijs, 161–75. Turnhout: CORN, 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laufer, Johannes. “‘Soziale Kredite’: Kredit als Element der Sozialordnung in den Oberharzer Bergstädten des 19. Jahrhunderts.” In Soziale Praxis des Kredits. 16–20. Jahrhundert, edited by Schlumbohm, J., 99–120. Hanover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 2007.Google Scholar
Limberger, Michael. “Credit, the Land Market, and the Connection Between the Rural and Urban Economy: The Use of Perpetual Annuities in Aartselaar (Brabant) from the Fourteenth to the Sixteenth Century.” In Credit and the Rural Economy in North-Western Europe, c.1200–c.1850, edited by Schofield, P.R. and Lambrecht, T., 63–74. Turnhout: CORN, 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lindgren, Hakan“The Modernization of Swedish Credit Markets, 1840–1905: Evidence from Probate Records.” The Journal of Economic History 62, no. 3 (2002): 810–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lipp, Carola. “Aspekte der mikrohistorischen und kulturanthropologischen Kreditforschung.” In Soziale Praxis des Kredits. 16–20. Jahrhundert, edited by Schlumbohm, J., 15–36. Hanover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 2007.Google Scholar
Maisch, Andreas. Notdürftiger Unterhalt und gehörige Schranken: Lebensbedingungen und Lebensstile in württembergischen Dörfern der frühen Neuzeit. Stuttgart: Fischer, 1992.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mannheims, Hildegard. Wie wird ein Inventar erstellt? Rechtskommentare als Quelle der volkskundlichen Forschung. Münster: Coppenrath, 1991.Google Scholar
Mauch, Anne. “Ländliches Darlehenswesen in wirtschaftlichen Krisenzeiten. Eine Untersuchung am Beispiel der Beurener Unterpfandsbücher und -protokolle (1846–1854).” M.A. thesis, University of Tübingen, 2009.Google Scholar
McCants, Anne. “Inequality Among the Poor of Eighteenth-Century Amsterdam.” Explorations in Economic History 44, no. 1 (2007): 1–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Medick, Hans. Weben und Überleben in Laichingen, 1650–1900. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996.Google Scholar
Muldrew, Craig. The Economy of Obligation: The Culture of Credit and Social Relations in Early Modern England. New York/Basingstoke: St. Martin's Press, 1998.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ogilvie, Sheilagh. State Corporatism and Proto-Industry: The Württemberg Black Forest, 1580–1797. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ogilvie, Sheilagh. “The German State: A Non-Prussian View.” In Rethinking Leviathan: The Eighteenth-Century State in Britain and Germany, edited by Hellmuth, Eckhard and Brewer, John, 167–202. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Ogilvie, Sheilagh. A Bitter Living: Women, Markets, and Social Capital in Early Modern Germany. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ogilvie, Sheilagh. “Consumption, Social Capital, and the ‘Industrious Revolution’ in Early Modern Germany.” The Journal of Economic History 70, no. 2 (2010): 287–325.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ogilvie, Sheilagh, Küpker, Markus, and Maegraith, Janine. “Community Characteristics and Demographic Development: Three Württemberg Communities, 1558–1914.” Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0910, 2009.Google Scholar
Ogilvie, Sheilagh, Küpker, Markus, and Maegraith, Janine. “Household Debt in Early Modern Germany: Evidence from Personal Inventories (Long Version).” Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1148, 2011.Google Scholar
Pallot, Judith. Land Reform in Russia, 1906–1917: Peasant Responses to Stolypin's Project of Rural Transformation. Oxford: Clarendon, 1999.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paxson, Christina. “Borrowing Constraints and Portfolio Choice.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 105, no. 2 (1990): 535–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pfister, Ulrich. “Le petit crédit rural en Suisse aux XVIe-XVIIIe siècles.” Annales: histoire, sciences sociales 49, no. 6 (1994): 1339–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reyscher, August Ludwig. Vollständige, historisch und kritisch bearbeitete Sammlung der württembergischen Gesetze. 19 vols. Stuttgart: Cotta, 1828ff.Google Scholar
Sabean, David W.Property, Production, and Family in Neckarhausen, 1700–1870. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Schofield, Philip R., and Lambrecht, Thijs. “Introduction: Credit and the Rural Economy in North-Western Europe, c.1200–c. 1800.” In Credit and the Rural Economy in North-Western Europe, c.1200–c.1850, edited by Schofield, Philip R. and Lambrecht, Thijs, 1–18. Turnhout: CORN, 2009.Google Scholar
Schuster, Peter. “The Age of Debt? Private Schulden in der spätmittelalterlichen Gesellschaft.” In Schuldenlast und Schuldenwert. Kreditnetzwerke in der europäischen Geschichte 1300–1900, edited by Clemens, G.B., 37–52. Trier: Kliomedia, 2008.Google Scholar
Sczesny, Anke. Zwischen Kontinuität und Wandel. Ländliches Gewerbe und ländliche Gesellschaft im Ostschwaben des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts. Tübingen: Bibliotheca Academica, 2009.Google Scholar
Sneath, Kenneth. “Consumption, Wealth, Borrowing and Social Structure in Early Modern England.” Ph.D. diss., University of Cambridge, 2009.Google Scholar
Spufford, Peter. “Long-Term Rural Credit in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England: The Evidence of Probate Accounts.” In When Death Do Us Part: Understanding and Interpreting the Probate Records of Early Modern England, edited by Arkell, Tom, Evans, Nesta, and Goose, Nigel. 213–28. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Thoen, Erik, and Soens, Tim. “Credit in Rural Flanders, c. 1250–c.1600: Its Variety and Significance.” In Credit and the Rural Economy in North-Western Europe, c.1200–c.1850, edited by Schofield, Philip R. and Lambrecht, Thijs, 19–38. Turnhout: CORN, 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wächter, Carl Georg von. Handbuch des im Königreiche Württemberg geltenden Privatrechts. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1839.Google Scholar
World Bank. World Development Report 1989: Financial Systems and Development. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Zuijderduijn, Jaco. “Village-Borrowing in Holland in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries.” In Credit and the Rural Economy in North-Western Europe, c.1200–c.1850, edited by Schofield, Philip R. and Lambrecht, Thijs, 138–64. Turnhout: CORN, 2009.Google Scholar