Market ethics and credit practices in sixteenth‐century Tuscany

Abstract

The central concept of the 'moral economy' is that markets are 'embedded', that is, historically constituted in institutions, spaces, and practices. 1 The idea is most strongly associated with E. P. Thompson, 2 but can also be identified in the substantivist economics of Karl Polanyi. 3 The moral economy is sometimes associated with the traditional values of a static, regulated market in opposition to the modern values of a dynamic, 'free' market; but rather than this simplistic contrast, it is more useful to consider the moral economy as expressing a tension between market forces and ethics that is present in all historical periods. 4 Even 'free' markets depend on shared rules, norms and assumptions that define 'right' behaviour.Thompson applied the concept of moral economy to the specific phenomenon of crowd action in response to price rises. A broader approach can be seen in recent work on the norms and practices of credit and exchange, which shows how access to credit was mediated by the reputation of individuals and households in the community. 5 This paper takes a similar approach to market Archival research for this article was funded by the British Academy, for which I am extremely grateful. Special thanks to Simon Middleton and Gary Rivett for commenting on preliminary drafts.

Rethinking Debt: The Evolution of Private Credit Markets in Preindustrial France

“…Up to 5 percent, an interest rate was not considered usurious because it was a fair compensation for what was lost, that is, the use of the capital by someone else (the Latin verb intereo means “to be lost,” interest was therefore not profit but loss) (Homer 1963: 71). In practice, however, interest could be disguised in the terms of agreement and the loan overpriced (Shaw 2013: 243). This practice was not uncommon, and it could have been perceived as usury.…”

Reputation in the fifteenth century credit market; some tales from the ecclesiastical courts of York

“…The early modern credit market has been identified as the melting pot where the moral economy, a free market subject to the 'shared rules, norms and assumptions that define 'right' behaviour', was best played out providing a stage on which reputation was judged and conferred. 1 Yet how these key concepts of reputation and trust were understood and practiced in the late medieval market has remained elusive and the Reformation as an abstract watershed between the two epochs strengthened as historiographical trends towards a cultural history of money and credit proliferate in studies on post Reformation society. 2…”