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6 - The Growing Institutionalization of Credit

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2025

Elise M. Dermineur
Affiliation:
Stockholm University
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Summary

Chapter 6 focuses specifically on the last two decades of the Ancien Régime. The traditional local credit market featured norms of solidarity, fairness, and cooperation and allowed its agents considerable input regarding the terms of their agreement either before contracting and/or afterwards. But structural changes in the 1770s, such as an increase in credit activities, drawing on the power and profitability of such exchanges, and especially the appearance of new investors, affected the social and legal norms and nature of these markets. The gradual and massive resort to external parties to handle and manage financial transactions remodelled these institutions into specialized and incontrovertible experts. Embedded in society, the local court system traditionally responded to the demands of its users and their input shaped the form of the institution. When a new category of investors emerged, their requests, in turn, tended to shape the judicial institution, serving their interests first and above those of other users, allowing the evolution of the judicial institution into a more specialized one. These institutions became more efficient in debt conflict resolution.

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Chapter
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Before Banks
The Making of Credit and Debt in Preindustrial France
, pp. 208 - 236
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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