Women and Credit in Pre-Industrial Europe ed. by Elise M. Dermineur

Abstract

Reviewed by: Women and Credit in Pre-Industrial Europe ed. by Elise M. Dermineur Judy Bailey Dermineur, Elise M., ed., Women and Credit in Pre-Industrial Europe (Early European Research, 12), Turnhout, Brepols, 2018; hardback; pp. xi, 364; R.R.P. €100.00; ISBN 9782503570525. Elise Dermineur makes a strong case for a new work on the participation of women in credit exchanges and networks. She asserts that very little research has been undertaken in any European country or era, particularly between 1400 and 1800, which is the time span of this book. She makes the case that this period witnessed the transformation of the moral economy from one of solidarity and cooperation to one based on a more individualistic form of exchange. Scholarly research on the role of women in this transitional period is crucial. Thirteen contributors draw on a variety of sources. These include notarial records, various court records that examine debt litigation, probate inventories, and private account books. There are even pawnbroker books that are exploited in Chapter 5 by Maria Agren, who examines the role of Swedish women in early modern credit networks, and in Chapter 12, where eighteen-century Barcelonan women are the central focus of Montserrat Carbonell-Esteller. It is energizing to read a range of authors who document women’s credit and debit exchanges in a patriarchal society where there were often legal and customary constraints for women engaging in business activities. Richard Goddard examines the debts of English women in the records of the Staple courts from 1353 to 1532. He discovers evidence that although they are few in number (3 per cent of the total for these years), there are examples of women who extended credit to merchants, or members of the gentry. They were also quick to use the courts to settle debts. In 1517, one litigant, Beatrice Lavender, sued two wholesale merchants for not repaying their loans, only two months after they had failed to pay. Apart from Goddard’s chapter, there are five other chapters that document the English experience. These range from the examination of credit markets, and the use of attorneys in the fifteenth century, to debt cases involving women in the London Court of the Exchequer in eighteenth century England. The other seven chapters focus on late medieval and early modern European women. A recurrent theme in all chapters is the tension between legal frameworks and social customs. Despite constraints on their activities, women often worked around these restrictions, sometimes with the tacit approval of their communities. This edited book brings a whole range of issues to the surface and provides a good basis for further research on the role of women in the networks of trade that flourished in late medieval and early modern Europe. [End Page 280] Judy Bailey Barmera, South Australia Copyright © 2022 Judy Bailey