Financing in Europe: Evolution, Coexistence and Complementarity of Lending Practices from the Middle Ages to Modern Times

This book explores the evolution of credit and financing in Europe from the Middle Ages through to Modern Times. It engages with the distinct  political, economic and institutional frameworks of the examined areas (England, Italy, France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and Turkey) and discusses how these affected the credit market. It covers a wide range of different types of lending and borrowing instruments, the destination of capital, the way it was raised, and the impact it had on local or national economies in a very long run.

Presented in two parts, part one of the book focuses on credit markets in the preindustrial age, in particular the period before the advent of modern joint stock banks. Part two examines the evolution of credit at the time of the emergence of modern banks. This volume will be of interest to academics and researchers in the field of finance who are interested in the historic evolution of credit and the credit market.

 

Marcella Lorenzini is a Post-doc Researcher at the University of Trento, Italy. Her work researches how credit markets develop in the absence of formal institutions. Her recent publications include one monograph and a chapter in a collected volume on Infrastructure Financing in the Early Modern Age.

Cinzia Lorandini is an Associate Professor in Economic History at the University of Trento, Italy. Her research mainly focuses on credit markets and trade in the early modern and modern period. She has authored several publications on these topics, including two monographs and one article for the journal Business History.

D’Maris Coffman is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Economics and Finance of the Built Environment at UCL Bartlett, UK and Director of the Bartlett School of Construction and Project Management. Prior to this D’Maris was a Leverhulme/Newton Trust Early Career Fellow at the History Faculty of the University ofCambridge, UK, and Fellow and Director of the Centre of Financial History at Newnham College, UK. She works on the relationship between public finance and private capital markets in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe and sits on the Council of the Economic History Society.