This article examines local credit markets and debt networks in Austria during the eighteenth century. Since professional financial institutions were inaccessible to the wider population, orphans who had inherited were a source of credit alongside kin or local institutions. Reasons for borrowing included investments, taxes or deferred payments. Events in the life-course, such as marriage and inheritance, could trigger debt relations, which were thus closely intertwined with other social relations and structured by legal practice. Guardians were appointed to administer the inheritance of children who had lost one or both of their parents, to invest it profitably and to prevent misuse by their (step-)parents or local authorities. They were often relatives or local dignitaries whose personal networks were crucial in allocating capital, and wealthy orphans could extend credit to a large number of people. Using a sample of mortgage deeds and guardianship accounts, we examine the practices of guardianship and local credit, such as the reasons for lending and borrowing, the investment strategies of guardians and the conditions and securitization of credit within and outside kinship and in varying familial constellations. In addition, we look at the position of different groups within local credit networks using social network analysis.

This article focuses on early modern rural economic practices, investigating the scope for action that emerges when we trace how money was handled, loaned and borrowed. The aim is to contextualize probate inventories and interlink them with other sources to reveal the plurality of economic activities in which people engaged. We look at two case studies from early modern southern Tyrol between the sixteenth and the late eighteenth centuries: a wealthy widow who held her first husband’s agricultural estate in usufruct and managed it successfully over many years, and an innkeeper whose probate inventory is testament to his substantial businesses, commercial activities and family financial dealings. Both can be termed rural entrepreneurs based on their skilful economic activity, from lending and trading to saving, which only becomes apparent when the legal procedures and documents are closely examined. The main sources are local court records, and in the first case we examine their interlinkage based on a database. The results not only expand our knowledge of female and male rural actors but also enable us to observe social groups and their pluri-activities and credit relations, particularly within the middle stratum of a rural economy a socio-economic middle stratum that has received little attention to date.

Apprenticeship was important from the late sixteenth century for training and maintaining the English workforce. Masters and mistresses were committed by the apprenticeship indenture to provide food, clothing, shelter and training. Reference was rarely made, however, to what happened should the apprentice fall ill. Much the same was true of contracts between an employer and the young person who was hired to live and work in their household. Both sides of the agreement accepted that responsibility for sickness was part of the employer’s or master’s wider obligations. For some household heads, this was an unwelcome undertaking and from the early eighteenth century it became more common for them to opt out of this role. The fall in the age of these young workers during the eighteenth century and the relaxation of the rules of apprenticeship seem to have encouraged this development. Severe outbreaks of smallpox occurring throughout the country, particularly until the 1770s, highlighted the wider problem of sickness. An examination of the experiences of individual children who fell ill in this period provides insight into the lives of young workers when at their most vulnerable and dependent.

Business failure was a key moment of crisis for family relations, when obligations to kin were tested and liabilities negotiated. Family ties have generally been regarded as a positive resource, and a key form of insurance against failure, but in practice the terms and conditions of assistance could be a matter of delicate negotiation. Focusing on a case study from nineteenth-century Sheffield, the article uses personal and business correspondence to reveal the different positions of family members in managing failure, and the emotional tensions that accompanied this process. Through cooperation, assets could be protected and the family name preserved from the shame and expense associated with the formal process of bankruptcy. However, the family’s response to failure also highlighted differences between grades of kin and across generations. Direct financial support was one option, but separation of assets was an alternative way of proceeding that could offer strategic benefits. The case demonstrates the role of microhistorical study for exploring the tensions and emotions that could be generated within families. Responses to financial crisis highlight the role of family relations and emotion as important factors in understanding economic behaviour.

The historiography of bankruptcy and insolvency in the early modern era focusses on merchants and banks. The position of landowning noble elites in insolvency procedures has less often been explored. The Lower Austrian Lamberg seigneurial archive contains rich documentation on the insolvency procedures against the counts of Lamberg-Sprinzenstein – one of the largest landowning families in Lower Austria – between 1735 and 1768. Based on this source material, this article presents a case study treating the question of how political and judicial authorities in the Habsburg Empire dealt with insolvent aristocrats. The analysis is contextualized by a detailed reconstruction of the debt and asset structure of the Lamberg-Sprinzenstein estate. The most important policy enacted to regulate the debt crisis of the noble landowners was ‘judicial administrations’ during which a judicial official took over the administration of the landed patrimony and other assets. Compared to official norms regarding insolvency procedures, creditors had little say in how the debtors’ property was managed, and measures were taken to partially preserve the debtors’ wealth and social status. The majority of creditors were nobles. Non-noble creditors also acquired bonds on less favourable legal terms and ended up as losers in the debt crisis.

In early modern Venice, credit was ubiquitous, with various lenders offering long- and short- term loans. This article traces the structure of the Venetian credit market in the eighteenth century and examines the borrowing opportunities available to the local population, focusing in particular on consumer credit. The research studies how people approached credit in a pre-industrial society, and what factors may have shaped the ways through which they accessed borrowing. More broadly, how did Venetian households cope with uncertainty? Was the local credit market able to offer borrowers multiple, equally viable options? The article explores the interaction between the supply and demand for credit, emphasising the organised nature of the Venetian market. Ultimately, it argues that even loans that appeared to have unfavourable conditions could, in practice, be quite attractive to borrowers.