Full Description
Legal historians have analysed the characteristics of merchant guilds and nationes (i.e., associations of foreign merchants), as well as the political clout of merchants, including foreign ones. However, how the legal status of citizens related to the merchant class and how its contents were influenced by trade remains largely unclear. Did governments have a policy of citizenship that was tailored to commercial interests? Were foreign merchants belonging to a separate legal category of resident? If so, what defined this category? To what extent could different types of legal status and membership of communities or guilds overlap? And how did all this affect merchants' identities, their self-images of belonging? This collection of essays provides anwers to these questions.
Contributors are: Sonja Breustedt, Pieter De Reu, Gijs Dreijer, Maurits den Hollander, Marco In't Veld, Marta Lupi, Manon Moerman, Remko Mooi, Patrick Naaktgeboren, and Joost Possemiers.
Contents
List of Tables
Notes on Contributors
Introduction
1 The Bannum in Italian Bankruptcy Law (Fourteenth-Fifteenth Centuries)
Marta Lupi
2 "Without regard to foreignness" The Reciprocal Equal Treatment of Foreign Creditors in the Early Modern German Territories
Remko Mooi
3 Modifying Procedural Practices, Shaping Economic Identities The Middle Class and Negotiated Debt Adjustment in Commercial Courts in Belgium (1883-1914)
Pieter De Reu
4 Citizenship in Early Modern Amsterdam An Artisanal Identity?
Marco In 't Veld and Maurits den Hollander
5 The Pareres of the Governors of the Frankfurt Exchange Legal Opinions of Frankfurt Merchants in the Eighteenth Century
Sonja Breustedt
6 Identity, Conflict and Commercial Law Legal Strategies of Castilian Merchants in the Low Countries (Fifteenth-Sixteenth Centuries)
Gijs Dreijer
7 The Learning Market in Early Modern Antwerp (Seventeenth-Eighteenth Centuries) Circulation of Knowledge within the Context of Private Partnership Contracts
Patrick Naaktgeboren
8 Family, Religion, and Business Cooperation Jewish Private Partnerships in Eighteenth-Century Amsterdam
Manon Moerman
9 "Tolerate their religion, but not their usury" Conrad Summenhart on Tolerating Jewish Bankers in an Era of Mass Expulsions
Joost Possemiers
Index
