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1Credit markets contribute to economic development when they allocate capital through secure and enforceable contracts. Surprisingly little is known, however, about what these markets looked like and how they functioned in the Dutch Republic. By analysing three archival collections from Amsterdam this article attempts to fill this lacuna. It documents a large and developed non-intermediated credit market that relied on standardised loan forms. These forms were cast in the correct legal terms, could be purchased across the city, and cost little. Where people's own networks did not suffice to mobilise funds, moreover, brokers stood ready to link demand and supply.This shows that pre-industrial societies could successfully mobilise large amounts of credit even where banks were absent. kakaka １1 The authors would like to thank Michael Milo for his help with the married couples form, Yannick

Economic development in preindustrial Europe largely relied on specialization and trade. The seafarers making shipping possible, however, faced inconvenient disruptions of income streams as they received most of their wages upon return only. While credit must consequently have played an important role in their daily lives, little is known about how it was used and secured. This paper analyzes lending by two shopkeepers to seafarers in eighteenth-century Amsterdam. It documents a large and formalized credit market and shows that a municipal official secured lending by withholding loan payments from seafarers’ wages. Urban regulation thus helped solve frictions on credit markets.

Het lastgeld was tijdens de zestiende eeuw ingesteld om de convooiering van de buizenvloot tijdens oorlogen te kunnen bekostigen. Het College van de Grote Visserij, een in 1567 opgericht orgaan dat de kwaliteit van de bewerkte haring bewaakte en de belangen van haar leden (de steden Enkhuizen, Brielle, Schiedam, Delfshaven en Rotterdam) behartigde, werd belast met de inning. De hoogte van het lastgeld dat het College zou heffen werd doorgaans tijdens een vergadering in het voorjaar vastgesteld. Deze jaartarieven werden ver-6 » Christiaan van Bochove

Before banks rose to dominate credit markets, ordinary people raised credit themselves or through alternative intermediaries. However, obtaining a comprehensive overview of the size and functioning of the non-bank segments within the credit market has been a great challenge for historians. Notarial deeds are widely available, but typically shed light on the borrowing of relatively well-to-do members of society. Probate inventories and insolvency records do provide insight into the modest loans of ordinary people, but only haphazardly and not for the overall stock of loans. This article exploits an exogenous shock, the Discipline Act introduced in the Netherlands in 1856, which forced lenders to record all unredeemed loans they had provided to a particular group of borrowers: seafarers. The c.14,000 loans that were recorded, in combination with several additional sources, provide a unique insight into the overall size, composition and functioning of a particular segment of the non-bank credit market.