This article introduces the various articles in this forum. It first sets the scene by showing why the maritime sector forms an excellent case study to investigate risk and uncertainty in the premodern world. Second, it problematises from a historical perspective both Frank Knight's and Douglass North's approaches to risk and uncertainty, arguing that notwithstanding the lack of data, premodern commerce could properly assess both risk and uncertainty. Third, it introduces the various articles in the forum.

This coda takes stock of the articles in the forum and subsequently draws some lessons from the articles on the question of how to deal with risk and uncertainty in the present. It argues that looking at how risk and uncertainty were perceived and dealt with in the early modern world allows one to envisage new solutions to deal with the major problems facing human society today, such as climate change.

This article offers the first extensive analysis of female agency in the marine insurance industry of early modern Europe. Drawing from a data set of more than four thousand insurance policies signed in the Royal Insurance Chamber in Paris between 1668 and 1672, the article studies the activities of Parisian women within the institution. These policies illustrate that women played a crucial role in the Chamber as underwriters, creditors, commission agents, and policyholders. Moreover, institutional papers and the records of the Parisian admiralty court reveal that women acted ably in defense of their interests when conflicts emerged, although there were limitations to their agency in the Chamber itself. In this way, the article challenges the long-standing perception that underwriting was an exclusively masculine activity in pre-modern Europe. Moreover, it sheds light on the role of women in supporting the maritime and colonial policies of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV’s eminent minister, thereby becoming underwriters of France’s early Atlantic Empire.