Foncier et crédit dans les sociétés préindustrielles. Des liens solides ou des chaînes fragiles?

Abstract

Sans remonter aux hectémores et à leurs tristes démêlés avec leurs créanciers, il est patent que des liens multiples existent depuis fort longtemps, en fait depuis que la propriété existe entre la dette et le foncier, entre la circulation de la terre et celle de l'argent. En disant cela, j'ai conscience d'énoncer une banalité : les historiens de la période moderne n'ont-ils pas privilégié ce type de rapports, et n'ont-ils pas depuis longtemps attiré l'attention sur les implications sociales redoutables d'une telle interdépendance ? N'en n'ont-ils pas fait l'un des ressorts fondamentaux de l'évolution des sociétés traditionnelles ?

Agricultural specialisation and the land market: an examination of the dynamics of the relationship in the Swiss Alps, c.1860–1930

“…19 Demand for land could also be influenced by the level of development and efficiency of the credit and mortgage markets in a region, as well as by the rates of interest and the amount of money in circulation. We know that in the rural societies of the ancien régime, prior to the nineteenth century, the land market was partially supported by informal credit, 20 which ensured the liquidity necessary to guarantee transactions. In the Central Alps, as in many other rural areas of Europe, 21 transactions, particularly those involving medium-to low-value land, were also paid for in cash.…”

Credit and the freehold land market in England, c.1200–c.1350: possibilities and problems for research

“…Several studies have emphasized that it is now inadequate simply to regard the sale of land by an indebted peasant as the only significant way in which the movement of credit and of land interacted in the preindustrial period. Instead, it is clear that a surprisingly wide range of land transactions performed a variety of subtly differing functions in facilitating the provision or repayment of credit in the countryside (Béaur, 1994;Poulsen, 2004;Furió and Mira Jodar, 2005). It could plausibly be argued that it is no longer possible to study the land market of any European region properly without simultaneously exploring local credit networks, since the two areas were evidently so closely interrelated.…”

Passa-se uma engenhoca: ou como se faziam transações com terras, engenhos e crédito em mercados locais e imperfeitos (freguesia de Campo Grande, Rio de Janeiro, séculos XVIII e XIX)

“…Na França, por exemplo, neste período também foram encontrados grandes personagens, sobretudo comerciantes rurais ou urbanos, que aproveitavam da necessidade generalizada de crédito e das vendas forçadas de terras endivididadas para aumentar seu patrimônio, já que dispunham de rara liquidez. 55 Márcia Motta atestou o mesmo para os arrendatários da freguesia de São Gonçalo, no período de crise do escravismo: eles endividavam-se progressivamente com os proprietários de terra, donos dos portos, e com os pequenos negociantes locais para comprar o que não produziam. Esses negociantes faziam parte da classe dominante local e se inseriam nas parentelas de grandes famílias.…”