Social capital, ‘trust’ and the role of networks in Julfan trade: informal and semi-formal institutions at work

Abstract

This essay examines the role of 'trust' and cooperation in early modern long-distance trade. While most literature on the subject posits trust as a given attribute of long-distance merchant communities and not as a factor in need of historical explanation or analysis, this essay seeks to provide a historical explanation for the creation and role of trust in such communities. It focuses on the history of Armenian merchants from New Julfa, Isfahan, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The central theoretical model this essay relies upon to explain trust among Julfan Armenian merchants derives from 'social capital' theory as elaborated in sociology and economic sociology, as well as theory from the New Institutional Economics associated with the influential work of Avner Greif. Unlike the latter body of work, however, this essay argues that Julfan trust must be understood not solely as an outcome of informal institutions such as reputation-regulating mechanisms discussed by Greif in his work on Maghribi Jews of the medieval period, but also as a result of the simultaneous combination of both informal and semi-formal legal institutions. In the Julfan context, the essay thus focuses on a merchant arbitrage institution known as the Assembly of Merchants, which enabled Julfan merchants to generate and maintain trust, trustworthiness and uniform norms necessary for collective action and cooperation.

The concept of language of trust and trustworthiness: (Why) history matters

“…A third research contribution to the concept of language of trust in premodern trade that I would like to highlight comes from Sebouh Aslanian (2006Aslanian ( , 2008. His work has focused on the early modern networks and business correspondence of Armenian traders from New Julfa (Isfahan), whose connections stretched from all over Europe to the Indian Ocean.…”

“…Trust is a topic that resonates with many historians, especially those who investigate how past economies and institutions worked, in line with or in conflict with New Institutional Economics (Ogilvie, 2004 and2011;Greif, 2006;Gelderblom, 2013;Muldrew, 1998;Forrest, 2018a and2018b). Some of these historians have employed the concept of the language of trust in studies of trade relations in the premodern Mediterranean (Trivellato, 2009;Aslanian, 2006 andCourt, 2004 and, and I will briefly outline here what this magnifying glass has revealed about the interaction. This research has influenced my own studies on the Hanse as a medieval organisation of cities and traders in northern Europe: I will draw here on the conclusions I have made so far on the form, function and content of the language of trust and trustworthiness on these macro and micro levels (Wubs-Mrozewicz 2013, 2018a, 2018b.…”

State promotion of consumerism in Safavid Iran: Shah Abbas I and royal silk textiles

“…For the Armenians, this uprooting was a national disaster, but the Shah made amends by offering extensive grants of land to the south of Isfahan, across the river Zayanda Rud, and establishing a new Armenian community there called New Julfa. Under the patronage of the Shah and assisted by his privileges and credit, the Armenians in the Isfahan area gradually extended the range and scope of their trading activities (Aslanian, 2006; Ferrier, 1986). From the capital, they handled the silk trade, the largest single source of revenue for the state (Alatas, 1993).…”

Philology, Documentary Research, and Channels of Cultural Diffusion from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Century

“…See also Pʿapʿazyan 1990, Bayburdean 1996, Baladouni & Makepeace 1998, xiv-xxxv, Chaudhury 2005, Danielyan 2011 The Ułegrutʿiwn by Simēon Dpir Lehacʿi has also been translated in Tukish (Andreasyan 1964) and in Russian (Darbinjan 1965). 12 On the trade network of the Armenian merchants from New Julfa, see also Aslanian 2006a, 2006b, Bhattacharya 2005, and Bekius 2012 This is a digital offfprint for restricted use only | © 2014 Koninklijke Brill NV being written, Aslanian was planning to work on an annotated translation of Vasn nōrahas mankancʿ ew eritasardacʿ vačarakanacʿ xrat (better known as Ašxarhažołov), a manual written in the 1680s by Kostand Ì Jułayecʿi, teacher and manager of the Armenian trade school of New Julfa.13 However, numerous documents and manuscripts are yet to be published. These include, for example, the manual on the use of mathematics for commercial purposes by Catur Yakobdǰanean Ì Jułayecʿi, written in 1753 in Astrakhan and preserved in the 9284 MS in the Matenadaran institute in Erevan.14 Furthermore, the publication of annotated translations of the Hamajaynutʿiwn15 and the Ganj16 by Łukas Vanandecʿi, alongside new editions of their Armenian texts, produced by comparing their printed editions with extant handwritten copies, would be of invaluable use for historians of trade, in particular for those who are not Armenologists.…”