Trust, Norms of Cooperation, and the Rural Credit Market in Eighteenth-Century France

Abstract

An examination of the loans recorded by the notary in the seigneurie of Delle during the eighteenth century sheds light on alterations to the mechanisms of trust. In early modern France, the traditional local credit market was based on strong norms of cooperation and reciprocity, in which trust was taken for granted. Changes in the nature of investors and investments during the eighteenth century, however, disturbed this fragile social equilibrium, causing trust to migrate in several new directions.