“Women in Late Medieval Private Credit: Mechanisms Driving Social and Economic Change in Central Europe
During the high and late Middle Ages, the European economy witnessed the emergence and substantial growth of capital markets, a phenomenon connected to urbanisation as well as pestilence, both of which brought profound changes to the social, legal, and economic positions of women. By the second half of the fourteenth century, women participated as both lenders and borrowers in the emerging capital markets of public and private annuities in the Holy Roman Empire, forced loans in northern Italy, and microcredit in Valencia. This heightened level of participation declined at varying speeds across Europe, with women disappearing from some credit markets altogether. Through a novel collection of private annuities from late medieval Vienna, this article examines three channels of female financial agency, identifying the mechanisms behind the forces that gradually changed women’s circumstances, leading to a decline in their participation in the credit market.
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This page was last updated on 14 March 2025
