Rynek kredytowy w osiemnastowiecznym Białymstoku w świetle analiz ksiąg miejskich
The credit market in eighteenth-century Białystok in the light of municipal registers

Summary/Abstract: The article presents the results of an analysis of the credit market in Białystok in the second half of the eighteenth century. The analysis has been based on the oldest municipal registers preserved in Białystok, which were supplemented by documents kept in the Roskie Archives and the Branicki Archives in Białystok. There are 264 entries in the preserved source texts pertaining to loan agreements. The analysis includes such elements of the credit market as: the frequency and values of entries, duration of contracts, and their guarantees.The credit market of Białystok consisted mainly of small loan agreements (to 100 Polish zlotys), taken out for one year, although a majority of loan agreements did not stipulate a time for repayment. In addition, a large part of loans was secured, most often by pawns of small properties (mainly clothes). The development of credit and monetary transactions was highly influenced by Jews who, according to the information from the source material, made at least 31 per cent of all loaners; their real market position, probably much more influential, is difficult to establish in the face of the lack of kahal registers. Despite the increase in the number of transactions from the 1670s, there are no traces left of any modernisation processes in the Białystok credit market, and a vast majority of transactions belongs to the sphere of traditional private credit – its study should be one of the most important purposes of social historians in Poland.

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