In the period between c. 1450 and c. 1510, in the cities of Amsterdam, Antwerp, Bruges, Leiden and Mechelen a municipal culture of insolvency emerged. Insufficiency of goods, abscondence, and the enforcement of debts were addressed at the level of the local jurisdiction. Even though princely councils and lettres de justice gained influence, the legal agency of cities remained largely intact. Rules and proceedings involving insolvency could be very different across jurisdictions. Rules and practices were interconnected. As a result, systems of debt enforcement could function even when being different. In Bruges, debtors were pressured to pay because they were imprisoned; at Antwerp, general seizure had the same goal. Even though some phenomena could happen across larger regions (for example, more abscondences from around 1450), the legislative reactions from the urban administrators could arrive late. Ideosyncracies persisted in judicial regimes after 1500, when collective proceedings became increasingly common. Many of the earlier methods, though, might still be used.
Tilburg University, Netherlands - ORCID: 0000-0001-7675-5475
Titolo del capitolo
The emergence of a municipal legal culture of insolvency (Low Countries, c. 1450-c. 1570)
Autori
Dave De Ruysscher
Lingua
Inglese
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0963-2.09
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Anno di pubblicazione
2026
Copyright
© 2026 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Titolo del libro
Gestione del rischio, insolvenza e bancarotta nel mondo premoderno (secc. XIII-XVIII) / Risk management, insolvency, and bankruptcy in the pre-modern world (13th-18th centuries)
Curatori
Angela Orlandi
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Numero di pagine
568
Anno di pubblicazione
2026
Copyright
© 2026 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Editore
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0963-2
ISBN Print
979-12-215-0962-5
eISBN (pdf)
979-12-215-0963-2
eISBN (xml)
979-12-215-0964-9
Collana
Datini Studies in Economic History
ISSN della collana
2975-1241
e-ISSN della collana
2975-1195