How did economic agents manage ‘risk’ in an age when outcomes were held to be unpredictable and measuring their likelihood was impossible? Their assessments of uncertainty relied on the long-term, hard-won experience of business practice. This paper examines the entanglement of the uncertainties confronted by state, capital and labor as they existed at the mercury mine in Idrija, Slovenia. The conflicts, negotiations and bankruptcies that arose there during the sixteenth century reveal the measures taken by each to hedge their uncertainties.
University of Pennsylvania, United States
Chapter Title
Understanding uncertainty: Reflections on insolvency, bankruptcy and ‘risk’ and the entanglement of state, capital and labor in the sixteenth century
Authors
Thomas Max Safley
Language
English
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0963-2.04
Peer Reviewed
Publication Year
2026
Copyright Information
© 2026 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Book Title
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)
Editors
Angela Orlandi
Peer Reviewed
Number of Pages
568
Publication Year
2026
Copyright Information
© 2026 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Publisher Name
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
Series Title
Datini Studies in Economic History
Series ISSN
2975-1241
Series E-ISSN
2975-1195