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Financial Failure in Early Modern England
- Default Title
Description
This book examines cases involving bankruptcy brought before the court of Chancery - a court of equity which dealt with civil disputes - between 1674 and 1750. It uncovers the numerous meanings attached to financial failure in early modern England. In its simplest sense, personal financial failure occurred when an individual defaulted on their debts. Because they had not fulfilled their responsibilities and behaved in a trustworthy and credible manner, bankrupt individuals were seen to be immoral. And yet bankruptcy was linked to wider notions of credibility, trustworthiness, and morality. Financial failure was described and debated not just in economic terms, but came to rely on a combination of social, community, and religious values.
Bankruptcy cases involved an interconnected network of indebtedness, often including relatives, neighbours, and traders from the local community. As such, conceptions of failure implicated individuals beyond just the bankrupt. As people began to look back and appraise the actions and words of those involved in trade, a far wider network of creditors, debtors, and middlemen were blamed for the knock-on effect of an individual failure. Ultimately, the book investigates the negative aspects of early modern trade networks and the active role of the court when such networks broke down, providing unique access to contemporary understandings of what was considered right and wrong, honourable and deceitful, and criminal and compassionate within the moral landscape of debt recovery during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Product details
Binding:
Paperback
Number of Pages:
250
Release Date:
2024-10-29
Publication Date:
2024-10-29
Publisher:
Boydell Press
Languages:
Original:
English
ISBN10:
1837651906
ISBN13:
9781837651900
Weight:
386 g
Height:
156 cm
Width:
234 cm
Thickness:
14 cm
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