Before banks rose to dominate credit markets, ordinary people raised credit themselves or through alternative intermediaries. However, obtaining a comprehensive overview of the size and functioning of the non-bank segments within the credit market has been a great challenge for historians. Notarial deeds are widely available, but typically shed light on the borrowing of relatively well-to-do members of society. Probate inventories and insolvency records do provide insight into the modest loans of ordinary people, but only haphazardly and not for the overall stock of loans. This article exploits an exogenous shock, the Discipline Act introduced in the Netherlands in 1856, which forced lenders to record all unredeemed loans they had provided to a particular group of borrowers: seafarers. Thec.14,000 loans that were recorded, in combination with several additional sources, provide a unique insight into the overall size, composition and functioning of a particular segment of the non-bank credit market.

中文翻译：

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没有银行的信用：1856 年阿姆斯特丹水法警的账本

在银行崛起主导信贷市场之前，普通人自己或通过其他中介机构筹集信贷。然而，全面了解信贷市场中非银行部门的规模和功能对历史学家来说是一个巨大的挑战。公证契约随处可见，但通常可以阐明相对富裕的社会成员的借贷。遗嘱认证清单和破产记录确实提供了对普通人适度贷款的洞察力，但只是偶然的，而不是整体贷款存量。本文利用了外生冲击，即 1856 年在荷兰引入的《纪律法》，该法迫使贷方记录他们提供给特定借款人群体的所有未兑现贷款：海员。这C记录的 .14,000 笔贷款与其他几个来源相结合，提供了对非银行信贷市场特定部分的整体规模、构成和运作的独特见解。