The literature on early modern credit markets emphasizes both the social embeddedness of credit relationships and the role of notaries. To enhance our understanding of how credit markets functioned in a “less-developed” economy, we investigate the local lending activities of a merchant-banker family that operated at the intersection of formal and informal credit. A combination of economic rationality and social motivations in lending decisions emerges. The credit network of this family firm provides a portrait of the social structure of the local community, where the central position of a few trusted notaries and members of the business and political elite highlights the prevalence of relationships of power and favor over impersonal market exchange. The predominance of informal credit reveals a preference for loans made outside of notarial circuits. Nonetheless, notaries were crucial in lending to borrowers of lower social status and with weak ties, thus helping the liquidity of these merchants to “trickle down” into local society.

有关早期现代信用市场的文献强调信用关系的社会嵌入性和公证人的作用。为了加深我们对信贷市场如何在“欠发达”经济体中运作的理解，我们调查了在正规和非正规信贷交叉领域开展业务的商业银行家家族的当地贷款活动。贷款决策中出现了经济理性和社会动机的结合。这家家族企业的信用网络描绘了当地社区的社会结构，其中一些值得信赖的公证人和商业和政治精英成员的中心地位凸显了权力和恩惠关系相对于非个人市场交换的盛行。非正式信贷的主导地位表明人们更倾向于在公证渠道之外发放贷款。尽管如此，公证人在向社会地位较低和关系较弱的借款人提供贷款方面发挥着至关重要的作用，从而帮助这些商人的流动性“渗透”到当地社会。