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Spatial Variety versus Centralization: Change in Eighteenth-Century Credit Markets

Philip T. Hoffman, Gilles Postel-Vinay, and Jean-Laurent Rosenthal

in Dark Matter Credit

This chapter talks about how in the long buildup to the 1780s, the economy had been growing, along with the population, literacy rates, and inequality. At the same time, the volume of private lending ... More

This chapter talks about how in the long buildup to the 1780s, the economy had been growing, along with the population, literacy rates, and inequality. At the same time, the volume of private lending had soared, particularly in cities, and more so in Paris than anywhere else. But lending in 1780 was not simply a city affair, for loans were made throughout France. In fact, in 1780, eighty percent of borrowers still got their loans in communities of fewer than five thousand inhabitants. The volume of new debt was centralized in cities, even though loans themselves were still dispersed across small towns and villages. In short, the credit market was diverse, and it was changing, in ways that affected the types of loan contracts that lenders and borrowers chose and the services that notaries provided.Less

Banks and Notaries

Philip T. Hoffman, Gilles Postel-Vinay, and Jean-Laurent Rosenthal

in Dark Matter Credit

This chapter shows that there were two conceivable ways that banks could have engaged in lending. First, they could have entered the mortgage market as lenders but not relied on a notary to do ... More

This chapter shows that there were two conceivable ways that banks could have engaged in lending. First, they could have entered the mortgage market as lenders but not relied on a notary to do anything except draw up the loan contracts. At the other extreme, banks might not have competed at all with notaries; rather, their short-term commercial loans might have complemented the notaries' business in arranging mortgages. The chapter examines both possibilities, along with more realistic alternatives between the two extremes, including one in which notaries tried to compete with banks. Notaries, however, were not driven out of business by banks. Many notaries were in fact tempted to take money on deposit and start making short-term loans, at least until the 1880s, when the government enforced prohibitions on the practice.Less

The Monuments of Lawyers

Nigel Saul

in English Church Monuments in the Middle Ages: History and Representation

This chapter argues that the monuments of lawyers afford valuable insights into the self-image and identity of the professional men of law. The monuments of the judges and sergeants at law — the two ... More

This chapter argues that the monuments of lawyers afford valuable insights into the self-image and identity of the professional men of law. The monuments of the judges and sergeants at law — the two groups comprising the order of the coif — show the commemorated in their professional attire, indicating a perception of that attire as a mark of status. The monuments of two other groups — the notaries and apprentices, likewise show their subjects in professional attire — the apprentices being recognisable by their tall puffed hat. Below the level of the apprentices, the local attorneys wore no professional attire and are recognisable only from the descriptions of status on their epitaphs. At all levels, the lawyers were torn between a professional and a gentry identity. Among the attorneys it was the gentry identity that triumphed.Less

The Successo della Peste

Samuel K. Cohn

in Cultures of Plague: Medical thinking at the end of the Renaissance

The chapter turns to northern Italy, where the majority of 1575–8 plague tracks were written and which broke physicians' near monopoly over these manuals, with bishops, parish priests, government ... More

The chapter turns to northern Italy, where the majority of 1575–8 plague tracks were written and which broke physicians' near monopoly over these manuals, with bishops, parish priests, government administrators, gate‐guards, and especially notaries joining the chorus. These new works mostly shunned erudite definitions, ‘remote’ causes, and Galenic notions of humours and air. They tracked the paths by which plague spread to an author's city and then employed health office records to trace the disease's mounting mortality and reactions to plague from administrative decrees to religious processions. Within the narrative structure formed by death statistics, they portrayed the collective psychology of their cities and told stories of the bizarre and of the writers' own mental anguish.Less

The Law Professionals

Michael A. Livingston, Pier Giuseppe Monateri, and Francesco Parisi

Mauro Capelletti, John Henry Meryman, and Joseph M. Perillo (eds)

in The Italian Legal System: An Introduction, Second Edition

This chapter discusses legal education, the legal profession, and the magistratura, as they existed at the time of publication.

“This Sijill is a Hujja!” Mass-producing Legal Documents in Ottoman Cairo

Reem A. Meshal

in Sharia and the Making of the Modern Egyptian: Islamic Law and Custom in the Courts of Ottoman Cairo

In the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, written legal documents were transformed from a privilege of the elite to an everyday necessity. Marriages, divorces, tax records, and ... More

In the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, written legal documents were transformed from a privilege of the elite to an everyday necessity. Marriages, divorces, tax records, and inheritance settlements all came to be routinely documented in writing. A professional class of scribes and witnesses grew up to support the demand for legal documentation. The traditional preference for the oral testimony of eyewitnesses to a contract, in the event of a later dispute, eventually disappeared in favor of suitably witnessed written documents safeguarded in an official repository.Less

Legal Education and the Legal Profession

Stephen Zamora, José RamlÓN CossÍO, Lenone Pereznieto, José Roldá n-Xopa, and David Lopez

in Mexican Law

This chapter discusses legal education and the legal profession in Mexico. It first describes the features of Mexican law schools and admission requirements and curricula, followed by an evaluation ... More

This chapter discusses legal education and the legal profession in Mexico. It first describes the features of Mexican law schools and admission requirements and curricula, followed by an evaluation of Mexican legal education. Finally, the chapter describes two types of legal practitioners in Mexico: the attorneys and notaries public. The admissions requirements, functions, regulatory systems, fee practices, and professional associations of each group of practitioners are discussed.Less

New Directions in Land Administration

Peter Dale and John McLaughlin

in Land Administration

The role of property in fostering good governance, robust economies, and strong civil societies has received fresh attention in the wake of the dramatic global changes ... More

The role of property in fostering good governance, robust economies, and strong civil societies has received fresh attention in the wake of the dramatic global changes that have occurred during the past decade. Innovative and cost effective ways to formalize property rights have emerged, linking these with new strategies and tools for building and maintaining the infrastructure necessary for sustaining a property regime. Land administration functions have been re-engineered and there have been legal reforms that have focused on modernizing, standardizing, and simplifying legislation relating to land and property. There have been new concepts of risk management, the introduction of new technologies, and a variety of organizational reforms. Many of these reforms have been the consequence of political changes, especially as a result of the collapse of communism, the adoption of a market driven approach to the economy and the impact of information technology. The processes of re-engineering have focused on a diverse package of measures dealing with land tenure security, land and property transactions, and access to credit. They have also been concerned with the provision of support for physical planning, the sustainable management and control of land use and of natural resources, and facilitating real property taxation. Internationally funded projects have also been concerned with the protection of the environment, the provision of land for all people whatever their gender but especially for the poor and ethnic minorities, and the prevention of land speculation and the avoidance of land disputes. As Burns et al. have reported: . . . The policy environment for land titling projects is becoming more complex, and a range of issues must now be addressed if a project is to pass through a Multilateral or Bilateral funding agency’s approval process. These include impact on gender, impact on the environment, resettlement requirements and impact on indigenous groups (Burns et al 1996). . . . Gender issues, fix example, are becoming increasingly important with the international funding institutions demanding that gender equity be present both in law and in practice; this requires performance indicators to demonstrate compliance with the regulations. Less

The Written Authorization

Christopher Eyre

in The Use of Documents in Pharaonic Egypt

This chapter examines the issue of royal documents to authorize administrative action, and to establish the legal framework establishing endowments of property. It then addresses the development of ... More

This chapter examines the issue of royal documents to authorize administrative action, and to establish the legal framework establishing endowments of property. It then addresses the development of private use of written documents in property transactions, stressing in all cases their nature as procès verbal of essentially oral transactions. It examines the procedures for use of writing in legal contexts, and considers the extent to which the written text might serve as a formal record or autonomous witness to a transaction. It emphasizes the importance of publication of such texts in inscriptional form as evidence for and reification of their force as witness.Less

Voting and Holding Public Office

Paula A. Monopoli

in Constitutional Orphan: Gender Equality and the Nineteenth Amendment

Chapter 6 considers the same issue as Chapter 5, except within the context of the right to hold public office. Many suffragists characterized the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment as having ... More

Chapter 6 considers the same issue as Chapter 5, except within the context of the right to hold public office. Many suffragists characterized the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment as having secured their political liberty or freedom. Yet, as both Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 explain, that understanding of the meaning and scope of the Nineteenth Amendment was not shared by many state courts. Much as they had used statutory construction to limit the potential impact of the Nineteenth Amendment on women’s eligibility for jury service, many state courts embraced a constricted view of the scope of the Nineteenth Amendment on other political rights beyond voting, like holding elective or appointive office. This ensured the continuation of women’s partialized citizenship for decades after ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment.Less

Record-Offices in Villages in Roman Egypt

Micaela Langellotti

in Village Institutions in Egypt in the Roman to Early Arab Periods

Record-offices called grapheia are documented in villages in Egypt as early as the second century BC until well into the third century AD. This chapter investigates the role and nature of the ... More

Record-offices called grapheia are documented in villages in Egypt as early as the second century BC until well into the third century AD. This chapter investigates the role and nature of the grapheia documented in villages in the first three centuries of Roman rule (AD I-III), with a focus on Tebtunis, in order to establish what difference they made to the functioning of villages as independent communities and to what extent they provided village society with some form of self-administration.Less

Professional Canon Lawyers: Advocates and Proctors

in The Medieval Origins of the Legal Profession: Canonists, Civilians, and Courts

By the beginning of the fourteenth century, lawyers turn up everywhere in contemporary documents. This is no doubt partly an artifact of the records, since activities that involved advocates, ... More

By the beginning of the fourteenth century, lawyers turn up everywhere in contemporary documents. This is no doubt partly an artifact of the records, since activities that involved advocates, proctors, judges, and notaries produced enormous masses of written matter. The great majority of all surviving medieval records are in fact legal documents of one sort or another. While their prominence in the records may give an exaggerated impression of their ubiquity, professional lawyers, judges, and notaries constituted a substantial and prosperous element within most late medieval towns and cities whose population records have been studied. Papal courts and tribunals required the services of substantial numbers of trained lawyers, as did administrative offices, where they were commonly deemed more flexible and tactful than theologians.Less

Voices from the Dust

Mark Z. Christensen

in Nahua and Maya Catholicisms: Texts and Religion in Colonial Central Mexico and Yucatan

This chapter uses Nahua and Maya last will and testaments to expose the similarities and differences in how natives experienced Catholicism upon dying. It examines the preambles of testaments and ... More

This chapter uses Nahua and Maya last will and testaments to expose the similarities and differences in how natives experienced Catholicism upon dying. It examines the preambles of testaments and their religious content to better understand the roles of both the notary and testator in determining the posthumous care of the soul. Furthermore, the chapter demonstrates how Nahua testators had greater access to Catholic rituals and traditions upon dying than the Maya.Less

Vecindad: From Castile to Spanish America

Tamar Herzog

in Defining Nations: Immigrants and Citizens in Early Modern Spain and Spanish America

This chapter focuses on the Spanish conquistadors who, after their arrival in the New World, proclaimed royal jurisdiction over the land and founded new settlements. Standing in open territory and in ... More

This chapter focuses on the Spanish conquistadors who, after their arrival in the New World, proclaimed royal jurisdiction over the land and founded new settlements. Standing in open territory and in the presence of notaries when these were available, expedition commanders announced that, under the authority received from the king, viceroy, or governor, they were founding a settlement. They then set the territorial jurisdiction of the community, nominating the local authorities and dividing the land by plots, assigning sites for the main square, local council hall, and jail. Asking those present if they wished to become citizens, commanders announced that they could do so by presenting themselves to the authorities in the following days. Through this ceremony, new communities came into being before the first cornerstone was ever laid.Less

The Legal World of Moroccan Jews

Jessica M. Marglin

in Across Legal Lines: Jews and Muslims in Modern Morocco

This chapter offers a topography of courts, notaries, and judicial officials, including both how they functioned and how they fit together. It describes how Jews in particular—as subordinate subjects ... More

This chapter offers a topography of courts, notaries, and judicial officials, including both how they functioned and how they fit together. It describes how Jews in particular—as subordinate subjects with increasingly international clout—were received in these institutions. The chapter first focuses on the Jewish quarter where the Assarrafs lived, before exploring the notaries public and Jewish courts that together made up the main institutions applying Jewish law. It then turns to the heart of Fez, where the city's main Islamic legal institutions were situated, before expanding this map to include legal networks on a national and international scale. The map drawn in this chapter thus serves as a reminder of how the different legal orders functioning in Morocco stood in relation to one another.Less

The Law of the Market

Jessica M. Marglin

in Across Legal Lines: Jews and Muslims in Modern Morocco

This chapter focuses on the Assarrafs and the ways in which they engaged Muslim notaries public and shariʻa courts to sustain their quotidian business dealings. It shows that Jewish merchants like ... More

This chapter focuses on the Assarrafs and the ways in which they engaged Muslim notaries public and shariʻa courts to sustain their quotidian business dealings. It shows that Jewish merchants like Shalom and Yaʻakov Assarraf used local Islamic legal institutions frequently because of their extensive commercial relations with Muslims. The absence of a formal banking system and the increasingly short supplies of cash, especially in rural areas, meant that Jewish merchants sold most of their wares on credit. In order to ensure that extending credit would be profitable, Jewish merchants relied on shariʻa courts to document and enforce the debts they accumulated. Islamic legal institutions were thus central to how Jewish merchants did business.Less