Private Credit in Spain During the Late Eighteenth and the Early Nineteenth Centuries: Institutions, Crisis and War

Abstract

The transition between the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries manifested the limits of the rigid economic system tied to the Spanish Ancien Regime. Financial activities, particularly credit-related transactions, suffered the limitations of a country ridden with agrarian crises, institutional instability and unceasing war conflicts. Valladolid and its surrounding area experienced with severe hardness this situation. The outbreak of the War of Independence and the institutional chaos led to the contraction of informal credit. The crisis exposed the weaknesses of a financial system dominated by large owners and a small number of businessmen. The purpose of the present chapter is to show the evolution and main features of private credit in a time of great instability, a time that led to a slow transformation process in Castile’s financial world.