Trust, brokerage of social capital and competitive strategies between town and country in the 18th century

Søren K. Poder, MA in history, Archivist for crowdsourcing The Danish National Archives

Analysis of regional socioeconomic networks 1755 to 1772

THE XVI APRIL INTERNATIONAL ACADEMIC CONFERENCE ON ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT , MOSCOW, HIGHER SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS (HSE), 7–10 April 2015

Scope

Denmark in the 18th century

Urban Areas

Problem

Presentation of research

Social network

Conclusion

Danish National Archives

Denmark 1724 - 1801

• Population: Approx. 800.000

• 1660 to 1849: An absolute monarchy

• 1721 to 1801: The longest known period of peace in the history of Denmark

• Economic policy: Basically mercantile, especially after 1735.

• Regulations through royal granted privileges and restrictions.

• From 1764 institutional reforms on the royal estates, later on private estates

• 1788: All serfs can become farmers

Danish Market Towns

• 62 market towns within the boarders of the Danish monarchy.

• Small: from a few hundred to a few town’s with just under 3000 inhabitants

• Copenhagen: approx. 41.000

• From 1672 to 1840 approx. 20 pct. of the population lived in a market town.

• Exclusive right to trade, commerce and craftsmanship within two mills (20 km) from the town.

• Right to self-administration (separate from the country)

• The right to own court

• Exemption from certain taxes

• Exemption from military service

Danish Market Towns – A definition

Danish Market Towns – A Central Place?

• Exclusive right to trade, commerce and craftsmanship within two mills (20 km) from the town.

• Central place theory

• Equal distribution of recourses

• Borderless society

3500 pages later

BUT!• Empirical/regional urban studies emphasize the importance of the

market based on:

1. Complains about markets and commerce in the hinterlands2. Intense competition between markets town3. Peasants had commerce with several merchants in the same

town4. A few had commerce with two or more market towns

• Central place theory vs. urban network system

• Higher degree of complexity (Market, legal, social ect.)

• Hence: call for new theories and methods explain the socioeconomic development in the 18t

Walter Powell: Transaction-specific-investments

„En Hedebonde på Vej til Marked”; maleri af Otto Bache fra 1864

Fixed: • Money• Time• Energy

Harder to measure• Bounded rationality• Opportunism• Identification

MarketClassic Institutional

Network

Neither market nor hierarchy: Network forms of organization

Walter Powell: Transaction-specific-investments

Why a social-economic network institution:

Mutual trust, repetitive acts of transaction within the institution of social conventions can reduce the cost of the non fixed expenses to mutual benefit.

Sillio Frich’s account books

• Three accounts book 1755 – 72

• Name and address (village) on 728 individuals.

• 6173 unique acts of trade

• 9932 transactions

CREDIT!

• Needed in agrarian societies

• Shortage of money’

• The currency of the day

Sillio Frich 1719 - 1771

• Born 1719 - Died 1771

• Born in the Parish Sdr. Omme, approx. 80 km west of Kolding

• Son of Lieutenant Niels Frich

• Moves to Kolding in 1741

• Registered merchant in 1755

Diverse Varer

Hør og bomuld

kalk, jern og tømmer mv

Kød, Fisk mv.

Korn, Malt, humle mv.

Lærred, klæde mv.

Øl, Vin og brændevin

Penge udbetalinger

The, kaffe, Krydderier og specievarer mv.

Flax (From Riga)

Money

Timber & Iron

Sillo’s trade hinterland 1755-1771

• Shortest distance bias

• Legal borders of Kolding Hus county

• Kolding were: • Administrative center• The town where the

tenant farmers once a year paid their taxes

• All rural courts in the county had by 1763 been moved into town.

• Legal borders/Perceptual borders

Legal ties in Kolding Hus County 1765

244 individuals 822 relation (legal case)

CostsLegal prosecuting were to raised before the peasant venue – incl. claims to pending credit by death and bankruptcy

Tenants from the outer parishes seldom came to the court house in Kolding (four days of travel)

Hans Nielsen, Grindsted720 kg

Rural dean Hans Sidelman, Snerum563 kg

Merchant Anders Friis , Ringkøbing

478 kg

Sillo’s trade area of flax 1755-1771

• 15 tons of flax

• Majority of sales (92%): purchases under 8 kg per costumer

• costumers in close proximity

• Three buyers board significant large quantities of flax.

• Two outside the jurisdiction. ‘

• Trust?

Parish registers and binding trust relations

• Finding right godfather/godmother

• A social strategy

• Create new or confirm existing social relations

• Accumulate social capital

• Create a higher level of collective trust from the community

• Confirm and put on display in display in church room

Social relations in the Parish Sdr. Omme 1734 - 1742

• 150 christenings

• 393 individuals (of a total populations of approx. 407 inhabitants)

• 887 unique relations

Distribution of social relations

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• 20% (67 individuals) holds 50 pct. of all relations

• 3% holds 16% of all relations

• 10 individuals holds 137 sponsorships

• Top: Madamme Vellejus & Anne Sofie Friis

• The top 3% are also holding the relation outside the parish

Between = Knowledge

Local and regional transport of knowledge

The top 3% also holds of the relations going out of the parish

Internal and external distribution of knowledge

Hans Nielsen, Grindsted720 kg

Rural dean Hans Sidelman, Snerum563 kg

Merchant Anders Friis , Ringkøbing

478 kg

A social business network, and competitive

Sillio’s connections

Friis: Sillio’s fathers godson

Sidelman: Friend and the godfather to Sillio’s children

Hans Nielsen: Friend to Sidelman, and one of Sillio’s important