Microcredit and Monetary Circulation in the Fourteenth Century

This chapter explores the functioning of microcredit and payment systems in late medieval Italy by analysing how monetary obligations, often expressed in units of account, were fulfilled through a variety of non-monetary means. Drawing on notarial sources and legal documents, the authors examine the flexible, negotiated character of value transfers in a society where the use of coined money was both limited and unevenly distributed. Particular attention is paid to the role of legal instruments, intermediaries, and institutional conventions in ensuring the circulation of value and the settlement of debts. The analysis is grounded in the case of fourteenth-century Vercelli, where credit obligations recorded in money of account were frequently discharged through in-kind payments, including goods, services, and labour. In this context, notaries and local officials played a crucial role in mediating exchanges and validating transactions. The case illustrates how microcredit operated within a broader ecosystem of social trust, institutional mediation, and hybrid monetary practices, highlighting the embeddedness of credit relations in the economic and legal culture of late medieval Lombardy.