The Edicts of Debt Remission: A Political Tool of Economic Intervention

In the paleo-Babylonian era (2004–1595 B.C.) when a king ascended the throne he used to issue a remission edict. These edicts, also known to be diffused in Syria, Anatolia, Assyria and in other time periods, aimed at providing relief to those subjects who experienced extreme economic distress. The edicts included the cancellation of some typologies of debts among private persons, the exemption from the payment to the “palace” of certain taxes, the freedom from debt enslavement and the nullifying of specific real estate transactions. The edict had normative force when enacted in court by an ordinary or special judge in specific cases. It also had retroactive value and produced immediate effects of economic and social value. The edicts were of uttermost relevance in the case of real estate transactions. In fact, debts usually had a duration of one year and edicts, so, covered only the debts of the past year, while debt enslavement—at least in regard to the code oh Hammurabi—could only last three years. Real estate transactions as a means to settle debts, instead, were permanent and so could be nullified in court even years after their subscription. In this context, the retroactivity of edicts covered the entire period spanning from one edict to the preceding one. Given the ensuing uncertainty in property rights, creditors being offered a settlement through real estate transactions devised legal means to make edicts ineffective. Starting with Rīm-Sîn in Larsa (60 years of reign) and Hammurabi in Babylonia (42 years of reign) most of the kings issued edicts many times during their rule: a sign for many researchers that the edicts increasingly lost validity while estates unceasingly grew to enormous dimensions and little proprietors vanished. This chapter will analyse the impact of edicts on the Babylonian economy in light of the most recent findings and also specify the legal means through which edicts became useless.