Proactive Peasants? The Role of Annuities in a Late Medieval Communal Society: The Campine Area, Low Countries

Annuities, long-term credit transactions with land as collateral, were an important instrument throughout pre-industrial continental Europe. The easy availability of long-term credit, smoothly working institutions and the fact that people were able to use land as collateral have often been portrayed as a prerequisite for growth. However, recent research on the Low Countries firmly suggests that similar institutional frameworks did not necessarily lead to similar outcomes. Social context—social structures and power balances—acted as a prism, refracting institutional arrangements and leading to a multitude of results. The way the market for long-term credit functioned, and the role it played in different societies, could therefore diverge greatly. In this chapter, the focus will be on the role of long-term credit in a communal, peasant society—the Campine area—to illustrate how the region’s specific social context shaped a specific peasant-oriented use of this market.