Chapter 12 The credit market of a small peripheral Polish town in the early modern period Monika Kozłowska- Szyc Credit was of great importance in the economic life of the early modern period. It played a special role in urban circumstances, hence trade economy developed there best. It was applied for consumption, as well as in investments and commodity exchange. The credit market functioning in small Podlasie towns, however, largely served private needs. The objective of this chapter is to show and discuss the phenomenon of credit in a small private town, which is the case of Bia łystok. Determining the size and the structure of turnovers, the duration of agreements as well as the way of their securing will allow us to outline the rhythm of the economic life of the urban centre under analysis and will help to determine the degree of its economic development. The analysis was based on the oldest preserved municipal registers. The material was complemented with promissory notes and documents kept in the Roskie Archives and the Branicki Archives. All the used archive records reside in the Central Archive of Historical Records in Warsaw (Ksi ęgi miejskie bia łostockie, 1744–1795; Archiwum Roskie, 1737–1794; Archiwum Branickich z Bia łegostoku, 1786). Located at the borderline between the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Bia łystok was one of larger urban centres in Podlasie (beside Tykocin and Bielsk Podlaski). In the 18th century, it had c. 2,500 residents, 41% of which were Christians, 35.5% Jews, and 23.5% soldiers ( Łopatecki 2015, p. 351; Dobro ński 2001, p. 38). It is important to emphasise that such small towns dominated in the landscape of the Polish- Lithuanian Commonwealth, hence they constituted over 90% of all urban centres of old Poland (Bogucka & Samsonowicz 1986, pp. 379–82). What is also worth noting is the fact that Bia łystok was the headquarters of the Podlasie latifundium of the Branicki family. The town emerged as a base of a magnate seat and formed along with the development of the landlord’s manor. The development of such centres made up a characteristic quality of the modern era not only in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth but also throughout Europe. However, residential towns in Poland differed from those in Western Europe by the fact that they were not a monarch’s work but the magnates’ (Stone 2001, p. 298; Bogucka 2001, p. 23; 2009, p. 18). 9780367404185_pi-263.indd 153 9780367404185_pi-263.indd 153 01-Jul-20 9:40:59 AM 01-Jul-20 9:40:59 AM