ABSTRACT
The chapter presents the results of analysis of the 18th-century municipal registers from Białystok and other Podlasie towns (Polish-Lithuanian borderland). The credit market of Podlasie consisted mainly of small loan agreements (to 100 zlotys), taken out for one year, although a majority of loan agreements did not stipulate a time for repayment. In addition, a large part of loans was secured, most often by pawns of small properties (mainly clothes). The development of credit and monetary transactions in Białystok was highly influenced by Jews who, according to the information from the source material, made at least 31% of all loaners; their real market position, probably much more influential, is difficult to establish in the face of the lack of kahal registers. Despite the increase in the number of transactions from the 1670s, there are no traces left of any modernization processes in the Białystok credit market, and a vast majority of transactions belongs to the sphere of traditional private credit – its study should be one of the most important purposes of social historians in Poland.
