ABSTRACT

Relations of debt and credit wound all through early modern European economic and social life. In seventeenth-century Scotland ready money was in chronically short supply and almost every adult of every rank owed or was owed goods, services, or money.2 Deferred payment was a given in agrarian life, with its rhythm of sowing and reaping. People in towns, too, had to balance regular expenses for food, shelter, clothing and other essentials with irregular and often insecure incomes tied to occasional, seasonal or multiple employment, to shipments arriving from overseas, or to goods, rent or interest owed by others. To tide them over, townsfolk routinely bought and sold on credit, contracting on the basis of verbal promises or written notes.3 One need only contemplate the vast bulk of debt litigation sagging archive shelves across Britain and Europe to appreciate the centrality of credit arrangements

1 The authors wish to thank Susan Blake, Nathan Thomson, Lisa Smith, Frank Klaassen, and Ray Stephanson for their help and advice. Special thanks also to Judith Cripps, Aberdeen City Archivist. Karen Thomson’s research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.