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Article: Banking and Credit
- Article from:
- Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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BANKING AND CREDIT
BANKING AND CREDIT.
Early modern European banking had its origins in Italy. The profession grew out of the trade boom of the so-called commercial revolution of the High Middle Ages (1000
–
1350). The first bankers engaged in manual exchange of coins and did not extend credit. By the early modern period, however, banking spread throughout Europe and became complex and increasingly involved in credit transactions.
By the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries there were three basic types of banks: international merchant banks, local deposit banks, and pawnbroking establishments. The categories were not exclusive: the same businessmen sometimes engaged in two or ...