Pawnbrokers and Pawnbroking in Pre-Modern Societies: a Comparative Approach

In pre-modern societies pawnbroking was the most common form of raising money and often the only one available to people from the lower rungs of the social ladder. The appearance of pawnshops in Medieval Europe was an attempt to formalize microcredit. Ethical and social concerns induced the townships of Renaissance Italy to promote community based credit bodies (Monti di pietà) to assist and protect borrowers. These public pawn banks were a remarkable innovation yet their diffusion was far from universal. In most of Europe and in Asia more business oriented forms of pawnbroking prevailed, yet ethical concerns led to various form of regulations and, at times, the establishment of public bodies to limit interest charges and to prevent predatory practices.