Year: 2018
Type: article
Abstract: Long-distance connections loom large in global history. Their study, alongside comparative history and the history of common experiences, can be seen as one of three main approaches in this emerging field.1 The present chapter combines elements of all three approaches; here, we consider connections comparatively, while also isolating elements of common experience. We examine long-distance trade in and between Europe, the Mediterranean and West Africa, focusing on the period between about 1000 and 1600 ce.2 Many of the questions we pose could be applied to other regions, but a certain level of detail is needed in order to say anything meaningful about trust. As the practice of global history matures, acquiring greater time-depth, new ways of looking at connectivity and long-distance relationships are necessary. Economic history has tended to see the problems of information, uncertainty and risk in long-distance trade as logistical and symptomatic of pre-modern conditions. Their solution has been seen to lie in the development of features of the modern firm: institutional and documentary technologies such as banks, accounting, money, commercial associations, insurance loans, underwriting, contracts and so on.3 This is despite healthy currents in economic anthropology that have pointed out the importance of studying people and their behaviour as well as the rules of the market.4 Questions of trust in fact lie at the root of many of the problems faced by long-distance traders across the globe. Should one rely upon the co-operation of partners, agents or clients whose behaviour cannot be directly monitored — and if so under what conditions? How can the inherent risks to buyers who pay in advance and sellers who offer credit be surmounted?5 In circumstances where commercial transactions rarely involved the simultaneous exchange of goods and payment, trust was clearly fundamental to the creation and maintenance of relationships and networks.6 However, general surveys of medieval trade typically do little more than occasionally allude to its significance. For instance, one recent history of business in medieval Europe stresses the importance of trust, but diminishes it as an object of study by equating it with innate honesty or the supposedly natural fact of kinship.7 Some scholars have even gone so far as to deny the importance of trust, arguing instead that uncertainty is dealt with by the calculation of costs and benefits.8 But for others, trust is a problem demanding detailed discussion. Niklas Luhmann tackled the issue of calculation head-on, arguing that trust is the means by which people reduce the complexity of calculating risk. Charles Tilly similarly saw trust as an imperative, arising from the frequent and necessary experience of placing valued outcomes at risk from the malfeasance, mistakes or failures of others.9 Luhmann’s observation on complexity has been enormously influential, as has his articulation of a distinction between trust in persons and trust in institutions; but in common with much of the discussion of trust by economists, the interpretative utility of this body of work is blunted by a tendency to generalize and simplify, even where some attempt at historical contextualization is made.10 Instead, we propose a less absolute dichotomy between trust in persons and in institutions, and a more multifaceted characterization of trust and trustworthiness. In this we follow, to a certain extent, the growing literature on European credit and contract enforcement that has begun to treat trust as a crucial problem, as well as studies of long-distance trade along ‘spindly networks’ in Africa, Asia and Europe, examining the means by which trust was fostered in the principal–agent relationship. This is becoming a key question in global economic and social history, and some medieval and early modern historians have begun to view trust as a cultural as well as economic phenomenon.11 We aim to open the subject up further still, by showing that whatever institutional arrangements are adopted, trust has always been a human decision and emotion, not something easily legislated for. In taking this approach we do not, however, simply align ourselves with the main alternative interpretation of long-distance relationships: that which holds trust to be underpinned by shared religious, familial or cultural identity, as we shall see below. Instead we are working with Bernard Williams’ critique of the tendency to be content with ‘macro-motivations’, and Timothy Guinnane’s view that social context is everything in attempting to understand trust.12 We will examine how trust was a set of values, a suite of emotions, a conversation involving speech-acts and physical performance, and a way of negotiating the spaces in which relationships were conducted. In many discussions trust is only treated as a problem in long-distance relationships. Local relationships are classically imagined within a face-to-face society, where everyone knows everyone else and economic interaction is embedded in a host of other familial and social relationships. This has been described as ‘thick trust’ or ‘mechanical solidarity’.13 The antithesis of the imagined village is the transaction conducted over long distances, which is assumed to involve ‘thin trust’ based on limited knowledge and purely economic relationships. Although this dichotomy usefully introduces questions of scale, it supports a seductive yet false distinction between an unconnected pre-modern world in which life was lived locally, and a connected modern world in which life is lived globally. It also promotes the idea that trust operates on either the local or the global scale; that it is thick or thin, easy or difficult. The medieval evidence however indicates a complex continuum of trust practices in every setting where life is lived beyond the immediate; from journeys of a few miles to long voyages across oceans or deserts. The need for a historically situated examination of trust does not suggest itself merely because of the inadequacies of the ‘macro-motivations’, such as religion or economic rationality. The medieval and later texts describing trans-Saharan, Mediterranean and northern European trade themselves employ a variety of discourses in which trust is explicitly and implicitly evoked. These written sources include travel literature and geographies, business letters and contracts, and the judicial records of commercial disputes. As such they privilege certain overarching frameworks such as law, the state, literacy and masculinity, but they also frequently speak of other relevant concepts such as friendship, family, belief and emotion. Where possible we have also drawn on archaeological data and concepts in order to explore trust cultures, but is a social more over for Although we do not that can for the of trust across long distances, it is to where and not at in the of the The can be from where a of was at in because the that was by a For the trade between and and involved many contracts to in advance of the This the a and the a In that of to the by and was to the at in As his and were to the of the and could be by the of the These agents of loom over all such records of and advance were the of contracts and of trust in medieval and their involved the of and goods and to or to This was also to from that The of is in many where evidence of contracts and enforcement where such evidence we can see behaviour with the of and with the people of the and its indicates that order and were in the is to where it was that of is based upon and and the of life by while that who not to be dealt with For Mediterranean such as and or certain of were of and but their on the importance of and order over way of written for the of by the in the to the of in the on the northern of the is a a and a to the of the who is a has and and as well as is and is one of the of the It is a large by many but it has is subject to the of in whose the is and to the people in However, is evidence that West in between local and while in European it is that local and means of trust were also crucial elements as well as more For instance, in the transaction described alongside the of are as for the the or its if the could the of and means of trust in this and frequently We not be by the creation and of judicial that was or the main means by which trust was as judicial enforcement was the of a something to be and has that trust was in itself trust could in where the of was much more of this from the of the a of letters and from the commercial of the as the the Mediterranean and the in the Africa, and The is but historians on its How far the rely upon judicial in the of trust necessary to goods and across long The letters much of and familial as in this of a in by an in for his in a — which to do — that travel to the to for what while will of and will his while will travel to and for and for for is an in and other shall be with this between the of For will with need not this for on is of arrangements such as seen in the advance of are and yet are and relationships of This evidence however, has that the traders a enforcement in which the of as an and as well as the of the to honesty or were to it possible to trust an a But have this and have that the traders in fact to while has that in the of In West historians in study of for the of that how and where could be what could be and what similarly that on the were by the However, to their on an written by the in the who that at the were set by the that this was on of the it is possible that or was by the to as the from the of the and from the on and the for which the But the not have been the and have the of the view that trust was by the of and the alternative has been the of a shared and have the of trade by and across the of For instance, across much of the the economic by have been as an that the of the in the and were by shared and and trust by Many historians have some showing how cultural were shared by or involved in and Mediterranean trade were scholars as while of trade in West were also on the of in as well as cultural and practices well have to and the trust necessary for while historians have a more by the of who has the of trade in West history, has how and as relationships with their host that and from their host possible the on West cultural the of shared and common of a contracts and social the and of trust, and a host of which on the one to an on the also a for trustworthiness. We see the of this in of the of as in their and in and In their they do not the of the other people of the in their and but with are for their and a for one are some and they in of need and out of the and natural which are to and the which they have in their long of from and from their is about the between trade and the experience of a this the of a of to from by in travel — a which have seen or anything to this in the it in in and in and it was as a The is that of trust over and were shared however, such practices have been In history the has been that a to trade between people even not The of and and the of a such as in where in the traders from and in modern were on its to the — even more to the or — by who that and as well as and — suggest as does the of long-distance in evidence three who has modern to one of the for his honesty and as his in the In the recent on the of the whose letters in the a of has been as the for long-distance trust. that while historians such as and to have in with an many of their business practices were in fact on that at a of in life a was for. were by a also in and to between In of commercial how despite certain between and and business practice that have the to the of the they instead to to and discourses that were from from the that shared underpinned trust, arguing for the importance of the of and the in the way that people business was of their shared be the of long-distance than simply the this in discussion of trade in West on it greater historical a of the of traders in the development of long-distance in the that from the a between and the to on commercial and and and goods for to that the traders a common and social values, and that it was the that the based on a of cultural was to also that the in the and many of the in and in its themselves to be with few connections to local the of the however, the between at the level of or shared and trade is not as as has been The that people of shared are to trust one has been others, who on the view of as and of while that trust has been as a of not a historical This the of the we The idea that and in in West is in but archaeological work to the of trade across the In recent of and have been in of the from to that is to in at to the development of the The is the from the of with of the to goods such as and other and with we have some evidence of co-operation between of in associations, such as the of which was based on the of and to the trade between and Europe in the and were by and were only in the of the of the which what trust been In limited to be up of from or For the trade out of saw and to in by cultural cannot Some elements of the are — the of shared identity, the the and trade — but of this simply and directly to trust. say so is to than to the of historians have dealt with this by the problem of trust in the practices and of the need to examine the that This could be further by focusing on the issue of in on medieval that was a of their business or and to their to new and cultural local and local in order to cultural and to the of approach necessary to do As has traders to how to trust to which is in with that to to ways of and commercial with persons who not speak their and other has how early modern traders in their in order to upon their social Some needed by in long-distance trade could be more to how to a a been and it certain cultural was in practices for to be easily For Europe a general from purely as of to also as contracts to goods and so on credit or advance on that a contract been These tended to and were or whose local could be by of were also and in many as or the to while the of was as a was a common European of a but not so traders are that have in transactions in some of with and to to about the risks of travel and the of goods with an a over a shared such as this that the creation of trust in than simply arising and from We say that the work of trust was the work of It was a of practices and than of some The judicial records of some European to see this work of trust and at it was can be For instance, in a the in the all the who on his were involved in the long-distance trade between and the and one for many were for honesty by and they so by a of and with and by the of one been that his in order to in the In and and trust were to The that to and of were of and we that to in religion and were for were on of behaviour how are as for trust in long-distance relationships. a for not from such as or have been cultural that where how to trust and be seen as more and but the of acquiring such knowledge and to the of or that Some of of trust to lie many of the about was an in the less and in and a practice which to their while also the that were of in the is not the of trust fact is well to of deny it and it has been by many of who been as in the of and at the of in of a of the the and can be seen in such as the of of the shared his knowledge of and from to the and as well as on other sources to about the to which beyond his of In much of the work of the medieval to be about the of the from to or life on the is the they to the to their The letters and that from Mediterranean and northern European to see the ways in which the articulation of trust was of the maintenance of relationships. The trade a set of In in of to and Bernard were on of a of to the in The to the along with and if they a of trust, that they whatever the about such their or other a of trust to trust. For their the not to be in to and the all their goods and to the the of the and of the to out of the We can see that the were trust in order to be in practices in the by the In a at in between and the that a of with the as as and and to be all the of their The as was in common and are also of to on and on and practices of trust that the between and the and were also in other social such as Long-distance trust to have been as an of relationships with other people and we not that about trust but can and the they be from were absolute in of the long-distance relationships here, and to trust by a of at of upon of shared and of the for institutional elements of trust were situated in that within relationships that over their and which and were by other relationships. As trust be seen as and as demanding and the physical interaction of the can also be in trade was conducted at It is to that the relationships of trade from spaces and to the that spaces at a of The level at which we can the of trade is in and for the all of northern Europe not only and but also spaces for the exchange of and and the of commercial many trade relationships involved the of an in such were of local knowledge about about other in and about the of the For in the upon to with about the of the which was as well as a a further to a and of In his we see not only the upon his but also the business need to be by his For West Africa, the and the are the of the have the to and the in to business across cultural These of and as it a on the was also a and in the of and by was only an to the far more crucial of the of the archaeological of a was and at in of large a with and a and the and the are in to anything in the The complex is as and the a the a in which the were suggest a in the and more such as in the The of West some with the Mediterranean as the or were for the of out by a and the between a of and a of who were and of this in the Mediterranean were by and by such as the in and in the and but they were more set up as with a to for or is evidence for a in with a for in the by the of Although it was common for from to the of many also for host to for from and a of between and the host they have been seen as a between but could trust by and and by with the in which their could be and within the where many a was a by the commercial and other in of business in were in one of the of the and it as the were frequent to for also have host to some of the transactions between the and this is to However, transactions in more open and questions the between trust and what was the between transactions conducted in such as and on the one and spaces such as on the what was the between will and in of spaces and the within we merely suggest some possible In were by the of a but were in a of by the of as or The a with the or a where and and be The was subject to some but its typically only with the and of the goods the and was a but a of of the in and on the The was also a of as where trust on the of buyers and in an open with The spaces of the long-distance trade were also and at the it was not but also that the to be seen to be so as not to This of long-distance trust was a of the way that behaviour and In some European such as and by the and or a more that was far less and less than the The has also been the of much the economic history of West However, despite the social and of the it that it not have been the main of in long-distance Instead, the was an of and this be a of the pointed out that the much of the trade from the in in the The is with the and the are and a or here, is to or other and is to be of it is as a of — the of the or written every In this the out the by the of is to the of trust also question the of the of trade on a For West much has been of the to the idea that The the of at the as a one where were and and to which was from all and the other where the and his and who his medieval the who also of for one large by the miles but with between it is to the the of commercial and between the is to European include the of and in medieval the of trade from of across early medieval northern Europe, and the of and between within a in It is possible that and the of long-distance trade by local of to and by a between and in the of to The of long-distance trade however, as much about as about was not to taking on at and on while the of the or the have the of trust between the of The of trust at on journeys is to study because the is more and the typically less and than the But are their to such archaeological have for been out at to the history of trade the These have an archaeological by a the at the village it its way to a in advance where the of and is and the which the have — it is always the — is by the on the In the while the the to to and the the and the all the who are not over the the or to and with which are the is by a of the this is not trade goods — which in the archaeological — but the of The in even the physical spaces in which trade was conducted only to how be attempt to trust between But the attempt is crucial to of how long-distance relationships were possible in the have ways of about trust, and while this indicates the of some elements that cultural the of and about trust in and also However, this does not that shared on its how trust is across long this the and of trust, in more or less within the of a such not simply a of the social or a but it is of whatever shared way of this is that people upon the cultural to in of and shared and in their and failures to the of and to As an object of study the medieval many of the and of trust in long-distance relationships. The present study has that in cultural circumstances trust was out of the way traders the of institutional of their trust for one and of certain spaces in order to trust and be cannot be the of some or be it economic shared or a we have merely the we the in the creation of trust in a global medieval more work to be in how of trust in and what this on of trade and the of trade to social and The within which such are as well as much of what we have the of of a from an unconnected pre-modern to a connected modern For the way that European are in the institutional of the while and are in the historical of is a of which a global medieval approach can on the of trust has also that was of trust practices in and long-distance relationships. and an to
Source: Past & Present
DOI: 10.1093/pastj/gty025
Authors: Ian Forrest, Anne Haour
Institutions: University of Oxford, University of East Anglia
Language: English
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2902319236