Debt, Trust and Reputation in Early Modern Armenian Merchant Networks

This chapter brings into question the widespread notion that mercantile trust is an inherent quality of a trading diaspora. It aims to look beyond the façade of an ethnoreligious merchant network, in order to escape that explanatory trap. Accordingly, it examines the mechanisms of establishing trust and creditworthiness within a trading diaspora, with a primary focus on the making and unmaking of a merchant’s reputation or credit history. This chapter also analyses how ethnoreligious merchant networks and their professional ethics were esteemed—in pamphlets, travelogues, privileges and treaties—by the outsiders who actually fabricated the misleading notion of a trading diaspora as consolidated corporation.

1. 1.

   This paper was written thanks to the fellowship provided by the Philipp Schwartz Initiative of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

2. 2.

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3. 3.

   See Ben VanWagoner’s essay in this volume.

4. 4.

   Fernand Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–18th Century, Vol. II: The Wheels of Commerce (1979; repr. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 157.

5. 5.

   See Traian Stoianovich, ‘The Conquering Balkan Orthodox Merchant’, Journal of Economic History 20, no. 2 (June, 1960): 234–313; Francesca Trivellato, The Familiarity of Strangers: The Sephardic Diaspora, Livorno, and Cross-cultural Trade in the Early Modern Period (New Haven: Yale UP, 2009).

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   Philip D. Curtin, Cross-Cultural Trade in World History (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1984), 2.

7. 7.

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8. 8.

   Abner Cohen, ‘Cultural Strategies in the Organization of Trading Diasporas’, in Claude Meillassoux, ed., The Development of Indigenous Trade and Markets in West Africa: Studies Presented and Discussed at the Tenth International African Seminar at Fourah Bay College, Freetown, December 1969 (London: Oxford UP for the International African Institute, 1971), 273–274.

9. 9.

   Søren Mentz, ‘The Commercial Culture of the Armenian Merchant: Diaspora and Social Behaviour’, Itinerario 28, no. 1 (2004): 19, 21.

10. 10.

    Mentz, ‘Commercial’, 22.

11. 11.

    For instance, Eliasz Kistesterowicz, an Armenian merchant in Zamość, Poland, signed his prenuptial contract with a sign of cross. Archiwum Państwowe w Lublinie. Księgi prawa ormiańskiego (Armenian Magistrate of Zamość), file 6, pp. 19–19v.

12. 12.

    Mentz, ‘Commercial’, 24.

13. 13.

    For a recent argument that challenges the importance commonly attributed to national, familial, ethnic, and religious affiliations in matters of generating trust and managing credit, see Daniel Velinov, ‘Risk Management, Credit and the Working of Merchants’ Networks in Early Modern Banking’, in Decision Taking, Confidence and Risk Management in Banks from Early Modernity to the 20th Century, ed. Korinna Schönhärl (Cham: Palgrave, 2017), 259.

14. 14.

    Clare Haru Crowston, ‘Credit and the Metanarrative of Modernity’, French Historical Studies 34, no. 1 (2011): 10.

15. 15.

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16. 16.

    Emily Kadens, ‘Pre-Modern Credit Networks and the Limits of Reputation’, Iowa Law Review 100, no. 6 (2015): 2440.

17. 17.

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18. 18.

    Francesca Trivellato, ‘Credit, Honor, and the Early Modern French Legend of the Jewish Invention of Bills of Exchange’, Journal of Modern History 55, no. 5 (2012): 301–302.

19. 19.

    Julfa or New Julfa (Nor Jugha) was an autonomous Armenian suburb of Persian capital Ispahan. Founded in 1605, New Julfa became the hub of Iran’s silk trade and the centre of an Armenian commercial network stretching from Amsterdam to the Philippines. Sebouh Aslanian, ‘Social Capital, “Trust” and the Role of Networks in Julfan Trade: Informal and Semi-Formal Institutions at Work’, Journal of Global History 1, no. 3 (2006): 391–392.

20. 20.

    Aslanian, ‘Social Capital’, 393.

21. 21.

    The commenda is a type of commercial contract that involves two parties: a wealthy merchant or principal who entrusts his money or merchandise to an agent or factor, who travels great distances to sell the merchandise entrusted to him. In accordance with a commenda contract, the investor receives roughly two-thirds or three-quarters of the profit, while the agent keeps the remainder. It happened frequently that agents could not fulfil a contract, and sometimes they disappeared abroad.

22. 22.

    Aslanian, ‘Social Capital’, 384.

23. 23.

    See Olivier Raveux, ‘Entre réseau communautaire intercontinental et intégration locale: la colonie marseillaise des marchands arméniens de la Nouvelle-Djoulfa (Ispahan), 1669–1695’, Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine 59, no. 1 (2012): 89; Aslanian, ‘Social Capital’, 393.

24. 24.

    Braudel, Wheels, 157.

25. 25.

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26. 26.

    For more details, see Hagop Levon Barsoumian, The Armenian amira class of Istanbul (Yerevan: American University of Armenia, 2007); Kevork Bardakjian, ‘The Rise of the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople’, in Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire, ed. Benjamin Braude and Bernard Lewis (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1982), 89–100.

27. 27.

    Alexandr Osipian, ‘Legal Pluralism in the Cities of the Early Modern Kingdom of Poland: The Jurisdictional Conflicts and Uses of Justice by Armenian Merchants’, in The Uses of Justice in Global Perspective, 1600–1900, ed. Griet Vermeesch, Manon van der Heijden, and Jaco Zuijderduijn (New York: Routledge, 2019), 80–102.

28. 28.

    Craig Muldrew, The Economy of Obligation: The Culture of Credit and Social Relations in Early Modern England (London: Macmillan, 1998), 2–4.

29. 29.

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30. 30.

    For more details, see Trivellato, ‘Credit, Honor’, 333–334; Alexandr Osipian, ‘Les diasporas marchandes et la notion de commerce illégal: le cas des marchands arméniens dans la Pologne de l’époque moderne’, Rives méditerranéennes 54 (2017): 59–72.

31. 31.

    Quoted in Magda Teter, Jews and Heretics in Catholic Poland: A Beleaguered Church in the Post Reformation Era (New York: Cambridge UP, 2006), 29.

32. 32.

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33. 33.

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34. 34.

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35. 35.

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36. 36.

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37. 37.

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38. 38.

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39. 39.

    de Tournefort, Voyage, II:295.

40. 40.

    Alexandr Osipian, ‘Voting at Home and on the Move: Elections of Mayors and caravanbashi by Armenian Merchants in Poland and the Ottoman Empire, 1500–1700’, in Cultures of Voting in Pre-modern Europe, ed. Serena Ferente, Lovro Kunčević, and Miles Pattenden (London: Routledge, 2018), 310–328. Stefan Troebst, ‘Isfahan-Moskau-Amsterdam: zur Entstehungsgeschichte des moskauischen Transitprivilegs für die Armenische Handelskompanie in Persien (1666–1676)’, Jahrbucher fur Geschichte Osteuropas 41 (1993): 180–209.

41. 41.

    Viorel Panaite, ‘Trade and Merchants in the 16th-century Polish-Ottoman Treaties’, Revue des Études sud-est européennes 32, nos. 3–4 (1994): 268.

42. 42.

    A German loanword Geleit which means ‘convoy, escort, safe conduct, safeguard’.

43. 43.

    Zygmunt Gloger, Encyklopedia staropolska (Warszawa: Druk P. Laskauera i W. Babickiego, 1901), 382.

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    Akta grodzkie i ziemskie z czasów Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej z archiwum bernardyńskiego we Lwowie, wydał X. Liske [et al.], t. 10 (Lwów: Glówny skład w ksiegarni Seyfartha i Czajkowskiego, 1884), 178.

46. 46.

    Łoziński, Patrycyat i mieszczaństwo, 274.

47. 47.

    Akta grodzkie i ziemskie, 186, 187.

48. 48.

    Mikołaj Bernatowic stated that he lost more than 100,000 thalers. Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine in Lviv, fond 52 (City Magistrate of Lviv), holding 2, file 517, pp. 39–40.

49. 49.

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51. 51.

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52. 52.

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53. 53.

    Aslanian, Social Capital, 392.

54. 54.

    Frangistan was a term used in the Middle East to refer to Western or Latin Europe.

55. 55.

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56. 56.

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57. 57.

    One can suppose that event took place at the presence of the Ottoman judge (qadi), though he is not mentioned in the letter.

58. 58.

    Tuman or toman was a unit of reckoning in Persia equivalent to 10,000 dinars.

59. 59.

    Calico or indienne (Indian shirting) was the printed cotton textile originally manufactured in India. For more details, see: Olivier Raveux. ‘The Orient and the Dawn of Western Industrialization: Armenian Calico Printers from Constantinople in Marseilles (1669–1686)’, in Goods from the East, 1600–1800. Trading Eurasia, ed. Maxine Berg et al. (London: Palgrave, 2015), 77–91.

60. 60.

    If this incident occurred on the route between Erzurum and Yerevan, Jakub could be presumably identified as the Shah’s vekil or a caravanbashi.

61. 61.

    There is no mention in the letter of who committed the execution. Under ordinary circumstances, the order could be given by a subaşi—a chief of police—though he is not mentioned in the letter.

62. 62.

    Oak apples or oak galls were used in the production of ink.

63. 63.

    Since there was a wealthy Armenian community in Iași, Charagozowicz could have been bailed by some local Armenians.

64. 64.

    Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine in Kiev, fond 39 (City Magistrate of Kamyanets-Podilsky), holding 1, file 40, fol. 78–78v.

65. 65.

    Władysław Łoziński, Patrycyat i mieszczaństwo lwowskie w XVI i XVII wieku (Lwów: Gubrynowicz i Schmidt, 1890), 279–280.

66. 66.

    Aslanian, From the Indian Ocean, 132.

67. 67.

    For instance, Armenian merchants who settled in Amsterdam normally married Dutch women. René Arthur Bekius, ‘The Armenian Colony in Amsterdam in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: Armenian Merchants from Julfa Before and After the Fall of the Safavid Empire’, in Iran and the World in the Safavid Age, ed. Willem Floor and Edmund Herzig (New York: I.B.Tauris & Co, 2012), 267.

68. 68.

    Archiwum Państwowe w Lublinie. Księgi prawa ormiańskiego (Armenian Magistrate of Zamość), file 6, pp. 9v–11v.

69. 69.

    Almut Bues, ed., Martin Gruneweg (1562–nach 1615). Ein europäischer Lebensweg / Martin Gruneweg (1562–after 1615). A European Way of Life (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2009).

70. 70.

    Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine in Lviv, fond 24 (City Magistrate of Brody), holding 1, file 31, fol. 108–109.

Authors and Affiliations

1. Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe, Leipzig, Germany

   Alexandr Osipian

Editors and Affiliations

1. Baruch College CUNY, New York, NY, USA

   Laura Kolb

2. Norwich, UK

   George Oppitz-Trotman

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