Trust and Mistrust in Premodern Europe and the Mediterranean

Annabel Laura Hancock, Ian Forrest

• Publisher: Arc Humanities Press
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9781802704044
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Social History
• Index: History

This volume uncovers the ways in which trust and mistrust affected people's lives in premodern Europe and the Mediterranean.

Trust is a fundamental part of human relationships. It forms the basis of our connections with people and institutions in a variety of ways. But without reference to the great variety of meanings and experiences of trust in history, particularly the premodern past, we fail to grasp both the subtleties and the true significance of the topic. Through exploration of the nuances of the construction, maintenance, and breakdown of trust and trusting relationships, this volume demonstrates that trust functions in different ways in different contexts. It illuminates how the study of trust today points to new interpretations of life in the past, and how study of the past can offer valuable perspectives on life in the present.

Table of contents

• COVER
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Introduction
• 1. Trust in Conversation – Hancock
• 2. Phantom Notarial Contracts and Social Resilience after the Sack of Marseille, 1423 – Low
• 3. Trust Across Seas – Bain
• 4. Quoniam almanus non esset – Barucci
• 5. Little Shops of Horror? – Knight
• 6. Trust and Time in Sixteenth-Century Italian Mediterranean Commerce – Scott Baker
• 7. A Taxonomy of Trust – Ogilvie
• 8. Trust, Mistrust, and the Premodern – Forrest & Hancock
• Index