Rents as an Instrument of Credit in Medieval Poland

Abstract

The constitution of rent for a price of money (constitution de rente à prix d'argent) in medieval Poland has been studied mainly from a comparative legal perspective. Its economic dimensions - particularly its role as an instrument of long-term credit and its links with the development of market economy - have not yet been comprehensively analyzed across all social estates.
This article analyzes the constitution of rent for a price of money in medieval Poland as an instrument of credit, examining its legal framework, the economic and ecclesiastical factors that conditioned its development, and the differences in its application among the bourgeoisie, clergy, and nobility.
The study draws on medieval Polish diplomatic sources - in particular the Codex diplomaticus Maioris Poloniae and the Book of Revenues of the Diocese of Poznań of 1510 - as well as scholarly literature on usury and medieval credit (Endemann, Noonan), and on the author's monograph published at Adam Mickiewicz University in 1966.
The analysis shows that the constitution of rent entered Poland in the late 13th century through cities founded under Magdeburg law, which transmitted already developed German legal models. Its growth was conditioned by the development of market economy and the intensification of monetary circulation in the 13th and 14th centuries. In the main Polish cities (Kraków, Poznań), rent became the principal instrument of long-term credit. The clergy played almost exclusively the role of creditor of rent, particularly toward the nobility (census ecclesiastici), while the nobility in its mutual relations preferred the hypothecary loan or, from the second half of the 15th century, the sale of immovable property with the right of redemption (emptio in vim reemptionis). The theological doctrine concerning usury played a decisive role in legitimizing the institution, which was never assimilated to a usurious transaction.