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Trust, brokerage of social capital and competitive strategies
between town and country in the 18th century
S?ren K. Poder,
MA in history, Archivist for crowdsourcing
The Danish National Archives
Analysis of regional socioeconomic networks 1755 to 1772
THE XVI APRIL INTERNATIONAL ACADEMIC CONFERENCE ON ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT , MOSCOW, HIGHER SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS (HSE), 7–10 April 2015

Scope
? Denmark in the 18th century
? Urban Areas
? Problem
? Presentation of research
? Social network
? Conclusion
Danish National Archives

Denmark 1724 - 1801
? Population: Approx. 800.000
? 1660 to 1849: An absolute monarchy
? 1721 to 1801: The longest known period of
peace in the history of Denmark
? Economic policy: Basically mercantile,
especially after 1735.
? Regulations through royal granted
privileges and restrictions.
? From 1764 institutional reforms on the
royal estates, later on private estates
? 1788: All serfs can become farmers

Danish Market Towns
? 62 market towns within the boarders of the
Danish monarchy.
? Small: from a few hundred to a few town’s
with just under 3000 inhabitants
? Copenhagen: approx. 41.000
? From 1672 to 1840 approx. 20 pct. of the
population lived in a market town.

? Exclusive right to trade, commerce and
craftsmanship within two mills (20 km)
from the town.
? Right to self-administration (separate from
the country)
? The right to own court
? Exemption from certain taxes
? Exemption from military service
Danish Market Towns – A definition

Danish Market Towns – A Central Place?
? Exclusive right to trade, commerce and
craftsmanship within two mills (20 km)
from the town.
? Central place theory
? Equal distribution of recourses
? Borderless society

3500 pages later
BUT!
? Empirical/regional urban studies emphasize the importance of the
market based on:
1. Complains about markets and commerce in the hinterlands
2. Intense competition between markets town
3. Peasants had commerce with several merchants in the same
town
4. A few had commerce with two or more market towns
? Central place theory vs. urban network system
? Higher degree of complexity (Market, legal, social ect.)
? Hence: call for new theories and methods explain the socioeconomic
development in the 18t

Walter Powell: Transaction-specific-investments
?En Hedebonde p? Vej til Marked”; maleri af Otto Bache fra 1864
Fixed:
? Money
? Time
? Energy
Harder to measure
? Bounded rationality
? Opportunism
? Identification

MarketClassic Institutional
Network
Neither market nor hierarchy: Network forms of organization

Walter Powell: Transaction-specific-investments
Why a social-economic network institution:
Mutual trust, repetitive acts of transaction within the institution of social conventions can reduce the cost of
the non fixed expenses to mutual benefit.

Sillio Frich’s account books
? Three accounts book 1755 – 72
? Name and address (village) on
728 individuals.
? 6173 unique acts of trade
? 9932 transactions
CREDIT!
? Needed in agrarian societies
? Shortage of money’
? The currency of the day

Sillio Frich 1719 - 1771
? Born 1719 - Died 1771
? Born in the Parish Sdr. Omme,
approx. 80 km west of Kolding
? Son of Lieutenant Niels Frich
? Moves to Kolding in 1741
? Registered merchant in 1755

Diverse Varer
H?r og bomuld
kalk, jern og t?mmer mv
K?d, Fisk mv.
Korn, Malt, humle mv.
L?rred, kl?de mv.
?l, Vin og br?ndevin
Penge udbetalinger
The, kaffe, Krydderier og
specievarer mv.
Flax
(From Riga)
Money
Timber & Iron

Sillo’s trade hinterland 1755-1771
? Shortest distance bias
? Legal borders of Kolding
Hus county
? Kolding were:
? Administrative center
? The town where the
tenant farmers once a
year paid their taxes
? All rural courts in the
county had by 1763 been
moved into town.
? Legal borders/Perceptual
borders

Legal ties in Kolding Hus County 1765
244 individuals
822 relation (legal case)
Costs
Legal prosecuting were to raised before
the peasant venue – incl. claims to
pending credit by death and bankruptcy
Tenants from the outer parishes seldom
came to the court house in Kolding (four
days of travel)

Hans Nielsen, Grindsted
720 kg
Rural dean Hans Sidelman,
Snerum
563 kg
Merchant Anders Friis ,
Ringk?bing
478 kg
Sillo’s trade area of flax 1755-1771
? 15 tons of flax
? Majority of sales (92%): purchases
under 8 kg per costumer
? costumers in close proximity
? Three buyers board significant large
quantities of flax.
? Two outside the jurisdiction. ‘
? Trust?

Parish registers and binding trust relations
? Finding right godfather/godmother
? A social strategy
? Create new or confirm existing
social relations
? Accumulate social capital
? Create a higher level of collective
trust from the community
? Confirm and put on display in
display in church room

Social relations in the Parish Sdr. Omme 1734 - 1742
? 150 christenings
? 393 individuals (of a total
populations of approx. 407
inhabitants)
? 887 unique relations

Distribution of social relations
1
10
100
1000
1 51 101 151 201 251 301 351
NUMBEROFRELATIONS
? 20% (67 individuals) holds 50 pct. of all
relations
? 3% holds 16% of all relations
? 10 individuals holds 137 sponsorships
? Top: Madamme Vellejus & Anne Sofie Friis
? The top 3% are also holding the relation
outside the parish

Local and regional transport of knowledge
The top 3% also holds of the relations going
out of the parish
Internal and external distribution of
knowledge

Hans Nielsen, Grindsted
720 kg
Rural dean Hans Sidelman,
Snerum
563 kg
Merchant Anders Friis ,
Ringk?bing
478 kg
A social business network, and competitive
Sillio’s connections
Friis: Sillio’s fathers godson
Sidelman: Friend and the godfather to
Sillio’s children
Hans Nielsen: Friend to Sidelman, and one
of Sillio’s important

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