ARS'23 Ninth International Workshop on Social Network Analysis

Banking networks and financial intermediation in Castile at the beginning of the 16th century

03 mag 2023, 09:15

15m

Room Forio ()

Contribution in Organized Session Networks in Economic and Financial History Networks in Economic and Financial History

Description

The intense economic growth, both commercial and financial, of Castile in the late Middle Ages and at the beginning of the modern period had different causes. One of them concerns the increase in the connection between markets, a process promoted by the growing connection between merchants and financiers at regional, peninsular and European level. This paper aims to provide a first insight into this process of network generation and the increase in the density of relations between financial intermediaries, i.e. money changers or bankers. The nature of their business made it essential to generate solid networks - economic and social - on which to base credit and exchange operations or simply to ensure the correct circulation of information. To achieve this, and working on the principles of the SNA, we intend to show the main relationships established by the local bankers, as well as the different types of network generated according to the economic interest of each banker, and other aspects that made it possible to generate a powerful local bank on which part of the economic growth of the Spanish Golden Age was based.