This volume investigates the use of mortgages in the European countryside between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries. A mortgage allowed a loan to be secured with land or other property, and the practice has been linked to the transformation of the agrarian economy that paved the way for modern economic growth.

Historians have viewed mortgage both positively and negatively: on the one hand, it provided borrowers with opportunities for investment in agriculture; but equally, it exposed them to the risk of losing their mortgaged property. The case studies presented in this...