Relational and institutional trust in the international trade of the Low Countries, 15th-16th centuries. University of Antwerp
This research project investigates the role of trust in networks and institutions used by international merchants in Bruges and Antwerp in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Assuming two types of trust, i.e. relational and institutional, this research wants to determine whether trust became (relatively) obsolete when new legal institutions and rules arose that are said to have facilitated commercial transactions between international traders.