The organization of mercantile capitalism in the Low Countries: private partnerships in early modern Antwerp (1480-1620)

By means of an in-depth analysis of 132 partnership agreements, which hadbeen notarized in the city of Antwerp between 1480 and 1620, the presentarticle aspires to provide a substantiated narrative on the use as well as legalfeatures of private partnerships in the early modern Low Countries. In sodoing, it became apparent that such small-scale partnerships constituted aneffective means in the hands of, mostly non-related, merchants and craftsmenwho were looking for legal certainty. Moreover, the examination of thesepartnership agreements demonstrated the wide-ranging contractual freedomthat contracting parties in sixteenth-century Antwerp could dispose ofand that therefore historical reality not necessarily complies with legal ideasand concepts provided for by legislative or statutory documents