De Antwerpse publieke rentemarkt in de vroegmoderne tijd

From the middle ages onwards, cities were encapsulated in the financing of the nascent kingdoms. Through the emission of public debt, medieval and early modern towns managed (partly) to satisfy this royal need for cash. Although these practices are well studied within current historiography, the case of Antwerp remains somewhat neglected. This is remarkable, since the public debt of Antwerp amassed a massive size from the seventeenth century onwards. This contribution aims to highlight some fundamental elements of Antwerp's historical public debt, as well as to provide a basis for further research. First, a short overview of the historiographical debate is given. This is followed by an assessment of the city-council debt issuance policy. What were the causes and effects of the city’s subsequent annuity sales during the early modern period? Our findings show that while financing the early modern Habsburg state accounted for just under half of the annuity sales, other economic motives played an important role as well. Furthermore, we’ve highlighted the destructive dynamics between annuities and taxes. In order to cope with the city’s ever-growing debt, taxes were raised, laying the foundation for popular unrest. Despite the city council’s best intentions, debt levels became insurmountable by the first half of the eighteenth century. Inevitably a series of retroactive interest reductions followed, infuriating annuity owners. In the final part of this article, we assess the social profile of those annuity buyers more closely. Whereas the political elite was, as a group, the biggest investor in Antwerp’s public debt during the first half of the research period, evidence suggests that as the seventeenth century progressed, public annuities became increasingly owned by burghers linked to the administrative oligarchy. While the general trend of this evolution is clear, further research remains to be done, especially as to the political impact of the shift in the social makeup of Antwerp’s annuitants