Underwriting empire: Marine insurance and female agency in the French Atlantic world
dc.contributor.author | Wade, L | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2022-10-07T09:38:17Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2022-10-06 | |
dc.date.updated | 2022-10-07T07:44:30Z | |
dc.description.abstract | This article offers the first extensive analysis of female agency in the marine insurance industry of early modern Europe. Drawing from a data set of more than four thousand insurance policies signed in the Royal Insurance Chamber in Paris between 1668 and 1672, the article studies the activities of Parisian women within the institution. These policies illustrate that women played a crucial role in the Chamber as underwriters, creditors, commission agents, and policyholders. Moreover, institutional papers and the records of the Parisian admiralty court reveal that women acted ably in defense of their interests when conflicts emerged, although there were limitations to their agency in the Chamber itself. In this way, the article challenges the long-standing perception that underwriting was an exclusively masculine activity in pre-modern Europe. Moreover, it sheds light on the role of women in supporting the maritime and colonial policies of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV’s eminent minister, thereby becoming underwriters of France’s early Atlantic Empire. | en_GB |
dc.description.sponsorship | European Research Council | en_GB |
dc.format.extent | 1-29 | |
dc.identifier.citation | Published online 6 October 2022 | en_GB |
dc.identifier.doi | https://doi.org/10.1017/eso.2022.33 | |
dc.identifier.grantnumber | 724544 | en_GB |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10871/131144 | |
dc.language.iso | en | en_GB |
dc.publisher | Cambridge University Press | en_GB |
dc.rights | © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Business History Conference. All rights reserved. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited. | en_GB |
dc.subject | insurance | en_GB |
dc.subject | gender | en_GB |
dc.subject | merchants | en_GB |
dc.subject | France | en_GB |
dc.title | Underwriting empire: Marine insurance and female agency in the French Atlantic world | en_GB |
dc.type | Article | en_GB |
dc.date.available | 2022-10-07T09:38:17Z | |
dc.identifier.issn | 1467-2227 | |
dc.description | This is the final version. Available from Cambridge University Press via the DOI in this record. | en_GB |
dc.identifier.eissn | 1467-2235 | |
dc.identifier.journal | Enterprise & Society: The International Journal of Business History | en_GB |
dc.relation.ispartof | Enterprise & Society | |
dc.rights.uri | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ | en_GB |
rioxxterms.version | VoR | en_GB |
rioxxterms.licenseref.startdate | 2022-10-06 | |
rioxxterms.type | Journal Article/Review | en_GB |
refterms.dateFCD | 2022-10-07T09:34:43Z | |
refterms.versionFCD | VoR | |
refterms.dateFOA | 2022-10-07T09:38:23Z | |
refterms.panel | Unspecified | en_GB |
refterms.dateFirstOnline | 2022-10-06 |
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Except where otherwise noted, this item's licence is described as © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Business History
Conference. All rights reserved. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits
unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.