Pawning for the poor and the consumer revolution: Venice in the eighteenth century

Between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, shifts in consumption patterns gave individuals access to cheaper substitutes for quality goods, which though less expensive were of lower quality. This led to an increased consumption and accumulation of objects, which eventually flooded the second-hand market. While the literature often portrays this trend as ‘luxury for the poor’, emphasising its positive outcomes, it is not yet clear how it affected the saving behaviours of the lower strata. This article investigates precisely how this transition to a new and cheaper material culture affected the credit potential and pawning practices of the lower social strata. To this end, it focuses on the pawnbroking activity of Venetian innkeepers and bastioneri, wine sellers. The analysis draws on a database of approximately 3500 objects pledged between 1698 and 1798. The research highlights the dynamic interplay between material culture, consumption patterns and access to credit in shaping socio-economic realities during the early modern period. The study reveals a decline in the purchasing power of the lower strata, and a gradual erosion of their saving capacity. The changing composition of the pawn basket over time suggests the growing general impoverishment of the local population and an increase in real inequalities.