Book Chapter

Or do you prefer cash? Pensions in kind in pre-modern Germany and the Low Countries

  • Ludwig Pelzl
  • Jaco Zuijderduijn

In the later Middle Ages and early modern period, many European hospitals developed into commercial retirement homes that allowed investors to pay for lifelong food and lodging. Their clients consisted mainly of elderly citizens who decided to spend their final years enjoying a pension, often living by themselves or occasionally with a spouse. Corrodies can best be understood as life annuities in kind: food and lodging were provided until the corrodian – or the longest-living spouse of a couple – passed away. Demand was so great that institutions are known to have had waiting lists or to raffle seats among potential investors. We claim that corrodies allowed investors who were looking to secure their livelihood to mitigate the risks that came with financial instruments that paid in currency. Our paper contributes to a historiography that claims that payments in kind should not be considered ‘backwards’ but rather as techniques that offered protection against the whims of the market.

  • Keywords:
  • Corrodians,
  • pensions,
  • annuities,
  • payments in kind,
  • retirement homes,
+ Show More

Ludwig Pelzl

European University Institute, Sweden

Jaco Zuijderduijn

Lund Universitet Ekonomihogskolan, Sweden - ORCID: 0000-0002-1296-008X

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Chapter Information

Chapter Title

Or do you prefer cash? Pensions in kind in pre-modern Germany and the Low Countries

Authors

Ludwig Pelzl, Jaco Zuijderduijn

Language

English

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0347-0.15

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2024

Copyright Information

© 2024 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Bibliographic Information

Book Title

Mezzi di scambio non monetari. Merci e servizi come monete alternative nelle economie dei secoli XIII-XVIII / Alternative currencies. Commodities and services as exchange currencies in the monetarized economies of the 13th to 18th centuries

Editors

Angela Orlandi

Peer Reviewed

Number of Pages

592

Publication Year

2024

Copyright Information

© 2024 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Publisher Name

Firenze University Press

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0347-0

ISBN Print

979-12-215-0346-3

eISBN (pdf)

979-12-215-0347-0

eISBN (xml)

979-12-215-0348-7

Series Title

Datini Studies in Economic History

Series ISSN

2975-1241

Series E-ISSN

2975-1195

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