Abstract: This paper challenges bank-centric models of financial modernization by providing the first quantitative estimate of Norway’s entire nineteenth-century mortgage market. Using a new data set of loans from Christiania’s official land registries (pantebøker), I construct national estimates that reveal a credit system dominated by non-banking lending. By 1890, private lenders had more than three-quarters of the national mortgage stock, facilitating a level of financialization (80% debt-to-GDP) comparable to modern advanced economies. I argue that this market’s efficiency was not by private intermediaries, but by a state-backed institutional framework: a public property registry mandated by Christian V’s Norwegian Code of 1687, compulsory fire insurance and public tax disclosure. This ”public legal infrastructure” model for private credit presents a distinct alternative to intermediary-led systems and offers a new empirical foundation for understanding capital formation in a late-industrializing economy.

Work in Progress:

• Norwegian Bankiers and their networks – peer-to-peer lending and early credit markets longevity in the face of the advent of banks (WIP). 

• Money Makers – Northern European Network of Credit from Trondheim to Hamburg (WIP).