Agents, financial instruments, and investment strategies: the structure of Lisbon’s financial market, 1755-1774

Abstract

This study analyzes the structure and functioning of the capital market in Lisbon between 1755 and 1774, based on records from the Cartório do Distribuidor (Lisbon's Notarial Registry Office). The research demonstrates the existence of a functional financial market, based on notarial mediation and the circulation of various financial instruments. In the absence of a formal stock exchange, notaries acted as the main intermediaries, conferring public faith to transactions and mitigating risk. Most of the assets traded were private in nature, although investments in public debt were also recorded, revealing a financial ecosystem adapted to different levels of risk, liquidity, and available capital.
Despite the lack of a structured secondary market, elements of publicity and sociability are identified, enabling a certain degree of transparency. The article proposes that the Lisbon market be classified as semi-opaque, where traditional practices coexisted with emerging forms of financialization. This study contributes to a reassessment of Portugal’s eighteenth-century financial history, aligning it with recent historiographical trends on informal markets and institutional trust networks in pre-industrial Europe.