Sale or free assignation: conveyance of family estates in a manufacturing village of Lombard Prealps (Lumezzane, XVIII and XIX century): a first approach

Lumezzane, a village in the Lombard Prealps, in XVIII and XIX century was characterized by the presence of important manufactures favoured by the local availability of raw material and water power. People worked in forges of 2nd level and produced components for fire-arms, sidearms and hand-manufactured goods in iron or in brass. People financed their activities by domestic patrimony or contracting mortgage debts from private individuals or charitable institutions: it was impossible to have credit without securities as lands or houses, so it is very important to know the way used for conveyance of the family estates and the dimensions of lands and houses market. This paper concerns just real estates market and analyses the type of acts (sales, barters or free assignations), the level of commercialisation of houses and lands, the social relationships between buyers and sellers, the prices registered on the land and house market as well as the ways in which transactions on real estates were settled (by cash or annual instalments with or without interest, settlement of precedent debts or release to other properties).