About publicly owned businesses

[Lothia]

I have ran across a road block in my research for my novel. It concerns ownership of commercial companies.

I can assume that there were jointly owned businesses, where several people pooled their money for an investment, but they probably did not have their own legal entities like today’s corporations do.

How were these held, what was an owner’s liability and where do I look for more information on this?

Thanks again for your brain-pool. You guys are awesome.