Banking in Mediaeval Bruges: A Review

Extract

There is an old but erroneous tradition in the Anglo-Saxon countries that banking began in the seventeenth century with the London goldsmiths. In fact, however, banking is much older, having been practised in mediaeval times extensively in Italy, the Low Countries and Spain. To be sure, mediaeval banking was different from early English and American, let alone modern, banking. Negotiable instruments did not then exist; and book transfers were used where in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries bank notes served in England and America and checks serve today.

Among the scholars who have thrown light on mediaeval banking and who have helped to explode the myth of banking as an Anglo-Saxon invention, Raymond de Roover, professor at Wells College, holds first rank. His book entitled Money, Banking and Credit in Mediaeval Bruges is the subject of this review.