‘Your flexible friend’: the bill of exchange in theory and practice in the fifteenth century† (2021)
Bolton, Jim (Author)
Guidi-Bruscoli, Francesco (Author)
Economic History Review
Volume: 74
Issue: 4
Pages: 873-891
Publication date: 2021
Language: English
The bill of exchange was the most important written instrument in the international financial world of the later middle ages. Using the evidence of nearly 2,000 bills of exchange, protested bills of exchange, and letters of advice recorded in the ledgers of Filippo Borromei & Partners of Bruges and London, 1436–8, we argue that it was a far more flexible instrument than has previously been thought. The maturity of bills could be changed by agreement rather than necessarily using the standard usance periods, and payment by instalments occurred, extending the length of the ‘loan’ considerably. In practice, exchange rates varied from day to day and within the day itself, while bills were offered as sureties for the fulfilment of other contracts. We also confirm the arguments of other historians that the main purpose of this instrument was the transfer of capital back and forth across western Europe, usually along well-known axes such as London to Venice or Bruges to Barcelona, with exchange and re-change playing only a minimal role in the Borromei's operations. As at the Lyon fairs 100 years later, the ‘flexible friend’ helped make the world of international, regional, and local trade and finance go round.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Article
Jerome Greenfield;
(2020)
‘As solid as and more precious than gold’: Gabriel-Julien Ouvrard, John Law and the legacy of the assignats in nineteenth-century France
Book
Jeffrey Sklansky;
(2017)
Sovereign of the Market: The Money Question in Early America
Article
Alexia Yates;
(2021)
Investor Letters and the Everyday Practice of Finance in Nineteenth-Century France
Article
Trevor Jackson;
(2020)
Between Independence and Impunity: The Theory of Proto-Central Banking After the Crisis of 1720
Article
Thea Goldring;
(2020)
The Greater Fool: Paper, Illusion, and Time in Representations of the South Sea Bubble
Book
Peter Kenen;
(2022)
Managing the World Economy: Fifty Years After Bretton Woods
Article
Susan P. Mains;
(2022)
Unruly Landscapes and the City of London. Mobility Studies, Street Photography, and Stephen McLaren's The Crash
Article
Patrice Baubeau;
Eric Monnet;
Angelo Riva;
Stefano Ungaro;
(2021)
Flight‐to‐safety and the credit crunch: A new history of the banking crises in France during the Great Depression
Article
Jonathan Levy;
(2017)
Capital as Process and the History of Capitalism
Book
Judge Earl Glock;
(2021)
The Dead Pledge: The Origins of the Mortgage Market and Federal Bailouts, 1913–1939
Book
Sven Beckert;
Christine Desan;
(2018)
American Capitalism: New Histories
Book
Keith Tribe;
(2022)
Constructing Economic Science: The Invention of a Discipline 1850-1950
Book
Dieter Voigt;
(2023)
Die Augsburger Baumeisterbücher 1402–1440 The Augsburg Master Builders' Books 1402–1440). Vol. 1: Einführung und Analysen; vol. 2: Transkription
Book
Youssef Cassis;
Giuseppe Telesca;
(2018)
Financial Elites and European Banking: Historical Perspectives.
Chapter
Matthew Kelly;
(2018)
The Thames Barrier: Climate Change, Shipping and the Transition to a New Envirotechnical Regime
Article
Brian Lancaster;
(2015)
Jean-Baptiste Say's First Visit to England (1785/6)
Book
Kühn, Sebastian;
(2011)
Wissen, Arbeit, Freundschaft: Okonomien und soziale Beziehungen an den Akademien in London, Paris und Berlin um 1700
Article
Orton, David C.;
Morris, James;
Locker, Alison;
Barrett, James H.;
(2014)
Fish for the City: Meta-Analysis of Archaeological Cod Remains and the Growth of London's Northern Trade
Thesis
Bowtell, A;
(cited 2010)
A Medieval London Hospital: Elsyngspital 1330--1536
Book
Angelo Cattaneo;
Francisco Contente Domingues;
(2018)
Shores of Vespucci: A Historical Research of Amerigo Vespucci's Life and Contexts
Be the first to comment!