. The topic can be divided into the categories of private and public accounting. French royal accounting received considerable impetus from the reign of Philip II Augustus, at which time the careful registration of income and expenses began. A Chambre des Comptes would emerge in the early 14th century. However, France did not have an adequate royal budgetary system until after the end of the ancien régime. The most advanced private accounting techniques evolved first in medieval Italy and were later best implemented outside Italy in the Low Countries. This is not to say that France did not witness the development of accounting systems, which attained considerable sophistication at markets like the Champagne fairs.
Accounting procedures existed in the context of large rural estates, where terriers or compoti might provide data on the seed sown, the acreage cultivated, and the yield realized. In the realm of commerce, there survive some few fragmentary private accounts: those of an unknown draper of Lyon for 1320–23, of the notary and draper Ugo Teralh of Forcalquier for 1330–32, of the merchant and draper Jean Saval of Carcassonne, of the Bonis brothers of Montauban in the mid-14th century, and of the merchant Jacme Olivier of Narbonne at the end of the century.
It is generally accepted that the technique of double-entry bookkeeping emerged in Italy in the 13th century. The categories of credits and debits did not exist side by side in the earliest forms of French accounts. In those of Ugo Teralh, debtors wrote in their own obligations. The brothers Bonis kept various books, several of which have survived: a book, labeled C, for credit offered to debtors; a livre vermeil for deposits, which also contained the accounts of estates managed by them; a book D, which in part continued C.
Forestié has identified additional books A and B, which do not survive but would have preceded book C. The Bonis lent money at interest in addition to their commercial cloth, spice, and pharmaceutical business. Their accounts of credits and debits were not positioned opposite each other but rather consisted of discrete entries in succession. In contrast to the accounts of the Bonis, the account book of Jacme Olivier provided no general accounting of the credits and debits at the end of the volume. However, Olivier provided not only accounts for particular individuals but also for specific voyages, noting the costs of merchandise and shipping. Though not on a par with Italian financial technology, the pressures of complex commercial operations, the existence of associations of multiple partners bringing capital to an affair, and the increased use of delegated authority for administration of property encouraged the development of sophisticated accounting measures in France by the end of the Middle Ages.
Kathryn L.Reyerson
Blanc, Alphonse. Le livre de comptes de Jacme Olivier, marchand narbonnais du XIVe siècle. Paris: Picard, 1899.
de Roover, Raymond. “Aux origines d’une technique intellectuelle: la formation et l’expansion de la comptabilité à partie double.” Annales d’histoire économique et sociale 9 (1937):171–93, 270–88.
Forestié, Édouard. Les livres de comptes des frères Bonis, marchands montalbanais. 2 vols. Paris: Champion, 1890–94.
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