The Growth of the Bank as Institution and the Development of Money-Business Law [1 ed.] 9783428476244, 9783428076246

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The Growth of the Bank as Institution and the Development of Money-Business Law

Comparative Studies in Continental and Anglo-American Legal History Vergleichende Untersuchungen zur kontinentaleuropäischen und anglo-amerikanischen Rechtsgeschichte Herausgegeben von Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. mult. Helmut Coing und Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. K n u t Wolfgang N ö r r

Band 12

The Growth of the Bank as Institution and the Development of Money-Business Law

edited by

Vito Piergiovanni

Duncker & Humblot · Berlin

Gedruckt mit Unterstützung der Gerda Henkel Stiftung, Düsseldorf

Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufnahme

The growth of the bank as institution and the development of money-business law / ed. by Vito Piergiovanni. — Berlin : Duncker und Humblot, 1993 (Comparative Studies in Continental and Anglo-American Legal History ; Bd. 12) ISBN 3-428-07624-9 NE: Piergiovanni, Vito [Hrsg.]; GT

Alle Rechte, auch die des auszugsweisen Nachdrucks, der fotomechanischen Wiedergabe und der Übersetzung, für sämtliche Beiträge vorbehalten © 1993 Duncker & Humblot GmbH, Berlin Druck: Berliner Buchdruckerei Union GmbH, Berlin Printed in Germany ISSN 0935-1167 ISBN 3-428-07624-9

Foreword The volume is a collection of essays which examine in different historical social contexts the role of credit, o f bankers and of the juridical instruments used by these. A systematic picture of the discipline of credit does not of course emerge from the sum of the contributions — that is not the aim of the volume. This is rather a collection of materials and reflections which, coming as they do both from the Continental European and the A n g l o American experience, can provide useful starting-points for comparison. The protagonists of the volume are undoubtedly those, who, both in commerce of land and sea and i n their financial speculations, make use of money and of banks. N o less important, however, are the technical juridical instruments which become progressively more refined, complex and adaptable to even changing contingencies, in a perspective where credit becomes one of the motive forces of economic life. The figure of the banker is certainly central, and many pages of the volume are dedicated to it, but the clients are also significantly present, their solvency or insolvency being able to make, in turn, the fortune or the ruin of the lender. The documentation studied by Linehan is very interesting i n this regard, as it reveals a politico-financial interlacement which, starting from Spain, unravels through Italy and through France, involving kings, popes and Florentine bankers, with, at its centre, a cultivated bishop o f Toledo plunged into debt: a history of credit certainly, but perhaps even more of debts: an approach towards the same problem from the opposite direction, which proves to be extremely interesting, not only technically but also socially and politically. The political horizon w i t h i n which the actors of Linehan's study move are typically medieval, and bear witness to a private relationship between banker and client, economically and legally simple and easy to schematize w i t h i n the traditional loan. W i t h the essays on Renaissance Florence, however, written by Kirshner, we are already introduced to a new dimension o f credit in which the presence and the guarantees of the public authorities tend to oppose new parameters, economic certainly but also moral and juridical, w i t h respect to those championed by the private bankers. It is the dialectic between public and private, perhaps even more than the debate as to the lawfulness or the usurious wickedness o f banking operations,

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Foreword

which seems to offer itself as the qualifying characteristic o f the research contained in this volume, or at least for the majority of it, and it is certainly a characteristic on which one should reflect deeply when dealing w i t h the history o f credit and o f its instruments. It is the guarantees lent to the State and the more marked forms of responsability which pick out the figure o f the Genoese banker from the M i d d l e Ages to the Modern Era, as Piergiovanni maintains, and which differentiate his economic and legal position from that of the other merchants. Coquillette's research, by fixing the birth o f a modern banking system in seventeenth century England and by determining the different political, economic, juridical and philosophical coordinates which are at its base, and which make the English experience unique among the other European nations, emphazises the important consequences deriving from the creation and development o f the Bank of England in 1694. A m o n g the apparatuses o f the State which intervene and mediate in or direct the world o f business also certainly figure the Courts, which from Rogers' study on accomodation bills, make clear their role of reflecting the social conscience and refute the assumption that, i n this case, " l a w merely follows business" and that "normative issues and social conflicts have not played any significant role in the development o f the rules of private law governing commerce". The illustration of banking in Frankfurt am Main, studied by Lammel, also takes us back to a scheme of financial Capitalism by now refined and further underlines the balancing role of the Courts in opposing financial operations they considered too risky, i f not to say fraudulent. The same Author points out, however, that the differing opinions of the jurists, in these debateable cases, demonstrate a close interreliance between commercial and legal circles: for the latter, perhaps, " l a w merely follows business". If, on the one hand, the Genoese experience shows an attempt by the jurists to justify and defend a financial supremacy already in existence, the English experience is the response to the national demand for a regularized economic system, in which credit assumes a primary function. Even commercial juridical science tends to assume lines of development careful, in the various national contexts, to assist the emerging needs of individual situations. The problem of the relation between public and private, w i t h the contrast between ,bancos' and ,tablas', is present also in Spain, but the original interpretation of the phenomenon, offered by Clavero, introduces the predominant presence o f religion which in the ambit o f a monarchy which declares itself to be »catholic 4 , allows for the interpretation of the problems of credit and deposits, and the solutions adopted, in the light of principles of conscience and of charity suggested, even in their terminology, more by theology than by law.

Foreword A public presence but also changes in culture and the conditioning o f the economic structures bound to the traditional propertied classes characterize the banking history o f eighteenth-century Spain, outlined by Petit: the types of organization described, or at least the cultural references, circulate here too as elsewhere, but the different outcomes — and the comparison between contemporary events narrated by Coquillette and by Petit is illuminating in this respect — are the result of dissimilar social equilibriums, both economic and juridical. A sector does exist, however, in which there is a greater osmosis between the various national juridical organizations and this is in the field o f maritime law. I n this area, internationalism seems to be the constant which was the characteristic identifying feature i n the development of commercial law from the M i d d l e Ages onwards and which signified the habitual circulation o f contractual and procedural forms and the widespread utilization of doctrinal works and o f court sentences: the articles by Frentz and by Rodgers, relative to some forms o f maritime credit respectively i n German and English experience, are interesting testimonies of the circulation of institutions and of doctrine in a field which seems almost predisposed to comparative analysis. These brief introductory notes pick out, as is obvious, only some o f the distinctive points presented in the essays which make up the volume, without any claim at exhausting the richness o f the individual contributions. I have to thank M r . Christian Wieland and M r . Dieter Waibel who have given i n Tübingen an important contribution in the print of the volume. The individual Authors collaborated w i t h enthusiasm and a constructive spirit to the outcome o f the volume. I don't know i f gratitude is also a fit subject for comparative study, but the coordinator's gratitude is truly great. Vito

Piergiovanni

Inhaltsverzeichnis Peter Linehan An Archbishop and his Bankers: Gonzalo Pérez Gudiel of Toledo 1280-1283 Julius Kirshner Encumbering Private Claims to Public Debt in Renaissance Florence

11

19

Vito Piergiovanni Banchieri e mercanti: Modelli di classificazione nella dottrina giuridica genovese

77

Daniel R. Coquillette The Mystery of the New Fashioned Goldsmiths: From Usury to the Bank of England (1622-1694)

91

James Steven Rogers The Problem of Accomodation Bills: Banking Theory and the Law of Bills in the Early Nineteenth Century

119

Siegbert Lammel Einige Aspekte der Emissionstätigkeit von Frankfurter Banken

157

Bartolomé Clavero Entre ocio de banco y negocio de cambio: Pecunia depositada bajo régimen católico

191

Carlos Petit Signos Financieros y Cosas Mercantiles, ο los Descubiertos de la Ilustración Cambiaria Eva-Christine

225

Frentz

Cambio marittimo — Bodmerei — Respondentia: Kreditinstrumente des Kapitäns in der Kontroverse

311

Christopher P. Rodgers Ransom Bills and Commercial Credit in English Law — an Early Excursus in Comparative Legal Science

345

PETER L I N E H A N

An Archbishop and his Bankers: Gonzalo Pérez Gudiel of Toledo 1280-1283 I n the history of medieval indebtedness, i f ever it comes to be written, Archbishop Gonzalo Pérez ( ' G u d i e l ' ) w i l l deserve at least half a chapter to himself. I n 1280 Gudiel was about fifty when Nicholas I I I appointed h i m to the see of Toledo after judging Ferrân Rodriguez (abbot of Covarrubias w h o m the chapter of that church had chosen five years before) guilty o f having alienated its goods. The new archbishop was no stranger to the primatial church of the Spains and its affairs. A member of one of the city's leading Mozarabic families, he had held high office in the chapter prior to his promotion to the see of Cuenca in 1272 and to that o f Burgos i n 1275. A man o f singular versatility, he was also a close confidant of Alfonso X ; the king's chancellor and notary at the time o f his promotion to Toledo, w i t h an intellectual range of interests which paralleled that of 'el Rey Sabio' himself. The contents of his remarkable library, his university career at Padua i n the 1260s, and his involvement in the king's historical as well as his legal enterprises, all attest to Gudiel's exceptional qualities. He was a cosmopolitan churchman as much at ease in the pope's court as i n the king's. These qualities would be severely tested in his dealings w i t h his bankers i n the early 1280s. I n a study published twenty years ago I gave some account o f these dealings. 1 Since then further documentation bearing on his financial affairs has been discovered i n the archive o f Toledo cathedral by the archivist o f that exceptional repository, Ramon Gonzâlvez, and Francisco Hernandez (Carleton University, Ottawa) in the course of their preliminary work for the Proyecto Burriel. 2 Dr. Hernandez and I have in preparation a study of Gudiel's life and career in which the archbishop's financial affairs w i l l be fully described and documented. In anticipation of that, for the moment I shall seek to do no more than indicate the scale of his borrowing operations and just something o f the value o f this material for students o f medieval banking practices. 1

The Spanish Church and the Papacy in the Thirteenth Century, Cambridge 1971, 134-7. 2 The aim of which is to publish all the pre-1500 material contained in the chapter archive of Toledo cathedral. The first fruits of the project have been published by F. J. Hernândez, Los Cartularios do Toledo. Catâlogo documental, Monumenta Ecclesiae Toletanae Historica 1.1, Madrid: Fundaciôn Ramon Areces, 1985. Pp. xxxix + 854.

Peter Linehan

12

A t the time o f Gudiel's appointment as archbishop the church o f Toledo was already all too familiar w i t h the ramifications of international finance. I n September 1279 a debt o f 9333 maravedis 'et tercia' which Archbishop Sancho I I had contracted to Per Simon de Martell merchant o f Calatayud and 'companeros' had been settled by the surrender of a collection of jewels and precious objects from Sancho's chapel, the value o f which it had proved impossible to estimate i n Spain. O n the authority o f the archbishop-elect, Per Simon undertook to sell them for the best price he could get either at Montpellier or 'en corte de R o m a ' . 3 More serious for the future, however, was the fact that by that date the archbishopelect, Ferrân Rodriguez, was already heavily in debt. A t Christmas 1277 Alfonso X , who had previously advanced h i m the massive sum of 4 000 marks o f silver on the security o f the rents of his church, promised to underwrite further debts to be contracted at Rome where the question o f his confirmation was pending. There, between December 1279 and A p r i l 1280, the archbishop-elect borrowed £ 3 000 turonenses from Nicolas de Giulio (? Nicolas Egidii) and Paulo de Petro Dalio 'mercadores de Roma': a sum which the king repaid i n A p r i l 1281. Ferrân Rodriguez, who by this date was studying theology at the curia, challenged his creditors' figures. But Alfonso could not afford to quibble. For by A p r i l 1281 he desperately needed the assistance in Castile of his new archbishop. Gudiel had been at the papal court i n Orvieto at the time of his promotion in M a y 1280, and there, and at Viterbo, Avignon, Nîmes and Montpellier he was constrained to remain for the next four years, the prisoner of his creditors. His imprisonment was not altogether unwelcome to h i m however. For i n Castile the tensions between the king and his son, the Infante Sancho, were becoming ever more acute, and i n A p r i l 1282 the c i v i l war began which was to continue until Alfonso's death two years later. B y offering to clear his debts, thereby enabling h i m to return to Castile, Alfonso and Sancho both attempted to secure Gudiel's influential support. But the prudent archbishop preferred not to commit himself to either side, and elected to remain i n convenient exile. From between December 1280 and M a y 1283 some thirty documents have survived from which it is possible to follow the course of the archbishop's negotiations w i t h his creditors — the Chiarenti and the Ammanati o f Pistoia, principally the former. It is rather an exciting story, a story of ever-approaching deadlines and of nemesis constantly threatening. Historians never tire of describing medieval Spain as a 'society organised for war'. The leader of the Spanish Church i n the early 1280s might equally well be described as an 'archbishop organised for business'. He had been trained i n the royal chancery, and one of the lessons he had learned there was never to throw anything away. Gudiel was a great hoarder o f papers (and many of his records are indeed paper documents).

3

Memorial Histôrico Espanol i, Madrid 1851, 330-32. Archbishop Sancho had died in battle in October 1275.

Gonzalo Pérez Gudiel of Toledo 1280-1283

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Amongst them we find various corrected drafts of financial deeds, including forms of blank cheque for use by his agents: 'Nouerint uniuersi quod cum nos G. etc. teneamur talibus mercatoribus talis societatis in tanta summa peccunie quam in tali termino tenebamur The sums borrowed by h i m amounted to £ 13 700 turonenses. The value o f this sum in terms of the revenue of his see can be calculated from the equivalences supplied in the settlement made by h i m w i t h his successor as bishop of Burgos in November 1281. T o the abbot of Cardena he owed 4 39 marchas sterlingorum que valuerunt tunc 1638 [maravedis]', while to the archdeacon o f Valpuesta 4 pro centum marchis' 4 000 maravedis were due; giving an exchange rate for the mark of between 40 and 42 maravedis at this troubled t i m e . 4 The rents of the archdiocese which the abbot o f Covarrubias had deposited as security for the king's 4 000 marks loan must therefore have been worth about 160 000 maravedis, and Gudiel's £ 13 700 loan slightly more than five times that sum, about 822 000 maravedis: perhaps four to five years' worth o f the ordinary revenues o f his church. 5 The archbishop o f Toledo was playing a long game. What it was all spent on is far from clear. Apart from the payment o f £2 150 ( ? £ 2 450) to Cardinal Guillelmus of S. Marco, camerarius o f the college of cardinals in February 1281 'seruitii nomine', we know o f no major item of expenditure — though the archbishop's notorious bibliomania may have taken its toll. What the record does reveal is that the rates of interest charged varied between 15 and 60 per cent per annum. For example, when at Orvieto on 24 September 1281 he borrowed £ 2 550 parv. turonenses from the Chiarenti ('a dominis Ciarentino dni Anselmi Clarentis et Johanne Gualandeschi de societate domini Anselmi Clarentis . . . pro se et nomine dicti dni Anselmi Clarentini f i l i i sui, Mergolglisii, Bracii, Bertini, Fortebraccii, Paccii, Raynerii et Marsupini Meliorati et aliorum sociorum suorum'), he promised repayment on the feast of Assumption, 15 August 1282, at Nîmes 'aut in Romana curia ubicumque fuerit': 'quod si . . . in dicto termino non soluerit et omnia et singula in hoc contractu contenta non obseruabit promisit eisdem creditoribus ut dictum est stipulantibus reficere et restituere eis omnia et singula dampna et expensa, interesse et constamenta que uel quas iidem creditores aut eorum socii fecerint uel substituerint in defectum dicte solutionis aut pro ipsa peccunia exigenda.' But in the following June, when part o f the debt was repaid, the sum due was stated to be £ 3 500. I n nine months, damages, expenses, interest and costs on a loan of £ 2 550 had amounted to £ 950. 6 4 Yet in Castile in February 1282 an exchange of £ 22 turon. = 550 maravedis was stated. 5 For further data from the years 1309 -1311, see Linehan, The Church, the economy and the reconquista in early fourteenth-century Castile, Revista Espanola de Teologia, 43 (1983) 300-01. 6 In April 1280 the penalty stipulated for late repayment of a £ 1 200 loan made to Ferrân Rodriguez and due at Alcalâ on 1 July 1280 was 10 % per two months.

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Peter Linehan

In order to raise, and to continue to raise such costly loans, what security was the archbishop able to offer? Here he was in a difficulty, since so much of his church's moveable assets had already been deployed by his predecessor for the same purpose. Thus, when at A v i g n o n on 5 September 1282 he repaid a £ 300 loan to the Chiarenti, and it was recorded that it had been secured by a collection of jewels which had been deposited w i t h Arnaldo de Bastita, merchant of Barcelona (acting for M i g u e l de la Figuiera merchant o f Calatayud) during Ferrân Rodriguez's period as archbishop-elect, we learn that it was only on that very day that the first of his church's goods had been delivered to him. A n d we note that his brother had just joined h i m . 7 W e note also that later that month one of his chaplains recovered a collection of his vestments which had been left in the safe keeping of the Dominicans of Burgos (to w h o m the archbishop owed no less than 12 000 maravedis). There was a last-minute desperateness about his existence, almost a recklessness, which lends the story something of a picaresque quality. But not even Gudiel was able to survice as a remission man. Sometimes he was reduced to raiding his o w n considerable reserves o f books and valuables, the extraordinary collection which he had brought w i t h h i m to Italy from Burgos in 1 2 7 9 / 8 0 , evidently planning a long stay. Some of the items were not his to part with, his successor at Burgos w o u l d claim. 8 But those of them which wereincluded items o f his library which the church of Toledo w o u l d not recover from Montpellier until the 1320s. The reason why some o f Gudiel's prized volumes as well as parts o f his wardrobe came to rest for forty years in Montpellier was that in November 1281 the Chiarenti, to w h o m he now owed some £ 4 000, allowed h i m to leave Orvieto only on condition that he proceeded no further. As already explained, he was probably in no hurry to venture back to Castile. B y now the only collateral he had left was . . . himself. Moreover, there were the bookshops i n Montpellier to be inspected. A n d between there and A v i g n o n he divided his time, and when in March 1283 his bankers gave h i m leave to move on there he remained, safely distant from the Spanish C i v i l War.

7 'Et protestatur dictus dominus archiepiscopus se nichil ab abbate de Caueisrubeis uel aliunde aliud récépissé usque ad hanc diem preter predicta de rebus ad suam ecclesiam pertinentibus que fuerunt predecessorum suorum.' Amongst these items was one of the church's cartularies ('uolumen paruum priuilegiorum ecclesie tholetane cum cooperatorio de corio rubeo tholetano'). Both acts were witnessed by 'nobilis et discretus vir d. Garssias Petri miles'. 8 In the settlement between the two parties (Nov. 1281) the list of Burgos items to be restored by Gudiel included 'unus cisus de testa nucis, una brecta de argento parui ualoris, una lingua serpentis et in Yspania nomine suo, duo anuli pontificales de auro cum gemmis, cirothece de serico cum exmaltis, una mitra cohoperta per totum cum opere uario, alia mitra cum aurifrisio ad ymagines facto cum pernis'. The archbishop was also to restore the value of Burgos items 'quorum non habet facultatem restituendi sed ea distraxit', viz. 'octo cisi argenti, unus cisus de maçaro cum pede argenteo, et unus amictus vêtus cum pernis'.

Gonzalo Pérez Gudiel of Toledo 1280-1283

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There are three points to be made about the archbishop's dealings w i t h his bankers. One concerns speed o f communication, the possession o f an effective system o f intelligence. O f the two parties, appearances suggest that the archbishop was rather better served than the bankers (as in view of the critical situation in Castile he needed to be). A t any event, he seems to have managed to keep abreast of developments at home and to know when to move and when not to. His capacity for keeping up w i t h Castilian affairs appears greatly to have exceeded that o f the Chiarenti i n keeping up w i t h him. Gudiel's archiépiscopal rake's progress created havoc w i t h office routines which by the 1280s historians suppose had achieved a high level of sophistication. When, for example, in August 1282 the archbishop applied for a further prorogation of a debt he had contracted to the Chiarenti at Orvieto eleven months previously, the paperwork had not yet reached the company's agent i n A v i g n o n . 9 A n d the same performance was repeated in March 1283. Another, not unrelated to the last, is the degree of consideration this manymitred customer received from his paymasters. On 25 December 1282, for example, Proa Contis on behalf of the Ammanati Company granted h i m a fifth (or it may have been a seventh, the record is not altogether clear) stay o f execution on a debt of £ 2 000 which had been due for settlement on 1 July 1281. It is only the heroically bankrupt whose bankers give them a Christmas present. It was Gudiel's last from that quarter however. Twelve months later the Chiarenti were in the process of foreclosing on him. The process had begun sometime before 1 November 1283, on which day the archbishop entered his defence, appealing to the Roman Church against the threatened sanction of excommunication by the bishop o f Avignon. The grounds on which he did so — 'impossibilitas', 'difficultas', 'nouitas' — reveal the variety o f possibilities available even in extremis to a primate on the run. I n fact, however, his case amounted to special Castilian pleading: restrictions imposed by 'the prince of his land', the war in Castile, the worthlessness abroad of Castilian money . . . , 0

9 'de qua quidem summa ultima ignoratur terminus solucionis . . .; de quo quidem contractu duorum milium et quingentarum librarum turonensium et obligatione huius contractus... cuius contractus celebrati diem et solutionis faciende pars utraque ignorabat propter hoc quia dictus Marssupinus Melioratus dicebat se nondum récépissé instrumentum dicti debiti . . . a sociis suis qui habebant illud in curia Romana ubi fuit celebratus contractus, licet utraque pars crederet quod terminus solucionis esset in kalendis septembris uel in aliqua die mensis septembris.' Cf. Linehan, Spanish Church and the Papacy, 136 n. 7. 'Verum quia nullus potest nec debet ad impossibilitatem cogi ad solutionem facere memoratam in presenti loco et termino memoratis sit nobis impossibile quamquam super hoc ut omnia complerentur inter nos et ipsos mercatores conuenta operam et sollicitudinem dederimus bona fide, primo pro eo quod per compulsionem principis terre nostre de redditibus nostri archiepiscopatus et nostris propter guerras et turbationes terre tantum positum est et conuersum circa castrorum ecclesie Toletane custodiam (et) quod residuum sufficere ad solutionem dicti debiti non potuit ullo modo. Item quod propter difficultatem

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Peter Linehan

Gudiel appointed proctors to represent him, and the case looked set to run into the new year, 1284, and beyond. W h y at this stage had Gudiel's creditors finally moved against him? This is the last point for consideration here. The archbishop's appeal alluded to new restrictions which Alfonso X had placed on h i m and on the access he had previously enjoyed to the revenues of his church ('quasdam nouitates per principem nostrum factas iam uerbo et utinam non facto circa nos et redditus nostros'). This was a longstanding royal practice. The Castilian bishops had complained to Nicholas I I I about it in 1279, and it may w e l l have been i n order to answer the charge that Gudiel had been sent to the curia i n that year by the k i n g . 1 1 But the reason for the sudden anxiety of the Chiarenti to recover their capital was probably not this, but rather the recent clarification o f the situation i n Castile which since the outbreak of war there in the spring o f 1282 they had been unable to understand. On 9 August 1283 Martin I V declared for Alfonso X , and did so in terms which left outsiders in no doubt regarding the fate of those who had sided w i t h the Infante Sancho. 1 2 The archbishop o f Toledo's political equivocation had at last caught up w i t h him.

cambii quod inueniri non potest in illis partibus etiam cum illo residuo quod remansit de redditibus nostris et ecclesie nostre habere cambium nec potuimus nec possumus, sine quo solutio fieri non posset cum nostra sit adeo uilis moneta quod extra terram nostram penitus nichil ualet nec cum peccunia occurrere in termino memorato quamquam seit Deus in hoc fecerimus et fieri fecerimus posse nostrum. Item quod propter guerras et marium pericula que notoria sunt et manifesta illud modicum quod habemus et remansit de residuo castrorum et etiam illud in quo nobis subuenirent amici secure portari non potest nec illi qui nos in hiis iuuvarent libenter istis temporibus nobis aliquid mittere audent huiusmodi guerrarum et uiarum periculum formidantes. Item quod propter quasdam nouitates per principem nostrum factas iam uerbo et utinam non facto circa nos et redditus nostros ipsos redditus integre et libéré habere non possumus nec super redditibus et bonis nostris sicud alias inuenire consueueramus mutuum inuenire. Item esto quod nobis inpresenti soluendi possibilitas occurrisset quod esse non poterat ut prediximus causam cum idem Hugolinus creditor principalis sicud Deo placuit sit rebus humanis exemptus, nec aliquis eius appareat heres seu successor cui fieri possit prefata solutio, nobis si non fiat imputari non debet cum persona non appareat cuius intersit et cui fieri debeat solutio memorata. Unde . . . appellamus . . . Et nichilominus protestamur quod istam appellationem uidentes impossibilitatem soluendi per plures dies ante terminum interposuissemus nisi illi qui se ab Hugolino predicto dum uiueret dicebant habere mandatum nos super prorogatione termini dicte solutionis faciende detinuissent in uerbis inuentibus nobis per eos dilationem huiusmodi esse dandam. Et tandem postquam appropinquabat terminus quum iam nitchil (sic) restabat de tempore se nobis super hiis nitchil (sic) uelle facere responderunt. Et hec fuit causa quare ita tarde duximus ad huiusmodi appellationis beneficium conuolandum.' 11 Linehan, The Spanish Church revisited: the episcopal gravamina of 1279, in B. Tierney / P. Linehan (eds.), Authority and Power: Studies on Medieval Law and Government pres. to Walter Ullmann on his seventieth birthday, Cambridge 1980 [repr. Linehan, Spanish Church and Society 1150-1300, London, Variorum, 1983], 146. 12 'Insurgentis fremitus': Reg. Martin IV, ed. par les membres de l'Ecole française de Rome, Paris 1901, no. 479.

Gonzalo Pérez Gudiel of Toledo 1280-1283

17

A n d so at Christmas 1283 did Alfonso X , the king to whom he owed his advancement and from w h o m he had contrived to withhold his support when Alfonso had most needed it. On 28 of December Gudiel was at Montpellier when there arrived one Benignus de Luzar who said he was a member of the familia and household of K i n g Alfonso and, as the record strangely states, 'spoke the Lombard language'. The reason why he had come, he explained, was to have Pope Martin's bull read out. The implication was clear. For knowledge of news from the curia already four months old the residents of Montpellier did not need to rely on soi-disant Castilian special agents. That was not why Benignus de Luzar was there. He was there to serve notice on the archbishop of Toledo that Alfonso X was undeceived. When the pope's letters had been published in Castile on 20 October in the presence of M i g u e l Ferrândez 'alcaldus regis Castelle', the executor (Pedro Sanchez dean of Tudela) had focussed special attention on the archbishop, requiring h i m to return to his see or otherwise to ensure that the duty of loyalty to Alfonso X was exacted from all the churches of the archdiocese. Benignus had come as the dean of Tudela's agent. For Gudiel the game was up. When the executor's mandate had been read out he stated that he w o u l d have to think about it: 'quod super predictis deliberaret et haberet concilium et inde faceret quod deberet'. The sending of an emissary to Montpellier at the end of 1283, at a time when control of his kingdom was slipping from h i m almost by the hour, was a calculated act on the part of the king of Castile. Perhaps he had been prompted to do so by adherents of his who saw their o w n futures doomed w i t h the ruler they were supporting to the end while the upwardly mobile Gudiel kept his o w n counsel in a safe haven. Or perhaps he needed no prompting. Either way, the arrival of Benignus de Luzar destroyed both Gudiel's credibility and his credit.

Summary Based on materials in the Archive of Toledo Cathedral, this paper investigates the dealings of Archbishop Gonzalo Pérez Gudiel w i t h his creditors during his extended stay in Rome, A v i g n o n and Montpellier between 1280 and 1284.

2 Piergiovanni

JULIUS KIRSHNER

Encumbering Private Claims to Public Debt in Renaissance Florence Loans secured by real property ( bona immobilia), as the excellent studies of Armando Sapori, Cinzio Violante, and Silvana Collodo have shown, performed a critical role in facilitating credit and stimulating economic expansion in medieval Italy. 1 What is less well recognized is the role played by government obligations pledged as collateral in securing loans and other transactions in commercial and financial centers such as Venice, Genoa, and Florence. This paper, which is limited to late fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Florence, highlights the legal grounding and ramifications of transactions secured against private claims on the public debt of that city — a practice which included not only business and personal loans but also the transmission of property through gifts and bequests, the purchase of real estate, and, most importantly, the payment and restitution of dowries. Such encumbrances came into play soon after Florence consolidated its outstanding interest-bearing loans into the Monte Comune (the public debt) in 1343-45; and they became quite common as Florence's mountain of debt, as well as claims on it, increased dramatically over the next century. Note: The following abbreviations are used in the notes. ASF for Archivio di Stato of Florence; BNF for Biblioteca Nazionale of Florence; CS for Carte Strozziane; MC for Monte Comune; M G for Monte delle Graticole; and NA for Archivio Notarile Antecosimiano. I have converted all dates into modern style. The Florentine year began on March 25, so that dates falling between January 1 and March 24 were actually one year behind the modern year. For the sake of this paper, I have rounded off all fractions to the nearest whole number. I am most grateful to Osvaldo Cavallar and Elisabeth Vodola for their generosity and critical comments on a draft of the consilia edited in the appendices. 1 A. Sapori , I mutui dei mercanti fiorentini del Trecento e l'incremento délia propriété fondiaria, in Studi di storia economica (secoli X I I I - X I V - X V ) , Vol. I, Florence 1955, pp. 191 -221; C. Violante , Les prêtes sur gage foncier dans la vie économique et sociale de Milan au X I siècle, Cahiers de civilization médiévale, 5 (1962), pp. 147-168, 437459; S. Collodo , Credito, movimento délia proprietà fondiaria e selezione sociale a Padova nel Trecento, Archivio storico italiano, 112 (1983), pp. 1 -72. At the same time, contadini who were obliged to use real property to secure loans from moneylenders at relatively high rates of interest were often reduced to penury. See E. Fiumi, L'attività usuraria dei mercanti sangimignanesi nell'età comunale, Archivio storico italiano, 119 (1961), pp. 145-162; C. M. De La Roncière, Un changeur florentin du Trecento: Lippo di Fede del Sega (1285 env.-1363 env.), Paris 1973, pp. 97-112; G. Pinto, Aspetti dell'indebitamento e délia crisi délia proprietà contadina, in La Toscana nel tardo Medio Evo, Florence 1982, pp. 207-224. 2*

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It may be helpful to review i n rudimentary fashion the operations o f the Monte Comune, its records, and the foundational notions underlying the classification of monte credits as rights that were considered actionable as well as transferable. 2 Whether their loans were forced or made voluntarily, the names and residency of all citizen-lenders, as well as the dates, amounts, and yields of their loans, were registered by government clerks in the Monte*s central account books and registers which were organized around the city's four quarters. These bookentry-only registrations, rather than certificates o f debt issued to individual lenders, served as proof of both the government's obligations and the lenders' claims, which together composed property rights called crediti di monte. The face value of the credits was recorded in gold florins (fiorini d'oro), a money of account. Although monte credits as a rule carried no expiration date on which the principal was scheduled to be refunded, in the fifteenth century the Monte periodically redeemed credits at prices well below face value. A t no time during this period did the Monte pay a premium for credits (an amount in excess of their face value). The statutory rate o f interest (paghe), originally pegged at 5 percent, was disbursed i n five installments annually to the owners of record or persons designated by them. Plentiful and versatile, credits were not only traded at market prices but were also used to offset debts, retired to pay taxes (composizione), applied to the payment of criminal fines levied by the city, and encumbered by third parties. B y the second half of the fifteenth century, they were principally utilized in the operations o f the Monte delle doti, a municipal dowry fund established in 1425. Due to a steady decrease over the course of the fifteenth century in the promised rate of interest — it sank to 2.25 percent in 1493 — and in any case was rarely paid on schedule — and to the policy o f redemption below face value, the price of monte credits often plummeted below 25 percent of face value. Not infrequently, claims for overdue interest ( paghe sostenute) were transferred together w i t h the credits. The city levied a transaction tax (gabella) equal to 2 percent of the face value of the credits, and to be legally valid all such transactions had to be recorded in the ledgers o f the Monte. Thus when credits changed hands the scribes w o u l d duly register them in the name of the purchaser, beneficiary, fiduciary agent, donee, and so on. Transactions violating the terms of the encumbrances placed on credits could not be legally executed. 2

On the Monte Comune, see B. Barbadoro, Le finanze della repubblica fiorentina. Imposta diretta e debito fino all'istituzione del monte, Florence 1929; R. Barducci, Politica e speculazione finanziaria a Firenze dopo la crisi del primo Trecento (13481358), Archivio storico italiano, 137 (1979), pp. 176-219; A. Molho, Florentine Public Finances in the Early Renaissance, Cambridge, Mass. 1971; idem, L'amministrazione del debito pubblico a Firenze nel quindicesimo secolo, in I ceti dirigenti nella Toscana del Quattrocento, Florence: Comitato sulla storia dei ceti dirigenti in Toscana, 1987, pp. 191-207; E. Conti, L'imposta diretta a Firenze nel Quattrocento (1427-1494), Rome: Istituto storico Italiano per il Medio Evo, 1984. For the Monte in the Grand Duchy, see J.-C. Waquet, Le Grand-Duché de Toscane sous les derniers Médicis (Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises D'Athenès et de Rome, n. 266), Rome 1990, pp. 319-489.

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Despite the wealth of information that can be extracted from these ledgers to shed light on the perennial issue o f which social class held the Florentine public debt, the difficulties attendant on understanding the arrangements that made encumbrances and the circulation of credits over time possible must not be underestimated. The chief difficulty, simply put, is the ambiguous and elliptic nature of the record: the monte ledgers usually provide only a highly abbreviated version o f the financial and legal transactions we wish to study. A transaction that may have taken days or months to hatch is compressed into a few lines. Only occasionally do the clerks spell out the type of transaction being recorded (e. g., sale, offset, loan, deposit, exchange, dowry, novation, delegation, or gift). Prices at which credits were traded were always omitted — a serious shortcoming for economic historians, making an historical reconstruction of the secondary market a Herculean task. The abbreviated record often prevents us from fully knowing the number o f parties to a transaction and whether the parties may have been related by ties o f kinship as well as by law. The wholesale reliance on legal representatives to effect transactions by persons of property and by those treated as legally incompetent, especially minors and women, heightens our conundrum; for it is not easy to tell whether procurators were acting in the interest of the party who appointed them or in their o w n interest. 3 Fortunately, as we shall see, extant private and business account books (ricordanze) kept by numerous Florentine families can f i l l key gaps in our knowledge, allowing a fuller appreciation of the nature and circumstance o f the transactions registered in the Monte's ledgers. 4 The secondary market in monte credits also provoked the question of whether its operations — in particular the purchase o f credits in the market and the payment of interest to new creditors — should be characterized as usurious. 5 I n their search for a solution to this quandary, moral theologians and jurists were pressed to consider the defining characteristics of monte credits and the relationship between the city of Florence and its creditors. Standing at the heart o f the debate was the issue of whether a monte creditor had a present right or title to

3 In 1372, for instance, 122 of 226 women (53 percent) engaged in trading credits employed procurators (ASF, MC 1929). 4 The ricordanze of Luca di Matteo da Panzano, for example, furnish good illustrations of the practice of appointing a procurator to sell monte credits (ASF, CS, ser. 2a, 9, fols., 74v, 78v, 81v). 5 On the moral controversy ignited by the Monte, see J. Kirshner, Storm over the 'Monte Comune': Genesis of the Moral Controversy over the Public Debt of Florence, Archivium Fratrum Praedicatorum, 53 (1979), pp. 219-276; idem, 'Ubi est ille?' Franco Sacchetti on the Monte Comune of Florence, Speculum, 59 (1984), pp. 556-584; idem, Reading Bernardino's Sermon on the Public Debt, in Atti del Simposio internazionale Cateriniano-Bernardino (Siena, 17-20 Aprile 1980), ed. D. Maffei and P. Nardi, Siena 1982, pp. 547-632; and W. Trusen, Die Anfänge öffentlicher Banken und das Zinsproblem. Kontroversen im Spätmittelalter, in Recht und Wirtschaft in Geschichte und Gegenwart (Festschrift für Johannes Bärmann), Munich 1975, pp. 113-131.

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something which would carry w i t h it a continuous right to transfer by sale, even though the right of possession or enjoyment might be postponed to some uncertain time in the future. The debate over this and related issues — which led to a great deal o f metaphysical speculation — has been treated at length by modern historians, and there is no need to review here what should now be familiar historical terrain. 6 Suffice it to say that there was a consensus that the purchaser of monte credits acquired a right to (ius), as well as a right to sue for (actio), the principal of the loan (mutuum), although there was some disagreement about the morality of the purchase. Theoretically more problematic was the purchase of a concurrent right to paghe, which was promised creditors by statute. Supporters of the market in monte credits pleaded that the sale of a right to paghe contained all the necessary elements of a legally and morally valid contract of sale (emptiovenditio) of an annual income. Some theorists even asserted that a right to paghe was comparable to incorporeal rights like usufruct, tithes, and servitudes, and that therefore it was capable of transfer by sale. Thus they viewed monte credits as rights to things of present and future value which had no physical existence — what we today would call intangibles — and in which a person can have a vested interest and title. W i t h equal vigor the opponents of the Monte countered that a right to collect paghe could not be transferred because it was impossible for such a right to exist in the first place. I n theory, the borrower — or, as here, the city — became the owner of the thing lent and was obligated only to return in due time an equivalent amount. The city neither had a duty to pay paghe nor did it furnish its creditors w i t h a vested right to exact paghe, and thus creditors had no legal remedy to compel the city to pay paghe, despite its statutory promise obligating itself to do so. The sum promised to and actually received by the original lenders must be given not as an entitlement but freely as compensation (interesse, dampnum, lucrum cessans) for the damages suffered by the lender, or as a gift (donum) in gratitude for the loan. Anyone who lent to the city w i t h the intention (cum spe) of receiving paghe was guilty of the crime and sin of usury, which imposed an obligation to restore all illicit gains to the city. These moral questions impinged on the language employed by the government of Florence i n authorizing the trading o f monte credits. Early on, in an enactment of 1344, creditors were granted permission to exchange and transfer to other citizens of Florence their rights to any sum of money owed to them by the commune by virtue of their loans ("quod omnes et singuli qui ab ipso communi habere vel recipere debent aliquam pecunie quantitatem vigore alicuius mutui vel assignamenti vel deputati eisdem facientis possint eisque liceat vigore et auctoritate presentis provisionis sua iura permutare et in alium florentinum trans-

6 See the references in the previous note and A. Spicciani, Capitale e interesse tra mercatura e povertà nei teologi e canonist! dei secoli X I I I - X V , Rome 1990.

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ferre"). 7 By allowing monte creditors to trade their credits, the government was also sanctioning a radical departure from the statutory codification of 1325 that prohibited creditors from ceding their rights against the commune to third parties ("De actionibus non cedendis contra commune Florentie"). 8 This prohibition derived from the Roman legal principle that the personal nature of creditors' rights arising from an obligation between a debtor and a creditor precluded the direct transfer o f those rights to a third party. 9 I n the revised code of 1355, the government openly acknowledged the exemption of monte creditors from the prohibition. 1 0 Perhaps responding to moral and legal concerns, however, it gave no express authorization for the transfer of the creditor's right to paghe; yet we can safely assume on the basis of daily trades recorded in the Monte s ledgers involving the transfer of rights to paghe that authorization was surely intended and taken for granted by investors who believed that they acquired a present interest in property and paghe which was alienable. That authorization was finally made explicit in 1425, when the government unequivocally cast aside any doubts surrounding the transferability o f interest by announcing that the new creditor stands in place o f his predecessor w i t h respect to both capital and compensation ("succédât in omnibus in locum sui principalis et quoad capitale et interesse"). 11 In the fifteenth century, the legitimacy of designating monte credits as rights rather than another species of property came to the fore in disputes over inheritance. Otto Niccolini (1410-1470), an eminent Florentine jurist who was unquestionably acquainted w i t h the operations of the Monte Comune, wrote what was to become an influential opinion devoted to this matter (Appendix l ) . 1 2 I n the case 7

Quoted in my Reading San Bernardino, p. 548 n. 2. s Statuti della Repubblica fiorentina (Statuto del Podestà dell'anno 1325), ed. R. Caggese, Florence 1921, lib. 4, rub. 5, p. 306. 9 P. Ourliac and J. De Malafosse, Droit romain et ancien droit. Les Obligations, Paris 1957, pp. 219 ff. ίο ASF, Statuti di Firenze, Podestà (1355), 18, lib. 4, rub. 6, fol. 193v (De actionibus non cedentis contra commune Florentie): "Nulla persona civitatis, comitatus vel districtus Florentie vel Fesulani Episcopatus alicui singulari persone, collegio vel universitati possit cedere ius vel actionem contra commune Florentie vel aliam personam obligatam pro communi, sed debeat ei satisfieri de pecunia dicti communis; et camerarii camere communis Florentie predicti solvere teneantur. Et si alicui dedit vel cessit, revocetur, si satisfactum non esset ei qui recepit iura vel actiones de predictis. Et ius quod primo habuerit talis creditor contra commune Florentie sit extinctum, non obstante dicta cessione quam fecerit contra commune Florentie secundo creditori . . . Et predicta locum non habeant in mutuis factis communi Florentie de pecunia, que vulgariter appellatur de pecunia del monte, nec in creditorbis dicte pecunie, in quibus observentur ordinamenta édita circa ipsam materiam." This statute was included with verbal modifications in the codification of 1415: Statuta populi et communis Florentiae, Friburg 1773-1783, Vol.1, lib. 2, rub. 101, p. 195. Unfortunately, neither Alessandro Bencivenni's nor Tommaso Salvetti's commentaries on the Statuta of 1415 contain glosses on rubric 101. 11

Quoted in my Reading San Bernardino, p. 548 n. 2. In the absence of a modern monograph on Otto Niccolini's career as a statesman and lawyer, which would be well worth the undertaking, see G. Niccolini di Camugliano, 12

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at hand, one Piero named as universal heir his son Filippo, w i t h the proviso that he could not alienate, without express authorization from certain unnamed persons, any immovables left by the testator until he completed his twenty-fifth year. Could Filippo, under the terms of the w i l l , trade or alienate a certain number of monte credits remaining in the testator's estate? On the face o f it, Niccolini began, it seems that he could not: "because the credits are a certain perpetual rent ( redditus perpetui ), they therefore should be judged in the same way as immovables." As justification, he identified monte credits w i t h other rents treated as immobilia — namely, the grain-rents attached to ecclesiastical property, the annona civilis in lex Iubemus (Cod. 1.2.14 pr) and panis civilis in lex Cum quidam dotes (Cod. 5.12.31.5), the annuities ( redditus annui) received by the Order of Friars Minor, and the annual rents (annualis prestatio) accruing to manors. He fortified his postion by invoking the authority of Federigo Petrucci da Siena, Cino da Pistoia, Bartolus, and Baldus — the luminaries of fourteenthcentury jurisprudence. 1 3 However, Niccolini observed, i f we consider what is owed annually to the monte creditor — which is money (pecunia) paid in installments — and i f we consider the obligation to pay money — which is incorporeal — an alternative interpretation becomes necessary. For when the annual rent is equated w i t h money itself, then by extension monte credits can be characterized as res mobilis. Likewise, when the annual rent is equated w i t h the obligation itself, the money which is owed serves as a causal agent to transform the antecedent and incorporeal obligation into res mobilis. B y re-classifying monte credits as movables, Niccolini had liberated them from the prohibition against alienation, but he had also arrived at this determination by a logical sleight of hand that reified a disembodied obligation — a suspect move that would persuade few of his fellow jurists. Fully aware of the problem, Niccolini went on to demonstrate that monte credits are properly called actionable rights and debts (actiones and nomina debitor urn) and therefore fall under a third species of property, distinct from movables and immovables. Even though annual rents derived from land or

The Chronicles of a Florentine Family (1200-1470), London 1933, pp. 179-307; and L. Martines, Lawyers and Statecraft in Renaissance Florence, Princeton 1968, passim. !3 On this theme, see F. Veraja, Le origini della controversia teologica sul contratto di censo nel X I I I secolo, Rome 1960; P. Ourliac, La théorie canonique des rentes au XVe siècle, in Etudes historiques à la mémoire de Noël Didier, Grenoble 1960, pp. 231 243; B. Schnapper , Les rentes chez theologiens et les canonistes du XHIe au XVIe siècle, in Etudes d'histoire du droit canoniques dédiées à Gabriel Le Bras, Paris 1965, Vol. II, pp. 965-995; W. Trusen, Zum Rentenkauf im Spätmittelalter, in Festschrift für Hermann Hempel, Göttingen 1972, pp. 140-158; and F. J. H. Vosman's excellent thesis, Economische moraal van Ioannes Maior (1467-1550): over financiële transacties, rentekoop, huur, pacht en vennootschap (Accademia Alfonsiana) Rome 1981. For Baldus's equation of panis civilis with redditus , see Baldus to Dig. 12.1.11.1 ad vv. Si tibi (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Barb, lat 1398, fol. 41r); Consilia, Venice 1575, Vol. V, fols. 61rb-v, cons. 210.

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attached to ecclesiastical property cannot be transfered, it does not automatically follow that they should be enumerated among immobilia. N i c c o l i n i enlisted the authority of the Glossa ordinaria, Baldus, and especially Bartolus, who distinguished between annuities based on land (redditus annuarii super re immobili), as in the lex Iubemus, and annuities stemming simply from a personal action — that is, from the creditor's claim against the debtor (actio in personam ). Annuities are to be reckoned immobilia when, for example, ten baskets of grain are owed to someone whose claim is against the thing owed (actio in rem). Monte credits, i n contradistinction to immovables, arise from a personal liability to pay annuities by the debtor-commune. The grounds for treating the commune as i f it were a person are found in the lex Mortuo (Dig. 46.1.22), where a municipality, a club, a partnership, and even an inheritance are regarded as the functional equivalent of a person. 1 4 Niccolini deduced from this legal fiction that such credits are owed by a genuine person — that is to say, one represented by the commune, which has paid the annuity to someone who is a person or to anyone who stands in his place. I n conclusion, the credits inherited by Filippo should be construed not as immobilia but as evidence of a personal liability on the part of the commune to pay an annuity and of a corresponding right available to the creditor to seek redress against the commune. Niccolini's classification of monte credits w o n acceptance in another consilium on a similar case dating from the early sixteenth century and drafted by a team of jurists, including Niccolö di Simone A l t o v i t i (1455-1518), Antonio d i Vanni Strozzi (1455-1523) and Francesco Guicciardini ( 1 4 8 3 - 1 5 4 0 ) . 1 5 They explicitly recognized what Niccolini merely implied: that the monte creditor's right of redress against the commune was merely a convenient legal fiction — for the city of Florence, they insisted, can be compelled neither to repay the capital of forced and voluntary loans nor i n their stead to pay compensation to creditors. 1 6

ι 4 On this legal fiction, see P. W. Duff\ Personality in Roman Private Law, London 1938, esp. pp. 20, 31, 224-225, R. Orestano , II "problema delle persone giuridiche" in diritto romano, Turin 1968, pp. 79 et seq; R. Feenstra, L'histoire des fondations (à propos de quelques études récentes), Revue d'histoire du droit, 24 (1956), pp. 381-448. See also Ρ. Grossi's stimulating essay, Dominia e Servitutes (Invenzioni sistematiche del diritto comune in tema di servitù), Quaderni fiorentini per la storia del pensiero giuridico moderno, 18 (1989), pp. 331-394. The passage in the lex Mortuo cited by Niccolini appears to be an interpolation, on which see V. Angio-Ruiz, La società in diritto romano, Naples 1950, p. 79. is ASF, CS, ser. 3a, 41, fols. 451r-470r, 460v-461r: "Et quod dicta crédita montis non dicantur bona immobilia, sed sint nomen debitoris, consuluit insignis doctor dominus Octo de Nicholinis advocatus optimus, incipit In nomine domini etc., Viso testamento Fieri, movetur ex pluribus, que superius adducta sunt. Quia sive consideramus illud quod debetur nobis, non est immobile sed pecunia, sive consideramus obligationem et actionem quibus tenetur nobis communitas, tunc est nomen debitoris, quod differt a bonis mobilibus et immobilibus, d. 1. A divo § in venditione (Dig. 42.1.15.2)." 16

This legal situation of Florence's creditors was analogous to those of the kings of England before 1699, when the House of Lords established a procedure allowing Crown

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In principle, the city as debitrix was obligated to compensate creditors w i t h an annuity, but in practice this personal promissory obligation was unenforceable, judicially as well as extrajudicially — an operative reality that accurately reflected the collecive experience of generations o f monte creditors. When creditors sold and transferred their rights to monte credits to third parties ("possunt vendi et in alios transferri"), they were in effect transferring unenforceable claims against the city for the original debt and for deferred and future payments of paghe. As Roman jurists had sanctioned the sale and transfer of obligations by creditors to third parties, it is not surprising that our Florentine jurists unhesitatingly sanctioned trading in monte credits — a practice in which, by virtue of belonging to the upper echelons of Florentine society, they themselves could not but have engaged. Attributing the quality of negotiability to monte credits and to the obligations of other cities in this period has become a commonplace o f modern scholarship. Peter Spufford maintains that "the money supply was also increased in the thirteenth century, again in a limited number o f cities such as Genoa, Florence and Venice, by the creation of negotiable paper, such as in the monte, the public debts of the cities." 1 7 For Richard Goldthwaite, Florentines "participated in the lively market that arose around the buying and selling of negotiable claims to both credits and interest payments." 1 8 Similarly, Fernand Braudel and John Day style monte credits as "negotiable s t o c k " . 1 9 In my opinion, it is historically unjustifiable, though admittedly tempting, to equate transferability w i t h negotiability and to assume that monte credits were a Renaissance version o f modern creditors for the first time to seek redress by petitioning the Court of the Exchequer (W. Holdsworth, A History of English Law, Vol. IX, London 1944, p. 33). For comparative purposes, it is worth citing Alexander Hamilton's argument, made when he was Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, that a government does not have the right to modify by legislation promises made to its bondholders (Second Report on the Public Credit, January 16 and 21, 1795, in A. Hamilton, Papers on Public Credit, Commerce, and Finance, ed. S. McKee, New York, 1957, p. 163): "When a government enters into contract with an individual, it deposes as to the matter of the contract its constitutional authority, and exchanges the character of legislator for that of moral agent, with the same rights and obligations as an individual. Its promises may be justly considered as excepted out of its power to legislate, unless in aid of them. It is, in theory, impossible to reconcile the two ideas of a promise which obliges with a power to make a law which can vary the effect of it. " 17 P. Spufford, Money and its Use in Medieval Europe, Cambridge 1988, p. 258. Of course, the Florentine Monte was established in the fourteenth century, not in the thirteenth, as the author has it. 18 R. Goldthwaite, Local Banking in Renaissance Florence, The Journal of European Economic History, 14 (1985), pp. 5-55. 19 Braudel, The Wheels of Commerce. Civilization & Capitalism, translation of Les jeux de l'exchange by S. Reynolds, New York 1982, p. 100; J. Day, Moneta metallica e moneta credizia, in Storia d'ltalia, Annali 6, Turin 1983, p. 357. P. Partner, in his otherwise excellent study of papal finances, errs when he states that Florentine scrip was handed to taxpayers in return for their forced loans: see his Papal Financial Policy in the Renaissance and Counter-Reformation, Past and Present, 88 (1980), p. 25.

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financial instruments, such as bank notes, bearer bonds, treasury bills, share warrants and certificates, bills of exchange, promissory notes, and checks, all o f which are transportable and homogeneous. 2 0 Compare, for example, monte credits w i t h negotiable instruments in the United States today. Under the current Uniform Commercial Code in the United States, a writing is said to be negotiable when it is signed by the maker or drawer; contains an unconditional order or promise to pay a certain sum in money and no other promise, order, obligation, or power is given by the maker or drawer; is payable on demand or at a definite time; and is payable to order or to bearer. The absence of any one o f these attributes makes the bond nonnegotiable, and as none of them can be said to apply to monte credits, it is plainly inaccurate to label them negotiable. Moreover, the hallmark of negotiability in the twentieth century, the so-called holder-in-duecourse doctrine, according to which the transferee can acquire rights that are better or greater than the rights of the transferor, as well as an indefeasible title against all the world, w o u l d have scandalized Florentine jurists. This doctrine stands in direct violation of the Roman law m a x i m that " n o one can transfer to another more rights (plus iuris) than he has h i m s e l f ' (Dig. 50.17.54). Finally, even i f the doctrine of negotiability had taken root in this period, it is uncertain that it w o u l d have been extended to monte credits, since the government of Florence sought to restrict and thus control their circulation by barring foreigners from acquiring or otherwise holding them. A n exception to this prohibition occured when, in dire need of fresh funds to check the galloping fiscal crisis and resultant deficits of the 1420s, the government enacted preferential legislation authorizing foreign princes and prelates to invest in the Monte. 21 I n the absence of negotiable instruments, what legal devices were employed for the transfer of the rights o f monte creditors? Unfortunately, no precise answer can be given to this question, because, o f course, a Renaissance " U n i f o r m Com20 On the origins of negotiability, see J. H. Munro's detailed study, The International Law Merchant and the Evolution of Negotiable Credit in Late-Medieval England and the Low Countries, in Banchi pubblici, banchi privati e monti di pietà nell'Europa preindustriale, Genoa 1991, pp. 47-79. My own thoughts on this subject have been shaped by J. S. Roger's stimulating essay, The Myth of Negotiability, Boston College Law Review, 31 (1990), pp. 266-334. On the assignment and negotiability of commercial paper in the United States, I have relied on S. H. Nickles , Commercial Paper, St. Paul, Minn. 1988. 21 For the privileged foreigners who were allowed to invest in the Monte on advantageous terms, usually for political and diplomatic reasons, see J. Kirshner, Papa Eugenio IV e il Monte Comune: Documenti su investimento e speculazione nel debito pubblico di Firenze, Archivio storico italiano, 127 (1969), pp. 339-382; Molho, Florentine Public Finances, pp. 141 et seq. This policy also applied to foreign investments in the Monte of Venice. See G. Luzzatto, I prestiti della Repubblica di Venezia. Documenti finanziari della Repubblica di Venezia, Padua 1929, p. CLV. In contrast, Hamburg actively sought to sell its annuités at low interest in other cities, such as Lübeck; see H. Reincke, Die alte Hamburger Staatsschuld der Hansezeit 1300-1563, in Städtewesen und Bürgertum als geschichtliche Kräfte: Gedächtnisschrift für F. Rörig, ed. A. von Brandt and W. Koppe, Lübeck 1953, pp. 489-511.

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mercial Code" deriving from a substantive jurisprudence of commercial law never existed! Deriving an answer from the consilia addressing ad hoc cases like the ones discussed above, from the body o f law regarding obligations, and from the very contracts utilized by traders 2 2 has convinced me that, apart from inheritances and gifts (donatio), the rights of creditors were ordinarily transferred to other parties by assignment, 2 3 or, to resort to the terminology of the period, by cessio iuris. 24 Cessio iuris, strictly speaking, was the only mode for transferring monte credits envisioned in the successive redactions of the Florentine statutes. Granted, various legislative measures authorized creditors to sell ("vendere") their credits to third parties, 2 5 jurists recognized the sale of a right of action as w e l l as monte credits, 2 6 and private account books and letters casually referred to the transfer o f credits and paghe as purchases and sales. 27 But such references,

22 For a typical transfer of the right to monte credits plus overdue paghe, see MC, 1802, fol. 24r, 19 December 1369: "Cione di Guadagnio, quartiere Santa Croce, a Lapaccio di Francescho Inpastino, quartiere San Giovanni, f. 13, s. 1, d. 4, vecchio colle paghe sostenute." The use of the preposition a was merely conventional bookkeeping shorthand for "ponemone a ragione di", "presto e dispositö a discretione a", "asegnamo la ragione . . . a", "a conti di", and cognate expressions that were understood to mean the transfer and assignment of a right to something from one party to another. For these expressions, see H. Hoshino, Francesco di Iacopo del Bene cittadino fiorentino del Trecento, in Annuario dell'Istituto Giapponese di Cultura, 4 (1966-67), pp. 105-106; Il libro degli affari proprii de casa di Lapo di Giovanni Niccolini de'Sirigatti, ed. C. Bee, Paris 1969, p. 85; II libro di ricordanze dei Corsini (1362-1457), ed. A. Petrucci, Rome 1965, p. 60; Ugolino di Niccolô Martelli, Ricordanze dal 1433 al 1483, ed. F. Pezzarossa, Rome 1989, p. 233. 23 The legal concept "assignment" should not be confused with the term "assegnamento" employed by Florentines to designate "a charge upon public revenue (for the repayment of a loan that had been made to a ruler or state)": F. Edler, Glossary of Medieval Terms of Business, Italian Series 1200-1600, Cambridge Mass., p. 32. See also Matteo Palmieri, Ricordi fiscali, ed. E. Conti, Rome 1983, p. 285. 24 On the cessio iuris, see M. Käser, Das römische Privatrecht, Munich 1971, Vol. 1, pp. 647-655; G. H. Maier, Zur Geschichte der Zession, in Festschrift für Ernst Rabel, ed. W. Kunkel and H. J. Wolff, Vol. II, Tübingen 1954, pp. 205-234; G. Astuti, Cessio (premessa storica), Enciclopedia del diritto, Milan 1959, Vol. VI, pp. 805-822; republished in the author's collected papers, Tradizione romanistica e civilità giuridica europea, Naples 1984, Vol. I l l , pp. 1803-1835; K. Luig, Zur Geschichte der Zessionslehre, Köln 1966. 25 For instance, ASF, Provvisioni Registri, 41, fol. 136r (20 Jun. 1354); Archivio delle Prestanze, 1, fols. 4r (13 July 1358), 17r (13 March 1375); Provvisioni Registri, 98, fol. 78v (10 Oct. 1409); ibid., 105, fol. 265r (29 Dec. 1415); Balîe, 25, fol. 20 (20 Sept. 1434); ibid., 27, fol. 174v (20 Dec. 1453); Provvisioni Registri, 169, fol. 56v (19 Aug. 1478): "vendere e comperare a tempo crediti di monte"; ibid., 195, fols. 89v-91v (4 March 1505). 26 See, for example, the glosses and commentaries on Dig. 18.4.23 pr., where vendere actionem and cedere actionem are used as equivalents. On emptio-venditio of monte credits, see Lorenzo Ridolfi's Tractatus de usuris, in Tractatus universi iuris, Venice 1586, Vol. VII, fols. 15r-50r. 27 A. Sapori, Speculazione sui titoli del Debito Pubblico dal 1361 al 1371, in Studi di storia economica, Vol.1, pp. 347-352; II libro di Ricordanze dei Corsini, p. 122: "Ricordo che questo di di gienaio [1423] io conperai da Lucio d'Antonio Pepi uno

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I contend, amounted to what the anthropologist C. Geertz describes as "vernacular characterizations o f what happens connected to vernacular imaginings of what can [happen]." 2 8 W h i l e the trope of emptio-venditio gave expression to the immediate, self-evident experience o f thousands of Florentine creditors, who genuinely believed that monte credits were capable o f being sold and which they themselves were capable of purchasing and selling, it also displaced, even i f only momentarily, the formal requirement that a cessio iuris was necessary for a legally binding transfer of ius and actio regarding debt. 2 9 The same linguistic phenomenon currently exists w i t h respect to the transfer of mortgages and security devices i n the United States. The secondary market i n mortgages i n the United States is a big business, in which all the actors informally converse in the language of buying and selling; yet in point of law, mortgages, like monte credits, are transferred not by sale but by means of assignment. Although both judges and legislators in Louisiana use "assignment" and "pledge" interchangeably in referring to security devices, the two concepts are separate theoretically: "a pledge is a giving of possession to secure a loan; an assignment is a true transfer of t i t l e . " 3 0 Transfer by assignment was accomplished in Florence through a special form of mandate allowing the creditor ( A ) to cede his iura and actiones to the transferee (C), w h o m he commissioned as his representative to bring action against the debtor (B). However, this was a legal fiction, since A designated C as procurator in rem suam, which indicated that C was legally empowered to act in his o w n interest. Unless there was a stipulation to the contrary, C could legitimately transfer his ius and actio to another party (D) by appointing D as a substitute procurator in rem suam.31 These procedures were employed in transfers of credits credito di Monte comune di fiorini quatrociento ottanta d'oro . . ."; ASF, CS. ser. 2a, n. 9, Ricordanze di Luca di Matteo da Panzano (1406-1461), fols. 60r, 67r (year: 1430); Ricordanze di Bernardo di Stoldo Rinieri, ASF, Conventi Soppressi (San Francesco di Firenze), n. 95, Vol. 212, fols. 151v- 152r (year: 1457); Matteo Palmieri , Ricordi fiscali, passim; Neri di Bicci, Le ricordanze (10 marzo 1453-24 aprile 1475), ed. B. Santi, Pisa 1976, pp. 6, 72, 135-136, 138; Alessandra Macinghi negli Strozzi, Lettere di una gentildonna fiorentina del secolo X V , ed. C. Guasti, Florence 1877, pp. 573-574, letter of 7 Feb. 1465; Ricordi di Biago Buonaccorsi, in Biagio Buonaccorsi. Sa vie-son temps-son oeuvre, ed. D. Fachard, Bologna 1976, pp. 180, 182, 192, 198, 200-202; Ricordanze di Primerano di Primerani, ASF, Corporazioni religiose soppresse (San Ambrogio), n. 79, fol. 7v (year: 1510). 28 C. Geertz, Local Knowledge: Fact and Law in Comparative Perspective, in Local Knowledge. Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology, New York 1983, p. 215. 29 See the reference cited in η. 9 above. 30 M. H. Rubin, Louisiana Law Review, 42 (1982), pp. 413-429, quote on p. 413. 31 Numerous examples of this practice are found in the personal account books of Michele di Bindaccio di Consiglio de'Cerchi e chonpagni, banchieri (ASF, Archivio Cerchi, n. 317), one of which occured on 17 Apr. 1483: "Pietro di Jacopo di Chonpangnio da Pisa c'à venduto uno credito di dota di fiorini dugentosesantasette s. iii d. iii larghi, a'quali c'à sustituito (sic) suo prochuratore inrevocabile, il quale credito dice in Giovanni di messer Michele (?) e di Lisabetta sorella del detto Piero e donna di detto Giovanni . . . " An analysis of instrumenta cessionis iuris preserved in the Archivio Notarile

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involving an offshoot o f the D o w r y Fund, the so-called Seven Percent Fund, which was established in 1478. 3 2 Although cumbersome, this arrangement (which was made possible by Roman law) actually facilitated credit, as J. A . Crook has reminded us, 3 3 because it neither required B ' s agreement nor required C to hand over to A what he collected from B. Assignment of debts during the bullionfamines of the latter Middle Ages was indispensable in the settlement of other debts. As M . M . Postan has observed, "a merchant contracting an obligation to somebody else w o u l d 'set over' to him his o w n debts, and thus effect payment without the actual employment o f c o i n . " 3 4 Relevant, too, are the observations on the assignability of government securities made by Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, in his First Report on the Public Credit (1790): "The nature of the contract, in its origin, is that the public w i l l pay the sum expressed in the security, to the first holder or his assignee. The intent in making the security assignable is, that the proprietor may be able to make use of his property, by selling it for as much as it may be worth in the market, and that the buyer may be safe in the purchase." 3 5 Aside from such benefits, assignment did contain one major drawback. Unlike today's purchaser of a negotiable security, a Florentine who acquired monte credits acquired only the rights o f the transferor and thus only a derivative title. The language of Niccolini's consilium indicates that the transferee steps into the shoes of the transferor — exactly the sitution in which American bondholders i n the 1790s would find themselves, as described by Hamilton: "Every buyer, therefore, stands exactly in the place of the seller; has the same right w i t h h i m to the identical sum expressed in the security." 3 6 In Florence, as well as in the United States in the last decade of the eighteenth century, any third-party claims against the transferor w i t h respect to monte credits or securities could also be asserted against the transferee. 37 As credit-reporting agencies and title guaranty Antecosimiano in the Archivio di Stato of Florence would contribute to our understanding of the context in which debts were transferred in late medieval and Renaissance and Florence. A small number of such instruments redacted by the notary Biagio Boccadibue (1298-1314) have been edited by L. De Angelis, E. Gigli and F. Sznura (Université degli Studi di Firenze, Fonti di storia medievale e umanistica, I notai fiorentini dell'età di Dante), Vol. I, fascicolo 2, Florence 1983, docs. 220, 249, 251, 252, 347, 420. 32 J. Kirshner and J. Klerman. The Seven Percent Fund of Renaissance Florence, in Banchi pubblici, banchi privati e monti di pietà nell'Europa preindustriale, Genoa 1991, pp. 301-331. On this procedure in Toulouse and Montpellier, see M. Castaing-Sicard, Les contracts dans le très ancien droit Toulousain ( Χ - X I I siècle), Tolouse 1959, pp. 513 518; F. Wolff, Commerces et Marchands de Toulouse (vers 1350-vers 1450) Paris 1954, pp. 378-380; K. L. Reyerson, Business, Banking and Finance in Medieval Montpellier, Toronto 1985, pp. 104-105. 33 J. A. Crook, Law and Life of Rome, 90 B. C.-A. D. 212, Ithaca 1967, pp. 242-243. 34 M. Postan , Private Financial Instruments in Medieval England, in Medieval Trade and Finance, Cambridge 1973, p. 41. 35 Ed. cit. (η. 16 above), p. 11. 36 Ibid.

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companies had not yet been invented, 3 8 the prospective risks to transferees posed by unknown third-party claims and actual fraud were quite real (see below). I n Florence, the large majority of third-party claims arose when credits were encumbered for the purpose of securing a debt or the performance of an obligation. The terms for encumbrance 3 9 in our sources were condizione in the vernacular and conditio in Latin; for encumbrancer, condizionario / a and conditionarius / a; and for encumbered credits, crediti condizionati. I n the ensuing discussion of encumbrances, creditor refers to a creditor o f the commune, whose credits were encumbered even though that person was a debtor of the encumbrancer. Creditors often appointed procurators for the purpose of encumbering monte credits (ad conditionandum crédita montis). 40 W e find the formula che detto credit ο stia per sicurità di dota when credits were specifically designated as collateral security for a dowry. When credits were encumbered to secure dowries and other transactions, or to establish a life interest by usufruct, they became immobilized. Hence condizione referred primarily to someone's legal claim or interest which operated to restrict someone else's ability to dispose of the credits. T o be sure, condizione was also used to identify a proviso or stipulation which was affixed to the credits, and on the performance or non-performance of which the validity of the contract depended. It referred frequently to a possible future event, the occurrence of which would trigger the performance of a legal obligation — as, for example, in a suspensive condition attached to credits where a father designated them as a dowry for his daughter and where payment was contingent on her future marriage. W h i l e most condizioni came about as the result of an agreement between two or more parties, there was nothing barring a creditor from acting unilaterally — for instance, when, by means o f an encumbrance (sub conditione), she designated a person or institution as beneficiary of a certain amount of credits upon her death. Encumbrances could terminate automatically upon the expiration of a period of time, by mutual agreement of the parties, or by the f u l f i l m e n t of an obligation; or they could be relinquished unilaterally by a creditor who decided that she would rather liquidate her credits now than leave them as a legacy.

37 United States banks were making loans against the pledge of government securities soon after they were first issued in 1791. 38 On the deceptions practiced by one Florentine merchant, see F. Edler de Roover's fine study, Andrea Banchi, Florentine Silk Manufacturer and Merchant in the Fifteenth Century, in Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Vol. 3 (1966), pp. 223-285. See also R. F. E. Weissman, The Importance of Being Ambiguous: Social Relations, Individualism, and Identity in Renaissance Florence, in Urban Life in the Renaissance, ed. S. Zimmerman and R. F. E. Weissman, London and Toronto 1989, pp. 269-280. On credit reporting, see J. H. Madison, The Evolution of Commercial Credit Reporting Agencies in Nineteenth-Century America, Business History Review, 47 (1974), pp. 164-186. 39 I am using encumbrance, collateral, and security interest interchangably, even thought these terms can have different meanings in modern American and English law. 40 For an example of this instrument, see NA, 13527, sf. (15 June 1407).

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Whether formalized by a notarial instrument or made informally, encumbrances began to be recorded in the registers of the Monte from at least the 1360s. Without a comprehensive account o f the intricacies of the Monte Comune s operations, it would be rash to assume that every encumbrance was recorded systematically and consistently. Still, it is probable that encumbrancers normally w o u l d have demanded the recording of encumbrances in order to prevent their violation: the notaries responsible for entering transactions in the Monte registers could not lawfully execute the assignment, transfer, or re-encumbering of encumbered credits without express authorization of the encumbrancers or their agents. Established by law and maintained by communal officials, the registers of the Monte constituted a reliable though an imperfect public record, 4 1 which enabled the government to regulate traffic in credits, which was accepted as evidence i n Florentine courts, and which, by markedly reducing the risks borne by all parties, made private claims to public debt an attractive and fully accredited vehicle for securing a range o f transactions.

Loans Ironically, the often cryptic quality of encumbrances recorded in the Monte' s ledgers obscures for the historian the extent to which credits may have served to secure loans and sales on credit. One can only conjecture the existence of a credit transaction secured w i t h monte credits on the basis of an encumbrance stipulating that a creditor could not trade his credits for a fixed term (typically six months or a year) without authorization (parola e licenza) of the encumbrancer, or stipulating that during the fixed term the encumbrancer, without the creditor's further authorization, had the right to trade the credits i f he wished. 4 2 41 The registers were initially entrusted to fratres religiosi, usually Cistercian monks and conversi from the nearby Badia di Settimo. Dissatisfied with the way they were discharging their tasks, the government in 1353 replaced them with the Ufficiali del Monte to oversee the new institution's operations and especially to correct the errors and wrongful acts found in its registers ("reducendo errores et malitias librorum del monte") — that is, assigning lenders more credits than they actually owned and recording transfers of credits to which the seller lacked legitimate title. See ASF, Provvisioni Registri, 40, fols 102r (10 May 1353); ibid., 41, fol. 136r (20 June 1354); ibid., 42, fol. 132r (9 Oct. 1355): "Considérantes quod per officiales errores librorum et registrorum pecuniarum creditorum del monte multi condempnati seu declarati fuerunt pro eo quod facti, creati vel descripti fuerunt creditores dicti communis in dicta pecunia del monte in dictis libris vel registris ultra quod recipere et habere debeant aut debent a dicto communi vel quod in alium vel alios permutaverunt aut vendiderunt illud in quo et de quo non erant creditores in dampnum dicti communis." 42 These particular encumbrances in regard to 7 percent credits are analyzed by Kirshner and Klerman, The Seven Percent Fund. For earlier examples, see ASF, MC, 1939, fol. 81r (12 Sept. 1373): "Nofrio di Francescho, quartiere Santa Maria Novella, a Pietro Bartolini saponaio, quartiere Santa Croce, fiorini 775, d'oro, s. 13, d. 4 a'oro l'un due (referring to the Monte dell'un due), con questa condizione nolli possa vendere,

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W h i l e the specific terms of these secured transactions w o u l d customarily be detailed in a document (scritta) drawn up by the parties themselves without the assistance of a notary, such documents were routinely destroyed after the debt was satisfied. For direct confirmation of credit transactions secured w i t h crediti condizionati, we must rely on merchant account books. The woolen merchant Giuliano di Giovenco de'Medici, for instance, utilized his wife's substantial dowry to make fifteen term loans to other businessmen between 1448 and 1454, charging interest from 10 to 12 percent per annum. He also demanded security in the form of monte credits or formal guarantees by third parties ( mallevadori ) who agreed to satisfy the obligation should the borrower fail to repay on schedul e . 4 3 Doubtless, Giuliano would have felt more secure w i t h crediti condizionati than w i t h guarantees furnished by sureties, for there always remained the threat that the latter might delay repayment, necessitating costly litigation. 4 4 One possible drawback to crediti condizionati — a potential decrease in value due to a declining market — was mitigated by Giuliano's decision to lend less than the full market value of the credits. He also played it safe by demanding sureties in addition to crediti condizionati when the market value of the credits was so depressed that the borrower's default would have resulted in a loss. As a further precaution, the borrower was required to pay interest in advance on an extension of the loan. The rate of interest on these loans could be higher than the agreed rate because Giuliano, acting as procurator in rem suam, would normally retain permutare, finire, alienare sanza parola e licenza di Nofrio di Giovanni di Bartolo Bischeri di qui a kalendi di novembre 1379 e da indi là rimangano liberi al detto Pietro;" ibid., 1939, fol. 169v (29 April 1376): "Pietro di Bartolino saponaio, quartiere Santa Crocie, a Pietro di Bartolino diedi una medesima persona, detto quartiere, fiorini 3000 d'oro, monte l'un due, con questa condizione cioè che per di qua a dî primo di marzo proximo che viene i detti danari non si possano vendere, permutare ο finire sanza parola di Sandro di Berto Capponi ed Lionardo di ser Piero di ser Grifo e d'Agostino di Francescho di ser Giovanni lanaiuolo, e da di primo di marzo che viene infino adi xxi di agosto 1380 non si possano permutare, vendere ο finire in tutto ο in parte sanza parola et licenzia del detto Agostino ο di sue herede e con questa condizione che non obstante quello che ssi dicie di sopra, Pierozzo di Piero Pieri e Agostino detto, amendue in concordia, ο le rede di ciascuno ο le herede di quale di loro fosse morto, allora insieme con quello che di loro fosse vivo, posano da di xxi d'aprile 1380 infino a di xxi d'agosto detto anno permutare, vendere e finire i detti danari in tutto ο in parte e di quegli loro piacere (fare) fra'l detto tempo"; ibid., 3066, fol. 52v (18 May 1402): "Palla dicti Palle de Strozzis quartiere Sancte Marie Novelle, creditor communis Florentie super monte commune, ut dixit in maiori quantitate sit infrascripta, dedit licentiam dictis scribanis elevandi a iure suo florenos mille auri et ponendi ad ius ipsiusmet Palle, cum conditione quod dictus Palla dictum creditum permutare non possit hinc ad unum annum proxime futuruum sine licentia Francesci Neri de Ardinghellis civis Florentinus et quod durante dicto tempore dictus Franciscus dictum creditum permutare possit et de eo facere vel suum." 43 For what follows see F. Edler de Roover, Restitution in Renaissance Florence, in Studi in onore di Armando Sapori, Milan 1957, pp. 773-789. 44 On the legal aspects of suretyship in Florence, see my " A Question of Trust: Suretyship in Trecento Florence," in Renaissance Studies in Honor of Craig Hugh Smyth, Florence 1985, vol. I, pp. 129-146. 3 Piergiovanni

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any interest on the crediti condizionati paid during the loan period. The borrower had the option of satisfying his debt w i t h cash or by transferring to Giuliano ownership o f an equivalent amount of crediti condizionati. Once the debt was satisfied, the encumbrance on credits that had not been transferred would either be cancelled or automatically lapse. The account books of Giuliano de'Medici, as well as those of other merchants, suggest that a significant percentage of the trades between private parties recorded in the monte registers were offsets. 4 5 Rights to paghe, which were actively traded in the secondary market, could also be the object o f a loan. On 26 August 1467, for example, the silk merchant, Marco di Parente Parenti, placed an encumbrance on a parcel of credits (with a face value of 7809) that allowed his mother-in-law, Alessandra Macinghi Strozzi, to receive the paghe from time to time " u n t i l the said encumbrance is renounced either by her or me." Marco had inherited the credits from his father, in whose name they were still registered. A supplementary agreement (pacto) shows that the transaction was intended as a gratuitous loan — to enable Alessandra to satisfy her tax assessments and personal needs — rather than as an outright gift. As Marco explained in his ricordanze , Alessandra and her son, Filippo, were obligated at some future date to repay h i m an amount equal to the paghe his mother-in-law w i l l have collected. A n y paghe that remained uncollected would belong to him. The agreement was drawn up in separate documents (scritte), one held by Marco, the other by Alessandra and F i l i p p o . 4 6 Marco was scrupulous in recording the disposition of the paghe. On 22 A p r i l 1468, Alessandra, w i t h Marco's consent, employed another encumbrance to sell at a steep discount the paghe due the following May. The purchaser, Giovanni Rucellai, who ranked among Florence's foremost and richest citizens, paid 69 florins for paghe worth 87 florins. Although Alessandra was debited for the 69 florins, it was Marco who actually contracted to sell the credits. As a formality, Marco's consent was necessary because the transaction fell outside the scope of the original encumbrance and agreement. 47 . After Alessandra collected three subsequent payments of 45 See, for example, the ricordanze of the banker Bindaccio di Michele Cerchi, ASF, Archivio Cerchi, 317 (1483-1488). Cerchi's activités have been discussed by R. Goldthwaite , Local Banking, pp. 1-56. 4 6 ASF, CS, ser. 2a, n. 17 bis, fol. 60r: "Richordo questo di X X V I d'agosto 1467 ch'io posi una condizione a uno credito di Monte di fiorini 7809, scritto in Parente di Giovanni Parenti, quartiere di San Giovanni, che per l'avenire monna Alexandra, donna fu di Matheo di Simone degli Strozi, pigli le paghe per insino a che per lei ο per me non sia rinuntiato a detta condizione. Chon pacto che per quanto ritrarrà di dette paghe per aconciare sue graveze ο di contanti tempo per tempo, per tanto lei e Filippo suo figluolo e di detto Matheo, et ognuno di loro in tutto, sia ubligato a darmi e pagarmi di contanti quando ritratti gl'aranno in detto modo. E se no'gli ritraessino tutti, ogni resto che avanzassi in quel modo che restassi, tutto apartenga a me e debbommene prestare ogni favore a tale effecto. Ε pagai la gabella di mio lire 32 soldi 16. Di tutto questo effetto più distesamente n'aparisce 2 scritte di mia mano, d'uno medesimo tenore, soscritte (soscritta ms.) di loro mano, che una ne tengo io e l'altra eglino. Detto credito è scritto a libro mio segnato A, a c. 109".

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paghe amounting to 261 florins, Marco renounced the encumbrance in August 1469. 4 8 A final notation recorded that the sc ritte were destroyed on 23 A p r i l 1471. 4 9

Real Property In general, less ambiguity surrounds the use of monte credits as collateral in real property transactions. A fundamental guaranty of Roman law that continued to be observed in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was vacua possessio — an implied warranty for the "free and unimpeded possession of an immovable, which the buyer might enter without being disturbed by the seller or by a third person." 5 0 By law, Florentine instruments conveying title to real property contained an explicit warranty that both the seller and his heirs were liable (rem defendere et bonam facere emptori) in the event that a defect of title resulted in the eviction or molestation of the purchaser, and they were liable as well for all expenses and damages incurred by the purchaser in defense of his title. Purchasers had to be especially mindful that credits might have been pledged as a hypotheca, a type of real security that remained in the ownership and possession of the debtor and that he could continue to enjoy and even re-encumber but not alienate. Anything of value could be the object of a hypotheca, including a creditor's right to public debt as represented by monte credits. 5 1 Purchasers also had to be on guard against the possibility that the seller's wife, treated under the law as a privileged and therefore preferred creditor over her husband's whole estate, might claim that the property was hypothecated for her dowry. To avoid the wife's claim, anyone who purchased real property from a married man would insist that his wife formally renounce her hypothecary rights. Finally, purchasers had to take heed of the potential for the seller's k i n to claim a right to property that had been acquired by donation or inheritance. As a precaution against such claims, purchasers ordinarily required sureties and pledges of other properties belonging to the seller. In the fifteenth century, the meaning of "prendere sicurità" 47 Ibid.: " A di 22 d'Aprile 1468 la sopradetta monna Alexandra, di mio consentimento, pose chondizione alle paghe di maggio 1468 del sopradetto credito in Giovanni Rucellai, le quali gli vendè per me s. 4 per lira peggio, che montorono fiorini 69 s. 14 d. 7 a oro, sensale Botticello. Ε perö la farö debetore d'altretanti a libro biancho segnato A, a c. 110, f. 69 1. 3 s. 17 d. 4." 48 Ibid., " A di X I I agosto 1469 rinunziai alia sopradetta condizione, siché detto credito resta libero per l'avenire, e le paghe ritornano a me cominciando alle paghe di settembre 1469, delle quali ne far debitore il Monte a libro mio biancho segnato A, a. c. 119." 49 Ibid., " A di 23 d'aprile 1471 si stracciarono le sopradette scritte d'acordo, e perö cancello questo ricordo." Marco Parenti is the subject of a charming but superficial study by M. Phillips, The Memoir of Marco Parenti. A Life in Medici Florence, Princeton 1987. 50 A. Berger, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law, Philadelphia 1953, p. 757. See also Kaser, pp. 553 et seq. 51 On hypotheca, see ibid., pp. 463-469. *

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was no longer limited to real property pledged as collateral, 5 2 as it became common practice to secure purchases o f real property w i t h crediti condizionati , a practice that offered concrete advantages to the seller as well as the purchaser. W h i l e sellers lost their right to dispose o f crediti condizionati without the purchaser's express permission, they typically reserved the right to collect or trade paghe. A t the same time, purchasers (encumbrancers) benefited from this arrangement because they could prevent the seller from re-encumbering the credits, which was allowed under the rules governing hypotheca. Occasionally even the seller's sureties might be asked to pledge monte credits as security. 5 3 . The painter Neri d i Bicci entered in his ricordanze on 6 September 1460 that he had purchased monte credits w i t h a face value o f 206 florins at a market price of 22 1/2 percent, or 46 florins. These credits were designated as security for a house in Florence which, on 9 August of that year, Neri had sold to Adamo di Lorenzo d ' A d a m o for 83 florins. Sixty o f these had been paid, 10 were due the next December, and the remaining 13 were due in December 1461. The encumbrance attached to the credits stated that they could neither be used to extinguish an obligation (finir e) nor alienated unless Adamo or the officials of the Monte ordered Neri to furnish alternative security in the form of real property or sureties ( " E l quale credito di f. 206 è chon questa chondizione, che non si possa finire né'lienare se none quando chonperassi beni i m m o b i l i ο dessi buono e soficiente malevadore a dichiarazione di detto Adamo ο degli uficiali"). I f Adamo was evicted from the house, or i f there was interference in his possession of it, he w o u l d be entitled to the credits. The encumbrance, Neri added, had been duly recorded in the Monte registers. 54 I n October o f 1464 Neri purchased a house from Iacopo dell'Acirito and his wife Orsa, but he could not ask for security until he paid the purchase price of 60 florins. On payment the sellers would be obligated to provide Neri w i t h an instrument of conveyance and to provide sureties, monte credits, or real property. The following November Neri paid for the house w i t h credits that had been pledged as security for the house he had sold Adamo and received title to the new house. As the market price of the credits had risen to 30 percent o f face value, they were worth one-third more than the purchase price. Presumably, Neri seized this opportunity only after receiving Adamo's formal authorization, which would have been necessary to disencumber the credits. The disencumbered credits, w i t h a face value of 200 52 In the fourteenth-century, according to A. Sapori, "prendere sicurità significa appunto assicurare un credito con la garanzia della propriété fondiaria ο immobiliare, e 'sicurità' era la stessa garanzia, la casa ο il fondo del mutuatario dati al mutante." See his I mutui e la propriété fondiaria, p. 198. On the meaning of sicurare and securare in this period, see F. Edler , Glossary, p. 271; E. Spagnesi, Aspetti dell'assicurazione medievale, in L'assicurazione in Italia fino all' Unità. Saggi storici in onore di E. Artom, Milan 1975, pp. 3-192, esp. 33-35. For a non-legal perspective, see/. Delumeau, Rassurer et protéger. Le sentiment de sécurité dans l'Occident d'autrefois, Paris 1989, esp. pp. 9-29. 53 Ricordanze di Luca da Panzano, fol. 127v. 54 Neri di Bicci , Le ricordanze, pp. 149-150.

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florins, were transferred to the seller's monte account, where they were reencumbered — but this time to secure Neri' s purchase. 55 The practice o f paying for real property w i t h credits, which i n turn were used to secure the purchaser, was fairly c o m m o n . 5 6 I n both o f the above cases the creditors, not the encumbrancers, reserved the right to collect and trade paghe. 5 7 Encumbrances frequently provided for the disposition of the credits upon the death of both seller and purchaser. I n M a y 1487, for instance, Berto di Zanobi Falconieri acquired 7 percent credits w i t h a face value of 100 florins (and a market value o f approximately 75 florins) to serve as security for one-half of a farm sold to Antonio and Rinieri, the sons of Marabottino Rustichi, for 150 florins. Appended to the "security clauses" was a suspensive condition establishing that, upon the death of the seller and his wife, any real property that Berto or others acting on his behalf might have purchased to substitute for the credits at the direction o f the Monte officials would belong to his children and their male descendants. It was quite possible that Berto might be directed to make such purchases, since the credits of the Seven Percent Fund were in fact redeemed regularly. Payouts on crediti condizonati required the encumbrancer's authorization and were either reinvested in credits, converted into real property, or deposited w i t h a fiduciary institution like the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova or the Monte di Pietà. 58 I n each case, they w o u l d continue to secure the purchaser. A final clause stipulated that i f Berto and his wife died without any surviving 55 Ibid., pp. 234-235. 56 The celebrated Florentine physician, Giovanni Chellini da San Miniato, purchased a house and shop in July 1433 from the consuls of the Arte delta Lana, representing the Opera of Santa Reparata, for 800 florins, which he paid in diverse parcels of monte credits with a total face value of 3200 florins and which were encumbered to secure the purchase: "e d'accordo co detti consoli vi si puose questa condizione che detti denari ne niuno d'essi non si possano permutare ne fame alcuno contratto, per mia securità di dette case, per insino a tanto che detti consoli e opérai non m'avessero sodato e assicurato per buoni e sofficienti mallevadori . . . (Le Ricordanze di Giovanni Chellini da San Miniato, ed. M. T. Sillano, Milan 1984, p. 108)." When Luca da Panzano bought a house in May 1433, he paid the purchase price of 40 florins with Monte de' Prestanzoni credits that were then encumbered to secure the purchase: "che detta monna Ceccha confesasse il prezzo di detti 40 e più faciemo d'achordo che detti f. 40 io le dessi f. 133, s. 6, d. 8 di Monte di Prestanzoni e ponessigli in suo nome chon condizione ch'ella potessi pigliare le paghe e non tochare il chapitale, e'quale s'avessi a chonditionare che stessono per sichurità di detta vendita . . . le fe' una ischritta di mia mano avelli messi i detti danari fra mesi 4 prosimi che venghono {Ricordanze, fol. 10lr)." Francesco di Lucha di Buto transferred 7 percent credits with a face value of 67 florins to Papi di Lucha di Matteo Palmieri from whom he had purchased a house, "et con conditione che detto credito stia per sichurità e sodamento d'una chasa posta in via di San Francesco, con suoi più veri confini, chomprata per Francesco di Lucha di Buto da detto Papi per pregio di f. 140 di sugello . . . (ASF, MG, 957, fol. 36, 15 July 1487)." 57 For additional example of these practices, see ibid., 957, fols. 37, 38, 42, 95, 176, 201, 211, 269, 282, 289, 310, 397, 456, 614, 619, 622; ibid., 960, fols. 11, 129, 607, 628, 697, 699, 701, 713, 721, 748, 775. 58 C. Β. Menning, Loans and Favors, Kin and Clients: Cosimo de' Medici and the Monte di Pietà, Journal of Modem History, 61 (1989), pp. 504 ff.

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descendants and without having converted the crediti immobili

condizionati,

condizionati

into beni

the credits would belong to Antonio and Rinieri or to

their male descendants, who could dispose of them as they wished. 5 9 However, for reasons that remain unclear, when the credits were redeemed in A p r i l 1492 the authorization was given by the Monte officials and Marabottino' s daughter, Lucrezia. 6 0

Dowries The role played by crediti condizionati in securing claims to dotal assets increased progressively from the late fourteenth century on. Husbands like Ugolino di Niccolö Martelli, who placed their trust in neither luck nor Providence and were thus apprehensive that they might not receive the entire dowry promised them, demanded crediti condizionati as collateral. Martelli received only part of his promised dowry when he married Betta di Francesco Serragli in 1433. According to an agreement dated 30 August 1434, the remainder of 500 florins, plus 25 florins (discrezione) as compensation for the delay, would be paid by Berto

59 ASF, MG, 960, fol. 5 (left side): "Berto di Zanobi di Matteo Falchonieri de'avere adi 4 di magio 1487 fior. cento larghi, s. 19, d. 10 a oro larghi, per Berto medesimo in questo, c. 5, f. 100, s. 19, d. 10 a oro larghi. Adi 4 di magio 1487 pose condizione al sopradetto credito, che non se ne possa fare alchuno chontratto senza licenza di Marabottino d'Antonio Rustichi ο d'Antonio e Rinieri suoi figlioli, ο di qualunque di loro in tutto, ma stia e sia per sichurtà e sodamento della metà d'uno podere posto nel populo di Sa'Niccolö Altomena, luogho detto di Boscho, che ll'altra metà di detto Marabottinni. Il quale mezzo podere il detto Berto Falchonieri à venduto al detto Antonio e Rinieri e loro fratelli e figlioli del detto Marabottino, per pregio e prezzo di f. 150 di sugello, come dissono apparire Charta per mano di ser Domenigho di ser Bartolomeo da Radda sotto di detto. E in chaso che detto mezzo podere in tutto ο una parte fusse molestato, tolto ο chonvinto a detti chompratori ο loro redi ο chi avessi ragioni da loro, possino fare de detto credito la loro volontà per insino alla intera satisfatione, spese (spesi: ms) danni et interessi, sechondo la forma del chontratto. Et con conditione non stante la detta conditione, che chomprando beni immobili, il detto Berto ο altri per liu, per la valuta di f. 150 di sugello, che principalmente stiano obrighati a detto sodamento, tutto a dichiaragione di detto Marabottino et Antonio e Rinierii suoi figlioli detti di sopra ο di qualunque di loro in tutto, ο degli uficiali del Monte che pe' tempi saranno. Et più con conditione che morendo detto Berto Falchonieri ο la sua donna ο sue figliole femine leggitime ο suoi figlioli maschi e discendenti per linea maschulina, legittimi e naturali, in tal chaso detti beni s'aspettino et siano di detti figlioli di detto Marabottino ο di loro discendenti. Et non si chomprando beni di detto credito, come di sopra è detto, et per chaso venisse che detto Berto Falchonieri manchassi lui et la sua donna et sue figliole femine e legittime e figlioli maschi e discendenti per linea maschulina, ligittimi e naturali, come si dicie di sopra, in tal chaso detti figlioli di Marabottino e loro discendenti possino valersi di detto credito insino alla soma di f. 150 di sugello, et allora s'apartengha e loro ne possino fare la loro volontà per insino a ritratto netto di detti f. 150 di sugello, posta detta condizione di licenza di detto Berto Falconieri." 60 Ibid.: "Ànne avuto adî 30 d'aprile 1492 f. ciento, s. 15 d. 10 a oro larghi, e quali ebbe da Mauro d'Antonio Fantoni, camarlingo del Monte, per virtù di leggie e stanziamento degli uficiali et di Lucrezia di Marabottino d'Antonio Rustichi, conditionati in detto: posto el Comune debbe avere a libro giallo, c. 47 f. 100 s. 19 d. 10 a oro larghi."

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di Zanobi Carnesecchi six months later (30 Febr 1435). The 10 percent interest rate was in line w i t h the rate of return that Florentine banks and commercial lenders paid on discretionary deposits (depositi a discrezione) and under the circumstances w o u l d have been considered by canon lawyers as a legitimate exception to the usury prohibition. 6 1 Attempting to assure that the debt would be duly honored, Martelli first required Carnesecchi to pledge credits as collateral and then asked h i m to provide a surety who would become liable i f for some reason the crediti condizionati were not effectively available to satisfy the debt. I n Martelli' s words, Carnesecchi "places an encumbrance on 1750 florins of Monte de' Prestanzoni including paghe, so that at the end of the six-month period, i f he does not give me the above-mentioned 525 florins, the amount can be paid from the credit so that I can recover the 525 florins. A n d in the event that I cannot have the said credit w i t h the paghe, Andrea di Rinaldo Rondinelli, of his o w n accord, promises to discharge the debt of 525 florins, so that I can have the entire sum; and the credit is registered in Francesco di Berto Carnesecchi's name, in the quarter of San Giovanni; and likewise I have a written obligation from Berto for this d e b t . " 6 2 Martelli' s account is invaluable for shedding light on a compound security arrangement that, at least in regard to dowries, was rarely spelled out in the registers of the Monte. On the other hand, ricordanze seldom divulge all the particulars that modern historians desire, and Martelli' s is no exception, for it fails to disclose the total amount of the dowry, whether Carnesecchi was a debtor of Martelli's father-in law, and the precise relationship and promises made between Carnesecchi and Rondinelli, knowledge of which w o u l d allow us to round out our understanding o f their security arrangement. 63 61 R. de Roover, The Rise and Decline of the Medici Bank, Cambridge, Mass. 1963, p. 106; Goldthwaite, pp. 33-37. According to the decretal Salubriter (X. 5. 19, 16, a text from a letter of Pope Innocent III), a husband may retain the income of a pledge given by his father-in-law who is unable to pay the agreed dowry, "quum freqenter dotis fructus non sufficiant ad onera matrimonii supportanda." Salubriter was reaffirmed by San Bernardino da Siena in his examination of the commentaries on the decretal. See his Quadragesimale de evangelio aeterno, sermo X L I I (De interesse. Et in quibus casibus et quare liceat accipere ultra sortem), cap. II, in Opera omnia, Vol. IV, Quaracchi 1956, pp. 352-354. On this decretal, see also J. T. Noonan, JR, The Scholastic Analysis of Usury, Cambridge, Mass., 1957, pp. 103-104. 62 Ugolino di Niccolô Martelli, Ricordanze, p. 113: "Richordanza chôme oggi questo di Berto di Zanobi Chamesecchi mi promisse per Francesco di Vanozzo Serragli ff. cinqueciento dd. per parte délia dota della Betta, mia donna e figluola del detto Francesco di Vanozzo, de' quali ff. 500 d. ne volle tenpo mesi sei, chominciando ad di 30 d'aghosto sopradetto e finiendo a ultimo di febraio prossimo a venire. Ε per detto tenpo è contento detto Berto darmi ff. xxv dd. di provigione de' sopradetti ff. 500 dd., sicchè in fine de' detti 6 mesi mi de' dare ff. 500 dd. e più ff. 25 per discrezione; pe' quali dd. m'a posto chondizione a ff. 1750 di Monte di Prestanzone cholle paghe, a cchagione che se in fine de' detti mesi 6 non mi dessi ff. 525 sopradetti, gli possa finire ο ttanti d' essi ch'io faccia la somma di sopradetti ff. 525. Ε in chaso non si ritraessi, cholle paghe, la detta quantité di ff. 525, Andrea di Rinaldo Rondinelli promette sodisfare di suo, actio abbia interamente detta somma; e il credito dicie in Francesco di Berto Charnescchi nel quartiere di San Giovanni, chosi n'o scritta obrighatoria di detto Berto."

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Whether paid all at once or in installments, the large majority of dowries in Florence were paid in cash or in monte credits easily convertible into cash, which husbands were entitled to invest for the purpose of supporting the burdens of marriage. Though a husband was held legally accountable for managing the dowry w i t h prudence during marriage, so that it could be restored to his wife on his predecease and eventually transmitted to her children, an omnipresent danger existed that the dowry might be irretrievably lost or only partially restored owing to insolvency or to the reluctance or inability of the husband's heirs to return the whole dowry in a timely manner. 6 4 T o ensure the complete restoration of the dowry, the c i v i l law automatically designated the wife a privileged creditor and gave her a general hypotheca embracing all the husband's property ( hypotheca omnium bonorum). 65 These time-honored security arrangements were not foolproof, forcing countless widows or their estates to sue the husband's heirs. 6 6 Even though these suits were frequently concluded in favor of the plaintiffwidow or her estate, there was a general tendency on the part of the wife's family to avoid expensive and time-consuming litigation and arbitration by insisting that the husband pledge specific assets as security for the dowry. Grounded in the c i v i l law, the ability of the wife and her family to enter into agreements (pacta dotalia) w i t h the husband to encumber a specific bundle of monte credits became an effective and consequently popular means for securing dotal assets from at least the mid-fourteenth century. It is important to remember that, from the 1440s, encumbrances were most likely to be affixed to the very credits husbands received from the D o w r y Fund as payment for the wife's dowry, as was the case w i t h the 2500 florins worth

63 For a discussion of the difficulties attendant on interpreting whether promises and guarantees should be construed as gifts made without compulsion or consideration or as exchange transactions, see J. P. Dawson , Gifts and Promises. Continental and American Law Compared, New Haven and London 1980, pp. 151 et seq. For the Roman and medieval periods, see the old but informative study of E. Rabel, Nachgeformte Rechtsgeschäfte, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung (Rom. Abt.), 27 (1906), pp. 290-335; 28 (1907), pp. 311-379. 64 I. Chabot , Widowhood and Poverty in Late Medieval Florence, Continuity and Change, 3 (1988), pp. 291 -311. The Florentine statutes required the husband's heirs to make immediate restitution of dowries that had been paid in cash. 65 See J. Burges, Les garanties de restitution de la dot en Languedoc, Paris 1937, pp. 85-98. 66 See my Wives' Claims against Insolvent Husbands in Late Medieval Italy, in Women of the Medieval World. Essays in Honor of John H. Mundy, ed. J. Kirshner and S. F. Wemple, Oxford 1985, pp. 256-303. My impression about "countless suits" derives from a very preliminary examination of the acta civilia of the Podestà, dating between the years 1367 and 1440, housed in the Archivio di Stato of Florence. For widows who lost their dowries because they were not expressly secured, see ASF, Catasto (1480), 1002, fol. 32r (declaration of Angnolo di Bartolomeo di Giovanni): "e più m'e ritornato adosso mia figliuola ch' è rimasta vedova e sanza dota, perché se l'è perduta perché non era soda;" ibid., 1003, and fol. 330r (joint declaration of the brothers, Francesco e Nofri di Giovanni Doffi).

Encumbering Private Claims to Public Debt in Renaissance Florence

41

of monte credits received in 1448 by Marco Parenti. 6 7 Before the 1440s, husbands in need of credits to secure dowries either had to use their o w n credits or had to acquire them from relatives or purchase them in the market. As a rule the credits, along w i t h the right to collect paghe, were registered in the husband's monte account. I n M a y 1376, for example, Francesco di messer Pagolo da Figline acquired monte dell'uno due credits w i t h a face value of 1200 florins, " w i t h this encumbrance ( condizione ), namely, that the said monies are obligated for the dowry of monna Piera, daughter of the late Iacopo di Boccio and wife of Francesco, and that the monies cannot be sold, transferred, or used to pay a debt (finire), either in whole or in part, without authorization of monna Piera and her brother, Boccio, or of his heirs, and in the event that Francesco dies before monna Piera, the monies are to be released without restriction to monna Piera for the restitution of her dowry, who at that moment must furnish an acquittance for her dowry. A n d in the event that monna Piera dies before Francesco, the monies belong without restriction to Francesco, and he can dispose of the monies as he wishes without further authorization." 6 8 The proviso about the disposition of the dotal security upon the death of either spouse was in sync w i t h both the customs and the statutes of Florence empowering widowers to retain the whole d o w r y . 6 9 Dotal pacts were not rigidly fixed but adaptable to the immediate circumstances and long-range objectives of the spouses and their respective families. Sometimes, 67 Ricordanze of Marco Parenti, fol. l r (12 Aug. 1448). Marco, who had married Caterina Strozzi in August 1447, paid a gabella on "f. 2500 di monte comune, i quali mi promutarono gli ufficiali del monte per la voluntà de' quali era chreditore la Chaterina mia donna per sua dota, e detto credito s'obligö per sodamento délia dota di detta quantité di f. 500 e per gl'altri 500 avuti tra denari e donora sodö detto Parenti mio padre . . . " Marco's mother-in-law, Alessandra Strozzi, also noted this encumbrance in her ricordi, referring to be ni mobili instead of monte credits (ASF, CS, ser. 5, n. 15, fol. 89). The standard work on the marriages and dowries of the Strozzi is now L. Fabbri's Alleanza matrimoniale e patriziato nella Firenze del'400. Studio sulla famiglia Strozzi, Florence 1991. 68 ASF, MC, 1939, fol. 171 (10 May 1376): "Donato di Iacopo Acciaiulo, quartiere Santa Maria Novella, a Francescho di messer Pagholo di messer Deccho da Figline, quartiere Santa Crocie, fiorini 1200 monte l'un due, con questa condizione (comdizione: ms.) cioè che i detti danari siano obligati per la dota di monna Piera, figliuola che ffu di Iacopo di Boccio e donna del detto Francescho, e che i detti danari non si possino vendere, permutare, ο finire in tutto ο in parte sanza parola della detta donna e di Boccio suo fratello ο delle rede del detto Boccio; e in caso che'l detto Francescho morisse prima che lia detta monna Piera, rimanghino i detti danari liberi alia detta monna Piera per restituzione della dota sua, faccendo ella allora fine della dota sua. Ε in chaso che lia detta mona Piera morisse prima ch'l detto Francescho, sieno i detti danari liberi del detto Francescho, e di quegli il detto Francescho nel detto caso possa fare suo piacere sanza altra parola." For other examples of this type of encumbrance, see ibid., 1615, fol. 12r (14 January 1361); ibid., 3067, fols. 9r (13 July 1406), lOr (15 July 1406), 17v (28 July 1406); ibid., 3069, fols. 7v (10 Jan. 1407), 20v-21r (5 Febr. 1407), 141v- 142r (21 Febr. 1407); ibid., 3049, fols. 8r-v (10 Jan. 1408). 69 J. Kirshner, Maritus Lucretur Dotem Uxoris Sue Premortue in Late Medieval Florence, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte (Kanonistische Abteilung), 77 (1991), pp. 115 et seq.

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for instance, crediti condizionati were registered in the wife's name. It seems that Cristofano di Zanobi had credits w i t h a face value o f 400 florins transferred to the account of his wife, Aria, as security for part of her dowry. What is certain is that there was the agreement "that monna A r i a cannot transfer nor cause to be transferred the said monies to another's account without authorization of Beltramo di messer Bivigliano (her relative), which monies are for part of her dowry, and in the event that Cristofano dies before his wife, they must count as payment for part o f her dowry at the then current price; and in the event that monna A r i a dies before Cristofano, the monies are to be released without restriction to Cristofano, in such a manner that it is permissible to h i m to take, transfer, and administer the monies as his own." A n y credits released to the husband on his wife's predecease could not exceed the amount he had acknowledged receiving in his confessio dotis. 10 W h i l e the registration of crediti condizionati in the wife's name afforded her increased security, we should avoid j u m p i n g to the conclusion that this act in itself was a sign o f the husband's low credit rating in the community. Such an arrangement, on the contrary, may well have attested to the sufficiency of the husband's resources and his desire to assure that the dowry would be restored to his wife on his predecease w i t h a m i n i m u m of delay. The wealthy merchant Luca di Matteo da Panzano in 1425 received as a dowry 1081 florins paid on behalf of his wife, Lucrezia di Salvadore del Caccia. I n turn, Luca purchased three parcels o f monte de' prestanzoni credits between 1427 and 1432 w i t h a total par value of 1680 florins, all o f which he deposited in Lucrezia's account. These credits, he pointed out in his ricordanze, were purchased w i t h his o w n money and belonged to h i m and his heirs, but during the marriage they were to serve as security for Lucrezia's dowry, while Luca reserved the right to collect the paghe, as was customary. 7 1 The volatility of the market in monte credits induced husbands and their inlaws to take into account the future value of crediti condizionati in dotal pacts. 7 2

™ ASF, MC, 1615, fol. lOv (7 January 1361): . . con questi pacti ch'el detta monna Aria non posa permutare ne fare porre decti danari ad altrui ragione sanza la parola di Beltramo di messer Bivigliano, i quali danari sono per parte della dota della detta donna, e in caso che il detto Christofano morisse innanzi alia detta sua moglie, la detta monna Aria li dee contare in pagamento assè per parte della sua dota come varranno, e in caso che la detta monna Aria morisse innanzi al detto Christofano, i detti danari et fiorini deono essere liberi del detto Christofano per modo che allui sia licito prendergli e permutargli e fame ogni sua voluntà come de' suoi proprii danari; perö che ne'lucro sino danari per lui confessati . . . " For another example of this type of encumbrance, see the declaration of messer Giovanni di Girolamo in ASF, Catasto (1433), n. 482, fol. 667v. 71 Ricordanze of Luca da Panzano, fols. 42r, 61r, 76r. 72 From the mid-fifteenth century on, the government increasingly encouraged citizens to pay their taxes in claims to overdue interest payable on monte credits. During the periods in which this option was alternatively made available and withdrawn, the demand

Encumbering Private Claims to Public Debt in Renaissance Florence

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When a dowry of 1000 florins was frozen in monte credits, the difference between their future market value and purchase price might amount to a significant gain or loss. This prospect hovered over a dotal settlement concluded on 4 November 1432, when Terrino di Niccolo Manovelli formally acknowledged and provided sureties for the dowry of 880 florins he received on behalf of Nanna di Berto Peruzzi. As an additional precaution, an encumbrance was placed on monte credits w i t h a par value o f 1000 florins. The encumbrance prohibited Terrino from trading or re-encumbering the credits during his marriage to Nanna, while permitting Terrino to collect paghe. I n the event of Terrino' s predecease, the credits w o u l d pass to Nanna, and their market value effective on the day Terrino died would count as part of her restored d o w r y . 7 3 The liability of Terrino' s heirs w o u l d be reduced i f on the day Terrino died the market value of the credits exceeded their purchase price. Conversely, their liability w o u l d increase i f the value on that day was lower. For the sake of illustration, suppose that for the above parcel of encumbered credits Terrino paid approximately 22 1 / 4 florins (the price for monte credits w i t h a face value of 100 florins quoted on 5 M a y 1432) for his credits — that is, 222 1 / 4 florins. A difference in future value of 20 percent would mean a gain or a loss of 44 1 / 2 florins for Terrino' s heirs — an amount equivalent to 5 percent of Terrino' s dowry. This arrangement, as far as I can tell, was conventional. 7 4 It established the basis for calculating the future value of the crediti condizionati

in a manner that

for credits would have risen and fallen. These changes in the availability of the interest added another level of uncertainty to the value of the credits and increased the risk of holding them. On this practice, which accounts for much of the speculative activity in monte credits at the end of the fifteenth century, see Molho, L'amministrazione del debito pubblico a Firenze, pp. 200-201; Goldthwaite , Local Banking, pp. 29-30. 73 Ricordanze , A. di Terrino Manovelli, ASF, CS, ser. 2a, n. 14, fol. 17r: "Ricordanza che questo di 11 di novembre 1432, io posi chondizione a f. mille d'oro di monte comune per parte di sichurità e sodamento della dota della Nanna mia donna, la quale dice cos: che durante il matrimonio tra detti Terrino e monna Nanna non si possa permutare ne' in alchuno modo ubrighiare, e che durante il detto matrimonio il detto Terrino possa pigliare le paghe di detto credito. Ε in caso il detto Terrino morisse, sopravivente la detta monna Nanna, allora la detta monna Nanna possa di detto credito fare ogni sua voluntà per quello che il detto valesse il di della morte di detto Terrino e se chonti per parte di sua dota dovesse riavere, e simile finire per detta quantità le rede di detto Terrino. Ε morendo monna Nanna, sopravivente detto Terrino, allora il detto Terrino possa il detto credito fare ogni sua voluntà e sieno suoi liberamente." Another example of this encumbrance is quoted in the consilium edited in Appendix 2, below. 74 The evidence for my observation comes from the registers of the monte (η. 68, above), ricordanze (Neri di Bicci, p. 6), and above all from the acquittances (factio finis et remissionis et pactum perpetuum de non petendo) furnished by widows and their representatives upon restitution of the dowry by the husband's heirs. See ASF, NA, F 498, fols. 62r (22 August 1450), 63r (26 August 1450), 69r (17 Sept. 1450), 88v (10 Nov. 1450), 104r (14 Dec. 1450), llOv (11 Jan. 1451), 116v (22 Jan. 1451). On the legal problems raised by variations of the intrinsic value of money for jurists treating the extinction of monetary obligations, see P. Grossi , Ricerche sulle obbligazioni pecuniarie nel diritto comune, Milan 1960.

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was simple and agreeable to both parties, but it did not seek to eliminate risk, as was the case in another pact concerning the dowry of Sue va d i Doffo Spini. Her husband, Amoretto di Donino da Borgo San Lorenzo, a merchant residing in Valencia, w o u l d receive a dowry of 1000 florins i n cash on condition that he invest the whole 1000 in monte credits of his choice, which would be encumbered to secure the dowry. Following Sueva's predecease, the crediti condizionati would return to Amoretto and his children, " i n accordance w i t h what is right and the statutes o f the commune of Florence." Following Amoretto' s predecease, the credits w o u l d remain w i t h Sueva. I f the market value of the credits at the time o f Amoretto' s death should exceed a thousand florins, the difference would belong to Amoretto' s heirs. If, on the other hand, the value o f the credits decreased, falling below 1000 florins, his heirs must make up the deficit. 7 5 Obviously the husband's heirs stood to gain from an upswing in market prices; yet by eliminating the risk that a decrease in the price of monte credits would cause a corresponding decrease in the value of the dowry, the chief beneficiary o f this security agreement was the wife and her family. W h i l e dotal encumbrances normally expired only after termination o f marriage (soluto matrimonio), they could be revoked by the husband's in-laws or their representatives at any time during a marriage. Foremost among the reasons prompting revocation was the conversion of crediti condizionati into another security, such as real property. Marco Parenti recalled that when his widowed sister, Sandra, had married Benedetto di Simone Quaratesi in September 1451, her dowry was not paid immediately because she had trouble in retrieving her original dowry of 600 florins from the heirs of her first husband, Mariano Tempi. She ceded to her brother her rights to the first dowry in compensation for his and her father's payment of an 800-florin dowry to her new husband. Having been burnt once, Marco this time acted to ensure as far as possible the restitution

75 Ricordanze A di Dolfo Spini, 1415-1439, ASF, CS, ser. 2a, η. 13, fol. 64r(Novemeber 1425): "Ricordanza che adi [?] di novenbre, anno detto, per mezzanità di Filippo d'Antonio del Buono marital la mia figliuola Sueva a Amoretto, figliuolo di Donino dal Borgo a San Lorenzo, merchante e dimorante a Valenza, con patto che Ί decto Amoretto le facesse dota fiorini mille d'oro di Firenze, de' quali fiorini mille d'oro la facesse sichura in su il monte del comune di Firenze in questo modo, cioè: che Ί decto Moretto dovesse comprare in su qualunque monte del comune di Firenze gli piacesse e che quello montassino per sicurità della dota i danari dicessono nella detta Sueva mia figliuola, e che durante la vita dell'uno e dell'altro le paghe de' detti danari dovessono essere del detto Moretto. Ε che in caso che IIa fanciulla morisse prima che Ί decto Moretto, Γ decto credito del monte dovesse tornare al decto Amoretto ο suoi figliuoli secondo la ragione e statuti del comune di Firenze. Ε in caso che Ί decto Moretto morisse prima che IIa detta Sueva, che il decto credito del monte fosse libero della detta Sueva, con questa condizione: che al tempo che dico per la morte del decto Moretto il credito rimanesse alla Sueva, che sse i detti danari valessono ο vendendoli se n'avesse più di fiorini mille, debba quello più essere delle rede del decto Moretto, e sse valessono meno sono obrigate le dette rede di Morreto a rifare; sicchè in tutto la Sueva vengha ad avere netti fiorini mille d'oro di Firenze."

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of part of the second dowry. I n addition to acknowledging receipt of the dowry in a confessio dotis, Quaratesi was required to secure the dowry by encumbering monte credits nominally worth 1616 florins. As an alternative security, Quaratesi could replace the encumbrance on the credits w i t h an encumbrance on real property ( beni immobili). T o accomplish this he was obliged to furnish a notarized document attesting that he had purchased real property worth 300 florins as security, in which case the original encumbrance would be revoked, liberating Quaratesi to sell the credits and to use the proceeds as unrestricted capital. 7 6 I n most of the examples I have found in which crediti condizionati were converted into real property, the wife had no legally competent male relatives to protect her interests, necessitating the intervention of Monte officials in loco parentis. 7 7 Examples from the Seven Percent Fund show that the officials and in-laws who required husbands to convert crediti condizionati into collateral for the dowry treated monte credits as a proxy for real property. 7 8 Husbands sometimes pledged a combination of credits and real property to secure the d o w r y . 7 9 I n other instances, government approval was a prerequisite before encumbered credits could be converted into cash dowries for new brides. Francesca di Giovanni Tebaldini petitioned the government for permission to provide a dowry for her 7 6 Ricordanze of Marco Parenti, fol. 40r (9 May 1454): " I I sopradetto Benedetto chonfessö i sopradetti f. 800 . . . 400 da Parente mio padre a sua vita e 400 da me . . . e sodö la detta dota obligando se e sue heredi e beni presenti e futuri chôme si chostuma . . . e più oblighö f. 1616 di monte comune scritti in nome di Maria Allexandra di monna Tommasa di monna Lorenza . . . chon chondizione che stieno per sodamento di detta dota, e che in caso che detto Benedetto portassi fede di mano di publico notaio d'avere chomperato tanti beni immobili che montassino f. ccc allora tal credito di monte rimanga libero a detto Benedetto . . . e tal credito si trovassi in lei lo possa pigliare per parte della dota sua pella valuta occhorente." The precise relationship and arrangement between Alessandra and Benedetto cannot be determined from the text. The wording suggests that the credits originally belonged to Maria Alessandra. See also ASF, Provvisioni Registri, 161, fol. 246rv (23 Dec. 1470), regarding Bernardo di Domenico Buti's petition to the government to liquidate his credits, so that he could use the proceeds to purchase real estate. 77 ASF, MG, 954, fols. 10 (account of Alberto di Bartolomeo Alberti); fol. 175 (account of Salvatore di Bartolomeo di Michele); ibid., 955, fol. 310 (account of Giuliano di Iacopo Totti); ibid., 957, fol. 268 (account of Andrea di Francesco di Michele da Prato). See also the ricordanze of Marco Parenti (fol. 74r) regarding the security demanded by the Podestà for the dowry received by Tommaso di Francesco Alberti from Maria di Marco Parenti. 78 ASF, MG, fol. 351 (account of Antonio di Piero di Antonio da Pistoia): "Convertassi detto credito in compera di beni immobili ο in crediti di monte per sicurità di detta dota ad dichiaratione degli uficiali del monte . . .;" ibid., 957, fol. 116 (account of Averado di Alessandro Da Filicaia): "si debbino chomprare beni immobili ο crediti di monte che stieno per expresa sicurità di detta dota;" fol. 180 (account of Giovanni di Giulio Guilli); fol. 359 (Bandino d'Ubaldo Del Rosso); fol. 360 (account of Bartolo di Zanobi d'Antonio). Additional examples of this practice for this period are found in the registers of the Monte delle doti: ASF, MC, 3739, fols. lOv, 62v, 78v, 87, 89, 175v, 179v. 79 See the confessio dotis (ASF, NA, 13290, fols. 8rv, 16 May 1470) of Matteo di ser Niccolai.

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daughter, Brigida, using credits that had been encumbered to secure her own dowry. The credits carried a face value of 626 florins and were registered in Francesca's name rather than that of her husband, Nembrotto di Bernardo Peruzzi. Acknowledging the plight of Brigida — who was married but could not be sent to her husband's household without a dowry — and of her family — which was large and bereft of resources — the government approved the petition. 8 0 Government intervention became mandatory when encumbrancers died without heirs, without having revoked the encumbrance, and without having designated a legally competent successor. Piero di Tommaso dall'Antella, in his petition of 1467, bemoaned that he had married off his daughter to Luca di Iacopo, " w h o refused to introduce his wife into his household nor consummate marriage w i t h her" ( dictus Lucas non vult earn ad domum ducere et cum ea matrimonium consummare) without first receiving the remainder o f the promised dowry, encompassing nuptial gifts (donora) and cash. The only way to discharge his obligation, Piero claimed, was to trade his monte credits, but he was prohibited from doing so because they had been encumbered by Taddeo di Giovanni dall'Antella, who was now dead. Piero solicited and received approval from the councils to allow the Monte officials to modify the encumbrance by replacing Taddeo's name with that of his son, Giovanni, a minor, who along w i t h the Ujficiali dei Pupilli (Officials in Charge of Orphans) would authorize Piero to alienate the crediti condizionati. 81 Certainly another reason why husbands requested release from encumbrances was a desire to liquidate credits during a bull market. Neri di B ici recorded that in 1453 he purchased monte credits with a par value of 1250 florins, which were encumbered to secure his wife's dowry and which he could not alienate without prior authorization from his father- and brother-in-law. He paid 175 florins, or 14 percent of par value. In fulfillment of Neri' s tax obligations the city withheld part of the paghe due him for the first six years, a common practice at the time. After 1459, he collected over 42 florins in interest annually, amounting to a return of 24 percent from the crediti condizionati. A n d he realized an additional profit in 1467 by selling the secured credits, presumably w i t h the permission of his in-laws, when market prices had climbed to 24 percent of par value. 8 2 Husbands wishing to exploit favorable market opportunities, as Neri did, or wishing to avoid losses in a sagging market by selling off crediti condizionati ,

so ASF, Provvisoni Registri, 136, fols. 42v-43v (19 June 1445). In another petition, Filippo di Domenico asked permission to use credits with a par vaue of 1200 florins to make a deposit in the Dowry Fund for his six-year-old daughter, Ginevra. Filippo received the necessary authorization from his father-in-law to disencumber the credits which had served as security for the dowry of his wife (ibid., 161, fols. 204v-205r, 19 Dec. 1470). «ι Ibid., 158, fol. 160r (22 Dec. 1467). 82 Neri di Bicci, pp. 6, 296-97.

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as happened in the 1470s, but who could not obtain the necessary permission from the wife's male relatives to do so because they had died without heirs, were forced to appeal to the government for relief. 8 3 Here the wife's authorization was essential for disencumbering the credits. Where the wife refused to give her authorization, the husband had no legal recourse. According to an enactment of February 1476, it seems that a number of such husbands chose fraudulent means to circumvent the encumbrances placed on credits held as security for their wives' dowries. They appeared before the clerks of the Monte presenting false attestations of their wives' predecease in order to persuade the clerks to cancel the encumbrances recorded in the ledgers, thereby placing the credits under the husbands' control. I n an attempt to prevent such abuses, the enactment decreed that proof of death must be based on the sworn testimony of the sacristan or rector of the church in which the wife was interred and that the official had to appear personally before the Monte clerks and leave w i t h them his testimony in writing so that there could be no doubt about whose hand was responsible for the attestation. I n addition, two relatives or neighbors of the deceased had to appear to give testimony under oath of their certain knowledge of her death and burial. 8 4 Almost immediately the new procedures proved inoperable. Many wives, according to an enactment of August 1477, were dying and being buried outside the city,

83 ASF, Provvisioni Registri, 230, fols. 61v-62r (31 July 1517). 84 Although the enactment centered on the "mulier fraudata", its provisions extended to all encumbrances placed on immobilia as well as on monte credits. See ASF, Provvisioni Registri, 166, fols. 234v-235v (16 Feb. 1476): "Ut quoad fieri potest eatur obviam pessimis fraudibus que apud Montem fieri possunt in tollendis aut violandis conditionibus appositis creditis Montis pro securitate aut satisdatione alicuius persone aut bonorum immobilium, probando mortem alicuius false fide, maxime cum ex commemoratione presentium officialium Montis intelligatur quemadmodum proxime quidam perditus homo, fidem ferens ad scribanos montis ex propria manu falso factam nomine sacriste cuiusdam templi, cum allegatione libri sacristie et cartarum, quod quedam mulier iam pridem mortua erat, que tamen adhuc vivit, efficit ut quoddam creditum solveretur obligationibus (obligatione: ms.) que ipsi credito posite erant pro satisdatione dotis dicte mulieris, cum condictione ut ea mortua ante maritum, tale creditum restaret liberum; et hac via miseranda mulier fraudata est securitate dotis sue: que quidem res, nisi provideatur, magnam infamiam afferret civitati nostre. Iccirco magnifici et excelsi domini, domini Priores liberatis et Vexillifer iustitie populi florentini ordinaverunt: Quod imposterum ad probandam mortem alicuius seu masculi seu femine apud scribanos graticularum Montis, pro promutando aliquo credito Montis conditionato aut pro liberando illo ab aliqua conditione posita pro securitate aut satisdatione alicuius persone dotis vel bonorum immobilium, ut quotodie fit, necesse sit ut sacrista vel rector eius templi in quo seu eius cimiterio sepultus fuisse ille vel ilia cuius mors probanda seu testificanda foret, personaliter veniat coram dictis scribanis simul cum duobus testibus de vicinia mortui vel de proximis convicinis, qui iure iurando testificent et probent se certe scire ipsum vel ipsam talem decessisse aut seu eius funeri vel sepulture interfuisse; et de tali re fidem per scripturam ibidem faciat et relinquat scribanis, ut nulla sit dubitatio an sua manu sit. Quem quidem sacristam sei rectorem aut dictos testes cognosci oporteat ab ipsis scribanis aut aliquo eorum, alioquin fides aut testificatio talis aliter facta non valeat nec per dictos scribanos acceptetur ullo modo, sub pena florenorum centum largorum cuilibet contrafacienti."

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making it almost impossible for neighbors to have first-hand knowledge o f their deaths and for husbands to produce the rectors of the churches where they were buried. In response, the government replaced the new procedures w i t h the earlier, though flawed, requirement that a notarized instrument alone would suffice as proof of the wife's death. 8 5 Eventually, special registers were opened in which the original encumbrances, modifications, and revocations were supposed to be recorded, thus enabling the scribes o f the monte to monitor the thousands of encumbrances placed on credits. Cancellation o f encumbrances, even when the husband possessed legitimate proof of his wife's death, could be thwarted by rival claims to the crediti condizionati. This happened to Giovanni Lenzi, who in 1442 married Caterina di Filippo Aldobrandini (widow of Smeraldo Strozzi) and was promised a dowry valued at 900 florins: 300 in household furnishings and the wife's personal items, 100 in cash, and 500 in monte credits with a face value o f 2000 florins. The credits came w i t h an encumbrance stipulating that they could not be alienated without the authorization of Marcello Strozzi, " m a stia per sicurità d'uno podere venduto per la decta donna al decto Marcello ( A p r i l 1439)." A t no time during their marriage o f twenty-four years did Lenzi act to have the credits transferred from her monte account to his own. After her death in 1466, Lenzi realized that he could not claim the credits because they had legally belonged to his wife and now belonged to her heirs, two nephews and a niece. His only recourse was to appeal to the government, which he did i n December 1467, explaining his inaction on the grounds that he had never feared that Caterina w o u l d predecease h i m and asking for relief on the grounds that he, not his wife, had paid all the taxes on the credits since 1442. W i t h the approval o f the government and his wife's heirs, the credits w i t h the original encumbrances in place were to be transferred to Lenzi. Although he could not dispose o f the credits without the authorization o f the encumbrancer, Lenzi was entitled to claim all paghe from the time of Caterina's death o n . 8 6 A widow asserting her rights to crediti condizionati in repayment o f her dowry was also compelled, when her husband died without heirs, to solicit the government to intercede on her behalf to authorize transfer of the credits to her o w n monte account. This was the lot o f Sandra di Leonardo Bettini (widow o f Giovanni di Niccolö del Chiaro), as we learn from her petition of January 1483. 8 7 As security for Sandra's dowry of 228 florins, Giovanni had pledged monte credits w i t h a face value o f 1156 florins which could not be traded, transferred, or reencumbered without the permission o f his father-in-law, who had died before 1483. During the marriage the face value o f the encumbered credits was reduced to 1127 florins. The Monte officials apparently confiscated 29 florins of the 85 ASF, Provvisioni Registri, 168, fol. 96v (27 Aug. 1477). 86 Ibid., 158, fol. 159rv (22 Dec. 1467). 87 Ibid., 173, fols. 147r-148r (30 Jan. 1483).

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encumbered credits as a fine for Giovanni's neglect to report the credits in his catasto declaration. Before his o w n death in M a y 1482, Giovanni had instituted as his heirs two sons from a previous marriage, Bartolomeo and ser Chiaro, but they refused to accept the inheritance, most likely because their father's estate was insolvent. Sandra appealed to the government to authorize the monte officials to transfer all rights to the crediti condizionati to her, since only in this way, she averred, would her dowry w o u l d be restored. Likewise, so that she w o u l d have regular payments of money to support herself, Sandra claimed all past and future paghe due on the credits. The government roundly approved Sandra's petition and granted her exclusive rights to the credits. Yet it also decreed that she could not excercise her rights to the paghe unless she fulfilled her civic duty by submitting tax declarations according to legal requirements. 8 8 A m o n g the hundreds o f opinions written by jurists dealing w i t h dotal property in Florence, there is only scant mention of crediti condizionati , apart from three opinions delivered in A p r i l 1449 that merit our attention in that they center on the meaning and enforcement of an encumbrance affixed to credits serving as security for a dowry. ( A l l three are edited below, in Appendix II.) According to documents the litigants presented to the jurists who were invited to render judgment (Otto Niccolini, Piero di Iacopo Ambrosini da Iesi, d. 1472, and Giovanni di Girolamo Buongirolami, d. 1454), 8 9 the contested encumbrance had been placed on monte credits w i t h a par value of 80 florins that ser Niccolo di Antonio Cardi had pledged in 1439 as security for the dowry worth 190 florins brought by his wife, Santa di Giovanni Sardelli. Niccolo was prohibited from transacting w i t h these credits without his wife's authorization, but, as was custo88 Ibid.: "Quod etiam sine aliqua fide vel probatione de superius narratis (etc.) ex nunc auctoritate presentis dictum creditum florenorum 1127 soldorum 7 montis, cum pagis omnibus quorum restaret creditor dictus Iohannes, intelligitur esse et sit translatum in dictam dominam Xandram olim eius uxorem, et eius sit pleno iure loco solutionis seu satisfactionis pro concurrenti quantitate eius dotis. Ac propterea, ad omnem requisitionem etiam simplicem dicte domine Xandre vel eius ligitimi procuratoris, scribani permutationum Montis et quilibet ipsorum, licite et impune possint ac etiam teneantur et debeant — visa dumtaxat presenti provisione (etc.) — permutare et transcriber dictum creditum florenorum mille centum vigintiseptem s. vii montis, a computo et nomine dicti Iohannis del Chiaro, olim viri dicte domine Xandre, ita quod dictum creditum cum dictis pagis extinguatur in nomine dicti Iohannis del Chiaro at accedatur in et sub nomine dicte domine Xandre liberum et sine aliqua conditione, et intelligatur ei consignatum auctoritate presentis, in parte et pro parte concurrenti eius dotis: et de dicto credito et pagis ponatur creditrix in libris Montis per dictos scribanos permutationum Montis vel aliquem ipsorum. Et facta in se tali permutatione, dicta d[omi]na Sandra possit et valeat pleno iure facere de dicto credito et pagis velle suum libéré et sine aliqua contradictione vel exceptione (etc.). Hoc in predictis addito decreto et declarato quod dicta domina Xandra, facta in se dicta permutatione, lucretur pagas (etc.) prout ceteris cives ex creditis suis, set nequeat uti dicti crediti pagis nec eas in alium conditionare nec aliquam utilitatem vel commodum inde percipere nisi prius fecerit se describi in onere vel oneribus ordinatis civitati Florentie tunc vigentibus (etc.)". 89 For another case in which Niccolini collaborated with Ambrosini, see BNF, Panciatichiano, 139, fols. 127r-132v.

4 Piergiovanni

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mary, he was entitled to the paghe. Should she predecease him, the credits would be vested in Niccolö; should he die first, both the credits and the paghe occorrenti (interest due at the time o f his death) would be hers, " i f she truly counts them in her [restored] dowry and for the amount they are valued on the day o f ser Niccolö's death, and she should be held formally to discharge ser Niccolö's heir for the amount she obtained from the credits." Six years later, in his w i l l of 1445, Niccolö bequeathed as a legacy to Santa the 190 florins that he had acknowledged receiving as her dowry, as well as another 20 florins for monies and other things in excess o f the dowry (bona non dotalia ) which, though they belonged to Santa, he had appropriated for his o w n use during the marriage. He also designated Santa as executrix and usufructary of his whole estate and stipulated that she could remain in his household for as long as she lived, as long as she did not remarry, led an honorable w i d o w ' s life, and did not demand the return of her dowry and non-dotal goods. She also was empowered to alienate, sell, or in any other way transfer any properties appertaining to the estate, including rights and claims to debts (iura et nomina), for prices which she deemed reasonable. Lastly, Niccolö exempted Santa from the duty o f making an inventory of all the property that formed his estate at the time o f his death, as well as from accounting for her administration o f the estate to his brother, Lorenzo, w h o m he appointed as heir. The language and terms employed by the notary who drafted the w i l l were thoroughly pedestrian, which accounts for the absence of special instructions regarding the disposition o f the crediti condizionati . After Niccolö's death on 16 November 1446, Santa remained in uninterrupted possession of Niccolö's estate (ipsa omnia tenuit etpossedit continuo), seemingly content w i t h the preparations that had been made for her widowhood. However, on 28 February 1447, she relinquished her rights of usufruct under the w i l l of her husband, though she reserved the right to the legacy of her non-dotal goods. Then, on 7 November o f the same year, by virtue of the ius commune and the statutes of Florence and through the mediation of a procurator in the court of the Podestà, she sued for the restoration of her dowry. After the court determined that Santa should be ceded possession o f as much real property as remained in Niccolö's estate, she had the property appraised on 8 February 1448 " i n order that she might be paid the 190 florins for her dowry, for the antenuptial gift, and for the legacy o f her non-dotal goods." It appears that the appraised value of the property was inadequate, for on 19 February Santa transferred to herself the credits that had been encumbered for her dowry. She also claimed that the encumbrance entitled her to all paghe due from the time o f Niccolö's death up to the time the credits became hers — that is, from November 1446 to February 1448. The amount involved was paltry, in the range of 4 florins. 9 0 Still, deterred neither by the trivial sum nor by the unwelcome news that the paghe had been 90 The annual yield on credits with a face value of 80 florins at the rate of 3 3/4 percent is three florins.

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retained by the monte officials in satisfaction of Niccolö's unpaid tax assessments, Santa wasted no time in demanding the paghe from Niccolö's heir, Lorenzo. Far from conferring on Santa a right to appropriate the paghe, Lorenzo countered, the encumbrance, i f read and interpreted correctly, did exactly the opposite. It did stipulate that " i f ser Niccolo dies before monna Sancta his wife, the credit w i t h the paghe occorenti w i l l belong to her," but this provision was qualified by the clause that followed it: " i f she truly counts them in her [restored] d o w r y . " T o Lorenzo, the qualifying clause indicated that the credits never properly belonged to Santa, because she had neither acted nor manifested any intention to acquire the credits according to the terms of the encumbrance. Had she done so, she would have counted the credits toward repayment of her dowry and discharged ser Niccolö's heir for the value of the credits on the day o f Niccolö's death. Because Santa deferred the performance of these prescribed acts, the credits and the paghe occorenti were vested in ser Niccolö's estate and his heirs from the day he died until the day they were transferred to Santa. As far as I can discern, Lorenzo was not seeking to recover the credits, even though according to his defense he had a valid claim to them. Yet i f he was w i l l i n g to concede the credits to Santa in repayment of her dowry, he remained unwilling to satisfy her demand for the paghe. It is perplexing to me that the dispute was not settled informally. The expense of litigation (including preparation of the documents, appointment of procurators, and legal fees) w o u l d have amounted to nine or ten florins at a minimum, more than double the contested amount of paghe 9 1 — a prospect that ordinarily would have restrained the notorious propensity o f Florentines to press lawsuits. The motives spurring Santa and Lorenzo to litigate this issue w i l l remain elusive unless additional documentation surfaces to help clarify the matter. Although no mention was made of who commissioned the consilia — the court of the Podestà, the monte officials, Santa, or Lorenzo — their ringing defense o f the rights of the husband's estate and of his heir suggest that they were written at Lorenzo's request. Otto Niccolini, in his lead opinion, admitted that the suit was over an amount of "small value and of very little importance" and did not call for lengthy examination; nevertheless, he avowed, he would avoid taking shortcuts "because the truth does not allow the reduction of words." The jurist therefore began, in proper dialectical fashion, by presenting a series of perfunctory arguments (which were not meant to be persuasive) in favor of immediate restitution of the paghe for the purpose of restoring Santa's dowry. Swiftly shifting gears, he then proceeded to deny Santa's claim on the premise that paghe were not to be construed as dotal property and thus the wife had no automatic right to them: I say that in the case at hand it ought to be presupposed that the dowry consisted of cash, the restitution of which I judge must be made immediately. Yet the encumbeOn legal fees in Florence, see Martines, pp.91 et seq; O. Cavallar, Francesco Guicciardini giurista. I Ricordi degli onorari, Milan 1991, pp. 207-254. 4*

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Julius Kirshner red credits acquired in the name of ser Niccolö were not dotal property. Monte credits, by the tenor of the statutes of Florence, were originally free from encumbrances and from legal and financial obligations, on account of which the wife could not reedem them; but encumbrances may be affixed to the credits so that wives may be paid off easily and thus recover their dowries. Accordingly, the question before us is not whether the paghe received from the encumbered credits should be restored. Whence I say first that I have never found a law requiring that the wife should acquire the profits from non-dotal property, and besides I do not know how to, nor would I dare, say such a thing.

Niccolini quickly sustained Lorenzo's counterclaim that, as Santa had neither satisfied nor showed any intention to satisfy the terms and conditions o f the encumbrance, she had thereby forfeited her right to claim the paghe. He considered the exercise of one's rights without deference to formality to be both deplorable and dangerous. Strict enforcement of the encumbrance was imperative, he reasoned, to prevent the wife from enriching herself unjustly at the expense of the husband's heirs: Let us suppose that domina Santa resided in her husband's household for ten or twenty years and the paghe passed into the hands of the heir; would we say that she could elect to have the credits with the paghe in repayment of her dowry? Certainly not — especially when she could obtain her dowry from other properties. Inasmuch as she began to do just that, the paghe could not belong to her, even according to the words attached to the credits (when it is said " i f she [truly] counts them in her restored dowry"), because she could not include in the dowry a greater amount than had been paid to her. Niccolini's " f i r m conclusion that the paghe are not in any way owed to the w i f e " commanded acceptance from Ambrosini and Buongirolami. They concurred that Santa had certainly neglected to display the degree o f diligence demanded by the terms of the encumbrance when she failed immediately to declare her intention to count the crediti condizionati w i t h the paghe occorenti as part of her restored dowry. Ambrosini also made explicit what was merely implied by his colleagues when he accused Santa not only o f nonfeasance (culpa, negligentia) but also, and worse, of calculated deception: I f immediately on the death of ser Niccolö she had received, or declared her intention to receive, the credits with the paghe as part of her restored dowry, she would have received the paghe for which she is litigating; but she did just the opposite. For she desired to be paid from ser Niccolö's other goods, which is obvious because she began legal proceedings against her husband's estate to obtain payment of her dowry, inasmuch as she desired to defraud the estate and acquire past as well as current paghe, which is expressly contrary to the words of the said encumbrance and to ser Niccolö wishes. According to Santa, even if she had not acted to acquire the credits with the paghe for ten or twenty years, the paghe during the intervening period (page medii temporis) would still belong to her — even though the credits and the paghe current at the time she declared her intention to acquire them ought to be reckoned in the restored dowry. This is expressly contrary to the words of the encumbrance and to the intention of ser Niccolö. Moreover, it is contrary to all

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laws, since her delay would not only damage her but also ser Niccolö's estate and heirs; but in fact her negligence ought to damage her and not another. Whether or not Santa had really intended to defraud her brother-in-law is a question that, on the basis of the available documentation, cannot be answered definitively. What is certain is that she and many other litigating widows were represented in the texts as w i l l i n g subjects empowered by the law to reclaim and administer their dowries, just as their husbands had been empowered to claim and control the dowries during marriage. It is also certain that, while encumbrances placed on monte credits were never a panacea for the machinations of the husbands' heirs and the legal snares awaiting Florentine widows, they proved on the whole to be efficacious in safeguarding dotal property. 9 2 This particular case is highly instructive in suggesting that a w i d o w ' s ability to lay claim to crediti condizionati must have entered into the decision whether she should remain in her husband's household as domina et usufructaria omnium bonorum suorum.

Legacies and Gifts Florentines relied heavily on crediti condizionati for the disposition of patrimonial property by way o f gifts inter vivos and mortis causa and testamentary legacies. I n this context, condizioni generally referred to the conditions and provisos attached to legacies and gifts rather than to encumbrances. Immense as well as intricate, the topic embracing legacies and gifts o f monte credits calls for a separate and thorough investigation. Given the narrow compass o f m y paper, I can present here only a sample o f the pre- and postmortem gifts and legacies found in the various registers comprising the public debt and in the collection of notarial documents k n o w n as the Archivio Notarile Antecosimiano. The postmortem gift made by Giovanni di B i c c i d e ' M e d i c i (1360-1429), founder o f the M e d i c i Bank, is a prime example. On 27 January 1427, less than a month before his death, Giovanni placed a condition on credits w i t h a face value of 8000 florins. This condition provided that upon his death the credits were to be evenly divided between his grandsons, Piero (1416-1469) and Giovanni (14211463) di Cosimo. Since Piero and Giovanni were minors at the time, they were prohibited from exercising their rights to the credits and the paghe until they

92 In addition to the acquittances furnished by widows and their representatives upon restitution of the dowry by the husband's heirs (n. 74 above), there is plenty of evidence in the registers of the Monte delle Graticole to indicate that widows were not hesitant in reclaiming encumbered credits "per parte di sua dota," "per le sue ragioni dotali," etc. See, for example, MG, 956, fol. 754 (account of Domenico di Francesco Spinelli); ibid., 958, fol., 685 (account of Antonio di Lorenzo Palmieri); ibid., 965, fol. 310 (account of Lorenzo di Niccolo Benci). In another instance the credits encumbered to secure the dowry of Piera, widow of Lorenzo di Bartolomeo Ciai, were transferred with the same encumbrance to her second husband, Rinieri di Giovanni del Forese (ibid., 956, fol. 204).

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each reached the age of twenty-four. 9 3 I f either brother died before his twentyfourth birthday, without surviving sons who possessed full rights of succession to the credits and the status of their father (figliuoli legittimi e naturali maschi), the credits would pass to the surviving brother. I f both brothers died before reaching the magic age o f twenty-four, and i f there were no surviving sons, the credits would go to Cosimo's other sons, or in the latters' absence to their father. Finally, i f Cosimo himself were dead, the credits would be made over to his brother, Lorenzo di Giovanni (1395-1440). Giovanni also provided that the paghe were to be used for the benefit of Piero and Giovanni until they were able respectively to take control of the credits. Not withstanding the above encumbrance and conditions, Giovanni reserved to himself for the remainder of his life the right to control and trade the credits and the paghe as he saw f i t . 9 4 I n substance, this gift was equivalent to a testamentary legacy. 9 5 Procedurally, however, there was a world of difference between a postmortem gift and a legacy. W h i l e the gift w o u l d automatically pass to the donee upon the donor's death, a legacy would not, because its execution was contingent on the existence of a w i l l , on the acceptance o f the estate by the heir, and on additional formalities pursuant to the statutes of Florence. The postmortem gift was thus a viable

93

The age of majority under Florentine law was 18; under the ius commune it was 25. 94 MC, 1799, fol. 81r (27 Jan. 1427): "Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici, quartiere San Giovanni, a llui medesimo, quartiere detto, fiorini 8000 di sua licenza, Charta per mano di ser Riccho Ispineli, con tutte le paghe con chondizione che dopo la morte del detto Giovanni il detto credito sia e appartenghasi a Piero e Giovanni, fratelli e figliuoli di Chosimo di Giovanni de' Medici predetto, cioè di ciaschuno di loro la metà. Et che di detto credito de' detti Piero e Giovanni ο alchuno di loro ο chi de loro avesse aministrazione ο ghoverno non possino fare alchuno contratto ο obrigho, né disposizione alchuna per insino e detti Piero e Giovanni siano d'età d'anni 24, e similmente delle paghe di detto credito, per più tempo di uno anno. Et quale de' detti Piero e Giovanni perverrà a detta età d'anni xxiiii possa della parte gli toccherà di detto credito e delle paghe fare liberamente la sua volontà; e sse alchuno di loro morisse inanzi venisse a detta età d'anni sanza figliuoli legittimi e naturali maschi detto credito in tutto sia de quello che sopravivesse. Ε sse amendua morissino sanza figliuoli legittimi e naturali maschi avanti venissono a detta età, se altri figliuoli maschi saranno di detto Chosmo sia loro, e non essendo figliuoli di Chosmo sia del detto Chosmo, e non vivendo detto Chosmo sia di Lorenzo, figliuolo di detto Giovanni, e de' suoi figliuoli. Possano nondimendo, dopo la morte di detto Giovanni, detti Piero e Giovanni ο cchi di loro avesse il ghovemo, pigliare le paghe di detto credito e quelle convertire in utilità de' detti Piero e Giovanni. Chon questo eccietto e riservato che'l detto Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici possa mentre che vivrà, chosî inter vivos chôme in ultima volontà, fare di detto credito cholle p(a)ghe e sanza in tutto e in parte, liberamente quello gli piacierà. Ε quello che per lui sara per espresso di detto credito ο delle paghe chôme è detto disposto e vaglia e ttengha non obstante la presente chondizione." 95 On the donatio mortis causa, see C. Abouçaya, Les différents conceptions de la donatio mortis causa chez les romanists médiévaux, Revue historique de droit français et étranger, 44 (1966), pp. 378-431. For donationes in the ius commune, see the remarks of M. Bellomo, Donazione (diritto intermedio), in Enciclopedia del diritto, 13 (1964), pp. 955-965.

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alternative for Florentines like Giovanni de'Medici who wished to bypass the potential restrictions on testamentary legacies. Despite the advantages of the postmortem gift, Florentines preferred premortem gifts and testamentary legacies to transmit their patrimony across the generations. This preference is strikingly noticeable in the funding of dowries and the assignment of non-dotal assets. I n the first case, a father placed an encumbrance on the credits he purchased, stipulating that they should be incorporated into his daughter's dowry, which w o u l d be made over to her husband only upon the conclusion and consummation of her marriage. In the interim, the father or his sons would collect the paghe. Should his daughter die before marrying or enter religious life, the credits would revert to her father or his heirs or w o u l d be recycled for the dowries of younger daughters, granddaughters, and other female k i n . 9 6 I n the second case, a married woman was assigned non-dotal credits and paghe in order to supplement her dowry. A condition attached to the credits would ordinarily specify whether she was vested w i t h ownership or w i t h a limited interest (usufruct) that entitled her to the paghe for life. It w o u l d also specify to w h o m the credits w o u l d pass upon her death and under what circumstances, i f any, her husband might lay claim to them. 9 7 The mutually enforcing obsessions w i t h the preservation of patrimony and the marriage of female k i n are conveniently illustrated in the model testament (21 September 1424) of the w i d o w Agnoletta di Iacopo Covoni. After she instituted as universal heir Nanna, her married daughter and only child, Agnoletta's w i l l provided that all her movable and immovable property, save a m i l l located in the Florentine contado, should be liquidated following her death and that the proceeds plus any cash remaining in her estate should be used to purchase monte credits. The credits, w i t h a series o f provisos ( conditiones ), were to be registered in Nanna's name. First, her husband, Scolaio, was expressly debarred from claiming the right to demand, use and enjoy, sell, or barter either the credits or the paghe they engendered. Recognized by Florentine jurists as having binding force, this proviso would serve to defeat the husband's assertion that under the

96 See Kirshner and Klerman, The Seven Percent Fund, p. 328. For other examples, see ASF, MG, 965, fol. 23 (account of Antonia di Amadore); fol. 29 (account of Simona di Amadore); fol. 42 (Account of Piera di Bernardino Bandini); fol. 98 (account of Caterina di Iacopo Salviati). 97 On this standard practice, see my Materials for a Gilded Cage: Non-Dotal Assets in Florence, 1300-1500, in The Family in Italy from Antiquity to the Present, New Haven 1991, pp. 184-207. For additional examples, see ASF, MG, 956, fol. 275 (account of Giana, wife of Iacopo di Matteo); fol. 283 (account of Alessandra, wife of Toricello di Salvestro); fol. 285 (account of Margherita, wife of Antonio Maruscelli); fol. 302 (account of Margherita, wife of Lorenzo di Bernardo Ridolfi); fols. 333 and 592 (account of Lucrezia, wife of Donato di Antonio Adimari). On life interests in Roman law, see D. Johnston' s excellent article, Successive Rights and Successful Remedies. Life Interests in Roman Law, in New Perspectives in the Roman Law of Property: Essays for Barry Nicholas, ed. P. Birks, Oxford 1989, pp. 153-167.

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statutes of Florence (1415) he had an unqualified usufruct o f all the non-dotal assets acquired by his wife during marriage. 9 8 Second, the rights to the credits and the paghe must be assigned in equal portions for the dowries of any daughters born to Nanna and Scolaio. The dowries would be transferred to their husbands at the time they married, thus fulfilling the customary suspensive condition. Third, Nanna herself could neither exercise her rights to the credits and paghe nor could she encumber them (aliquam conditionem apporter e) while waiting for her daughters to marry. Fourth, i f it happened that Scolaio predeceased his wife, without any daughters surviving, Nanna would then have an absolutely exclusive right to the credits and paghe and could therefore dispose of them freely. 9 9 For Agnoletta and other like-minded widows, such settlements o f crediti condizionati served umbilically to link multiple generations of female kin. Shifting crediti condizionati or any properties to married female k i n was also a timeworn expedient by which Florentines sought to conceal taxable assets from the fisc. When Alessandra Macinghi Strozzi died in 1471, she left monte credits w i t h a face value o f 4073 not to her daughters but to her sons, Filippo and Lorenzo. The credits, though they remained in Alessandra's name, actually belonged to Filippo Strozzi and to the company that he and Lorenzo had recently opened in Florence. From an entry written in Alessandra's ricordanze by Filippo, we learn that in February 1472 the credits were transferred to his married sisters,

98 On the creation, circulation, and regulation of non-dotal assets in Florence, see my Materials for a Gilded Cage. 99 ASF, NA, 681, fol. 186v- 187r (testament of Agnoletta, widow of Neri Falconieri and daughter of Iacopo di Paolo Covoni): "In omnibus autem suis bonis mobilibus et immobilibus, iuribus, nominibus et actionibus, presentibus et futuris, sibi heredem universalem instituit, fecit et esse voluit dictam dominam Nannam eius filiam et uxorem dicti Scholai. Item voluit, iussit et mandavit dicta testatrix quod tempore mortis dicte testatricis vendantur et aliene(n)tur omnia sua bona mobilia et immobilia, preter quam unum molendium dicte testartricis, positum in comitatu Florentie super flumen delle Sieci, quod denominatur 'el molino del piovan', et quod de pretio ipsorum bonorum et de omni quacumque quantitate pecuniarum et de qua reperiretur tempore mortis dicte domine Agnolette testatricis predicte in eius hereditate, emantur et scribantur in nomine dicte Nanne heredis predicte, denarios super Monte Comunis Florentie, cum et sub ista condictione, videlicet quod Scholarius vir dicte domine Nanne non possit nec debeat ullo (ullo unquam tempore ms.) tempore super et in ipsis denariis sie descriptis aquirere aliquod ius vel usufruetum et nec in pagis, dono vel interesse ipsorum, nec ipsos permutare vel vendere, nec dictas pagas petere vel exigere. Et cum condictione quod omnis quantitas sie descripta et earum (eorum ms.) donum, pagas et interesse debeat et possit tradi et dari futuris viris et maritis filiarum dicte domine Nanne et Scholai pro dotibus ipsarum filiarum equalibus portionibus cuilibet ipsarum filiarum et ipsorum virorum per dictam dominam Nannam. Et cum conditione quod dicta domina Nanna per se vel alium antequam maritabuntur, non possit nec debeat dictas quantitates sie descriptas vel earum pagas, donum vel interesse vendere, permutare, petere, consequi aut exigere aut aliquam conditionem apponere. Et cum condictione quod si dictus Scholarius decederet ante dictam dominam Nannam, quod dicta domina Nanna possit de dicta quantitate pecunie descripta cum pagis, donis et interesse facere velle suum et prout dicte domine Nanne placuerit." The remainder of the will deals with the here s substitutus and legatees.

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Caterina and Alessandra. They were authorized to manage the credits, to collect the paghe, and to use the paghe to pay their mother's outstanding taxes. N o mention was made of their husbands, Marco Parenti and Giovanni di Donato Bonsi; but since they w o u l d have a qualified right of usufruct to the credits, we can safely presume that the husbands' cooperation was necessary to make the scheme effective. In reality, Caterina's and Alessandra's control was limited, for their brothers reserved the right to renounce the arrangement at any time — a sign they had not intended to transfer ownership o f the credits. 1 0 0 Filippo, i n a final notation, disclosed the true purpose of the arrangement: it was undertaken to shelter the credits from an old debt that he and Lorenzo had w i t h the commune. 1 0 1

Conclusion There can be no denying the precocious role played by the Monte Comune in securing an array of commercial and financial transactions and investments in Renaissance Florence. From the perspective o f a late twentieth-century investor, the Monte s registers appear to be a harbinger o f the book-entry-only accounting system used in the United States today by the federal treasury and local municipalities, and by institutions such as pension funds, mutual funds, and insurance companies. 1 0 2 Likewise, the practice of securing transactions w i t h monte credits appears to have affinities w i t h the very recent practice of creating security interests in uncertificated securities. 1 0 3 However, we should not confuse the appearance of modernity w i t h concrete historical experience. The evidence marshalled in this paper leads inescapably to the conclusion that the gush o f commerical and

100 ASF, CS, ser. 5, n. 15, fol. 104r: "Richordo chôme questo dî X X V I di febraio 1471 Coximo di Matteo Bartoli, chôme procuratore dopo la morte di madonna Alexandra nostra madre, promuto tutto il monte che era scritto in lei, che furono fiorini 4073 s. 9 d. 6 a oro, in la Chaterina e 1'Alexandra, sue figliuole e donne di Marcho Parenti e di Giovanni di Donato Bonsi, con chondizione che del credito ciaschuna in tutto possa fare la sua volontà e ciaschuna in tutto possa pigliare le paghe, e chon chondizione che le dette sirochie e ciascheduna in tutto, possa pagare di dette paghe le graveze di detta madonna Alexandra loro madre. Ε con chondizione che nonistante le sopradette chondizioni, che Filippo e Lorenzo, figliuoli di detta madonna Alexandra, e ciaschuno in tutto, possa rinunziare a ciaschuna delle sopradette condizioni, f. 4073, 9, 6." 101 Ibid., "Feciesi detta promuta per vietare che detto credito non fussi hobrighato al debito vechio che Filippo e Lorenzo ànno chol Commune, e se fussi pasato il tempo del'an(n)o la prochura a tale atto non valeva." 102 On the American intaglio-printed stock certificates as an endangered species, see the feature article, "Stock Certificates Go by the Wayside as Investments Go by Book", in the Business Section of the Chicago Tribune, Sunday, 4 August 1991. 103 On the creation and perfection of security interests in uncertificated securities under section 8 of the Uniform Commercial Code (1977) of the United States, see M. J. Aronstein, Security Interests in Securities: How Code Revision Reflects Modern Security-Holding Practices, Uniform Commercial Law Code Journal, 10 (1978), pp. 289308.

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financial innovations during the late M i d d l e Ages and the Renaissance had not at all severed Florence's deep roots in Roman soil. Indeed, these developments challenged the theorists and practitioners of the ius commune (jurists, notaries, and legislators) to adapt the principles embodied in the Corpus iuris civilis to the realities of a vibrant market economy. They were largely responsible for crafting the basis legal concepts and techniques that not only mirrored but also shaped practice. The Florentine experience differs from modern financial practice in crucial ways. Today, relatively greater weight is placed on real security than on personal security. I n contrast, the Florentines, like the Romans, continued to depend on a m i x of personal security (fideiussio) and real security ( hypotheca , pignus) to minimize risk, and they increasingly relied on crediti condizionati to augment the other security devices but not to replace them. Another crucial difference between Florentine and modern practice involves the application of security devices. Security in Florence, as i n Rome, was not applied to long-term loans for capital investments in fixed assets (e. g., plant and equipment) but soley to debt, dowries, and for ensuring the performance of obligations. Negotiability, the sine qua non of modern securities markets, never replaced the Roman technique of assignment that was critical to the operations of the secondary market in monte credits. The list of differences could be greatly expanded. But the essential point I wish to make is this: the practice of encumbering private claims to public debt in Renaissance Florence was less a harbinger of modernity than a by-product of a political and cultural economy that was markedly different from our own.

Summary The important role played by government securities (titoli nominativi) pledged as collateral (garanzia addizionale) for credit in commercial and financial centers such as Venice, Genoa, and Florence remains to be analyzed. M y paper analyzes the practice o f securing transactions against claims on the public debt o f Renaissance Florence (Monte Comune) — a practice which included not only business and personal loans but also the transmission o f property through gifts and bequests, the purchase o f real estate, and, most importantly, the payment and restitution of dowries. The paper discusses the legal grounding for the use of government securities as collateral and demonstrates that they were treated as actionable rights and debts. It also demonstrates that government securities in the early modern period were not negotiable in any modern sense and that they were ordinarily transferred from one party to another by assignment (cessio iuris).

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Appendix I Consilium

of Otto Niccolini (ASF, CS, ser. 3a, n. 41, vol. 9, fols. 419r-421r)

A n n u i redditus quando computantur inter bona immobilia vel sint bona immobilia. Crédita montis non dicuntur bona immobilia sed iura et nomen debitoris. 1 I n nomine domini Jhesu Christi, amen. Viso testamento Pieri, in quo inter alia 2 suum heredem universalem instituit F i l i p p u m 3 eius f i l i u m legiptimatum, cum hoc quod non possit vendere neque alienare aliqua bona immobilia dicti testatoris quousque compleverit xxv annum sue etatis sine expressa licentia certarum personarum. Queritur an dictus Philippus possit permutare vel alienare certa crédita montis comunis Florentie que remanserunt in hereditate dicti testatoris. Prima 4 facie videtur quod non, quia sunt quidam redditus perpetui, ergo tanquam immobilia iudicari debent, 1. Iubemus nulli, in princ., C. de sacro san., ibi annonas civiles etc. 5 Secundo ad idem textum in auct. de non alien. § Hoc quoque, coll. 2, et ibi aut aliter alienare rem immobilem, domum forsan aut agrum 6 aut colonum aut mancipia rustica aut civiles annonas.7 Tertio per textum in Clem. E x i v i § cumque annui redditus, de verb, signi., 8 ubi redditus annui computantur inter immobilia, et illorum fratres mendicantes non sunt capaces, quod late prosequitur Bar. in tractatu Minoricarum, in 2° libro, in v i dist., c. i i i . 9 Per hoc quod notât. Cy. in 1. Sciendum, i n prin., ff. qui satis, cog., 1 0 ubi vult quod annualis prestatio computetur inter immobilia. Idem voluit Feder, de Se., consilio 7 5 , 1 1 et Bal. in c. i, de controv. inter vas. et epis., 1 2 ubi dicit quod inter immobilia computantur quia habent stabile subiectum quod semper est actu permanens. Idem in aliis annuis perpetuis qui vocantur panes civilis. Idem Bal. in d. 1. Iubemus, in p r i n . 1 3 Pro quo facit quia pro istis prestationibus annuis recipendis, videtur habere locum judicium possessorium, c. Querela, de elect., 1 4 1

Annui — debitoris add. marg. Consilium domini Octonis, vide infra a c. 456 add. marg. 2 disponitur post alia del. cod. 3 Filippum ex filium corr. cod. 4 Annui redditus an sint bona immobilia add marg. 5 Cod. 1. 2. 14 pr. 6 domum aut agros cod. 7 Auth. 2. 1 pr (N. 7. pr). s Clem. 5. 11. 1. 9 Bartolus, Tractatus Minoricarum (ed. Venice, 1570, lib. II, dist. 6, cap. 3, fol. 113 rab). 10 Cynus de Pistorio to Dig. 2. 8. 15 pr (ed. cit., II, fol. 44rb, η. 28). h Federicus de Senis, Consilia, Ms. Vat. lat 2655, cons. 75, fol. 72v. 12 Baldus to L. F. 2. 20. 1 (ed Lyon, 1522, lib. 2, fol. 75vb, n. 4, and for what follows). 13 Baldus to Cod. 1.2. 14 (ed. cit.). 14 X. 1. 6. 24.

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et quod not. Cy. circa intellectum illius c. in 1. Si certis annis, C. de pactis, 1 5 et i n 1. fi., ff. quorum bonorum, 1 6 de quo per doct. in c. Pervenit, de censibus. 1 7 Ex quibus videtur quod dicta crédita non possint alienari sine licentia dictarum personarum. Sed pro veritate dico diligenter esse advertendum, nam in istis annuis prestationibus vel consideramus rem ipsam que debetur, vel consideramus ipsam obligationem, que est quid incorporale, Instit. de rebus corpo. et incor. 1 8 S i 1 9 consideramus rem ipsam que debetur annuatim vel de quatuor mensibus i n quatuor menses, ipsa est res mobilis quia est pecunia, ar. i n auct. U t hi qui obli. res prohib. § Quoniam autem, 2 0 et 1. Igitur, ff. de iure deli., 2 1 1. Iulianus., ff. de petit, hered., 2 2 1. i § Fuit quesitum, ad Trebell., 2 3 cum ibi not., 2 4 1. Moventium, ff. de verb. sign. 2 5 S i 2 6 vero consideramus ipsam obligationem et tunc similiter videtur d a rum, nam régula est quod res que est in obligatione modificat et qualificat ipsam obligationem et secundum illam rem ita iudicatur obligatio, 1. Si eum § fi., ff. si quis caut., 2 7 1. Nepoti, de fund, instr., 2 8 1. Quesitum § Mevio, de leg. 3 2 9 , facit 1. Qui actionem, de reg. i u r . , 3 0 et quod habetur in 1. i et ii, C. si adversus trans., 3 1 ubi actio iudicatur secundum id ad quod competit vel mobilis vel immobilis, et plene per Bar. in 1. Si sic § fi., de leg. i . 3 2 Sic in proposito considerata re solvenda vel considerata obligatione, ilia sit mobilis, merito non cadit in tali prohibitione. Secundo 3 3 probatur manifeste, quia actiones ipse et nomina debitorum dicuntur esse non res mobiles vel immobiles, sed tertia species, 1. Quam Tuberonis § I n peculio, ff. de peculio, 3 4 1. A divo Pio § ii, de re i u d i . , 3 5 et pulcre per Lapum,

15 Cod. 2. 3. 28. 16 Dig. 43. 2. 2. 17 Antonius de Butrio to X. 3. 39. 5. (Venice, 1578, V, fol. 174rb-174va, n. 8 ad 2; vide infra, η. 58. is I. 2. 2. 19 Si consideratur res que debetur, est pecunia mobilis add. marg. 20 autem ] igitur cod. Auth. 6. 2 (N. 72. 6). 21 Dig. 28. 8. 6. 22 Dig. 5. 3. 30. 23 Dig. 36. 1. 1. 13. 24 iuxta rationum post not. del. cod. 25 Dig. 50. 16. 93. 26 Si consideratur obligatio datur ad pecuniam add. marg. 27 Dig. 2. 11. 10. 2. 28 Dig. 33. 7. 6. 29 Dig. 32. 1. 78. 1. 30 Dig. 50. 17. 15. 31 Cod. 2. 31. 1; 2. 32 Bartolus to Dig. 30. 1. 75. 4 § Si quis ita (ed. cit., fol. 20rb, η. 5). 33 Actiones sunt tertia species add. marg.

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allegat. 91, in ultimo articulo, 3 6 et glossa in d. 1. M o v e n t i u m , 3 7 et Specu. in titulo De fructibus et interesse § i, versiculo Secundo , queritur an predicta verba, 3* ubi etiam Jo. A n . 3 9 , et in titulo De cess. acty. § i, versiculo Sed nunquid minor.* 0 C u m ergo hec sit tertia species, licet annuatim debeatur, non compre(he)nditur appellatione immobilium, cum non sit mixta sed de per se species separata, facit quod not. Jo. An. in c. Quoniam frequenter § fi., ut lite non cont., 4 1 et facit quod not. in c. fi. de pignore. 4 2 Tertio quod hoc sit verum probo apertissime: nam verba testatoris debent intelligi in proprio et vero significatu, 1. N o n aliter, de leg. i i i . 4 3 Sed proprie loquendo, verbum immobilia non continet annuas prestationes, ergo non habet locum prohibitio in talibus creditis. Quod autem non contineatur, probatur primo per glo. ordi. in d. auct. De non alien. § Hec ergo, i n versiculo connumeranda dum textus dicit nam et hec inter immobilia sunt connumeranda,* 4 el glo. subaudit, licet non sint immobilia: et sic habemus auctoritatem glo. quod iste annue prestationes non sunt immobilia. Idem voluit Bai. in d. 1. c. Sciendum, de feudi cogi., 4 5 dicens quod glo. caute loquitur an nomina debitorum inter immobilia computentur, non enim querit an sint immobilia quia inmobilia proprie sunt corpora, sed querit cum quibus computentur: et sic aliud est esse immobile et aliud computari inter immobilia. Ex quo patet quod non obstat tex. in d. 1. Iubemus: imo facit pro, dicit enim predia urbana seu rustica, res postremo immobiles, aut in his prediis mancipia constituta aut annonas civiles: et sic patet quod ille annone civiles ponuntur de per se ut species separate. Si enim essent res immobiles, satis erat supra expressisse de immobilibus: sed quia inellexit ibi imperator quod per expressionem immob i l i u m non continebantur iste annue prestationes, propterea de illis sigillatim dixit, ponendo disiunctivam tanquam inter diversa, 1. Si is, qui ducenta § Utrum, de rebus d u b . 4 6

34 Dig. 15. 1. 7. 4. 35 Dig. 42. 1. 15. 2. 36 Lapus de Castiglionchio, Allegationes (ed. Florence, 1568, pp. 502-503, alleg. 91, n. 9). 37 Gl. ord. to Dig. 50. 16. 93. (ed. cit. p. 1257b). 38 Gulielmus Durantis, Speculum iuris cum loan. And. et Bald, quorundamque modernorum additionibus, 3 vols (ed. Lyon, 1543, lib. 2, partie. 3, de fruct. et inter, η. 6, II, fol. 415ra). 39 Ibid., fol. 415rb-va. 40 Durantis (ed. cit., lib. 2., partie. 1, de cess. act. n. 18, vol. 1, pt. 2, fol. 23rb). 41 Iohannes Andreae, to X. 2. 6. 5 (ed. Venice, 1581, II, pp. 42-46). 42 χ . 3 . 21. 8 . 43 Dig. 32. 1. 69. 44 Gl. ord. to Auct. 2. 1 (Ν. 7 pr), v. numeranda (ed. cit., p. 43b). 45 Baldus to L. F. 2. 1. (ed. cit., fol. 58ra, η. 3). 46 Dig. 34. 5. 13. 3.

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Eodem modo dicimus in d. § Hec ergo, ubi primo expresserat de re i m m o b i l i et postea sigillatim de annonis civilibus et aliis: ex quo patet quod appellatio i m m o b i l i u m non veniebant, alias esset superfluum. Nec obstat tex. i n d. § Cumque annui redditus, licet enim dicatur ibi quod a iure censentur inter immobilia, non tarnen dicit quod sint immobilia: et ideo licet sit dispositum quod quando talia competunt ecclesie non possint alienari vel quod non cadant in fratres minores in quibus non cadunt immobilia, tarnen non sequitur quod ista sint immobilia. Quarto, conclusionem prefatam probo in terminis nostris auctoritate Bartoli in d. 1. Sciendum, i n princ., 4 7 ubi querit quid si aliquis habet annuos redditus an debeat satisdare: et dicit quod aut tales redditus annuarii sunt super re i m m o b i l i et évitât satisdationem, ut d. 1. Iubemus, aut alias debentur actione personali simpliciter, et tunc secus, 1. ult., ff. de consti. pecu., 4 8 et 1. fi., de contrahen. e m p . 4 9 Et sie habemus decisionem casus nostri, quod tunc annui redditus computantur inter immobilia, quando debentur super re i m m o b i l i vel in aliqua re immobili, puta s i 5 0 a tali fundo deberentur χ corbes frumenti et actione reali. Sed cum debentur actione personali, prout est in creditis montium, tune non computantur inter immobilia neque sunt immobilia. Hoc idem voluit Bai. in d. 1. Sciendum, ubi dicit quod quando continetur in eis debitum mere personale non computantur inter immobilia, quia pro eis non competit aliquod petitorium vel possessorium, 51 1. fi., ff. quorum b o . , 5 2 et in c. Pervenit, de censibus. 53 Si vero debitum est reale vel mixtum, puta si impenduntur iura servitiorum, ut 1. Litibus, 1. D o m i n i prediorum, 1. Si coloni, C. de agri. et cens., lib. x i , 5 4 tunc bene computantur inter immobilia. Ex quibus patet quod cum in proposito nostro talia crédita debeantur a persona propria, scilicet representata, videlicet a communi, et persona est cuique solvit vel est loco eius qui solvit, debitum istud dicitur esse personale, 1. Mortuo, ff. de fideius., 5 5 et plene per canonistas in d. c. Pervenit, de censibus. Unde tam ex parte debentis, scilicet communis, quam ex parte eius cui debetur tale debitum esse personale: ideo non debet computari inter immobilia. Nec obstat quod dictum est supra de possessorio per d. c. Querelam, nam diversus est intellectus illius capituli. Et quoad propositum, Cy. in d. 1. Si certis

47 Bartolus to Dig. 2. 8. 15 pr (ed. cit., fol. 65ra, η. 10). 48 Dig. 13. 5. 31. 49 Dig. 1. 18. 81. 50 Si ex super corr. cod. si Baldus to L. F. 2. 1. (ed. cit., fol. 58ra, η. 4). 52 Dig. 43. 2. 2. 53 X. 3. 39. 5. 54 Cod. 11. 48 (47). 20; 5; 14. 55 Dig. 46. 1. 22.

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annis, 5 6 et Bar. in d. 1. fi., ff. quorum b o . , 5 7 et Ιο. A n . in d. c. Pervenit, 5 8 v o l u n t 5 9 quod ille textus procedat in obligatione reali, et tunc esset d a r u m secundum predicta. A l i i vero, ut d. Anto. et Imol., in d. c. Querelam, 6 0 dicunt quod licet non competat possessorium, quia est annua prestatio personalis et non realis, tarnen ex tali prestatione personali imponitur quidam status ad quem statum potest peti, ut fiat restitutio. Et hoc tenebat d. Cardi., 6 1 volens quod ubi quis amisit statum alicuius violentia et iniuste, quod potest agere ut restituatur, licet Abas. Sicu. 6 2 videatur tenere opinionem quod ibi erat obligatio realis. Sed quantumque illarum sit vera, satis est in casu nostro quod cum ista prestatio sit personalis ex parte communis, et ex parte eius cui debet solvi non computatur inter immobilia per doct., Bar. et Bal. supra allegatos, nec competit pro ea restitutorium interdictum: et ideo i n tali prohibitione facta per dictum testatorem non continetur. Ex quibus omnibus concludo quod sive velimus intelligere verbum immobilia proprie, prout debet intelligi in testamentis, non continentur talia crédita, sive etiam velimus intelligere sub verbo immobilia omnia que inter immobilia computantur, similiter ista non computantur inter immobilia, cum sint mere personalia, ut dixi. Et sic de iure puto dicendum. Ego Octo de Ni(c)holinis doctor etc.

56 Cynus de Pistorio to Cod. 2. 3. 28 (ed. cit., fol. 59rab, η. 17). 57 Bartolus to Dig. 43. 2. 2 (ed. cit., fol. 145, η. lb). 58 Iohannes Andreae to X. 3. 39. 5. (ed cit., III, pp. 203a, col. b-204a, col. b). 59 volunt ex volentes corr. cod. 60 Antonio de Butrio to X. 1. 6. 24. (ed. cit., I, fol. 117 ra); Iohannes de Imola to X. 1. 6. 24 (ed. Venice, 1575, I, fols. 130vb-131va). 61 Franciscus Zabarella, Lectura super primo Decretalium, to X. 1. 6. 24, Ms. Vat. lat. 2254, fols. 258ra-262rb. I am presuming that "Cardinalis" refers to Zabarella rather than Johannes Monachus, also known as "Cardinalis." According to J. E. von Schulte (Die Geschichte der Quellen und Literatur des canonischen Rechts [Graz 1875], II, p. 193), Panzirolus attributed a commentary on the Decretals to Monachus, but it does not appear to be extant. 62 Abbas Panormitanus to X. 1. 6. 24 (ed. Lyon, 1521-22, I, fols. 138ra-139va).

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Appendix I I Consilia

o f Otto Niccolini, Piero di Iacopo Ambrosini da Iesi, and Giovanni di Girolamo Buongirolami ( B N F , Mss. Magi. X X I X , 193, fols. 72r-78v).

I n Dei nomine, amen. Factum sic se habet. De anno D o m i n i m c c c c x x x v i i i et de mense ottobris dicti anni, ser Niccholaus o l i m A n t o n i i Chardi, civis et notarius florentinus, fuit confessus récépissé in dotem domine Sancte eius uxoris florenos auri centum nonaginta, et fecit eidem donationem propter nuptias de libris quinquaginta et promisit restitutionem dicte dotis et donationis in omnem casum et eventum dotis restituende, cum obligatione bonorum et aliis clausulis consuetis, prout de predictis constat publicum instrumentum. Deinde de anno D o m i n i m c c c c x x x v i i i i dictus ser Niccholaus fecit apponi conditionem uni credito montis de florenis ottingentis montis comunis per ista verba videlicet: Ser Niccholo d ' A n t o n i o de' avere etc. con condictione che di detto crediton non se ne possa fare veruno contratto durante i l matrimonio tra Ί detto ser Niccholo e monna Sancta sua donna e figliuola fu di Giovanni di Duccio Sardelli, senza licentia di detta monna Sancta. Et se chaso advenisse che detta monna Sancta morisse inanzi al detto ser Niccholo, detto credito rimanghi libero al detto ser Niccholo; et durante i l matrimonio detto ser Niccholo possa e debba pigliare le paghe di detto credito. Et se chaso avenisse che detto ser Niccholo morisse inanzi a detta monna Sancta sua donna, detto credito sia de detta monna Sancta cholle paghe occorrenti, 1 si veramente 2 ch'ella se Ii conti nella sua dota et per quello valessino i l di della morte di detto ser Niccholo, et sia tenuta finire le rede di detto ser Niccholo per quello ritrahesse di detto credito. Deinde de anno D o m i n i mccccxlv et die vigesima quarta mensis mai dictus ser Niccholaus suum condidit testamentum, in quo dictus testator plura disposuit. Et inter alia reliquit dicte domine Sancte eius uxori dotes suas. Et alia legata eidem fecit per hec verba videlicet: " I t e m relinquo domine Sancte uxori mee et filie dicti suprascripti Iohannis Duccii de Florentia, dotes suas que fuerunt quantitates florenorum auri centum nonaginta. Et sie confiteor per hoc testamentum habuisse et récépissé ab ea. Et ultra dictas suas dotes relinquo eidem de bonis meis florenos viginti auri, quos tarn ab ea quam etiam ab altera persona pro ea confiteor habuisse et récépissé tarn in pecunia quam in aliis diversis rebus ultra dictas suas dotes. Item volo et relinquo quod liceat dicte domine Sancte uxori mee expendere supra funus et pro funere mei corporis et pro exequiis fiendis florenos decern auri, et plus et minus prout et sicut sue discretioni et caritati placebit et ei videbitur."

1 2

cholle paghe occorente add. in marg. siveveramente cod.

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Et reliquit dictam dominam Sanctam eius uxorem executricem omnium predictorum, et etiam relinquit dicte domine Sancte ultra dotes suas per infrascripta verba videlicet: " I t e m relinquo dicte domine Sancte uxori mee, ultra dotes suas et legata sibi supra facta per me Niccholaum testatorem suprascriptum, omnes eius pannos lanos et linos ad suum 3 dorsum factos et deputatos. A c etiam relinquo et dispono quod dicta domina Sancta uxor mea sit et esse debeat in quantum sibi placeat in domo et hereditate mea domina usufructuaria quamdiu vixerit et vitam vidualem et honestam servaverit et non transient ad secunda vota et dotes et legata suprascripta non petierit; et si aliam vitam elegerit, relinquo sibi dotes suas et legata de quibus supra fit mentio. Item volo et dispono et mando quod dicta domina Sancta uxor mea nullo modo causa vel iure possit per infrascriptum ser Laurentium meum heredem vel per aliam quamcumque personam gravari, chogi vel compelli ad conficiendum inventarium de bonis hereditatis mei testatoris; in casu q u o 4 ipsa stare vellet vidua in dictis bonis, et ipsam dominam Sanctam dicto modo per hoc testamentum libero et absolvo a confectione inventarii bonorum mee hereditatis. Et do et concedo ego Niccholaus testator supradictus per hoc meum presens testamentum dicte domine Sancte plenum arbitrium, liberam potestatem atque licentiam, parabolam 5 et mandatum vendendi, alienandi et in alium sive alios transferendi omnia et singula bona mobilia et immoblia, iura et nomina mea et mee hereditatis cuicumque et quibuscumque persone vel personis, loco, comuni, collegio, sotietati et universitati, pro eo pretio et pretiis de quo et quibus sibi quomodolibet placuerit, omni contradictione et oppositione reiecta et remota. Et libero et absolvo ipsam dominam Sanctam uxorem meam per hoc presens meum testamentum ab omni ratione reddenda occasione administrationis bonorum dicte mee hereditatis infrascripto meo heredi vel alteri persone." Et in omnibus suis bonis suum heredem instituit se Laurentium, fratrem dicti testatoris. Deinde decessit dictus ser Niccholaus testator die sextadecima mensis novembris, anno D o m i n i mccccxlvi, supervivente dicta domina Sancta eius uxore et dicto ser Laurentio eius fratre herede instituto, ut supra. Et post mortem dicti ser Niccholai dicta domina Sancta remansit i n bonis que fuerant dicti ser Niccholai testatoris, et ipsa omnia tenuit et possedit continuo; de creditis tantum montis nihil dixit, ut infra. Et deinde de dicto anno 1446 et die x x v i i i mensis februarii dicta domina Sancta renumptiavit dicto usufructui tantum eidem domine relicto in domo et hereditate dicti testatoris, reservatis sibi omnibus aliis legatis eidem domine Sancte factis in dicto testamento. 6 Deinde de anno mccccxlvii et die septima mensis novembris dicta domina Sancta per mediam personam sui procuratoris, vigore supradicti instrumenti dotis 3 suum ex usum corr. cod. quo ex quod? corr. cod. 5 parabulam cod. 6 Et deinde — testamento add in marg.

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et donationis propter nuptias et supradicti instrumenti testamenti et legatorum factorum dicte domine Sancte, fecit pronumptiari tenuta in curia potestatis civitatis Florentie, in bonis dicti o l i m ser Niccholai. Et vigore dicte pronumptiationis dicta domina Sancta per medium sui procuratoris fuit inmissa in tenutam in quampluribus bonis immobilibus que remanserant in hereditate dicti o l i m ser Niccholai, et fecit fieri preceptum de disghombrando ingombrantibus dicta bona. Et iustificavit dictam tenutam et precepta de disghombrando, prout constat per acta tunc potestatis Florentie. Et deinde petiit dicta bona in solutum sub die ottava februarii mccccxlvii, et fecit dicta bona extimari ad hoc ut sibi darentur in solutum pro dicta eius dote florenorum centum nonaginta auri et pro dicta donatione propter nuptias et pro legatis sibi factis, de quibus et prout ibidem fit mentio. Deinde die decimanona mensis februarii, anno D o m i n i mccccxlvii dicta domina Sancta, vigore dicte conditionis apposite dicto credito florenorum auri ottingentorum montis comunis, permutavit in se dictum creditum florenorum ottingentorum pro valuta dicti crediti tempore mortis dicti ser Niccholai. N o n tarnen habuit pagas dicti crediti 7 que fuerunt débité de dicto credito a tempore mortis dicti ser Niccholai usque ad tempus dicte per earn facte permutationis de dicto credito quia dicte page pro maiori parte cesserant in satisfactionem honerum dicti ser Niccholai. 8 Deinde dictus ser Laurentius heres institutus satisfecit dicte domine Sancte de residuo dicte sue dotis et de dicta donatione propter nuptias et de legatis et relictis sibi factis per dictum ser Niccholaum in dicto testamento et de expensis factis per dictam dominam Sanctam in causis dicte tenute et preceptorum de disgombrando et petitionis bonorum in solutum. Et propterea dicta domina Sancta fecit finem dicto ser Laurentio heredi de omnibus supra dictis per publicum instrumentum manu publici notarii, de mense aprilis, anno D o m i n i m c c c c x l v i i i . 9 M o d o dicta domina Sancta intendit et vult repetere a dicto ser Laurentio herede predicto, pagas dicti crediti montis florenorum ottingentorum a tempore mortis dicti ser Niccholai, qui decessit ut dictum est die sexta décima dicti mensis novembris, anno domini mccccxlvi usque ad dictam diem decimam nonam mensis februarii mccccxlvii, qua die fuit facta per eam dicta permutatio dicti crediti vigore dicte condictionis apposite dicto credito. Que page fuerunt per offrciales montis seu per eorum ministros posite in solutionem et satisfactionem onerum dicti ser Niccholai, et asserit dictas pagas ad eam pertinere vigore dicte condictionis apposite dicto credito per verba dicte condictionis ubi dicitur: " E t se chaso advenisse che detto ser Niccholo morisse inanzi a detta monna Sancta sua donna, detto credito sia della detta monna Sancta cholle paghe occorrenti." Et infra 7 a tempore post crediti del cod. 8 quia — Niccholai al. man. 9 per — mccccxlviii al. man.

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subditur: " E t per quello valessino i l dî della morte del detto ser Niccholö," per que verba secundum ipsam apparet quod dictum creditum fuit proprium dicte domine Sancte die mortis dicti ser Niccholai, unde omnes page exinde débité, 1 0 tanquam débité de credito proprio ipsius domine Sancte, pertinent et debent pertinere ad dictam dominam Sanctam. Et quod propterea cum dicte page sint converse in utilitatem hereditatis dicti ser Niccholai, videlicet in solutionem honerum dicti ser Niccholai, dictus ser Laurentius heres dicti ser Niccholai debet restituere dicte domine Sancte tantam quantitatem pecuniarum quanta fuit quantitas dictarum pagarum conversarum in satisfactionem honerum dicti ser Niccholai. A c etiam maxime quia in dicta condictione dicitur: " E t durante i l matrimonio detto ser Niccholö possa e debba pigliare le paghe di detto credito," quasi voluerit dicere quod soluto matrimonio heredes dicti ser Niccholai nullo modo possent percipere dictas pagas. Dicitur pro parte dicti ser Laurentii heredis supradicti quod dicte page dicti crediti a die mortis dicti ser Niccholai usque ad diem dicte facte permutatonis, nullo modo pertinent ad dictam dominam Sanctam vigore dicte condictionis apposite dicto credito. Et maxime quia dicta verba dicte condictionis ubi dicitur: " E t se chaso advenisse che detto ser Niccholö morisse inanzi a detta monna Sancta sua donna, detto credito sia di detta monna Sancta cholle paghe occhorrent i " sunt condictionata e t 1 1 limitata per verba que secuntur videlicet: " S i veramente ch'ella se gli conti nella sua dota," per que verba apparet quod dictum creditum nunquam fuit dicte domine Sancte sine facto et voluntate ipsius domine Sancte, que debebat dictum creditum computare in suam dotem et finire heredem dicti ser Niccholai de tanto de quanto esset retractus dicti crediti secundum valutam qua valebat dictum creditum die mortis dicti ser Niccholai. Unde, cum dicta domina Sancta nunquam voluerit computare dictum creditum in dictam suam dotem nisi ea die qua dictum creditum permutavit et qua finivit heredes dicti ser Niccholai de tanto quanto fuerat valor dicti crediti tempore mortis dicti ser Niccholai, constat quod dictum creditum nunquam fuit proprium dicte domine Sancte, set fuit hereditatis et in hereditate dicti ser Niccholai usquequo dicta domina Sancta dictum creditum permutavit, ut supra. Unde cum dictum creditum fuerit hereditatis et in hereditate dicti ser Niccholai, constat quod page exinde débité a die mortis dicti ser Niccholai usque ad diem dicte permutationis pertinuerunt et pertinere debent ad dictam hereditatem et hodie ad heredes dicti ser Niccholai, et non ad dictam dominam Sanctam. Et quod dicta domina Sancta interim non voluerit dictum creditum sibi computare in dictam suam dotem apparet per ea que dicta sunt supra, videlicet quia de anno domini mccccxlvii et die septima novembris, vigore instrumenti dotis dicte domine Sancte et pro dote dicte domine Sancte fuit pronumptiata tenuta in bonis dicti o l i m ser Niccholai, et exinde fuit facta inmissio et fuerunt facta precepta de disgombrando et 10 11

5*

débité al. man. condictionata et al. man.

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iustificata. Et deinde, die nona februarii mccccxlvii, dicta bona in quibus facta fuerat dicta inmissio, fuerunt petita i n solutum pro concurrenti quantitate dicte dotis florenorum centum nonaginta auri et dicte donationis propter nuptias librarum quinquaginta et dicti legati florenorum viginti auri: de quibus omnibus dicta domina Sancta postea fecit finem dicto ser Laurentio heredi predicto de mense aprilis mccccxlviii. Per que omnia arguitur et ostenditur contraria voluntas dicte domine Sancte et quod ipsa non intendebat nec volebat dictum creditum sibi computare in dictam suam dotem. A c etiam maxime quia dicta verba dicte condictionis non artabant dictam dominam Sanctam ad computandum sibi dictum creditum in dictam suam dotem, ut patet dum dicit: " S i veramente ch'ella se Ii conti nella sua dota." Unde stabat in potestate sua si volebat sibi computare vel non volebat, 1 2 adeo quod quousque ipsa distulit declarare dictam suam voluntatem, dictum creditum nunquam fuit effectum dicte domine Sancte, unde nec page interim débité possunt nec debent pertinere ad dictam dominam Sanctam. Nec obstant verba dicte condictionis, ubi dicitur: "detto credito sia di detta monna Sancta cholle pghe," quia dicta verba limitantur et condictionantur incontinenti per verba que secuntur, videlicet: " S i veramente ch'ella se Ii conti nella sua dota," et que infra secuntur: " E t sia tenuta finire l'erede di decto ser Niccholo per quello ritraesse di detto credito." Nec etiam obstant alia verba apposita in dicta condictione, videlicet: " E t durante i l matrimonio, detto ser Niccholo possa e debba pigliare le paghe di detto credito," quia per dicta verba non tollitur nec denegatur quod soluto matrimonio page dicti crediti debeant pertinere ad hereditatem et heredes dicti ser Niccholai quousque dicta domina Sancta non permutaverit et computaverit dictum creditum in dictam suam dotem. Ex predictis omnibus queritur, visis et consideratis omnibus supradictis et omnibus verbis appositis in dicta condictione, utrum dicte page dicti crediti, a tempore mortis dicti ser Niccholai usque ad tempus dicte permutationis facte per dictam dominam Sanctam de dicto credito, pertineant et pertinere debeant ad hereditatem et heredes dicti ser Niccholai, an vero ad dictam dominam Sanctam? Et quid iuris omnium predictorum? I n nomine D o m i n i nostri Yesu Christi eiusque matris gloriose Marie semper Virginis et beati Ieronimi totiusque celestis curie, amen. Casus prepositus non indiget longha examinatione, quia licet multa adduci possent ad huius articuli dilucidationem, tamen decisive procedere intendo, cum Veritas verborum adminicula non desideret, 1. i, C. si ut. se. ab her. absti. 1 3 Est igitur presupponendum quod dos data dicto ser Niccholao fuit i n pecunia numerata, que dos licet de iure communi restitui debeat annua bima t r i m a 1 4 die, ut 1. i § Exactio, C de rei uxor, act., 1 5 tamen ex forma statutorum debet restitui 12

ad post volebat del. cod. 13 Cod. 2. 38 (39). 1. 14 bina trima cod.

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incontinenti mortuo viro, ut habetur in statuto posito in I I libro, sub rubricha de dote et donatione restituendis. 1 6 M o d o videtur dicendum quod quicquid sit etiam ex forma statutorum, tarnen in presenti casu debeamus actendere verba apposita iuxta dictum creditum, quia ex conventione ipsi contractus legem accipiant, 1. i § Si convenerit, ff. deposi. 1 7 Set i n verbis appositis iuxta dictum creditum dicitur quod in casu quo dictus ser Niccholaus moreretur ante dictam dominam Sanctam, dictum creditum cum pagis sit dicte domine Sancte, et sic de pagis non videtur dubitandum quod esse debent dicte domini Sancte, 1. Ille aut ille § C u m in verbis, ff. de le. I I I . , 1 8 et 1. N o n aliter, eo t i . 1 9 Nulla ergo questio videtur fienda de pagis postquam est expressum quod de eis fieri debeat casu quo premoretur ser Niccholaus domine Sancte, prout mortuus est. Preterea si dicitur quod ser Niccholaus possit capere paghas in vita, ergo a contrario sensu post mortem paghas spectare ad uxorem, quod articulum habet locum in pacto dotali, 1. Inter socerum, § C u m inter, ff. de pact, dota., 2 0 cum sy. Insuper quod cum in percipiendis istis pagis nulla versetur industria percipientis, sine dubio tanquam percepte ex re dotali, cuius restituende dies evenit debeant spectare ad uxorem, sunt cum iste accessiones intrinsece que debent restitui soluto matrimonio percepte, ut not. Dy. i n 1. Si mulier § Rerum, ff. rerum amo., 2 1 et Bai. in 1. i § Exactio, C. de rei. uxor, act. 2 2 Istud enim creditum videtur incontinenti secuta morte esse dicte domine Sancte, ita enim dictant verba condictionis apposite dum dicitur "decto credito sia di decta monna Sancta colle paghe" etc., et sic propria auctoritate potest aprendere eius possessionem, set dominium videtur ex pacto ad earn spectare et propria auctoritate aprendi, 1. i i i , C. de p i g . , 2 3 1. fi-, C. de pig. act., 2 4 et no. in 1. Dotis actione, C. soluto matrimonio. 2 5 Preterea de hoc videtur casus in 1. 1 § Sin autem, 2 6 C. de rei uxo. act., ibi dum dicitur "Questu c i v i l i u m annonarum et aliis que sunt eis similia parti mulieris restituendis" etc. U b i videtur textus expressus pro istis creditis montis ut eorum page debeant uxori restitui, maxime cum soluto matrimonio debet dos consistens in pecunia mulieri reddi ex forma statuti florentini, 2 7 et mors v i r i habetur pro certo termino, et sic mortuo

is Cod. 5. 13. 1. 7a. 16 Statuta populi et communis Florentiae . . . anno salutis MCCCCXV Freiburg 177881, Vol. I, lib. II, rub. L X I , pp. 156-159. π Dig. 16. 3. 1. 6. is Dig. 32. 1. 25. 1. 19 Dig. 32 1. 69. 20 Dig. 23. 4. 26. 2. 21 Dinus de Muxiello to Dig. 25. 2. 21. 3 (ed. Lyon 1513 sf). 22 suprascripta post Exactio del. cod.; Baldus to Cod. 5. 13. 1. 7a (ed. Lyon 1498 sf). 23 Cod. 8. 13. 3. 24 Cod. 4. 24. 12. 25 C o d . 5. 18. 9. 26 Cod. 5. 13. 1. 7b Exactio cod. 27 Vide supra, n. 16.

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viro heredes non restituentes dotem sunt in mora, 1. Traiecticie § De illo, ff. de act. et o b l i . , 2 8 et 1. Magnam, C. de contra, et commict. stipu. 2 9 Ergo post moram debent dicte page redidi ipsi mulieri, 1. Si mora, ad fi., ff. soluto m a t r i m . , 3 0 cum concor. Ex quibus videtur dicendum quod dicte page percepte per dictum ser Laurentium seu ad eius commodum pervente, debeant restitui dicte domine Sancte ne etiam ipsa debeat ali de suo proprio, arg. eorum, que plenissime not. per glo. et doct. in dicto § Exactio, in glo. magna. 3 1 Sed hiis non obstantibus, contrariam partem de iure arbitror veriorem et brevissime loquendo quia causa est parvi valons et paucissime importantie. Dico esse presupponendum pro fundamento quod in casu proposito, dos ipsa consistebat in pecunia numerata, cuius restitutionem fateor debere fieri incontinenti. Set illud creditum permutatum cum condictione in dictum ser Niccholaum non erat dotale; set quia ilia crédita ex forma statutorum sunt libera et non veniunt in obligationem, et mulier ex hoc non potuisset consequi dotem ex eis, ideo apponuntur iste conditiones ut mulieres de facili sibi ipsis de eis satisfaciant et dotem consequantur. Igitur articulus noster non est an debeant restitui fructus ex re dotali, set an debeant restitui page percepte ex credito ita conditionato. Unde primo dico quod nunquam inveni legem volentem mulierem debere lucrari fructus rei non dotalis, et propterea nescio nec audeo hoc dicere. In aut. de tri. et semis. § Consideremus, 3 2 1. Si servum § N o n dixit pretor, ff. de acq. her., 3 3 et 1. Illam, C. de collationibus, 3 4 cum sy. Est ergo videndum an vigore illorum verborum "dicto credito sia di monna Sancta" etc., sit translatum dominum in dictam dominam, et dicendum est indubitanter quod non: primo quia nedum per ista verba, verum etiam ex nudo pacto, non transfertur, ut 1. Traditionibus, C. de pact. 3 5 Requiritur enim traditio vel aliquid quod pro traditione habeatur, 1. Quod de suo, C. de dot. cauta. non n u m . , 3 6 cum ibi not. Secundo quia verba iuxta dictum creditum apposita non sunt simpliciter prolata quod dictum creditum s i t 3 7 dicte domine. Set incontinenti subditur " S i veramente che ella se Ii conti nella sua dota" etc., que verba licteraliter dicuntur: ita tamen, vel ita quod; et faciunt et reddunt dispositionem si non conditionalem, 3 8 ut videtur probari in 1. Iulianus 3 9 noster, ff. de condi. et 2» Dig. 44. 7. 23. 29 Cod. 8. 37 (38). 12. 30 Dig. 24. 3. 9. 31 Gl. ord. to Cod. 5. 13. 1. 7a v. restituendis (ed. Venice 1591, p. 717ab); Cynus de Pistorio ad. loc. cit. (ed. Frankfurt 1578, fols. 311b-312a); Bartolus ad. loc. cit. (ed. cit., fol. 175va); Baldus ad. loc. cit. (ed. Lyon 1498 sf). 32 Auth 3. 5 (N. 18. 5.). 33 Dig. 28. 2. 71. 5. 34 Cod. 6 . 20. 19. 35 C o d . 2. 3. 20. 36 Cod. 5. 15. 2. 37 dicendum post sit del. cod. 38 saltim non .post conditionalem del. cod. 39 Iulius cod.

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demostra., 4 0 saltim modalem, ut 1. C u m ab eo, ff. de contra, empti., 4 1 et 1. Lutius § Que habebat, ff. ad Trebell., 4 2 et 1. Liberias § 1, ff. de manu, testamento, 43 et per Bart, in 1. Quibus diebus § T e r m i l i u s , 4 4 ff. de condi. et demo., 4 5 et facit 1. Si quis emptionis, C. de pre. tri. an., 4 6 et quod not. Baldus in 1. fi, C de furtis. 4 7 Unde licet debeat consequi prius relictum quam impleat modum, 1. Insulam, ff. loca, 4 8 et per Bart, in dicto § Termilius, 4 9 prestita tarnen cautione de implendo, ut i b i secundum eius oppynionem, tarnen quousque dicta mulier non declaravit se velle consequi dictum creditum et se eligere dictum creditum pro consecutione dotis, dictum creditum erat dicti heredis, ante factam electionem, ar 1. Plerumque, i n fi., ff. de iur. d o t . , 5 0 et 1. 1., ff. de solut., 5 1 et not. glossa in dicto § Exactio, 5 2 quod patet. Nam ponamus quod dicta domina Sancta stetisset per χ vel xx annos et paghe pervenissent ad heredem, diceremusne quod ipsa eligere posset dictum creditum cum pagis? Certe non, et maxime cum ipsa posset consequi dotem in aliis rebus, prout incepit facere, ex quo datur intelligi quod tunc page non spectassent ad earn, etiam secundum verba in dicto credito seu iuxta dictum creditum, dum dicitur "che ella se Ii conti nella dota" etc., quia amplius non posset computare in dotem facta solutione de ea, 1. Qui res § Aream, ff. de solut., 5 3 Inst., qui mo. toi. ob., in p r i n c . 5 4 Et presertim cum sibi fuerit factum relictum ususfructus quamdiu dotes non petierit, ex quo patet testatorem intellexisse quod tunc ex v i condictionis apposite dicto credito non debeat consequi fructus, set tanquam usu(s)fructus, 1. ii, cum ibi no. § Si secundo nup., 5 5 et ibi quod not. in 1. T i t i a 5 6 cum testatmento § fi., et ibi Bar., ff. de le. I I . 5 7 Insuper ponamus etiam quod non acceptasset dictum legatum prout non acceptavit, set intendebat dotem repetere; certum est quod heres predictus debuisset solvere honera pro dicto credito et ea referre licet obligata, et sic si ista stetisset per plures annos ad permutandum creditum deberet secundum earn habere paghas et fructus, et 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57

Dig. 35. 1. 86. Dig. 18. 1. 41. Dig. 36. 1. 80. (78), 10. Dig. 40. 4. 17. 1. Terminius cod. Bartolus to Dig. 35. 1. 40. 5 (ed. cit. fol. 122r-v, η. 14). Cod. 7. 39. 8. Baldus to Cod. 6. 2. 22 (ed. cit.). Dig. 19. 2. 58. Vide supra, n. 45. Dig. 23. 3. 10. 6. Dig. 46. 3. 1. Vide supra, n. 31. Dig. 46. 3. 98. 8. I. 3. 29 pr. Cod. 5. 9. 2. Titio cod. Dig. 31. 1. 34. 7; Bartolus ad loc cit. (ed. cit. fol. 33va, nn. 3-9).

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alius deberet solvere honera, quod est inconveniens, 1. Hactenus, ff. de usufruct u , 5 8 et ff. de usufructu lega., 1. Quero. 5 9 Debebat igitur dicta mulier accipere dictum creditum et velle i l l u d pro dote et declarare animum suum, quem animum videtur declarasse contrarium dum renumptiavit dicto legato ususfructus et postea stetit per annum antequam dotem peteret. I m m o petendo eam in bonis immobilibus aliis a dicto credito, videtur velle non consequi dotem in dicto credito, ar. dicte 1. Plerumque, ad f i . , 6 0 et 1. Quod in heredem § Eligere, ff. de t r i . 6 1 Nam eligendo sibi solvi in aliis rebus non potest sibi solvere in dicto credito, ne fiat bina solutio ne bis exigatur etc. N o n est igitur conveniens quod paghas habeat illius crediti, quod creditum non aceptavit iuxta eius formam; quin i m m o cum dictum creditum non fuerit mulieris proprius, et mulier fuerit in negligentia illud permutandi, sine dubio non fuerit mulieris proprius, et mulier fuerit in negligentia i l l u d permutandi, sine dubio non debet habere fructus et paghas tali crediti, que sunt percepte propter eius negligentiam, ar. 1 M u l i e r § Si heres, ff. ad Trebellian., 6 2 et not. Bar. ad licteram i n dicta 1. Si mora, ff. soluto matrimonio, in 4 6 3 et ultimo contrario, et facit tex. optimus in 1. Venditor ex hereditate § Set hoc in re, ff. de her. vel act. v e n . 6 4 Et ex istis patet responsio ad supra in contrarium allegata. N a m dum dicitur quod verba condictionis i l l u d important etc.. dum dicitur: "decto credito sia di decta monna Sancta colle paghe." Nam si non habet creditum, non debet habere paghas nec debet percipere paghas ex credito alieno et postea sibi aliunde de dote satisfacere, ut per predicta patet. N o n obstat argumentum a contrario sensu, quia non propterea innuitur quod domina Sancta debeat percipere paghas ante permutationem i n vita, ergo percipit ser Niccholaus, quia supra tractaverat quod creditum non esset liberum dicti ser Niccholai durante vita eius, set solum post mortem domine Sancte, igitur ne quidem intellexisset quoad paghas, propterea exprimit de pagis dicendo quod in vita possit percipere. Ergo a contrario sensu importaretur quod ipse post mortem non posset, et de hoc non esset dubium, ut in aut. de nupt. § Deinceps, 6 5 1. i i i i , ff. locati. 6 6 Et si dicatur ad quid ergo dixit "colle paghe" cum hoc sit superfluum, cum facta permutatione sine dubio debet habere paghas, dico responsionem esse claram, videlicet ad tollendum dubium, 1. Divortio, in prin., ff. soluto matrimonio, 6 7 ut intelligatur non debere fieri computationem fructuum secundum ratam anni, et propterea non dixit simpliciter 58 59 60 61 62 63 64

Dig. 7. 1.7. 2. Dig. 33. 2. 28. Dig. 23. 3. 10. 6. Dig. 14. 4. 9. 1. Dig. 36. 1. 23. Bartolus to Dig. 24. 3. 9 (ed cit., fol. 9vb, η. 3). Dig. 18. 4. 21.

65 A u t h . 4 . 1 ( N . 2 2 . 2 0 ) .

66 Dig. 19. 2. 4. 67 Dig. 24. 3. 7. 1.

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"colle paghe," set subiuncxit "correnti," quasi de illis pagis que tunc currebant vellet tollere dubium. N o n obstat quod veniant percipiende ex re dotali et sint acessiones intrinsece etc. Nam ut supra primo loco dixi, ista non est res dotalis set est res viri, et ita loquitur tex. i n dicta 1. i § Sin autem, 6 8 videlicet i n questu c i v i l i u m annonarum datarum in dotem. N o n obstant ilia verba "sia" etc., quia supra responsum est, scilicet ea volente, non autem ea declarante suam voluntatem in contrarium, non autem etiam ea declarante, petente se m i c t i in tenutam in aliis bonis, et quod plus est ea petente ilia alia bona in solutum dari. Ex quibus patet responsio ad ea que sunt supra i n contrarium allegata, et remanere firmam conclusionem quod dicte page non debentur dicte mulieri aliquo modo. Et ita de iure credo, salvo saniori iudicio, ego Octo Lapi Niccholinus de Sirigattis de Florentia, legum doctor minimus, et ad fidem me subscripsi et solito sigillo sigillavi die x x v i i aprilis mccccxlviiii. Laus Deo. Christi nomine repetito, placet suprascripti clarissimi iurisconsulti vera et indubitata in iure conclusio quod page et fructus dictorum denariorum montis lucrati a tempore mortis dicti ser Nicholai usque ad diem declarationis dicte domine Sancte spectent ad dictam hereditatem dicti ser Nicholai et ad eius heredes, non autem ad dictam dominam Sanctam, ex pluribus. Primo quia hoc clare apparet ex mente et verbis dicte condictionis, ubi dixit quod in casu quo ipse ser Nicholaus predecederet ipsam dominam Sanctam dicta crédita essent ipsius domine Sancte cum pagis currentibus, si et in casu quo ipsa sibi computet in dotem suam pro eo quod valerent etc. Unde expresse patet quod tunc voluit dicta crédita fieri ipsius domine Sancte cum pagis predictis postquam sibi computaverint in dotem suam; paghe ergo ante curse et lucrate non cedent sibi. Nam etiam cursa ante declarationem nedum lucratur, set nec potest ex v i dicte condictionis sibi contare in dotem quod est fortius sicut sunt huiusmodi quales d i c t a 6 9 domina Sancta petit. Per hoc etiam, et secundo quod dicta crédita cum pagis currentibus a tempore mortis dicti ser Nicholai non fierent ipsius domine Sancte, fuit sua mora et culpa sua in declarando suam voluntatem incontinenti. N a m si immediate mortuo dicto ser Nicholao ipsa acceptasset et declarasset dictum creditum cum pagis computare pro dote, habere deberet dictas pagas de quibus contenditur, set fecit totum contrarium. Nam volebat sibi solvi de aliis bonis dicti ser Nicholai, quod apparet quia cepit plura iudicia in aliis bonis dicte hereditatis pro perveniendo ad solutionem dicte sue dotis, et potius voluit fraudare dictam hereditatem et lucrari pagas tarn cursas quam currentes, quod est expresse contra verba dicte condictionis et voluntatem dicti ser Nicholai. Nam sic si stetisset per χ vel xx annos secundum hoc, page medii temporis fuissent sue secundum earn, et solum creditum et page tunc currentes tempore declarationis debuissent 7 0 imputari et contari in dotem, quod est contra expressa verba et 68 Cod. 5. 13. 1. 7b Exactio cod . 69 dicta rep. et del. cod. 70 tempore post debuissent del. cod.

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mentem dicti Niccholai et dicte condictionis, et sic mora sua non sibi que fuisset i n culpa, set hereditati et heredibus dicti ser Niccholai noeuisset et fuisset noeiva, quod est contra omnia iura, cum culpa sua culpose et non alten debeat esse dampnosa, ut 1. Mora, ff. de verbo. o b l i , 7 1 et in c. Mora, de regulis iuris, libro v i . 7 2 Erat enim in sua potestate, a prineipio et semper, declarare suam voluntatem, et ideo dampnum quod sentit, sibi et non alteri debet imputari, ut in régula Dampnum, libro v i , 7 3 et i n c. fi., extr. de iniur. et damp, d a . 7 4 Preterea et tertio de iure est quod fructus rei débité alicui ex actu inter terminos non debentur tali nisi a die more debitoris vel litis contestationis, ut 1. Videamus § Si actionem, et § E x 7 5 causa, ff. de usuris, 7 6 et ponit Bar in 1. Si filius § fi., ff. de verbo. o b l i . , 7 7 et dominus Florianus in 1. Si stipulatus, in prin., ff. de usuris. 7 8 Set in hac declaratione vel postea non intervenit hoc nec illud, igitur etc. Preterea et quarto, etiam in legatis conditionalibus sive modalibus non debentur fructus legatario nisi a die purificate vel implete conditionis vel modi, ut 1. Quod servus, ff. de 1. i i , 7 9 et 1. Emptor, i n fine magne glosse, ff. de rei vendi., 8 0 et lege Licinius Loqusta, 8 1 ff. de 1. i i . 8 2 Igitur antequam ipsa implevisset et conditionem vel modum predictum non lucrabatur dictas pagas vel fructus ut i n dictis iuribus. Et ideo idem quod supra conclusum et consultum est per suprascriptum honorabilem consulentem, dico et consulo iuris esse. Ego Petrus de Ambrosinis de Exio legum doctor et advocatus florentinus, et ad fidem premissorum hie me propria manu subscripsi et sigillo consueto sigillavi. Yesus Et ego Iohannes Geronimi, civis florentinus, legum doctor, idem iuris esse puto quod supra per suprascriptos eximios doctores scriptum et consultum est, iuribus, rationibus et autoritatibus per eos induetis et allegatis et ea ratione quia ante permutationem et aeeptationem dicti crediti montis numquam inrevocabiliter spectavit ad dictam dominam, que potuit illud non aeeptare et in aliis bonis ut ineepit, ut patet ex actis cause, ius sue dotis consequi, sicut in legatario contingit cui ignoranti ex morte testatoris et aditionis hereditatis ius legati, sed revocabiliter donec aeeeptet queritur, 1. C u m pater § Surdo, ff. de le. I I , 8 3 et ff. de condit. 71 Dig. 45. 1. 88. 72 VI. 5. 12. 25. 73 VI. 5. 12. 86. 74 X . 5. 36. 13. 75 Si praem. Ex add. cod. 76 Dig. 22. 1. 38. 7. 8. 77 Bartolus to Dig. 45. 1. 78 § Cum fundum (ed. cit., fol. 33rb, η. 4). 78 Florianus de Sancto Petro to Dig. 22. 1. 4, Ms Vat. lat. 2623, fols. 78ra-78rb. 79 Dig. 31. 1. 38. so Gl. ord. to Dig. 6. 1. 65 v. eos (ed. cit., p. 560a). 81 Lucinius cod. 82 Dig. 31. 1. 48. 83 Dig. 31. 1. 77. 3.

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inst., 1. Si quis ita heres, 8 4 et C. quando dies le. ce., 1. f i . , 8 5 et ff. de iud., 1. C u m furiosus, 8 6 et in 1. Si tibi homo § Cum servus, ff. de le. p r i m o . 8 7 Ante ergo quam acceptetur non inrevocabiliter queritur ut iudicat vero iuribus. Fuit quidem opus i l l u d creditum prius aceptare quam fructus querere, et i n alternativis in quibus creditor ex pacto habet electionem, non est debitor in mora priusquam eligatur, etiam in dote per not. in 1. Plerumque § fi., ff. de iure d o t i u m , 8 8 presertim in proposito, quia non presupponitur mulierem scivisse 8 9 et notitiam habuisse dicti crediti et illud unquam ante permutationem agnovisse et acceptasse. Et per consequens nec fructus suos fecisse presertim quia talis aceptatio retro non obytur quoad fructus consumptos, ut in proposito in quo fructus percepti sunt bona fide ac consumpti pro oneribus rei publice, pro quibus erant effecti. Igitur heredes ad eorum restitutionem non tenentur, ut eorum que notantur in 1. In fundo, ff. de rei ven., 9 0 et habetur i n 1. Si fundum, C. eo t i t u l o . 9 1 N i c h i l ergo imputandum est heredi vel hereditati mariti si dicti redditus conversi sunt in oneribus publicis ante aceptationem et permutationem mulieris, quoniam i l l o interim hereditarii fuerunt et non mulieris, maxime cum in aliis bonis prosequebatur mulier ius suum per ea que supra dicta sunt. Et ea ratione quia recepta sorte dotis et donationis et pro legato et fine facta, amplius de fructibus et accessionibus non tractandum per que habuntur in 1. i i i i a , C. depositi, 9 2 et i n 1. pr. i n fine, ff. de eo quod cer. l o . , 9 3 in 1. ii, ff. Si quis caut., 9 4 ubi dicitur quod recepta sorte dotis et donationis et pro legato et fine facta, amplius de pena de usuris ac accessionibus non tractandum, presertim cum nulla processerit seu intervenerit in contrarium protestatio, per notam i n 1. Centum Capue, ff. de eo quod cer. l o . , 9 5 cum sy. Et hiis brevibus sum contentus, cum i n consilio superiori omnia discussa sunt; hec autem addidi, ut testimonium perhibeam veritati. Laus Deo.

84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95

Dig. 28. 7. 3. Cod. 6. 53. 6. Dig. 5. 1. 39. Dig. 30. 1. 86. 2. Dig. 23. 3. 10. 6. scrisse cod. Dig. 6. 1. 38. Cod. 3. 32. 17. Cod. 4. 34. 4. Dig. 13. 4. 1. Dig. 2. 11. 2. Dig. 13. 4. 8.

VITO PIERGIOVANNI

Banchieri e mercanti: Modelli di classificazione nella dottrina giuridica genovese I I rapido evolversi delle istituzioni bancarie e l'aumentata rilevanza dei nuovi problemi teologici, economici e giuridici posti soprattutto dai contratti di cambio, ha dato un fondamentale apporta, tra i l X V I ed i l X V I I secolo, all'imporsi di una scienza autonoma del diritto commerciale. I I punto di partenza è l'opéra di Benvenuto Stracca che, alla metà del X V I secolo, propone una costruzione sistematica che raccoglie e collega i profili soggettivi, contrattuali e processuali che identificano un diritto dei mercanti e consentono di studiarlo autonomamente: per i contenuti del Tractatus del giurista anconitano, i contributi innovativi sembrano ridotti rispetto alio sforzo di raccogliere le fila di una tradizione che si trova in gran parte dispersa nelle opere dei grandi commentatori 1 . Reali novità contenutistiche bisogna cercarle più avanti, ad iniziare dall'opera di Scaccia sui cambi, che apre una tradizione più specificamente giuridica sul tema, e che certo meglio risponde alle esigenze di migliore conoscenza d i uno dei campi più nuovi e complessi del diritto commerciale 2 . N o n si tratta, come è ovvio, soltanto di una questione di diversificazione di atteggiamento tecnico-giuridico, ma d i adeguamento ai mutati assetti della economia e della finanza europea, tra la fine del X V I e l ' i n i z i o del X V I I secolo 3 . I l grande mutamento nelle strutture economiche è anche adombrato nella trattazione, da parte della dottrina giuridica, di un tema significativo, come è quello delle caratteristiche che differenziano la professione del mercante da quella del banchiere: è certo un problema complesso e pieno d i implicazioni economiche e sociali, oltre che di diritto, e m i sembra che i differenti temi che esso coinvolge possano venire in luce attraverso l'accostamento di due testi giuridici genovesi.

1

V. Piergiovanni, Imprenditori e impresa alle origini della scienza del diritto commerciale, in L'impresa. Industria, Commercio, Banca, secc. X I I I - X V I I I (Atti della Ventiduesima Settimana di Studi, Istituto Intemazionale di Storia Economica F. Datini, Prato, 30 aprile-4 maggio 1990), Firenze 1991, 519-520. 2 Sull'Autore e l'opéra si veda R. Savelli, Between Law and Morals: Interest in the Dispute on Exchanges during the 16th Century, in The Courts and the Development of Commercial Law, ed. V. Piergiovanni, Berlin 1987 (Comparative studies in continental and Anglo-American legal history, Bd. 2), 39 ss. 3 Per i riferimenti generali si rimanda a F. Braudel, Civiltà materiale, economia e capitalismo (secoli X V - X V I I I ) , I giochi dello scambio, Torino 1981, 54 ss.

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Si traita di opere di diversa tipologia, nate per raggiungere finalità diverse: la prima è un 'Consilium' dato dal giurista Bartolomeo Bosco, agli inizi del X V secolo, e la seconda un brano di un Tractatus' scritto da Raffaele Della Torre nel 1641 4 . I riferimenti cronologici, come si vede, sono distanti due secoli, ma sono significativi i n quanto rispecchiano mutate situazioni economiche e di operatività tecnica delle catégorie dei banchieri e dei mercanti. Infine, e anche questo non è senza rilevanza, i l contesto in cui i due Autori si muovono è lo stesso, cioè la città d i Genova, all'avanguardia, anche a distanza di due secoli, nello sviluppo e nella riflessione sulle tecniche commerciali e bancarie. Come ho già avuto occasione di rilevare 5 , la tradizione di Genova in tema di attitivà bancaria è molto antica, e già nei più vecchi cartulari notarili, risalenti al X I I secolo, compare la denominazione di 'bancherius ' a designare una professione. Dalla prima legislazione a noi pervenuta e dai documenti notarili emerge certo lo sviluppo di una imprenditoria specializzata, ma essa è ancora présente, oltre che nel settore creditizio, in quello commerciale: la figura prédominante nell'economia genovese è quella del mercante-banchiere che si qualifica proprio per la capacità di operare in campi e con tecniche diverse. N o n è infine senza significato che a Genova, già agli inizi del X I V secolo, operi una magistratura speciale, l ' U f f i c i o di Mercanzia, composto di mercanti, che, oltre ad occuparsi di controversie di commercio, ha competenza anche nelle questioni bancarie 6 . Taie sostanziale indifferenziazione non impedisce che si specifichino progressivamente i rapporti tra le autorità pubbliche ed i professionisti del credito e si impongano regole interne di funzionamento della loro attività, incentrate soprattutto sulla tenuta e sul valore delle scritture e, più in generale, sull'affidamento dei terzi e sulle procedure fallimentari. E ' interessante notare, perché si tratta di una peculiarità che resterà nella tradizione normativa genovese sino agli Statuti del 1589, che ben due leggi, emanate all'inizio del X V secolo, operano un collegamento specifico tra la professione bancaria e l'istituto del fallimento 7 .

4 Per notizie sui due Autori si vedano, rispettivamente, V . Piergiovanni, Bartolomeo Bosco ed il divieto genovese di assicurare navi straniere, in Annali della Facoltà di Giurisprudenza di Genova (Omaggio a Mario Scerni), X V I (1977), 855 - 890, e R. Savelli, Delia Torre, Raffaele, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, 37 (1989), 649-654. 5 V. Piergiovanni, I banchieri nel diritto genovese e nella scienza giuridica tra Medioevo ed età moderna, in Banchi pubblici, banchi privati e monti di pietà nell'Europa preindustriale (Atti della Società Ligure di Storia Patria, cv (1991 / 1), 205-223. 6 V. Piergiovanni , Lezioni di storia giuridica genovese. II Medioevo, Genova 1983, 91 ss. 7 V. Piergiovanni, Banchieri e falliti nelle 'Decisiones de mercatura' della Rota civile di Genova, in Diritto comune, diritto commerciale, diritto veneziano, a cura di K. Nehlsen-von Stryk e D. Nörr (Centro Tedesco di Studi Veneziani, Quademi, 31), 19 ss.

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Proprio della interpretazione d i queste due norme e della loro applicazione univoca a mercanti e banchieri viene investito i l consulente genovese, Bartolomeo Bosco 8 . Oltre alla soluzione di problemi di competenza e probatori, la prima legge, intitolata ,de bancheriis rumpentibus', stabilisce la nullità degli atti compiuti nei due giorni antecedenti al fallimento e d i quelli fraudolenti ο dolosi effettuati nel mese precedente 9 . L a seconda norma, di poco successiva, dal titolo 'de bancheriis et aliis rumpentibus', segna invece le differenze della situazione del dissesto dei banchieri da quella degli altri mercanti 1 0 , ο almeno da una parte di essi. Viene, infatti, precisato un discrimine tra i banchieri ed i piccoli mercanti, coloro cioè che sono debitori di una somma inferiore a dieci mila lire genovesi. Per i mercanti debitori di una somma superiore, al contrario, le responsabilità patrimoniali, personali e familiari, gli obblighi di esibizione dei libri e le pene sono le stesse dei banchieri. Tra le due leggi esiste un'unica discrepanza, data dalla mancata riproposizione, nel testo che parla oltre che di 'bancherii' anche di ' a l i i rumpentes', della nullità degli atti compiuti nei due giorni precedenti la dichiarazione di fallimento: ed è su questa carenza che si dirige la perizia avvocatesca del Bosco, al fine di salvare le ragioni di una delle parti in causa. L a controversia, infatti, coinvolge due mercanti, Luciano ed Ottobono Spinola, falliti per una somma superiore a dieci mila lire e per i quali è stato richiesto l'annullamento degli atti compiuti nei due giorni precedenti al dissesto: i loro avversari, tramite i propri avvocati, sostengono che esistendo una norma che parifica i l fallimento dei banchieri a quelli dei grandi mercanti, devono estendersi a costoro tutte le disposizioni i n materia. La conseguenza è la richiesta di annullamento degli atti compiuti nei giorni immediatamente precedenti i l fallimento, secondo le disposizioni del capitolo " D e bancheriis rumpentibus", che pure, come si è detto i n precedenza, non parla di mercanti ma solo di banchieri. I l Bosco ritiene che non si debba fare luogo all'annullamento degli atti suddetti i n quanto tra banchieri e mercanti la parificazione non è valida generalmente ed in assoluto ma è limitata alla seconda norma, cioè 'de bancheriis et aliis rumpentibus': " . . . parificatio est specialis respectu dispositorum et ordinatorum in hoc statuto, ut apparet ex serie et Claris verbis statuti; non autem est parificatio generalis et omnimoda . . . " n . Affermare che tutto quanto disposto per i banchieri debba intendersi applicabile anche ai mercanti è certo procedimento di 'extensio activa' che esorbita da quanto previsto nello stesso diritto comune: sarebbe diverso, s Bartholomei de Bosco, Consilia, Lodani 1620, cons. 389, pp. 605-607. 9 Volumen Magnum Capitulorum Civitatis Ianuae A. MCCCCIII-MCCCCVII, in Leges Genuenses, a cura di C. Desimoni / L. T. Belgrano / V. Poggi (Historiae Patriae Monumenta, XVIII), Torino 1901, 574. ίο Ibidem, p. 656-659. n Bartholomei de Bosco, p. 606.

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sostiene Bosco, se uno statuto, espressamente ο anche tacitamente, operasse tale estensione normativa 'propter rationis identitatem', ma non sembra che questo accada nel caso specifico. Tra le due catégorie esiste, infatti, 'multa differentia': l'approvazione da parte dell'Ufficio d i Mercanzia, i l giuramento e le fideiussioni prestate dai banchieri non sono certo richieste ai mercanti. L'autorizzazione dello Stato, soprattutto, alimenta la fiducia dei cittadini verso i banchieri, con la conseguenza che i l loro comportamento scorretto si puo ripercuotere in modo negativo nei confronti delle stesse autorità. L a conclusione del Bosco è che alla diversità di condizione giuridica tra mercanti e banchieri non puo che corrispondere un di verso trattamento 1 2 . L a legislazione genovese ed i l consiglio di Bosco sembrano attestarsi sulla differenziazione delle situazioni professionali del banchiere e del mercante, e si tratta certo di un segnale importante ai fini di una migliore definizione tecnica degli ambiti di operatività e d i responsabilità nei confronti sia dello Stato che dei privati. A l contempo sia la previsione normativa che i l consiglio del giurista sono una ulteriore testimonianza del permanere di una ben précisa congiuntura, nella quale banchieri e mercanti vengono considerati alio stesso livello, come principali operatori, talora in negativo come nel caso di un fallimento, della vita economica: sono, in sostanza, entrambi emblematicamente protagonisti della prospérité, e quindi delle vicende socio-politiche, dello Stato a cui appartengono. Ancora nell'opera di un Autore come Stracca che, alla metà del X V I secolo, ha scritto i l primo fondamentale trattato di diritto mercantile, non viene particolarmente approfondita, e quindi probabilmente non sentita come un problema importante, la differenza tra attività bancaria e mercantile 1 3 . Egli, dopo aver affermato che "Bellissime etiam dubitare posset aliquis num mercatoris appellatione campsores contineantur", évita di approfondire i l problema dal punto di vista dei contenuti e si rifugia in una disquisizione di tipo etimologico. N o n si avverte certo, in questa esposizione, alcuna eco dei grandi mutamenti che l'economia europea sta affrontando, nei quali strumenti del credito e speculazione finanziaria hanno una parte da protagonisti. D i versa è, invece, l'atmosfera che si coglie, direttamente ο indirettamente, dalle fonti giuridiche genovesi. L a presenza e la predominanza finanziaria nell'Impero spagnolo hanno indotto g l i storici a parlare di questo periodo come del 'secolo dei genovesi': sono i banchieri della Repubblica, infatti, che diventano finanziatori della Corona e protagonisti delle fiere dei c a m b i 1 4 . 12 Ibidem, p. 607: . . cum multae sint inter bancherios et mercatores diversitates nimirum si di versa est iuris decisio . . . " 13 B. Stracchae, Tractatus de mercatura seu mercatore, in De mercatura decisiones et tractatus varii et de rebus ad earn pertinentibus, Lugduni 1590 (rist. Torino 1971), p. 380.

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E ' possibile già rintracciare i l segno di un ambiente economico che sta cambiando nella giurisprudenza 'de mercatura' della Rota civile di Genova, elaborata nella seconda metà del X V I secolo, le cui sentenze in tema di banca riguardano quasi esclusivamente controversie legate alle lettere d i cambio ed alla loro circolazione 1 5 . L'apporto tecnico-sistematico dei giudici della Rota civile ai problemi bancari appare significativamente rispondente aile mutate realtà economiche: sono g l i stessi oggetti delle cause portate alla decisione della Rota, soprattutto i problemi delle fiere, dei banchieri e delle lettere di cambio, che consentono ai giudici di fare chiarezza e di operare, con sentenze spesso molto lunghe ed articolate, tentativi di sistemazione in materie che sono le espressioni più tipiche delle prevalenti esperienze finanziarie che la Repubblica sta vivendo nel X V I secolo. L o sviluppo più pieno di forme di capitalismo, in campo commerciale e finanziario, sempre più fondate sul credito e sulla circolazione delle monete e dei titoli di credito, sembra trovare la scienza giuridica genovese coeva pronta a fornire agli operatori economici g l i apporti tecnici necessari. A i fini del problema delle diversità con i l mercante, da questa documentazione sembra emergere la figura di un banchiere ormai quasi stilizzato nella sua funzione di intermediario di credito, che agisce soprattutto nelle fiere, compensando le lettere di cambio ed i titoli di credito che in esse confluiscono , 6 : la sua professional s tende ad una specializzazione tecnica che difficilmente puö coniugarsi con i l contemporaneo esercizio della attività mercantile. Come si è visto, nel Medioevo si sono specificate le caratteristiche delle due catégorie dei mercanti e dei banchieri e si sono manifestate progressivamente alcune diversità operative che, per Genova, sono soprattutto legate al valore delle scritture ed aile procedure fallimentari. Nel X V I secolo, di fronte ai mutamenti dell'economia europea, i l fulcro deirattività bancaria, si sposta in maniera quasi prédominante dal commercio alla finanza ed aile operazioni del cambio. Già la giurisprudenza rotale genovese, nel riflettere nelle sue sentenze le tendenze della pratica del proprio tempo, supera i l dotto e teorico compiacimento di Stracca, che, come si è detto, ancora ritiene dubbia la differenza tra i mercanti ed i banchieri. L'ambiente genovese è certo all'avanguardia nel mondo finanziario europeo della fine del X V I e l ' i n i z i o del X V I I secolo, ed in esso si segnala un divario sempre più netto tra attività bancaria e mercantile. 14

F. Braudel , Civiltà materiale, 63; G. Doria, Conoscenza del mercato e sistema informativo : il Know-how dei mercanti-finanzieri genovesi nei secoli X V I e X V I I , in La Repubblica internazionale del denaro tra X V e X V I I secolo, a cura di A. De Maddalena e H. Kellembenz (Annali deiristituto storico italo-germanico, Quaderno 20), Bologna 1986, 57-121; G. Felloni, Asientos, juros y ferias de cambio desde el observatorio genovès (1541 -1675), in Dinero y credito, siglos X V I al XIX, Madrid 1978, 347-359. Questo tema è stato particolarmente approfondito da R. Savelli, Between Law and Morals, 93-102; si veda anche V. Piergiovanni , Banchieri e falliti, 37. 16 V. Piergiovanni, Banchieri e falliti, 28 ss. 6 Piergiovanni

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to come questa evoluzione non sia stata senza contrasti, contrapponendo, all'interno dell'ambiente genovese, la 'mercanzia reale' all'attività finanziaria: la polemica non è certo solo teorica, ma coinvolge ben precisi interessi economici ed equilibri sociali 1 7 . L a terminologia non distingue precisamente tra banchieri e mercanti ma questa indifferenziazione appare, piuttosto che i l riflesso della pratica, la volontà di non rinunciare ad utilizzare tradizionali consuetudini più lessicali che reali: si conserva, cioè, l'uso di ormai antichi modi di dire, ormai proverbiali — ad esempio "est Genuensis ergo mercator" 1 8 — , che collegano gli abitanti d i Genova all'esercizio della mercatura. Si parla, pertanto, di mercanti che esercitano i l cambio, ma l'ampiezza assunta dal fenomeno della speculazione finanziaria farà dichiarare ad un giudice della Rota, "Genuae, ubi vivitur super interessibus" 1 9 . L a consapevolezza di operare in condizioni ormai diverse dal passato ed un interessante tentativo di storicizzare i l fenomeno bancario proviene da un altro giurista genovese, attivo nei X V I I secolo, Raffaele Deila Torre. Si tratta di un personaggio di grande rilievo non solo come giurista ma anche come protagonista e testimone di quasi un secolo d i vita politica della Repubblica. E g l i nacque, infatti nei 1579 e mori nei 1666, ed una recente ricostruzione biografica descrive la poliedrica personalità del Della Torre e pone i n particolare evidenza i l suo importante contributo alle dottrine sui cambi, attraverso un'opera dal titolo 4 De cambiis' (1641): " T u t t i gli aspetti della problematica dei cambi e delle lettere d i cambio v i sono affrontati con un notevole ricorso alia dottrina precedente, sia giuridica sia teologica, con una particolare attenzione anche alia pratica dei tribunali: dopo la terza parte, infatti, vengono ripubblicate e commentate numerose sentenze della Rota romana (concludono Γ opera i 'Capitoli e ordini delle fere di Bisenzone', naturale richiamo alia supremazia genovese sul mercato finanziario)" 2 0 . I I problema delle differenze tra banchieri e mercanti è specificamente affrontato da Delia Torre a proposito del valore delle scritture presenti nei libri che entrambi, a causa della propria professione, sono obbligati a tenere. Prima di esaminare analiticamente questa parte, puö essere interessante riportare alcune considerazioni svolte dall'Autore all'inizio della sua opera: egli propone un excursus storico, dal titolo " D e origine, progressu, et augumento cambii secundum t e m p u s " 2 1 , e parte dall'ipotesi che la necessità dei cambi, non avvertita 17 R. Savelli , Between Law and Morals, 52-56. is S. Scacciae, Tractatus de commerciis et cambio, Venetiis 1669, 185, ". . . quia omnes Genuenses sunt mercatores, in tantum, ut valeat consequentia: est Genuensis ergo mercator . . . " . 19 R. Savelli, Between Law and Morals, 50 e 95. 20 R. Savelli, Della Torre, Raffaele, 652. 21 R. De Turri, Tractatus de cambiis, Genuae 1641, 16-23.

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nell'antichità, sia probabilmente divenuta opportuna ed urgente nell'Occidente medievale quando lo spezzéttamento dell'Impero e le continue guerre hanno reso incerto ο impossibile i l trasporto del denaro 2 2 . Egli, peraltro, non insiste particolarmente sui problemi posti dalle origini dell'istituto, a suo parere incerte ed opinabili, ma preferisce far riferimento ad un elemento cronologicamente e storicamente sicuro e controllabile: . . certum est Baldum, qui saeculo a Deo nato decimo quarto circa medium floruit pluribus in locis . . . de cambio egisse . . . " 2 3 . A i l e metà del secolo X I V , quindi, l'autorità di Baldo attesta la frequenza di contratti che hanno ad oggetto i cambi, ma, come Della Torre ha cura di aggiungere subito dopo, non v ' è traccia nell'opera del giurista perugino, ed ancora per lungo tempo dopo di lui, della istituzione e del funzionamento delle fiere esclusivamente dedicate a tali transazioni finanziarie. I contratti funzionavano, quindi, per operare i l trasferimento del denaro da una piazza mercantile ad un'al tra. Attraverso la citazione e la datazione di opere successive di Autori che si sono occupati di problemi di cambi, Della Torre tende a dimostrare che, ancora negli anni in cui questi libri sono pubblicati (Γ ultima, di Girolamo da Lucca, è del 1517), non esistono fiere specializzate 24 . Egli ricorda che operazioni di cambi sulle m o n e t e s i svolgevano anche nelle fiere di Lione, ma come contorno al settore merceologico e commerciale che rimane prédominante 2 5 .

22

Ibidem, 20: " . . . Quantum vero coniectura assequi licet probabile est tempore, quo Imperium Occidentis ad Germanos devenit, saeculo scilicet a Reparatione Humani Generis duo decimo incipiente, haec contigisse. Tune primo Italia et Europa nostra, quam Carolo Magno, eiusque successoribus, Ecclesiae splendorem, et Christiani cultus reparationem et legum observantia debebat, colebat in primis. In plura Régna Dynastias ac Respublicas erat distributa: indeque plurima bella, nummismatumque diversitates ac signa. Unde nil mirum si infida aut impossibilis sit facta transportatio pecuniae; et si suspectis signis nummorum deventum in commutationibus ad metallorum pondéra et demum si reiecta usura deventum est ad cambium; cum omnes tunc temporis extiterint causae quae ingenium possent ad illud investigandum acuere, et vox ipsa Germanica marcho cambio ingenita, penes quam Gentem erat Imperium, non leve addit coniecturae nostrae pondus . . . " . 23 Ibidem, 20. 24 Ibidem, 20: . . Nec aeque dubitari potest aevo eodem, et longe posteriori in usu non fuisse Cambia feriarum; sed tantum loquutos auctores de illo, quod fiebat de platea ad Plateam, quod manifestum fit nedum ex lectura Baldi locis laudatis, ubi de his tantum, non autem de illis, quae in feriis celebrantur, scripsit, sed etiam ex traditis per Laurentium Rodulfinum Florentinum in tract, de usur. 3. part, princ. qu. 1 num. 1 usque ad fin., qui scripsit anno salutis 1404 et referens Cambia, quae tunc temporis erant in usu, eorum, quae celebrantur in feriis et pro feriis non meminit; et multo maxime ex eis quae docet Ambr. De Vignate in tract, de usur. § fin. num. 270 et infra, edito Taurini anno a Partu Virginis 1460, qui pluribus Cambiorum generibus relatis, huius vero feriarum non meminit. Immo nec F. Hieronimus de Luca, qui tractatum de Cambiis ex professo edidit anno 1517 (nec ante eum Silvester, qui circa eadem tempora floruit in Summa) de Cambio feriarum loquuti sunt, quantumvis de marca, eiusque valore ac pretio, et feriis Lugdunensibus mentionem fecerint. Et tamen non reperto, nec instituto feriarum Cambio incertus adhuc vagus ac imperfectus erat huiusmodi contractus . ..". 2 5 Ibidem, 22. 6*

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L ' i m p u l s o ad una specificazione del settore finanziario è derivata da una particolare evoluzione della situazione politica europea. I contrasti tra Francia e Spagna e le crescenti esigenze di denaro da finalizzare a scopi bellici, induce Carlo V a sottrarre alla Francia i l controllo della circolazione monetaria delle fiere di Lione. I l primo passo è lo spostamento delle stesse a Besançon, ove si organizzano quattro fiere all'anno, specializzate perö nelle operazoni di cambi monetari, ed in esse la presenza dei Genovesi è prédominante 2 6 . L a data di inizio è fissata dal Deila Torre al 1527 2 7 , e negli scritti successivi a questa data si trova menzione di questo tipo di cambio, i l cosi detto 'cambium n u n d i n a r i u m ' 2 8 . Verso la metà del X V I secolo, quindi, i riflessi della situazione politica ed economica europea ed i l perfezionamento degli strumenti tecnico-finanziari e giuridici relativi a questi contratti concorrono a determinare condizioni di operatività estremamente diverse rispetto al passato: nella stessa opera del Della Torre, quando Γ Autore passa a discutere sulle differenze che intercorrono tra mercanti e banchieri, emerge chiaramente la consapevolezza di un mutamento che significa la chiusura di un'epoca. L'occasione a fissare in termini precisi le caratteristiche che differenziano i banchieri dai mercanti si presenta quando i l Della Torre si chiede se l'annotazione, a debito ed a credito, di una lettera di cambio in un libro ufficiale di commercio possa considerarsi una forma di pagamento: la conseguenza è la liberazione dal debito del primo emittente della lettera medesima 2 9 . L ' A u t o r e svolge una serie di considerazioni che lo portano ad un prima 'conclusion le scritture contenute nei ' l i b r i rationum' dei mercanti e dei tutori sono un efficacissimo mezzo di prova contro lo scrivente, ma si esclude che da esse possa formalmente sorgere un contratto, una obbligazione ο una forma di pagamento 3 0 . 26 G. Doria, Conoscenza del mercato, 72-73. 27 G. Felloni, Un système monétaire atypique: La monnaie de marc dans les foires de change génoises, X V I e - X V I I I e siècle, in Etudes d'Histoire monétaire, a cura di J. Day, Lille 1984, 249-260, che cosi sintetizza il fenomeno: "On sait que les foires de change de l'âge moderne étaient des marchés périodiques où l'on traitait exclusivement des affaires de 'change' (aujourd'hui on dirait de 'devises'). Ces institutions particulières étaient une invention génoise dérivée, par un processus de spécialisation, des foires mixtes de marchandises et de change qui, au cours du XVe siècle et au debut du XVIe avaient prospéré dans plusieurs places de l'Europe. Les foires génoises de change apparaissent en 1535 à Besançon . . . " . 28 R. De Turri, Tractatus de cambiis, 22: " . . . Sufficiat pro instituto sermone collegisse Cambia feriarum, Cambium scilicet usquequaque perfectum, tunc temporis, quo tempore feriae Vesuntionem trasportata fuerunt, coepisse, anno scilicet 1527. Et Doctores, qui exinde de Cambio Nundinario scripserunt, de hoc cambio perfecto sensisse et intelligendos esse...". 29 Ibidem, 257: " . . . quaeritur an scilicet per huiusmodi directionem scripturae intelligatur facta solutio. Cuius quaestionis utilitas ex eo maxima apparet, quia, si facta intelligatur solutio per huiusmodi directionem scipturae, ex consequenti intelligitur Cambii contractus suam consequutus perfectionem, de qua disputamus, et successive liberatur dator litterarum obligatus ex Cambio, alias vero, non, per ea quae superius diximus . ..".

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A g l i effetti probatori, inoltre, è importante distinguere chi abbia fatto l'annotazione, se un mercante ο un banchiere, i n quanto 'longe diversos effectus, etiam in proposito probationum oriri per directionem scripturae' 3 1 . E ' questa la ragione per la quale Della Torre ritiene opportuno chiarire le diversité tra le due catégorie di imprenditori economici, premettendo che mentre i mercanti confusamente ammettono taie distinzione ma, incapaci di riconoscerne le cause, 'se et alios in difficultates inestricabiles involvunt', i giuristi usano i due termini come sinonimi ed i teologi non si curano del problema 3 2 . Eppure la stessa tradizione storica è di aiuto in questo caso, i n quanto nei diritto romano è ben différente la posizione degli 'argentarii' e 'nummularii' rispetto ai mercanti: si riconosce, certo, l'utilità sociale dell'esercizio della mercatura, ma in taie attività manca la funzione pubblica che qualifica, al contrario, le altre due catégorie 3 3 . A l Della Torre non sembra che la situazione sia mutata, nei suoi termini giuridici fondamentali, in epoca medievale, che pure egli sente ormai molto lontana: Paolo di Castro è ricordato come un giurista 'ex antiquioribus', e Pietro degli Ubaldi come uno scrittore di altri tempi, ' i l l o r u m temporum scriptor'. Costoro qualificano i banchieri della propria epoca, e Stracca segue ancora nei

30 Ibidem, 258: " . . . Prima conclusio: per directionem scripturae quae fit in libris mercatorum, et ut talis scriptura est, nullam resultare obligationem, nullam solutionem, sed probationem solum eorum, quae in illa scriptura secundum subiectam materiam continentur . ..". 31 Ibidem, 259: " . . . Secunda conclusio: etiam in ordine ad probationem de qua supra in prima conclusione, valde referre an directio scripturae in libris fiat vel a mercatore vel a Bancherio, et ex sola conditione personae scribentis, quod sit Bancherius vel mercator, longe diversos effectus, etiam in proposito probationum oriri per directionem scripturae . . . " 32 Ibidem, . . Quod ut probem praemittenda est differentia inter mercatorem et Bancherium, per quam et manifestior erit Veritas propositae conclusionis, et simul fidem meam exolvam, quam memini me alibi oppignorasse de tradendo discrimine praedicto; certe inter praedictos discrimen agnoscunt mercatores, sed cum causas ignorent in factorum contingentiis saepe, ne dicam semper, invicem confundunt: ex quo se et alios in difficultates inestricabiles involvunt. Nostri vero iuris interprétés (praesertim recentiores) parum advertunt, quinimmo pro synonimis eis utendo, nec antiquiorum placita apte deducunt ad decisionem causarum, nec ius ipsum intra constitutos a Iurisprudentia limites coercent, sed ad omnino extranea plerumque deducunt.Theologi vero nihil poenitus curant . ..". 33 Ibidem, 259-260: " . . . Iam vero, iure Romanorum Argentarios ac Nummularios . . . longe diversos fuisse a mercatoribus, ex eo patet, quod mercatores generali appellatione illi dicebantur qui, emendo et vendendo, mercaturam exercere dicebantur . . . Nec opus unquam habebat, prout nec etiam habet hodie, aliqua auctoritate publica, qua concedente potest mercaturam exercere, ut omnibus notum e s t . . . Licet enim mercatorum munus et exercitium utile ac fere necessarium sit Reipublicae . . . non per hoc dicitur habere causam publicam, prout habent Argentarii et nummularii, quorum ministerium publicam habere causam cautum habemus . . . Et qui eorum fidei credebat, sequuti fidem publicam dicebantur . . . Quod de mercatura dispositum non legimus.

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X V I secolo la loro opinione, come operatori che 'causam a publico habuisse, nec sine approbatione personae et praestatione fideiussorum permissos' 3 4 . Della Torre ricorda che il requisito dell'autorizzazione della pubblica autorità è ancora richiesto in grandi Stati moderni, come la Francia e la Spagna 3 5 . Anche per Γ Italia i l controllo pubblico 'mos . . . frequentatissimus o l i m fuit, nec nostris temporibus prorsus exolevit', ma c'è un adeguamento alle mutate condizioni di operatività professionale del banchiere, per cui '. . . viget praecipue Genuae, et potissimum in feriis, ubi cambia celebrantur, Romae, Neapolis et Venetiis et alibi . . , ' 3 6 . I I discorso di Della Torre si allarga, poi, a precisare la fenomenologia e le tipicità delle istituzioni bancarie che vede operare sotto i propri occhi. Se è necessario, egli afferma, che ogni banca abbia l'approvazione della pubblica autorità e predisponga un fondo per rispondere alle richieste di rimborso, è altrettanto vero che "non parum inter se differunt, tum ratione fidei et celebritatis . . ., tum etiam institutionis . . .". Tali differenze di fama, di affidabilità e di

34 Ibidem, 261: " . . . Nimirum nec temporibus nostris desiderantur nummularii, et quidem servato discrimine de quo supra cum mercatoribus, et hi sunt Bancherii, et loco mensae illorum temporum successerunt Banchi, seu melius bancha nostri temporis, ad eadem prorus destinata. Paulus Castrensis ex antiquioribus (quem ego viderim) primus cons. 284 lib. 1 de banco et Bancheriis cum distinctione a mercatore loquitur. Quinimmo de eadem persona, sub duplici qualitate Bancherii et mercatoris ex professo disseruit. Ex cuius dictis colligitur quod Bancherii sui temporis habebant mensam, pro qua ad favorem creditorum praestabant fideiussores, etiam et scripturam, seu libros mense, qui libri scribebantur a notario publico, et publice tenebantur, patentes omnibus, ex quibus circumstantiis manifeste apparet et hos Bancherios, ad instar nummulariorum, publicam causam habuisse. Cum eadem distinctione de praedictis meminit Petrus de Ubaldis in tract, de duob. fratr. octa. par. princ. qu. 32 aequalis illorum temporum scriptor. Qui hos bancherios vocat campsores retinentes tapetum Cambii; hinc celebre nomen mercatorum de tapeto, praesertim apud Hetruscos, et memini me legisse in Florentinorum historiis (opinor apud Scipionem Admiratum) dum florentem statum et opes illius civitatis extollunt, potissimum argumentum desumi, a quam plurimis mercatoribus de tapeto in illa civitate existentibus, quos, ex dicto Petri de Ubaldis, loco citato, Bancherios haud dubie fuisse coniicio: eosdem ex Castrensi, quem sequitur Strache de decoct, part. ult. nu. 25 causam a publico habuisse, nec sine approbatione personae et praestatione fideiussorum permissos . . . " . 35 Ibidem, . . Quod ipsum de Regno Franciae, ubi nullus audet bancam Cambii tenere, nisi auctoritate Regia, et qui contrarium faciunt acriter puniri testatur Papius . . . Et sequitur Matheus testatus solere Reges Franciae in illustribus Regni Civitatibus id concedere, interdicto huiusmodi munere omnibus aliis, quibus Regio diplomate concessum non fuerit. Quod ipsum de Regno Hyspaniae testatur Covaruvias . . . tradens hoc officium interdictum esse privatis et omnibus, nisi in cura Principis habitantibus, ab eo specialem commissionem et licentiam habentibus: in aliis Civitatibus et locis illis permitti, qui a Collegio Decurionum sunt nominati et electi. . .". L'affermazione che . . mercatores nostri temporis publicam causam vel ministerium non gerunt . . s i trova anche in un'altra fonte dottrinale spagnola coeva, F. Munnoz De Escobar, De ratiociniis administratorum et computationibus variis aliis Tractatus, Francofurti 1618, 152 (devo la segnalazione alla cortesia dell'amico Prof. Bartolomé Clavero, che ringrazio). 36 Ibidem.

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struttura sono strettamente correlate ad una fondamentale dicotomia: " . . . ipsorum divisio potest fieri, ut alia sint iuris et spectationis privatae, alia vero iuris et spectationis publicae . . .". I collegamenti con g l i Stati, Tingente giro di capitali ed i l rigore dell'amministrazione supportano la fama e l'affidabilità dei banchi collegati ad istituzioni come San Giorgio a Genova, Santo Spirito a Roma e la Santissima Annunziata a N a p o l i 3 7 . Una logica diversa è invece alla base dei banchi privati che, seppure muniti di autorizzazione pubblica, si muovono nella prospettiva della 'privata utilitas'. I depositi vengono investiti per ottenere i l massimo di utile e, malgrado i banchieri si sforzino di dare prestigio ed affidabilità alle proprie imprese, spesso la speranza di maggiori guadagni induce a speculazioni rischiose e conduce alla rovina. Come afferma Deila Torre " . . . A d illorum enim defectu bancha facile deficiebant, et in miserabiles exitus incidebant, et hinc frequentissime Genuae, Neapoli, Messanae et Florentiae banchorum decoctiones; itaut i n locis praedictis, i n quibus alias frequentissimus erat banchorum usus, nostris hisce temporibus, fere exoleverit, iis solum vigentibus, quae iuris et spectationis publicae sunt . . . " 3 8 . Questi dati di fatto, colti dalla realtà del funzionamento dei banchi pubblici e privati del proprio tempo servono, peraltro, a rimarcare i l maggior rigore che disciplina la professione del banchiere ed a ribadire la maggiore forza probatoria delle sue scritture rispetto a quelle del mercante: " . . . Nam scriptura, quae fit in libris mensae seu banchi . . . cum supponatur in bancho ipso adesse pecuniam solutioni paratam, dénotât pecuniam illam in bancho existentem pro illa rata et quantitate ad eum spectare, cui inscribitur . . . " 3 9 . L a stessa cosa non si puö certo sostenere per i l mercante, e la ragione fondamentale é insita nelle stesse modalità operative che afferisano alia sua professione: " . . . Nam cum de natura mercaturae non fit ut mercator necessario habeat pecuniam solutioni paratam. Quinimmo multo probabilius est eam habere i n mercibus implicatam, et non raro intricatam scripturam, qual i n eius libris dirigitur, licet generaliter probet contra scribentem, non tarnen est tantae efficaciae qualem esse probavimus scripturam Bancherii . ."40. L a conclusione finale è che dai libri mercantili non puö inferirsi i l pagamento e neppure la eventuale prova dello stesso, al contrario di quanto accade per i banchieri e per le loro scritture, ma dalle affermazioni del Della Torre sembra che si possa dedurre qualcosa di più. N o n sono soltanto Γ autorizzazione pubblica ο le garanzie economiche apprestate che separano le due professioni, ma sono piuttosto i campi di azione e le modalità operative assolutamente diverse a fare la differenza.

37 Ibidem. 38 Ibidem, 263. 39 Ibidem, 265. 40 Ibidem.

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Si è assistito, infatti, ad un processo di progressiva specializzazione tecnica che ha consegnato ormai ad un passato lontano la figura del mercante-banchiere: le fiere dei cambi, di cui i l Della Torre è un convinto assertore, con l'esclusiva presenza della pura speculazione finanziaria, è forse lo specchio più fedele di questa nuova immagine della professione bancario. N o n mancano certo, a Genova e nello stesso periodo, voci discordi ed allarmate, come quella del Peri, che vedono ancora nel commercio la vera fonte della ricchezza di uno Stato 4 1 . Nell'opera del Della Torre, perö, esse non trovano alcuna eco e, in tale prospettiva, non è forse casuale che egli non faccia assolutamente menzione dell'opinione del Bosco, i l cui volume di 'Consilia' è stato pubblicato postumo, nel 1630, solo qualche anno prima della composizione del trattato sui cambi. Sono ormai lontane, nel tempo e nella pratica, le affermazioni del Bosco tendenti a chiarire una normativa che, timidamente e limitatamente alle ipotesi di fallimento, cercava di trovare una strada per proteggere malcapitati clienti dalle temerarie imprese di mercanti e di banchieri troppo ardimentosi. E se qualche scrupolo morale fosse intervenuto, la ambigità dell'accostamento tra banchieri e mercanti poteva essere ancora richiamata e servire di giustificazione. Ecco, per concludere, l ' o p i nione di Scaccia: . . Primo dico, in eodem periculo versari etiam animas mercatorum et negotiatorum et cuiuslibet divitis, et tamen mercatura et divitiae non sunt prohibitae . . . i m m o sicut propterea mercatura publice et palam exercetur . . . ita etiam publice exercetur ars campsoria et negotiatio cambiorum, et non solum Genuae, ubi omnes fere cives, sive nobiles, sive plebei, sive divites, sive pauperes, sive magistratum gerentes, sive privatam vitam agentes, sive in dignitate constituti, ut Doctores, sive alius quisque adeo negotiis cambiorum et mercium incumbunt, ut res etiam ad mulieres pervenerit, et nemo ex his momento temporis suas pecunias otiosas tenet . . ., sed etiam i n aliis Civitatibus, et quamplurimi divites, infimates, médiocres, summates et etiam ecclesiastici utuntur hac arte campsoria . . , " 4 2 .

Summary Bankers and Merchants in Medieval Law. Examples and Considerations Between the X V I t h and the X V I I t h century we seem to note in the figure of the banker the acquisition of a professionality purified by any contamination that might conceptually put it near to the one o f a merchant. Also as to the theme o f development of the peculiarities in the profession o f banker, and his bankruptcy,

41

C. Constantini, La ricerca di un'identità repubblicana nella Genova del primo seicento, in Dibattito politico e problemi di govemo a Genova nella prima metà del Seicento (Miscellanea Storica Ligure, V I I / 2 ) , Genova 1975, 62 ss. 42 S. Scaccia, Tractatus de commerciis et cambio, 135.

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a clarification may be found researching further back, already in the M i d d l e Age, the threads of legislative, consuetudinary doctrinal trend which w i l l be perceived by Courts and jurists in Modern Age. It exists a medieval tradition that has put into evidence the special characteristics of the banker's bankruptcy, and in order to exemplify it the starting point is the Genoese history and the normative and doctrinal sources which it proposes. I n the Genoese legislation from the X V t h to the X V I t h century it is constantly present the connection between the bankruptcy institute and the exercise of the banking profession. A Genoese legal advisor, Bartolomeo Bosco ( X V century) lucidly points out the reasons which advised an autonomous regulation of bankruptcy procedures for the bankers' category: the authorization and the State guarantee for the development of their activities contribute to produce and to provide citizens' confidence towards them, and correlatively their bankruptcy may have a negative effect on the authorities themselves. Therefore it is obvious that for these professional men cautions, controls and eventually penalities must be of the greatest severity. The Genoese legislation and Bosco's opinion seem to draw up on the differentiation of the professional situations between bankers and merchants. The Medieval juridical doctrine is not unanimous on these positions, but already among glossators it was noticed the necessity of making the bank deposits trustworthy and o f giving the right importance to the "publica utilitas" o f Banker's profession. From the Tractatus' of another Genoese jurist, Raffaele Della Torre (De Turri, X V I I t h century), it is possible to note that the perspective is deeply changed. The difference is not only in the State authorisation or in the economic guarantees, but in the fields-operation. The jurist is in front of a process of technical specialisation and the figure of the merchant-banker owns to the past: the fairs of changes, in which operates only the financial speculation, is the new imagine of the bankerprofession.

D A N I E L R. C O Q U I L L E T T E

The Mystery of the New Fashioned Goldsmiths: From Usury to the Bank of England (1622-1694)

I. Introduction: The English Story The thesis of this brief article, put roughly, is that modern banking in England is largely a product of political, philosophical, legal, and economic changes in England during the seventeenth century. O f course, there were prophetic hints and precursors o f modern banking in the sixteenth century and earlier, but the major shifts of public and private attitudes, which made modern English banking possible, all occurred i n the century that culminated w i t h the founding of the Bank of England in 1694. There are two subordinate theses. First, despite the profound importance of foreign merchants and foreign banking houses to England throughout the entire medieval and Renaissance period, the emergence of modern English banking law was very different, i n both substance and timing, from all other European nations. I n some important aspects, particularly in the use of deposit and transfer banking to promote trade, it was very far behind. This lag was caused in part by the interests and preconceptions of the landed English gentry and by English ecclesiastical doctrines of usury. Yet, by the end of the seventeenth century, institutions had emerged which were both uniquely English and the equal of any i n Europe. Secondly, the major developments in the English seventeenth century occurred in four areas, which, although quite distinct, all contributed to the rate o f change and the degree o f innovation. These were: 1) changes in the religous, philosophical and practical attitudes toward usury; 2) changes relating to the use o f bills of exchange and commercial exchange transactions; 3) changes relating to the development of domestic deposit and transfer banks and the use of "inland bills of exchange"; and 4) profound changes in the understanding and management of public national debt. Needless to say, all o f these four quite distinct areas of development were strongly influenced by the political upheaval of the English C i v i l War, and the Glorious Revolution, and the resultant radical changes in English political and legal philosophy. Indeed, the Bank o f England simply could not have been founded without the political compromises that brought the Dutch House o f Orange to the English Throne.

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Daniel R. Coquillette Attached as an appendix to this article is a most amusing pamphlet. It was

published anonymously i n London in 1676 i n the midst of these important developments, and was typical of a genre of political writing. Entitled The Mystery of the New Fashioned

Goldsmiths

or Bankers , it portrays the philosophical and

juristic obstacles to the new order, and the magnitude of the change. I w i l l be returning to this entertaining and provocative piece to illustrate some of my central points.

I I . The Difference of a Century Prior to 1600, the word " b a n k " or "banking" rarely appeared in English law reports, abridgements, legal treatises and law dictionaries, and when it did, it was almost always i n reference to foreign institutions or ideas. 1 Even a remarkably advanced document of 1576, a "Proposal to Establish a Public B a n k " (S.P.D. 1 Characteristically, early English references were to "usurie." The word "bank" was usually a reference to a bench or a "seate of Judgement." See, for example, John Rastell, An Exposition of Certaine Difficult and Obscure Wördes and Termes of the Lawes of this Realme (London, 1579) n.p. ("usurie") and John Cowell, The Interpreter (Cambridge, 1607) n.p. ("bank," "bankrupt"). The Oxford English Dictionary finds an association between "bench" and moneylenders as early as 1474 (Caxton, Chesse), and the use of the word "bank" to connote a counting house as early as 1526 (Tindale, Luke). See "Illustration 1" of this article which shows a "moneylender" at his "bench" or "bank." By 1611 a "banke," is described as a place "where money is let out to use: or lent, as returned by exchange: also the table wheron such money is told" and a "banker" as "one that lendeth, or exchangeth, money for gain." (Cotgr., Argentier). Oxford English Dictionary (Micrographic compact edition, Oxford 1971) vol. 1, 164. The legal abridgements, on the other hand, continued to refer solely to "usury" and "usurious contracts," when they referred to banking at all. See, for example, Robert Brooke, La Graunde Abridgement, etc. (2d ed., London, 1576) vol. 2, fol. 317 a and William Hughes, The Grand Abridgement (London, 1662), vol. 3, 2061-2064. Only by the time of Thomas Blounts' legal dictionary, the Nomo-Lexicon or A Law Dictionary (London, 1670) was there added to the definition of "bank" as a "Seat or Bench of Judgement" a second definition, "where a great sum of Money is let out to use, returned by exchange, or otherwise disposed to profit." n.p. ("bank"). The 1701 edition of Cowell's Interpreter goes further, stating that "[t]he Usurers and Mony'd goldsmiths first got the name of Bankers, in the Reign of Ch. 2 as by the words of an Act of Parliament AN. 22, 23 C.2 whereas several Persons, being Goldsmiths and others, by taking or borrowing great sums of Money, and lending out the same again, for extraordinary hire and profit, have gain'd and acquir'd to themselves the Reputation and Name of Bankers etc." Id.; n.p. ("bank," "bankers"). Finally, by the time of Giles Jacob's A New Law Dictionary (2d ed. London, 1732), "bank" and "bankers" are described at length, with specific reference to the "Bank of England" and 22, 23 Car. 2d, ch. 2. Jacob adds, "But Bankers of late are those Goldsmiths and private Persons in whose Hands Money is lodged and deposited for safety, to be drawn out again as Owners have Occasion for it; and the Bankers, instead of lending abroad the Money thus deposited, usually traffick with it in Exchange-Alley on the Stocks oftentimes to their great Advantage, they being generally Men of "great Estates." (n.p. "Bank," "Bankers"). Please also see the most valuable article of Professor Dr. Bartolome Clavero in this volume on the definition of "banker" in sixteenth century Spain, which provides a useful contrast and comparison to the wide variation of English usages.

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Eliz. Vol. C X , No. 57), referred exclusively to foreign models. On the other hand, many activities that we associate w i t h banking, particularly money lending, money changing, mortgages, commercial credit and transfers, and borrowing for state purposes, were w e l l known, and were all discussed exhaustively i n the context of usury doctrine. There were certainly four very different markets in renaissance England for what today we w o u l d call banking services. 2 I n particular there were: 1) the needs of the common tradesman and yeoman for small loans and investments; 2) the needs of the landed gentry — either for agricultural purposes or loans for excess consumption; 3) the needs of traders and entrepreneurs for commercial credit; and 4) the needs of the feudal princes and the Crown for cash, usually to finance war. The first two needs were met largely by domestic institutions, and here the government strictly regulated usury — for good political and moral reasons. The latter two needs were met, throughout the English medieval period and Renaissance, by credit vehicles, particularly bills of exchange, first developed by foreign merchants or by foreign institutions. There were clumsy, but reoccurring, efforts to regulate such commercial lending, including the effort to nationalize the exchange business in 1570. 3 There were also even more ill-considered efforts to manage national debt through monetarist and political expedients, such as Elizabeth Γ s efforts to use the profits of the Merchant Adventurers at Antwerp to pay the royal debts in 1560. None of these efforts were consistently successful, either as theories or as practical policies, until late in the seventeenth century. 4 Yet as different as these four functions were, they were united by certain common threads, particularly usury doctrine. Indeed, one of the major changes of the seventeenth century was the ability to see all of these functions as part o f a single "banking" business, that was not only legitimate, but a positive good to the realm. One way of dramatizing the extent of the change is to compare the first extensive English description of banking practice, that to be found i n Gerard Malynes, Consuetudo, vel, Lex Mercatoria , 1st ed., London, 1622, Chapter X X " O f Banks and Bankers" w i t h the discussion to be found a little more than a century later in Wyndham Beawes, Lex Mercatoria Redivia: or, the Merchants' 2 See T. H. Tawney, "Historical Introduction" to Thomas Wilson's A Discourse Upon Usury (1572), London, 1925, 86-104. 3 See, for example, "Discussion of Usury, with Proposal to Nationalize Exchange Business, a device for the remedy of some parte of the inconveniences which dayly growe in this realme by usury of drye exchange" S.P.D. Eliz vol. L X X V , No. 54. Tudor Economic Documents, (Towne Power eds.) Vol. I l l , 359-770. 4 See "Gresham to Cecil Suggesting that the Merchant Adventurers should be used to pay the Queen's Foreign Creditors," (1 March, 1559) Tudor Economic Documents, Vol. II, 150-153. See generally, Raymond de Roover, "New Interpretations of the History of Banking" in Business, Banking, and Economic Thought in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, 1974, 200-238.

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Directory, " O f Banks and Bankers" 355-401, London 1st ed. 1751. Malynes, although an admitted conservative in his day, was quite typical in treating "banks" as foreign institutions which, while clearly useful to English traders and the Crown, were also to be treated w i t h care. 5 Indeed, while Malynes was quite envious of the credit and transfer conveniences of the Bank of Amsterdam, he was also hostile to "dry exchanges" in which mercantile credit was barely concealed in bills of exchange, and profoundly misunderstood the relationship of exchange to the value o f specie. 6 Even Malynes' far sighted contemporary, Sir Francis Bacon, caught the contemporary English mood in his essay, " O f Usurie." I n Bacon's words, " L e t it be no Banke or Common Stocke, but every M a n be Master of his owne Money: Not that I altogether M i s l i k e Banks, but they w i l l hardly be brooked, in regard o f certain suspicions." 7 Malynes and Bacon also shared a profound distaste for usury, even in commercial contexts, although both believed the practical alternative was not abolition, but regulation, such as that provided by the statute 13 Elizabeth I, Chapter 8 (1571) (permitting up to 10 % interest). As Bacon put it, "Usury is the certainest Meanes of Gaine, though one of the w o r s t . . . , " 8 yet "that it is better to mitigate usury by Declaration, than to suffer it to rage by connivence." 9 The passage of one century, however, led to a most profound change. Beawe's discussion, in 1751, of "Banks and Bankers" incorporated all aspects of modern banking law and, most significantly, a conviction that credit is a positive social g o o d . 1 0 Beawes also recognized three different types o f banks, public banks under direct governmental control, such as the Bank of Amsterdam, j o i n t stock banks w i t h public charter, such as the Bank of England, and "Banks of private m e n . " 1 1 Unlike Malynes, Beawes recognized private banking as a central vehicle of its own, independent o f public banks and yet tied to the overall credit market created by public banking. In just one hundred years, bullion transfers, even inland, were largely replaced by banking entries. Hoarding was common as late 5 "Bank" is defined as "properly a collection of all the ready Money of some Kingdom, Commonwealth, or Province in the hands of some persons licensed and established' thereunto by publick authority . . . " Consuetudo, vel, Lex Mercatoria Chap X X , 95 (1686 ed.). 6 See, for example, E. A. J. Johnson, Predecessors of Adam Smith 1937, 41-54; Raymond de Roover, What is Dry Exchange?, 52 J. Polit. Econ. 250 (1944), reprinted in Study of English Mercantilism in Business, Banking and Economic Thought (1974), 183-197. 7 "Of Usurie," Essay, 1st ed. with this essay, London, 1625 (ed. M. Kierman, 1985),

128.

8 "Of Riches," Essays, 1st ed. with this essay, London, 1612 (ed. M. Kierman, 1985), 110-111. 9 " O f Usurie," note 7, (ed. M. Kierman, 1985), at 128. See also Thomas Wilson, A Discourse Upon Usury (1572) (ed. R. H. Tawney, 1925), 353-381. 10 Lex Mercatoria Redivia, 355-406. π Id., 356.

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as 1660. " I n the reign o f W i l l i a m old men were still l i v i n g who could remember the days when there was not a single banking house i n the city o f London. So late as the time of the Restoration every trader had his o w n strong box in his o w n house, and, when an acceptance was presented to him, told down the crowns and caroluses on his o w n counter." 1 2 B y Beawes' day it had been replaced by banking deposits. Some conservatives, even as late as 1680, found the new practices disturbing. Sir Dudley North was one. "When, in 1680, after residing many years abroad, he returned to London, nothing astonished or displeased h i m more than the practice o f making payments by drawing bills on bankers." 1 3 The financial health o f the Kingdom, which as late as the 1670' s was regarded, in feudal style, as identical to the personal finances of the individual sovereign, had been replaced by the collective credit o f a sovereign parliament and a j o i n t stock company, the Bank of England. Further, while Beawes was well informed about the histories and operations of foreign banks, describing the banks of Genoa, Venice, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Hamburgh and Paris in great detail, 1 4 he was quick to note that both the Bank o f England and the private English banking system was quite distinctive. Most striking, however, was Beawes' recognition of the common links between trade credit, domestic deposit banking, and the management of national debt, and the utility of w e l l managed credit in all three contexts. 1 5 He praised "[the bankers'] great utility to Merchants, Shopkeepers and many other classes of the People." 1 6 This was a far cry from the caricatures of John Blaxton's The English Usurer , 1634. A l l this change, symbolized by the dramatic difference between Malynes and Beawes, occurred i n one century. I n fact, the rate of change could be described as even greater than that, for the crucial elements o f the change occurred between the publication o f Malynes book in 1622 and the foundation o f the Bank of England in 1694. 1 7

I I I . The Elements of Change The profound change between the "banking" o f Malynes and that of Beawes had four quite distinct elements: 1) a new conceptual model o f usury in both moral theory and practical regulation; 2) a greatly improved understanding o f the exchange process as a source o f international and local commercial credit; 3) the development o f a system o f relatively sophisticated domestic deposit and transfer banking widely used by the public; and 4) a totally new concept for

12 Thomas B. Macaulay, The History of England, vol. 7, 301 -302 (1855). π Id., 303. 14 Lex Mercatoria Redivia, 356-831. is Id., 381-401. 16 Id., at 400. 17 See "Illustration I," attached.

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managing the national debt through a central joint-stock bank. After centuries of relatively little change, any one of these developments would have been noteworthy. That they occurred simultaneously, and in a period of great c i v i l unrest and political dislocation, makes them all the more remarkable.

1. A New Model of Usury The impact of the prescriptions against usury in Deuteronomy, chapter 23, verses 19-20 on English legal and economic life has been profound and, despite later political accounts, it was not simply an issue of religious zeal. As Raymond de Roover observed, " I t now appears that the usury doctrine of the Church has had a greater impact on the history o f banking than was hitherto supposed." 1 8 The two primary reasons to borrow in the domestic agrarian society of the English feudal manor was genuine hardship, as caused by crop failure, or over-consumption, usually due to love of luxury and fighting. The former need directly invoked Christian charity — it was wrong to exact interest on a loan to a starving peasant farmer — and the latter need was morally unattractive. 1 9 The tragic experience of the English Jews also strongly influenced later English attitudes toward usury doctrine. The Jews, expelled in 1291 by Edward I, came to symbolize the corrosive effect of specializing in usury as opposed to more productive ventures in trade and land. 2 0 Since investment i n co-ventures or other forms o f joint ownership is Raymond de Roover , New Interpretations of the History of Banking, note 4, at page 236. See the brilliant historical introduction by R. H. Tawney to Thomas Wilson's A Discourse Upon Usury [1572], 1st ed. 1925, 43-121. See generally Benjamin Nelson , The Idea of Usury, 83 -108, 2d ed., 1969; and James Β. Kelly, A Summary of the History and Law of Usury, London, 1835. 19 I am indebted to my colleague, Professor James S. Rogers, for this insight. 20 See Albert M. Hyamson, A History of Jews in England (London, 1907) 42-105; Sir Frederick Pollock and F. W. Maitland, The History of English Law, 2d ed., 1968 reissue, vol. 1, 468-475. The replacement of the Jews by Italian bankers led to a more unrestricted and normal form of credit. Historical Essays (T. F. Tout, J. Tait eds.) 137-167. The disastrous loss of the Jewish community was not truly remedied until Oliver Cromwell sought to encourage remigration during the Commonwealth and hosted the delegation of Menasseh ben Israel. Godfrey Davies, The Early Stuarts 1603-1660 (2d ed., 1959, reprinted 1967) 214. Usury law was one of the main topics of the negotiation with ben Israel. Even so, there were only 6 000 Jews in England as late as 1738, and the legal disabilities were not fully removed until the middle of the nineteenth century. Basil William, The Whig Supremacy 1714-1760 (2d ed. C. H. Stuart), 1962, 69, 162-163. In 1847, Baron de Rothschild could not take the set in Parliament for which he was elected by the City of London due to the requirement of an oath "on the faith of a Christian." Id., 163. See also Richard Ehrenberg, Capital & Finance in the Age of the Renaissance (tran. H. M. Lucas, 1963), 374 and F. Ashe Lincoln, Starrs and Jewish Charters (ed. Loewe, Jewish Historical Society of England) II, lxxii. One of the great, and lasting, costs of usury theory was to the Jewish community in England, ironically because they were perceived as exempt from the usury laws, and were, therefore, restricted ruthlessly in every other way.

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was expressly exempt from the prohibition of usury, the usury laws encouraged equity investment in productive enterprises, while discouraging consumptive loans. Thomas Wilson's A Discourse Upon Usury (1572), gave a full view of the doctrine from the perspective of an intelligent renaissance English man of affairs. As Tawney observed, "the most truculent of self-made capitalists could not have criticized h i m [Wilson] as a child in matters o f finance, but W i l s o n was deeply opposed to lending money at interest, as opposed to joint ventures in productive enterprises." 21 Even the prohibition by the statute o f 3 Henry V I I , c. 5, of the hated "drie exchange", the use of bills of exchange to mask usurious loans through cambio et recambio , favored the merchant who really had goods to finance and to sell, as opposed to one who simply wished to obtain money to spend. 2 2 As late as the 1630's, Edward Coke wrote that "dry exchange" is "damned and prohibited" as usury. " A n d here it is to be observed, that of the ancient time the notable Merchants o f London detested Usury and Dry exchange. B y the statutes of 3 H. 7. and 11 H. 7. all Usury is damned and prohibited, and there it is called Dry exchange. So as usury is not only against the Law of God, and the Laws of the Realm, but against the Law o f nature." 2 3 So strong, however, was the spiritual and emotional opposition to usury, that distinction based on the purpose of the loan was rarely acknowledged. Indeed, cynical evasions of the usury law by elaborate legal fictions, or by outright disobedience, was common for all purposes, and attempts to control abuse rarely distinguished between productive and consumptive use of credit. 2 4 As the prologue o f statute 37 Hen. 8 c. 9 stated, "so obscure and darke in intents, words and termes, and upon the same so many doubts, ambiguities and questions have risen and growen and the same acts, statutes and lawes beene of so little force, or effect, that by reason therefor little or no punishment hath ensued to the Offendors of the same, but rather hath encouraged them to use the same." 2 5 Sir Thomas More's Eutopia (1516) banned all form of usury, 2 6 but the late English Renaissance took its lead from Jean Bodin, the continental humanist, and from the policy of the Roman c i v i l law, i. e. to permit usury regulated by specific percentages o f interest, thus making a distinction between " b y t i n g " and

21 Thomas Wilson's A Discourse Upon Usury (ed. R. H. Tawney, 1925), 2. 22 See Raymond de Roover, "What is Dry Exchange?" and "Cambium ad Venetias," note 6, 183-199 and 239-259, respectively. 23 Edward Coke, Third Institutes, (1st ed., 1641 post hum.), 152. 24 See the early statutory schemes: 20 Hen. 3. c. 5; 2 Hen. 7. c. 5, 6, 8; 11 Hen. 7. c. 8; 37 Hen. 8. c. 9. "Drie exchange" was occasionally singled out for prohibition. See 3 Hen. 7. c. 8. Later usury statutes continued this general approach. See 13 Eliz. c. 8; 21 Jac. c. 17; 12 Car. 2. c. 17, and 12 Ann. Sess. 2. c. 16. The effort by Edward V I to absolutely prohibit all usury, by repealing 37 Hen. 8. c. 9, was truly exceptional. See 5 Ed. 6. c. 20. 25 37 Hen. 8. c. 9. 26 See Sir Thomas More, Eutopia, 1551 trans, of 1516 Latin edition. 7 Piergiovanni

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Illustration I: Illustration from John Blaxton, The English Usurer, London 1634, reproduced m John Β. Martin, "The Grasshopper" in Lombard Street (1892, reprinted, 1968) 108.

"smalle" usury. 2 7 Under the republican Roman law, the usurae legitimae was set at 12 %, the "usurae centesimae The rate was higher for thefenus nauticum. Justinian introduced a normal rate of 6 %, a merchant rate o f 8 %, and a l i m i t of 4 % for citizens of high rank. 2 8 One rationale for this "regulatory" approach was simply that usury was like holding "a w o l f by the ears." It was a dangerous

27

See Jean Bodin, The Six Bookes of A Commonweale (R. Knolles, trans. 1606) 573-574, 782-783. 28 See Codex 4.32.262. See also usurae maritimae, Digest 22.2; Codex 4.33. Usury contracts were either entered into by the stipulatio or by the usurae ex pacto, which was often nonbinding legally. See Adolf Berger, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Norman Law, 1953,753,469; Abbot P. Usher, The Early History of Deposit Banking in Mediterranean Europe, 1943, 9-11.

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thing to do, but it was even more dangerous to let the w o l f run free. 2 9 Another theory, asserted by Jean Bodin's The Six Bookes of a Commonweale (available in an English translation by Richard Knolles in 1606), was that usury was "tolerable" i f the purpose was to invest i n production, say i n the agricultural planting. 3 0 " [ H ] e that borrowes in a time of dearth is glad to pay it againe, and hälfe as much more after harvest." 3 1 B y the beginning of the seventeenth century, the absolute victory of the "preacher" in Thomas Wilson's A Discourse Upon Usury (1572) was giving way to a more relativist view, where the condition of the parties, the purpose of the loan, and the rate of interest determined whether the transaction was good or evil, as indeed is still the case under many modern commercial codes. 3 2 W h i l e this may seem a "theoretical" change, given the extensive evasions of the old usury law and the outright support o f limited usury by some statutes, the evolution of modern attitudes toward charging interest permitted a more open development of banking law, free from fiction and fraudulent transactions, including the fake sale and resale. More significantly, it permitted economic theorists to acknowledge openly the social good of available credit and interest under advantageous conditions. 3 3

2. A Better Comprehension of Exchange Credit Balance of Trade The simple "ricorsa" b i l l of exchange, enforced by international custom and elegant in application, permitted an effective way to provide mercantile credit free from the usury statutes. 34 Despite its use in England for over two centuries, 29 J e a n B o d i n , 7 8 3 .

30 Id., 573. 31 Id., 573. 32 See, for example, M. Tavernot, Discussion of Usury, with Proposal to Nationalize the Exchange Business, 1570? S.P.D. Eliz. vol. lxxv, No. 54, in Tudor Economic Documents (R. H. Tawney, E. Power ed., 1924) iii-359; Debate on Usury Bill in Commons, 1571, id., ii, 154-160. Compare with Crowley, Usurers One and thyrty Epigrammes, id., iii, 345, Anon., Usurie arraigned and condemned, 1625, and John Blaxton, The English Usurer, 1634. See, generally, the excellent discussions in both John T. Noonan, The Scholastic Analysis of Usury (1957) and in R. Savelli, "Between Law and Morals: Interest in the Dispute on Exchanges during the 16th Century" in The Courts and Development of Commercial Law (ed. V. Piergiovanni, Berlin, 1987), 39-

102.

33 See R. H. Tawney' s introduction to Thomas Wilson, A Discourse Upon Usury (1572), 43-172 (1925, reprinted 1962). 34 See generally, J. M. Holden, The History of Negotiable Instruments in English Law (1955); R. de Roover, Money Banking and Credit in Medieval Bruges (1948); Abbot Payson Usher , The Early History of Deposit Banking in Mediterranean Europe (1943); R. S. Lopez 11. W. Raymond, Medieval Trade in the Mediterranean World, 98100, 388-394 (1955); E. Lipson, The Economic History of England (ed. 1931); M. M. Postan, Medieval Trade and Finance (1973); Raymond de Roover, What ist Dry Exchan7*

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it was still misunderstood and feared by Elizabethan Englishmen, including even statesmen o f great sophistication and power. In this matter, England lagged behind the Continent. Permitted freedom o f exchange, English merchants did not seek domestic bankers to provide most of their necessary credit and what was lacking was easily acquired through the exchange process by overseas factors at Antwerp and Lyon, or through the agents of the Hansa and Italian houses resident in L o n d o n . 3 5 But severely misguided theories of how to set a fair exchange rate, plus an obsession w i t h specie, led to numerous attempts to regulate exchange through a "Royal Exchanger" and other devices. Even worse, the Monarch and her servants directly competed w i t h the merchants for credit in the Antwerp Exchange and other foreign markets. Sometimes this even took the form of forcing merchants to credit their exchange balances to the royal account. 3 6 This short article is not the place to fully describe the complex, and even vitriolic, theoretical disputes between Malynes, who favored exchange controls, and Edward Misselden ( 1 6 0 8 - 1 6 5 4 ) 3 7 and Thomas M u n (1571-1641), who did n o t . 3 8 These pamphlet wars, continuing a controversy that began as early as John Hale's A Discourse on the Common Weal of this Realm of England, written in 1549, 3 9 and Sir Thomas Gresham's On Foreign Exchange , written in 1559, 4 0 eventually led to increasing sophistication. Sir Thomas Gresham recognized how stabilization funds could successfully dampen swings in the exchange rate, 4 1 and M u n and Misselden began to see clearly that favorable balance o f trade was the

ge?, note 6, reprinted in Study of English Mercantilism in Business, Banking and Economic Thought (1974); M. M. Postan, Private Financial Instruments in Medieval England, 23 Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte 26 (1930), reprinted in Postan, Medieval Trade and Finance (1973); Jenks, The Early History of Negotiable Instruments, 9 L.Q. Rev. 70 (1893). I am most indebted, however, to my collegague, Professor James Steven Rogers, who is completing a major book entitled The History of the Law of Bills and Notes from the Middle Ages to the Nineteenth Century. It is my opinion that this book will surpass all of the prior published research on the subject. He has generously shared sections of the manuscript with me, on which I have relied heavily in my descriptions of mercantile credit. 35 See Raymond de Roover, What is Dry Exchange?, note 6; M. M. Postan, Private Financial Instruments in Medieval England, note 34. I am again indebted to Professor Rogers' manuscript. 36 See Raymond de Roover, Gresham on Foreign Exchange (1949) 220-225, Tudor Economic Documents (ed. R. H. Tawney/E. Powers, 1924), vol. ii, 144-153. 37 See Edward Misselden, Free Trade, or the Means to Make Trade Flourish (1622); The Centre of the circle of Commerce (1623). See also E. A. J. Johnson, Predecessors of Adam Smith (1937), 57-92. 38 See Thomas Mun, A Discourse of Trade from England into the East Indies (1621). See also Johnson, note 37, 73-92. 39 See Johnson, note 37, 19-40. 40 The manuscript, now in Kress Library, Harvard Business School, is printed in Raymond de Roover, Gresham on Foreign Exchange, 289-309 (1949). 41 Id., 94-172, 275-287.

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way to accumulate real national wealth, not futile and artificial controls on gold and silver b u l l i o n . 4 2 Messelden recognized that the only effective government controls were those that reduced domestic consumption and increased productive investment. 4 3 The exchanges themselves should run unchecked. Perhaps the most eloquent advocate of a new theory of balance o f trade was Sir Josiah Child (1630-1699). Deeply committed to the East India company and to the vehicle of joint stock companies, he was required to explain why export of specie to the Orient, where gold and silver were the preferred mode of payment, could still be highly advantageous i f the trade itself was on profitable terms. He did so b r i l l i a n t l y . 4 4

3. A Domestic Deposit and Transfer Banking System: the "New Fashioned Goldsmiths" Alert English merchants and diplomats had long studied the giro banking systems of the Continent. They envied the success of the city states, particularly that o f the Venetians, the Genovese, and the Dutch. The formation of the Bank of Amsterdam on January 31, 1609, had a profound effect on the English. Soon there were "copy cat" proposals. 4 5 But the deteriorating English political situation under the Stuart monarchies, w i t h individual monarchs struggling w i t h Parliament over fiscal controls, did not provide any basis for a public bank. Yet, there were some incentives favorable to the development o f private banks i n London. Political unrest, as Professor Rogers has observed, doubtless increased the desire to hoard private bullion, and Parliamentarian merchants had a particular incentive to move their plate from country houses, vulnerable to Royalist forced loans, into the relative security of goldsmith vaults in a Parliamentarian L o n d o n . 4 6 A study of contemporary statutes and publications reveals that goldsmiths were not the only traders to begin to arrange deposits and loans. 4 7 The powerful scriveners 42 Id., 173-274; Johnson, note 37, 57-89. 43 Johnson, note 37, 57-69. 44 See Sir Josiah Child, Brief Observations Concerning Trade and Interest of Money, 1668; A Short Addition to the Observation Concerning Trade and Interest of Money, 1669; Treatise Wherein is Demonstrated That the East-India Trade in the most National of all Foreign Trader, etc., 1681; A Discourse of Trade, 1693; The Great honour and advantage of the East-India trade to the Kingdom, 1697; all reprinted in Sir Josiah Child, Selected Works 1668-1697, Gregg Press, 1968. 45 Beawes, Lex Mercatoria Redivia (1683 ed.) 357-363. See B. D. Richards, Early History of Banking in England, London, 3d ed., 1958 (17th century pamphleteer proposals for banks in England). 46 See Raymond de Roover, New Interpretations of the History of Banking, note 4, at pp. 230-237; John B. Martin, 'The Grasshopper' in Lombard Street (1873), pp. 111140. 47 See John B. Martin, 'The Grasshopper' in Lombard Street (1873), pp. 111-121, with an introductory sketch of money lending.

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began to broker financing and to provide deposit banking as w e l l , 4 8 as did any guild that was accustomed to safeguarding cash and using entry book transfers. The principle was well understood. I f transfers could be made by entries only, between individuals on the books of one commercial house or between houses by use of ledger entirely for commercial houses on each other's books, then there was no need to actually have more than a fraction of deposited cash available at one time. The rest could be out on interest, and was frequently on loan to the government, secured by tallies on tax revenue. 4 9 I n addition, bullion deposits could be culled for above weight coinage or, more disgracefully, coins could be clipped, at least until milled edges were introduced. "The goldsmiths . . . naturally watched every opportunity to 'cull out' heavy coin for melting, turning into plate, and exporting for their value as b u l l i o n . " 5 0 A goldsmith could, "as a writer of the early seventeenth century remarked w i t h some bitterness, advance a poor man 4 a few light, d i p t cracked pieces' by way of what was ostensibly a free loan, and demand back three months later 'good and lawful m o n e y . ' " 5 1 Once it became customary to make domestic transfers by entries on the books of goldsmiths and commercial houses, the next logical step was to copy the favorite vehicle of the merchant, the b i l l of exchange. I f international bills could be transferred and discounted, why not "inland bills" drawn by goldsmiths promising payment on demand? I n the famous case of Buller v. Crips , 6 Modern Reports 29 (1704), Chief Justice Holt refused to capitulate to the "goldsmiths in Lombard Street" and authorize the use o f promissory notes like bills of exchange, although acknowledging assertions by the merchants that, by 1704, such notes had been used i n this way for "a matter of thirty years". He characterized "the notes in Question" as "only an invention of the goldsmiths in Lombard Street, who had a m i n d to make a law to bind all those that did deal w i t h t h e m " . 5 2 Holt had earlier observed in Clerke v. Martin (1702) that "the maintaining of these actions upon such notes were innovations upon the rules of the common 48

See R. D. Richards, The Early History of Banking in England, (3d ed., London, 1958) 92-152; R. H. Tawney, Historical Introduction to Thomas Wilson, A Discourse Upon Usury [1572], The Antecedents of Banking 86-104. The "mere scriveners of London" were not formally incorporated until the reign of James I, but they were, in Tawney' s words "in short, an organized and influential body." The fees which they might charge for "procuring loans or making bonds" were set by statute 21 James 1 c. 17, and there were not infrequent Royal Commissions "to inquire into infringements of the laws against usury, in which scriveners and usurers were included in a common denunciation." Id., 98. The "influential members of the profession" were also frequently pardoned by such a commission "when its zeal was spent." Id., 98. 49 Customary interest to the depositor was about 4 %. The tallies frequently paid as much as 8 to 12 %. This is another insight of my colleague, Professor Rogers. so R. H. Tawney, note 48, 93. 51 Id., 94. See Fenton, A Treatise of Usury (1612). See also the account of the notorious Thomas Violet, A True Discoverie to the Commons of England (1651) and Raymond de Roover, Gresham on Foreign Exchange (1949) 79, n. 148. 52 6 Modem Reports 29 (1704).

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law; and that it amounted to the setting up of a new sort o f specialty, unknown to the common law, and invented i n Lombard Street, which attempted in these matters of bills o f exchange to give laws to Westminster Hall. That the continuing to declare upon these notes upon the custom of merchants proceeded from obstinacy and opinionativeness, since he had always expressed his opinions against t h e m . " 5 3 Nevertheless, mercantile pressure obtained legislation in 1705, the year following Buller v. Crips , to achieve the desired result by statute. 54 A modern deposit and transfer system was at hand. These conceptual advances certainly did not mean that contemporary public opinion appreciated the merits of a domestic deposit and transfer banking system, or that the old issues of usury were dead. Sermons and popular pamphlets regularly excoriated the "new fashioned goldsmiths." A typical example, "The Mystery o f the New Fashioned Goldsmiths", 5 5 written by one "J. R . " and published in London as late as 1676, has been included as an appendix to this article, largely to show how closely the development of English banking was related to usury and public finance issues. This short pamphlet was ostensibly a letter of advice to a friend who was trying to decide whether to apprentice his son to the "Goldsmith's Trade," the title "mystery" being a pun on the common name for a craft. 5 6 The letter was quick to point out that the " N e w Fashioned Goldsmiths" had left the old honest craft and now, in essence, made money on the edge of law and morality. Special note was made of their practice of culling coinage, which led logically to the suspicion of exporting bullion, an illegal activity. 5 7 The scriptural usury commands were also not forgotten. Further, pointed reference was made to "Stop of the Exchequer" in January, 1672, when the government defaulted on the goldsmiths loans and some depositors lost their money. Somehow, this was seen as the bankers' fault, and was described as a public calamity 53 2 Ld. Raymond's Reports 757,758 (1702). See also 1 Salkeld's Reports 129 (1702); J. M. Holden, The History of Negotiable Instruments in English Law (London, 1955) 76-79. 54 3&4 Anne, c. 8 (1705). 55 Hereafter, The Mystery. See Appendix, and John B. Martin, T h e Grasshopper' .in Lombard Street (1892), reprinted 1968, 285-292. 56 I am indebted to my colleague Professor James S. Rogers for this and several other valuable insights concerning "The Mystery". 57 See Appendix, original pamphlet pages 8 - 9. As Professor Rogers astutely observed to me: " I doubt that there has ever been a period in the financial history of Western civilization when such pamphlets were not being published. Take "The Mystery" pamphlet, change "goldsmiths" into "exchangers", and you've got Clement Armstrong's Treatise concerning the Staple and the Commodities of this Realm (c. 1530s). Change "goldsmith" to "junk bond investment banker" and you've got an editorial piece that would be accepted by any newspaper in Middle America today." As to the many statutory prohibitions on the export of bullion, which began with 27 Edward I, stat. 3, De falsa moneta (1299) and were reenacted in different forms until the nineteenth century, see R. H. Tawney's "Introduction" to Thomas Wilson's A Discourse Upon Usury (London, 1925) 69-71, 93-94; Raymond de Roover, Gresham on Foreign Exchange (London, 1949) 36-37, n. 10.

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equivalent to the burning of the British fleet at Chatham by the Dutch in 1667. "[T]hat cold storm of the Peoples' fears that their money was not safe in the Bankers hands blighted them [the bankers], and since being in their declension, the Famous stop upon the Exchequer almost blasted their very root, men being u n w i l l i n g to trust money in their hands to lend his Majesty, so long as they hear the deplorable Cry es of the W i d d o w and the Fatherless, whose money they say at Feasts, they lent the King, and cannot repay them, no not their Interest to buy them Bread." 5 8 That the " N e w Fashioned Goldsmiths" and their domestic deposit and transfer system would, w i t h i n twenty years, become part of a permanent solution to the very problems of public finance that led to the "Stop of the Exchequer" w o u l d have truly astonished the author of "The Mystery". This remarkable solution came about by linking the domestic deposit and transfer system to a better method of managing the national debt.

4. A Better Means to Manage the National Debt The activities of the Crown frequently interfered w i t h the private credit market. Indeed, the Crown often competed directly w i t h the English merchants for foreign loans. Due to the feudal heritage of the English monarchy, the national debt had always been treated as i f it was the personal debt of the sovereign. English monarchs borrowed heavily from continental banks, and had been major customers of the Genovese and the Florentine houses. 59 Securing their loans against anticipated revenues at high interest rates, medieval English monarchies used "floating", rather than "funded" debt, often renegotiating the entire package at higher interest rates to receive further advances, an extremely unwise approach. Failure of some English monarchies ruined major Italian houses. 6 0 Elizabeth I was determined to control her personal debt and to obtain the best interest rate available. This she did by authorizing the skillful Sir Thomas Gresham (15197-1579) to enter into the exchange market on her behalf, and by practicing extreme frugality. The Queen was also an expert in obtaining "gifts" and subsidies, and did not hesitate to seize exchange balances due to her merchants, where possible. She even illegally seized treasure belonging to Genovese bankers. 6 1 A t

58

See Appendix, original pamphlet page 6. 59 See A. E. Feavearyear, The Pound Sterling (1931) 23-28. Montague S. Giuseppi, Alien Merchants in England in the Fifteenth Century, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society new ser., l x (1895) 75-98. 60 See generally, Raymond de Roover, The Rise and Decline of the Medici Bank, 1397-1494, (1963), 117, 323, 358; E. Lipsom, The Economic History of England, vol. ii, 193, 202; vol. iii, 228, 353 (London 6th ed., reprint 1964); Frederic C. Lane, Venice and History (1966), 69-98; Richard Ehrenberg, Capital & Finance in the Age of the Renaissance, supra, 21-63. The British Crown also defaulted on debts owed to the House in 1410. See M. M. Postan, Medieval Trade and Finance (1973) 255-256.

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her death, she had reduced the entire public debt to less than £ 17 000, an amount which was exceeded by her personal treasure. She died " i n the black." The Stuart monarchs lacked both the w i l l power and the expertise of Elizabeth, and, most importantly, they wished to govern as independently as possible of Parliament. Inevitably, they were u n w i l l i n g to seek adequate revenue bills, and sometimes failed to call Parliament for years. Thus they found themselves seeking, once again, extraordinary "floating" loans from foreign sources at high interest. They also sought high interest domestic loans. These loans were usually from the new class of English deposit bankers, secured by anticipatory tax tallies. 6 2 L i k e the feudal monarchs, the Stuarts ran the Exchequer as i f it were their personal affair, and the resulting lack of collective state credit resulted in high interest charges and a growing deficit. The culmination of the Stuart problems was the notorious "shutting up the Exchequer" on December 18, 1671, when the floating debt had grown to £ 1 328 526. "This was the first state bankruptcy of England since 1339, and it was the last." 6 3 Basically, Charles I I followed the lead of prior French and Spanish bankruptcies and took away from the creditors the special royal revenues on which they had a legal charge, and substituted a perpetual annuity of £ 79 711, at 6 %, charged to the total revenue of the Crown. "That is [Charles I I ] compulsorily reduced the interest to an average rate of 6 percent and converted the floating debt to a funded debt of perpetual annuities — the first that England had h a d . " 6 4 Even this annuity was not paid until 1684. 6 5 As long as the Monarchy and the Parliament were in competition over fiscal control, this state of affairs could not be improved. The Glorious Revolution, however, consolidated power in the Parliament. A t this key juncture, some extraordinary ideas appeared. Since 1570, there had been talk o f a National Bank, but neither the philosophical, commercial, nor political conditions had been r i g h t . 6 6 Many schemes, some

See Conyers Read , Queen Elizabeth's Seizure of the Duke of Alva's Pay-Ships, Journal of Modem History, ν (1933) 443-464; R. H. Tawney, "Historical Introduction" to Thomas Wilson's A Discourse Upon Usury [1572], 69-72; Richard Ehrenberg, Capital & Finance in the Age of the Renaissance, 345 - 346; Tudor Economic Documents (ed. R. H. Tawney/E. Power), vol. iii, 144-154. 62 See generally Godfrey Davies, The Early Stuarts 1603-1660, 10-14; E. Lipsom, The Economic History of England, vol. iii, 232-237; Richard Ehrenberg, Capital and Finance in the Age of the Renaissance, 346-349. 63 Id., 348. 64 Id., 348. 65 See also E. Lipsom, The Economic History of England, supra, vol. iii, 236-239; A. E. Feavearyear, The Pound Sterling: A History of English Money, 1931, 91-108. 66 See, for example, "Proposal to Establish a Public Bank", 1576? S.P.D. Eliz. vol cx, No. 57, ii. Tudor Economic Documents (Tawney / Power ed.) 1924 at 370. See R. D. Richards, The Early History of Banking in England, supra note 48, for accounts of 17th century pamphleteer proposals for English banks.

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fanatic and w i l d l y irrational, were proposed. One notably mad scheme was the " L a n d Bank" proposal whose leading advocates, John Briscoe and Hugh Chamberlayne, were described by Macaulay as "worthy to have been members o f the Academy which Gulliver found at L a g a d o . " 6 7 They were convinced that, since land was worth money, a national bank could issue paper money to each land holder to the full value of that property. 6 8 There would be no overissue of paper money, as long as there was "for every ten pound note, a piece of land in the country worth £ 1 0 . " 6 9 W o u l d not a goldsmith be justified in issuing notes to the full value o f the specie in his vaults? "Indeed no goldsmith had in his vaults guineas and crown to the full value of his paper. A n d was not a square mile of such land in Taunton Dean at least as w e l l entitled to be called wealth as a bag of gold or s i l v e r ? " 7 0 It was insane. But the need for better public credit was certainly recognized by some o f the more adventurous minds o f the century. For example, there was Carew Reynel, who wrote "The True English Interest, or an Account of the Chief National Improvements; i n some Political Observations, demonstrating an Infallible A d vance of this Nation to Infinite Wealth and Greatness, Trade and Popularity, w i t h Employment and Preferment to all Persons," in 1674, and Andrew Yarranton, who wrote "England's Improvements by Sea and Land: to outdo the Dutch without Fighting: to pay Debts without Money, etc." in 1676-1677. 7 1 Some of these contemporary proposals were no better than those of Chamberlayne and Briscoe, while others contain the germ o f modern economic science. As E. A . J. Johnson put it, these were in the true early character o f the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, "often strange mixtures of surviving medieval ideas, statistical computations, engineering schemes . . . plus a good deal of sheer romanticism." 7 2 When one W i l l i a m Paterson, a poor Scottish adventurer and "an ingenious, though not always judicious, speculator" 7 3 came forward in 1691 w i t h a project

67 This es a reference, of course to Jonathan Swift's great satire Gulliver's Travels (1st ed. 1726). "To this End they procured a Royal Patent for erecting an Academy of PROJECTORS in Lagado: . . . The only Inconvenience is, that none of these Projects are yet brought to Perfection; and in the mean time, the whole country lies miserably wasted . . . " Jonathon Swift , Gulliver's Travels, 1976 ed., 193-194. See Macaulay, History, vol. vii, at 305. 68 See Hugh Chamberlayne, A proposal . . . for a Bank of Secure Current Credit to be founded upon Land, etc. 1695; John Briscoe, Proposals for the supplying their Majesties with Money on Easy Terms by a National Land Bank (3d ed. 1696). 69 Macaulay, History, note 12, vol. vii at 307. 70 Id., at 307. 71 See Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 1674, l x , 102, p. 31 (II, p. 132, 1809 reprint) for Reynel' s paper and 1676, χ 1, 131, p. 790 (II, p. 369, 1809 reprint) for Yarranton' s paper. 72 E. A. J. Johnson, Predecessors of Adam Smith (New York, 1937), 7.

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for a national bank to defray the cost of the continuing wars of K i n g W i l l i a m , it would not have been surprising i f he had been treated as skeptically as Briscoe and Chamberlayne. Certainly his credentials were not impressive. He had been in the West Indies. " H i s friends said that he had been a missionary; his enemies said that he had been a buccaneer," but he had "acquired somewhere i n the course of his vagrant life a perfect knowledge o f accounts." 7 4 Raymond de Roover accurately describes the founding of the Bank of England as "the outcome of a rather shady deal between some projectors and a penniless government." 7 5 But the national debt, and the government credit, were in an extreme state. Interest rates on tax tallies had gone to a high of 14%, and even that required gimmicks, like the lottery loan of 1694, to subscribe lenders successfully. 7 6 A n d Patterson's plan, submitted to the government in 1691, had one ingenious and new feature. The proposed bank, while commissioned and incorporated by the state, would be controlled privately. I n its initial stages, it was not even proposed as a monopoly. It was to be a j o i n t stock company w i t h fewer than 1 300 shareholders, incorporated by the name of the "Governor and Company of the Bank of England." It w o u l d be permitted, by its charter, to discount bills and issue notes, but it was restricted from trading in anything but bills of exchange, bullion, and forfeited pledges. The initial subscription was to be £ 1 200 000, all to be loaned to the government at 8 %. In 1694, the promise of Paterson's scheme was recognized by two powerful and able men. These were the W h i g merchant, Michael Godfrey, and Charles Montague, a powerful W h i g politician. 7 7 Montague and Godfrey had the brilliant insight to see that the proposed bank could finance the national debt, but only under the direct control of the Parliament — thus affording better collective security for investors and ending the economic independence o f the Sovereign and the Royal Exchequer. It suited the W h i g political goals very well indeed. The proposal was put before Parliament as "a b i l l to impose a new duty on tonnage for the benefit o f such persons as should advance money to carrying on the war," but no one was fooled as to the importance of the "Tonnage Bank." The debate was hot and heavy, and "the goldsmiths and pawnbrokers set up a h o w l of rage." 7 8 73 Id. at 309. See generally, A. Andreades, History of the Bank of England (2d ed., 1924); Sir John Clapham, The Bank of England, (2 vols. 1945); R. D. Richards, The First Fifty Years of the Bank of England (1634-1744) in History of Public Banks. 74 Maucaulay, History, note 12, vol. vii, at 309. 75 Raymond de Roover, New Interpretations of the History of Banking, note 4, at 231. 76 There were 2 500 tickets given as prizes, as well as interest. See Sir George Clark, The Later Stuarts 1660-1714 (2d ed., 1956), 176. 77 Montague was unquestionably able. "At thirty-seven, he was First Lord of the Treasury, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and a Regent of the Kingdom." Macaulay, History, vol. vii, at 265. ™ Id., vol. vii, 310.

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But Montague and Godfrey were skillful managers o f both the Parliament and the City. A clause was inserted which kept the Bank from advancing money to the Crown without authority from Parliament, w i t h a penalty of a triple forfeiture o f the sum advanced without power o f royal pardon. The control o f the Whigs was cemented. Godfrey pointed to the commercial advantages, and Montague to the political. K i n g W i l l i a m was desperate for revenue at reasonable interest, and the House had no better ideas. The b i l l passed. 79 Its impact was well understood. When the b i l l came to the Lords, the landed interests rallied in opposition. The debate went for nine uninterrupted hours. "The whole scheme, it was asserted, was intended to enrich usurers at the expense of the nobility and gentry. Persons who had laid by money would rather put in into the Bank than lend it on mortgage at moderate interest." 8 0 But the combination of the W h i g merchants and a king desperate for war revenue was irresistible. The measure passed, 43 votes to 31, and received the Royal Assent w i t h i n hours. The Bank was an immediate success. O n the first day, £ 300 000 was subscribed, and £ 300 000 more i n the next two. I n ten days, all £ 1 200 000 was in place, and the entire required sum was paid into the Exchequer at interest before even the first installment was due. What was the magic of this triumph? The Bank's early days were not made easy. I n 1696, to placate the landed interests, the Government established a rival Land Bank, to raise money on the land o f the subscribers, "the least liquid of securities." This bank, and the other land bank schemes, started in 1695-1696, all failed. 8 1 The Bank o f England also had to meet a contract demand for cash to pay the army. I n 1695, it had to borrow £ 300 000 from the states of Holland, on hard terms, to meet its obligations. " I t was the first English institution to issue notes in excess o f its total deposits, and this coincided w i t h the drain of non-payments to the continent and w i t h the expensive and difficult operation of reforming the silver coinage . . , " 8 2 But the Bank not only survived, it grew. Why? There are at least two parts to the answer. First, during the original debate in Parliament, the Bank was attacked as incompatible w i t h a true monarchy. 8 3 This was a correct insight. The Glorious Revolution had established the supremacy of Parliament, and the Bank of England was only possible because the true "Sovereign" o f England was now a collective " K i n g in Parliament." Bolingbroke

79 Id., vol. vii, 314-315. See also Sir George Clark , The Later Stuarts 1660-1714 (2d ed., 1956, reprint 1972) 176-178; Richard Ehrenberg, Capital & Finances in the Age of the Renaissance (trans. H. M. Lucas, 1963, 355-356). 80 Macaulay, note 12, vii, 312. See Sir George Clark, at 177; Lords' Journals of April 23-25, 1694. si Sir George Clark, at 177. 82 Id., 178. "In its early years, the Bank was frankly a speculation . . . " Raymond de Roover, New Interpretations of the History of Banking, note 4, 231. 83 See Account of the Intended Bank of England, 1694.

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and others clearly understood this political fact, and the improved security it offered investors in the national debt. 8 4 A personal English monarchy w o u l d no longer compete w i t h English merchants in the money markets of Europe, as in the past. N o w the English mercantile classes controlled and benefited from the vehicle which funded the national debt. It was almost hard to believe that, only a few years before, the K i n g had regarded the Exchequer as virtually identical to his personal treasury. The second factor was the issuance of the Exchequer Bills of 1696. Here can be clearly seen the inspiration that the Bank of England owed to its antecedents in foreign exchange and among the "new fashioned goldsmiths." As incredible as it seems, in 1694 anticipations of tax revenue were still evidenced by tally sticks, actual notched pieces of wood. These were extraordinarily hard to keep. They were a fire hazard that caused at least one Westminster conflagration, and they were awkward to record and transfer. 85 They were also charged against specific anticipated tax funds, rather than the undifferentiated revenues of the Crown. Their awkward form and limited security led to major discounts, often up to 30 % of face value. 8 6 Could not the Bank, w i t h the entire credit of the Government politically committed and w i t h all Crown revenues pledged, seek to emulate the private bankers o f the city and circulate bills at close to par? The first efforts began in 1696. Bills were issued in rounded sums of £ 5 and above and secured by the general revenue. Even at the beginning, they succeeded in avoiding substantial discount. This is all the more remarkable in that no one was compelled to take the bills. I n 1707, the Bank of England was designated one of the "particular places" for redemption of Exchequer bills, and the Government agreed to accept the bills at full value for taxes. 8 7 Even without being designated legal tender, the Bank of England had established Exchequer bills as a rival of goldsmiths' notes and bills o f exchange. Further, after 1715, "customers who wished to dispose of their credit by 'drawn notes' were given special paper w i t h a counter foil or 'check' as a safeguard against frauds," the origin of the modern "checking" system. 8 8 A modern system of currency was on the way. 84 See Richard Ehrenberg, Capital & Finance in the Age of the Renaissance (H. M. Lucas trans.) 1963, 354-355. 85 There is a wonderful allegory by Addison in 1711 showing "Public Credit" [Bank of England] on her throne, with bags of gold coins, The Pretender rushes in . . . [t]he beautiful Queen sinks down fainting. The spell by which she has turned all things around her into treasure is broken . . . The piles of gold pieces are turned into bundles of rags or faggots of wooden tallies. Macaulay, note 12, vol. vii, 314. Spectator, No. 3 (1711). The warning was clear, if you loved good public credit, be loyal to the Whig cause, and shun the Tories! S6 Id., vol. vii, 355. 87 Id., vol. vii, 356-376. "In imitation of the London goldsmiths, the Bank of England issued 'running-cash' notes which, at first, were endorsable and later circulated from hand to hand." Raymond de Roover, New Interpretations of the History of Banking, note 4, 231. 88 Id., at 231.

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IV. Conclusion The success of the Bank of England had a profound influence on English mercantile and industrial expansion in the following centuries. Eventually, the Bank was to receive all national revenues directly, hold the cash balances of the Government, and make all payments on the Government account, practically without the use o f bullion or coin. The initial subscription to the national debt of £ 1 200 000 would reach £ 900 000 000 by 1805, the largest national debt at that time in the w o r l d . 8 9 Leading economic historians, such as Ehrenberg, have maintained that the efficient management o f this debt was the key to the British industrial and colonial empire. " O n l y by its credit was it possible for England to become a w o r l d p o w e r . " 9 0 Macaulay has asked why England was so late in following, say, the example of the Dutch in developing a fully funded national debt. But the Bank of England required a new political order, represented by the Glorious Revolution, to succeed. 9 1 It also needed the philosophical underpinnings of the new model of usury. Finally, it needed new legal techniques. These techniques were derived from those first developed by the merchants in managing foreign exchange credit and then adapted by the "new fashioned goldsmiths" to domestic deposit and transfer banking. This is not to say that the theoretical and legal revolution came to an end in 1694. Even the discussion of usury theory had a significant new chapter ahead, culminating in Jeremy Bentham's radical "Defense of Usury" (1787) and a century of continuing controversy. 9 2 Nor were the economic and legal controversies concerning foreign exchange and the national debt at an end. The existence of the Bank itself continued to be challenged, although every attack was successfully m e t . 9 3 Most importantly, economics was becoming an empirical science, 89 Richard Ehrenberg, note 20, 354-356. See Grellier, The Terms of all Loans raised for the Puplic Service (3d ed. 1805). 90 Richard Ehrenberg, note 20, 353. 91 Id., at 34. It was also assisted by the collapse of many of the great continental banks and exchangers. See Raymond de Roover, Gresham on Foreign Exchange (1949) 277-278. 92 See Jeremy Bentham, Defense of Usury (1787), in Works (J. Bowring ed. 18381843, reprinted 1962), vol. viii, 1-29. See also David Lyons, In the Interest of the Governed: A Study in Bentham's Philosophy of Utility and Law (1973), 7, 139. Bentham began as a "powerful defender of laissez faire economic policies," but discarded these views when he later "turned toward radical politics." Id., 7. 93 See, for example, Anon, Reasons offered against the continuance of the Bank. In a Letter to a member of Parliament (1707); John Broughton, Remarks on the Bank of England (1705) [Bell, 557], Godfrey, A Short Account of the Bank of England (1695); Sir Josiah Child, A New Discourse of Trade (1693); Sir Humphrey Mackworth, England's Glory: or Great Improvement of Trade (1694); Locke, Consequences of the Lowering of Interest (1691); John Broughton, A Vindication and Advancement of our National Constitution and Credit (1705?).

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and sharp analytical minds, such as Nehemiah Grew and W i l l i a m Petty, anticipated the conceptual advances of A d a m S m i t h . 9 4 But the die was cast i n 1694, and the effect was profound. The new management of the national debt, as significant as it was, eventually was superseded by the symbolic importance of the success of the Bank as a joint stock company. The Bank's private legal organization, and its initial financial success, naturally encouraged other j o i n t stock companies. I n 1691, there were only three major joint stock companies i n England, the East India Company ( £ 7 4 0 000); the Africa, or Guinea, Company (£ 111 000) and the Hudson Bay Company (£ 110 000). By 1694, there were fifty- three, and the intensity of the speculation and the stockjobbing in Exchange A l l e y led to the extraordinary assumption o f £ 10 000 000 o f floating debt by the South Sea Company in 1711. 9 5 Despite the notorious "South Sea Bubble Scandal", this was still to be the "wave o f the future." The number of joint stock companies in England w o u l d eventually exceed 40 000. It has been truly said that "England w o u l d not have been the Great Britain o f today, it would not have conquered half the world, i f it had not incurred a national debt o f £ 900 000 000 between 1693 and 1815. It would not have become the richest country in the world without the 30 to 40 thousand joint stock companies . . . " 9 6 A l l of this was the legacy of the " N e w Fashioned Goldsmiths." Indeed, this story was no less than the political, legal and moral history of capitalism in microcosm. The catalytic force was the turbulent seventeenth century. The world of Gerard Malynes' Consuetudo, Vel , Lex Mercatoria (1622) was a world of medieval usury laws and medieval attitudes toward trade and state debt. While there were signs o f change, the underlying assumption, and even the language, had little in common w i t h modern banking law and practice. A century later, a new model of usury theory and regulation was established, the foreign exchange process was far better understood and managed, an extensive system o f domestic transfer o f deposit banking was in place, and the management of the national debt was institutionalized i n a radically new and better form. W h i l e much remained to be achieved, the world of Wynham Beawes' Lex Mercatoria Redivia (1751 ) contained, in instantly recognizable form, the elements and vocabulary o f a modern, capitalist banking order. During a century marked by intense political and philosophical upheaval, these profound mercantile changes were nevertheless achieved. The result, while deeply indebted to foreign 94 See Nehemiah Grew, The Meane of Most Ample Encrease In the Wealth and Strength of England 1707, Laudsdowne MS. No. 691 (British Museum). See also William Petty, Treatise as Taxes and Contributions, 1662. Petty, a disciple of Hobbes, was called by Pepys the "Most rational man that ever he heard speak with a tongue." E. A. J. Johnson Predecessors of Adam Smith — The Growth of British Economic Thought, note 6, at 93-113, 117-135, 338 n. 10. 95 Richard Ehrenberg, note 20, at 356-357, 366-368. 96 Id., 368.

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ideas and models, had a timing and ultimate form which was uniquely English. The consequences for the political, legal and economic future of the British Empire can hardly be overstated.

Summary This article is an analysis of the forces that led to modern banking in England during the 17th century, specifically from 1600 to the founding of the Bank of England i n 1694. The primary thesis is that modern banking in England is a result of the shifts of public and cultural attitudes within the 17th century. There are two subordinate theses. The first ist that, despite the profound importance of foreign merchants and foreign banking houses to England throughout the entire Medieval and Renaissance period, the emergence of modern banking law was very different in both substance and timing from other European nations. The second thesis is that the major developments in English banking law in the 17th century occurred i n four areas. These areas, although quite distinct, all contributed to the rate of change and the degree of innovation. They were: 1) changes in the religious, philosophical and practical attitudes toward usury; 2) changes relating to the use of bills of exchange in commercial exchange transactions; 3) changes relating to the development of domestic deposit and transfer banks and the use of "inland bills of exchange;" and 4) profound changes in the understanding and management of public national debt. Also included is a text o f an important contemporary pamphlet appearing in London in 1676, it is entitled "The Mystery of the New Fashioned Goldsmiths or Bankers."

Appendix The Mystery of the New Fashioned Goldsmiths or Bankers . . . Notes This pamphlet was first published in London i n 1676. The numbers in parenthesis refer to the original pagination. It has since been republished in facsimile in John B. Martin, " T h e Grasshopper' in Lombard Street" (1892, reprinted 1968, Burt Franklin, New York), 285-292, but it is now once again inaccessible. The author was one "J. R . " It was a typical polemic against the emerging domestic deposit and transfer system, and demonstrates how deep seated the popular sentiment against a modern theory of banking remained, almost until the date of the founding of the Bank of England itself. It also demonstrates the continuing importance of the traditional ideas concerning usury, and how issues of public finance, including the famous "Stop of the Exchequer" (1671), influenced public views of the new banking industry. 8 Piergiovanni

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The many references to culling coinage on page 4 o f the pamphlet are discussed in the preceding article at Section I I I , C. The two catastrophes referred to on page 6 of the pamphlet are the burning o f the English ships by the Dutch at Chatham harbor in June, 1667, and the "Stop o f the Exchequer" on December 18, 1671. For a discussion o f the naval disaster, which shook public confidence in the government, see Sir George Clark, "The Later Stuarts 1660-1714" (2d edition, Oxford, 1956) 6 7 - 6 8 . For a discussion of the "Stop o f the Exchequer", which had a similar consequence in the economic sphere, see the preceding article at Section I I I , D. A "cockloft", mentioned on page 4 of the pamphlet, was a garret room under the ridge of the roof, often accessible only by a ladder. Such a room must have been secretive and relatively secure for keeping bullion. The Myftery

of the New Fafhioned

Goldsmiths , & c. SIR. Since you are pleafed to demand my advice in the difpofal of your Son to the Goldfmiths Trade, and my opinion of the Trade it felf; I muft trouble you more than I was willing to fet down what I have obferved of the Goldfmiths fince I have Traded, and the fteps of their Rife and Progrefs, and leave the judgment of the whole to your Self; tis but fit that a Son fhould owe the good choice of his imployment and way to his fortunes to the prudence and love of his Father. If I could now difcourfe you, I ought to be fatisfied whether you have thoughts to put your Son to a Goldfmith of the Old or New Fafhion, thofe of that profeffion having of late years wholly changed their way of Trading. In my time their whole imployment was to make and fell Plate, to buy forreign Coyns and Gold and Silver imported to melt and cull them, and caufe fome to be coyned at the Mint, and with the reft to furnifh the Refiners, Plate-makers, and Merchants, as they found the price of gold and filver to vary, and as the Merchants had occafion for Forreign Coyns. But about Thirty years fince, the Civil Wars giving opportunity to Apprentices to leave their Mafters at will, and the old way having been for Merchants to truft their Cafh in one of their Servants cuftody, manny fuch Cafhiers left their Mafters in the lurch and went to the Army, and Merchants knew not how to confide in their Apprentices; then did fome Merchants begin to put their Cafh into Goldfmiths hands to receive and pay for them, (thinking it more fecure) and the trade of Plate being then but little worth, moft of the Nobility and Gentry, and others melting down their old Plate rather then buying new, and few daring to ufe or own Plate, the Goldfmiths fought to be the Merchants Cafhkeepers to receive and pay for nothing, few obferving or conjecturing their profit they had for their pains. (4) It happened about that time that the then Parliament had coyned out of Plate, and otherwife feven Millions in Half-Crowns, and no Mills being then ufed in the Mint, the Money was of a very unequal weight, fometimes two pence or three pence in an ounce difference; & the French and others then changing the value of their Coins often, which made filver and gold of much greater value abroad then at our Englifh Mint : The Goldfmiths found a new Mifcheivous trade to fend all the money trufted in their hands

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into their Cocklofts, where they had Scales and various Weights adapted for their pourpofe, and fervants conftantly weighed every half-crown (at leaft) and forted them to melt for Two pence or three pence, or fometimes lefs gain by the ounce, and fometimes their advantage being greater by the accidents of the rife or fall of the exchange, thofe heavieft Coins were fent way in fpecie, feveral French men and other Merchants making it their whole and only bufinefs weekly to tranfport the gold and filver fo culled, either melted down or in fpecie; and from hence the Goldfmiths fet up another new Trade of buying the old Englifh gold coin at a rate much above its Lawful coyned value, buying and felling it at five, feven, eight and ten pounds in the hundred more then it was coyned for, ftill fending it away fo faft, or fupplying thofe with it whofe bufinefs was to Tranfport it, that by a modeft computation eight parts of ten of the coyn'd Gold was fuddenly confumed, and two fhillings a piece was commonly given for gold, when a penny a piece was often given before to exchange gold into filver; the Seven Millions alfo of filver new Coyned, was apparantly reduced to lefs then one Million, and the people fo abufed in their money, that there was little Coin paffed in trade but overworn, wafhed, and dipt, to the great vexation and lofs of the Traders. Thefe unlawful practices and profits of the Goldfmiths, made them greedy to ingrofs all the Cafh they could, and to combine with all mens fervants who continued to keep any Cafh, to bring their moneys to them to be culled, and to remain with them at four pence the day intereft per centum without the Mafters privity: And having thus got Money into their hands, they prefumed upon fome to come as faft as others was paid away; and upon that confidence of a running Cafh (as they call it) they begun to accommodate men with moneys for Weeks and Moneths upon extraordinary gratuities, and fupply all neceffitons Merchants that over traded their Stock, with prefent Money for their Bills of Exchange, difcounting fomtimes double, perhaps treble intereft for the time as they found the Merchant more or lefs pinched. (5) Profit anfing by this Trade, fome of them who had the higheft Credit, undertook to receive Gentlemens Rents as they were returned to Town, and indeed any Man's money, and to allow them fome intreft for it though it lay for a month only, or lefs, the Owners calling for it by a hundred or fifty pounds at a time as their occafions and expences wanted it; this new practice giving hopes to everybody to make Profit of their money until the hour they fpent it, and the conveniency as they thought, to command their money when they pleafed, which they could not do when lent at intreft upon perfonal or reall Security; Thefe hopes I fay, drew a great Cafh into thefe new Goldfmiths hands, and fome of them ftuck to their old Trade, but every of them that had friends and credit, afpired to this new Myftery to become Bankers or Cafheers, and when Cromwell ufurped the Government, the treateft of them began do deal with him to fupply his wants of Money upon great Advantages efpecially after they had bought thofe Dollers whereof he robb'd the Spaniards to about the value of 300 000 1. After the King's return he wanting money, fome of thefe Bankers undertook to lend him not their own but other mens money, taking barefaced of Him ten pound for the hundred, and by private contracts many Bills, Orders, Tallies, and Debts of the King's, above twenty, and fomtimes thirty in the hundred, to the great difhonor of the Government. This Prodigious unlawful Gain induced all of them that could be credited with moneys at intreft to become lenders of the King to anticipate all the Revenue, to take every Grant of the Parliament into pawn as foon as it was given, I had almoft faid, before 8*

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the Act was paffed for it, and to outvie each other in buying and taking to pawn, Bills, Orders, and Tallies, in effect, all the King's revenue paffed their hands, and if Solomon be in the right, that the Borrower is a Slave to the Lender, the King and Kingdom becames Slaves to thefe Bankers, and the Kingdom gave no small share of the Taxes to them, paying double and treble Intreft, as if they had not been able to raife Money for the publick Service at the times it was requifite. But the number of thefe Bankers increafed fo faft, and the money at Intereft come fo much into their hands, that the King and His Farmers, and all Tallies of Anticipation and Orders, could not fecure all the money they had to lend. Hereupon they fought out according to their feveral natural wits and capacities, how to difpofe of money for more then

(6) lawful Intreft, either upon Pawns of Bottom, Reafon or unreafonable difcounts of Intreft for Bills, or upon notorious ufurious Contracts, or upon perfonal Securities from Heirs whofe Eftates are in expectancy, or by fudden advance of money to Projectors, who drawn into Projects many Refponfible Men to the ruin of their Families; Thefe Goldfmiths however getting 10 1. or 15 1. per Centum, and fometimes more, only fo the prefent advance of the money, befides the future Intreft, Thefe and a hundred other practices they have ufed and do ftill continue in contempt of Law and Juftice, whereof they are fo confcious to themfelves, that moft of them do once a year (at leaft) fue out their general Pardon to avoid the penalty of thofe wholfom Laws made to prevent fuch Frauds, Oppreffions, contempt of Government, and mifcheives to the Publick as they are dayly guilty of: Tis alfo fufpected that their original Trade of culling the heavy Money is not deferted by fome of them; alfo how come all dipt and wafht money to pafs fo currant at their Shops, and fo little appearance in payments of all the new coyned Money fince the King's return, fo many 100 000 Is. of the Parliaments Coin, befides Bullion imported having been new coyned, and how comes Guinies alfo to be bought and fold by them fo much above the Coynage rate, that upon their account only, and by their means, they pafs currant in payments for more then they are really worth from fome of their Shops; I am fure fome Merchants are fupplyed with Gold and Silver Englifh Coyn, to tranfport upon the advantage of the exchange, or making their prefent Bargains in France and elf where, for importing Prohibited Goods. SIR, I Have given you my Remarques upon the Rife and growth of thefe new kind of Goldfmiths, and take them to have been in their higheft Afcendant or State about the time that our Ships were burnt at Chatham by the Dutch: 1 that cold Storm of the Peoples' fears that their money was not fafe in the Bankers hands blighted them, and fince being in their declenfion, the Famous flop upon the Exchequer 2 almoft blafted their very root, men being unwilling to truft money in their hands to lend his Majefty, fo long as they hear the deplorable Cry es of the Widdow and the Fatherlefs, whofe money they fay at Feafts, they lent the King, and cannot repay them, no not their Intreft to buy them Bread. (7) Now admitting that all the Creditors of the Bankers can no more think it fafe that their money fhould be lent to the King, fince Tallies, Orders, and the Great Seal it felf, are found to be no fecurity, I cannot imagine how Bread fhould be got by their trade of borrowing money upon lawful Intreft to lend upon unlawful to private perfons, though

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they can filence their confciences and forget Chriftianity, and neither regard their neighbors welfare, nor the good of the whole Kingdom, but feek by Ufurious unlawful Bargains, and oppreffive Exactions from the needy and men in ftreights, and by hook and by crook to make the moft of their Cafh. I dare take it for granted that the men now of that Trade are not men of greater natural Abilities nor acquired parts, then other Tradefmen of their age and degree, nor are they better inftructed then others to imploy greater Stocks in an advantagious Trade, nor have they greater Stocks of their own to hazzard to remote places, from whence moft profit may be hoped for; Neither have thefe men greater skill in Law then other Citizens, to judg of Securities to be taken for Money, nor have they more knowledg of Men to guefs at the value of their Bonds; how then fhould they be able to make more Intreft of money then other Traders; yet the profit that may fatisfy other Traders, cannot be fufficient for them to keep open their Shops; they muft have a great dead ftock of Cafh to anfwer all Payments, and be always ready occafionally to advance great Summs: their Servants and Shops muft be maintained for no ufe but Payments and Receipts, and deducting dead Stock and Charges, if they do not take nine per Cent, intreft for what they Lend and difpofe of, they cannot make one of one, much lefs fubfift. Befides there muft be allowance for Charges to defend themfelves againft Informers for their ufurious Contracts, and procuring frequent Pardons, and for hazard of lofs of their Money lent upon unlawful Intreft, every borrower having it in his power to plead their ufury againft them in lue of their Debts. A l l thefe things, and many more being duly confidered, I fuppofe people will fuddenly come to their wits, and begin to examine why a Goldfmithbanker fhould be better Security then another man, or fitter to be trufted for ten times more then he is worth: They give only perfonal Security, and many times their Notes for 5001. 10001. or more, when they owe before they give that Note, twenty times the value of their own Eftates, and yet thefe free Lenders will fcarce be fatisfied with two or three Mens Bonds for 10001. that are known to be worth 50001. a Man; doubtlefs I fay, People will think at laft that a

(8) Banker ought to give as good Security for money he borrows as another man, efpecially he runs the greateft hazards in his difpofing of Money for exceffive Gain or intreft. I leave it then to your felf to jugd whether Banking be like to continue half your Son's Apprenticefhip, and whether all the Arts that they can teach him can be worth one of the 200 1. you defign to give with him; I prefume upon your Pardon for my plainnefs and tedioufnefs; Yet I am prompted to fay fomthing more in point of Confcience, doubting whether it be Lawful to exercife and Trade in conftant avowed breach of the Laws of the Kingdom, as all Bankers do, thefe Laws being made for the good of the Society, to which the Scripture commands obedience for confcience fake, where they are met contrary to the Laws of God. Perhaps it is worth the inquiry upon that account, whether any man that hath esxercifed the Myftery of Banking, hath living or dying, gone off the Stage with a clear good Eftate, all his Creditors being paid, fully paid. But I judg no Man. I fubmit thefe thoughts and my Self to Your Cenfure, and remain, Sir, Your Humble Servant J. R. Finis.

J A M E S S T E V E N ROGERS*

The Problem of Accomodation Bills: Banking Theory and the Law of Bills in the Early Nineteenth Century**

I. The Role of Normative Issues in Commercial Law It is probably not an exaggeration to say that the fundamental issue i n all scholarly examination o f law and legal history is the relationship between law and the social, economic, political, and ethical conflicts and forces that shape society and social development. Curiously, however, in the Anglo-American tradition of commercial law and the history of commercial law, these issues have been neglected, i f not suppressed. 1 The dominant ideology o f Anglo-American scholarship in commercial law is well captured in a passage from one of the first American hornbooks on the law of bills and notes: " ' L a w ' then 'should follow business'; it should not divert or anticipate the course o f business, except for the most urgent reasons." 2 I n short, the conventional wisdom is that normative * Professor, Boston College Law School. ** Copyright © 1991 James Steven Rogers. A l l rights reserved. The author wishes to express his appreciation to his colleagues in the working group on Courts and the Development of Commercial Law for helpful comments on the draft of this paper presented at the conference in Genoa in March, 1990, to the Gerda Henkel Stiftung for making the conference possible, and to those who attended and commented upon drafts of this paper presented at faculty colloquia at the University of Califoma at Los Angeles Law School in January, 1991, and at Boston College Law School in February, 1991. ι As the other studies in this volume show, this defect has not afflicted Continental scholarship in this history of commercial law; rather, the prominence of the usury issue has ensured that problems of the relationship between law and social controversy have been carefully considered in the Continental tradition. In some respects, the problems presented by accommodation bill finance in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were analogous to the usury problems presented by dry exchange and ricorsa bills in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Both sets of problems arose out of the adaptation, or perversion, of a financing device considered legitimate to uses deemed improper under prevailing financial mores. Thus, dry exchange and ricorsa bills enabled purely local lending for consumption to be conducted in the guise of exchange transactions that would have been considered legitimate if used for the finance or payment of international trade, while accommodation bill finance enabled long-term financing to be conducted in the guise of working capital finance. 2 Melville M. Bigelow, The Law of Bills, Notes, and Cheques, 2d ed. (1900), 7, quoting a remark reported to have been made to the author by Lord Β ο wen, who served

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issues do not and should not play any significant role in the development of the rules of private law governing commerce. This view of commercial law has had a profound impact on common understandings of both modern commercial law and the history o f commercial law. In modern American law, one can see the force of the image of the normative neutrality o f commercial law rules in discussions of the jurisprudence of commercial law. Even scholars who are most critical of the general view that law can or should be autonomous seen to concede that in the field of commerce, law does stand quite apart from social conflict. For example, in widely discussed article published in 1975, Richard Danzig criticized Karl Llewellyn's jurisprudential theory, as reflected the Sales Law Article of the American Uniform Commercial Code, on the grounds that Llewellyn's view of legal rules as immanent in the fact patterns of ordinary life does not take sufficient account o f the conflicts among competing interests that must be resolved in the formulation of legal rules. 3 For present purposes, we need not pause to consider either the details nor soundness of Danzig's argument. The matter of present interest is a remark made in passing by Danzig to the effect that Llewellyn's general views of jurisprudence might well have been distorted by his lifelong immersion in commercial law; after all, commerical law is a peculiar field where normative issues generally do not play any significant role. 4 Turning from modern law to legal history, the thesis that commercial law should follow business is often depicted as the main lesson to be drawn from one of the most frequently related, and, it should be added, completely misinterpreted, episodes i n the history o f commercial law: Lord's Holt's infamous decisions concerning promissory notes. 5 The story, as typically told, runs as follows. as a judge of Queen's Bench from 1879-1888, as a Lord Justice of Appeal from 1888 93, and as a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary from 1893 until his death in 1894. 3 Richard Danzig, A Comment on the Jurisprudence of the Uniform Commercial Code, Stanford Law Review 27 (1975); 621-35. 4 Ibid. 622-23: At the outset it should be noted, however, that some of the peculiarities of the Code derive as much from the atypical nature of the problems and persons with which it deals as from the unusual character of Llewellyn's view of the legal process. Commercial law is at the margin of public law. It deals with a subcommunity ("merchants"), whose members occupy a status position distinct from society at large,.. . whose primary rules derive from a sense of fairness widespread if imprecisely defined within the commercial community. In this situation the legislature (often ignorant of the actual circumstances that control commerce) is not likely to conceive of itself as the arena for negotiation between competing interest groups; it is not likely, in fact, to see itself as a place where anything is decided. Instead, it may often merely articulate and place the state's imprimatur on private arrangements fabricated outside its halls. It would not be altogether surprising, then, to find that the legislative process associated with the Uniform Commercial Code was more like law-stating than law-making. 5 Clerke v. Martin, 2 Ld. Raym. 757, 92 Eng. Rep. 6 (K. B. 1702); Buller v. Crips, 6 Mod. 29, 87 Eng. Rep. 793 (K. B. 1703).

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B y the end of the seventeenth century, the rules o f the Law Merchant concerning the negotiability of bills of exchange had, after long struggle, been recognized by the common law courts. The battle, though, was not entirely over. Late seventeenth century merchants, particularly the goldsmith bankers of Lombard Street, began to use a slightly different form o f instrument, the simple promissory note. Although merchants treated these instruments in the same way as bills of exchange, their views were opposed by Lord Holt, Chief Justice of K i n g ' s Bench. I n a series of decisions around the turn of the eighteenth century, Holt refused to recognize the negotiability o f promissory notes, expressing himself, so the reporters indicate, in no moderate terms: Holt, C. J. was totis viribus against the action; and said, that this note could not be a bill of exchange. That the maintaining of these actions upon such notes were innovations upon the rules of the common law; and that it amounted to setting up a new sort of specialty, unknown to the common law, and invented in Lombard Street, which attempted in these matters of bills of exchange to give laws to Westminster Hall. That the continuing to declare upon these notes upon the custom of merchants proceeded from obstinacy and opinionativeness . . . 6 The promissory notes dispute has lived on in memory as the classic example of legal resistance to mercantile needs. The standard work on the history of the law of bills gives a nice compendium of the invective that has ever since been heaped upon Holt by writers on commercial law, Thus we are told that "the case of Clerke v. Martin was a hasty, intemperate decision of Lord Holt, which was acquiesced in by the other judges, in consequence of his overbearing authority"; that his mind, at the time, "was not in a proper state for calm deliberation and sound judgment"; that the decision was "obvious error"; that Holt's attitude showed that he was "narrow-minded", "reactionary", "peevish" and "perverse". An even more barbed and scathing comment was made by Mr. Fifoot in a paper read to the institute of Bankers when he said that after the passing of the 1704 A c t 7 "Lord Holt was left to comfort himself with the reflection that he had held up the course of trade for fifteen years." 8 I n fact, Holt's decisions had virtually nothing to do w i t h the issues or attitudes for which they have become symbols. That however, is a matter far beyond the scope of the present paper. What is important about the episode is not what actually happened, but the way the story has been told. Mercantile need demanded that notes be negotiable, and economic progress demanded that law accommodate this mercantile need. L o r d Holt, however, refused to accede to this obvious need, and has thereby become the villain in an allegory conveying a basic moral about the proper relationship between law and commercial development.

6 Clerke v. Martin, 2 Ld. Raym. at 758, 92 Eng. Rep. at 6. 7 3 & 4 Anne, ch. 9 (1704). 8 J. Milnes Holden, The History of Negotiable Instruments in English Law (1955), 80-81.

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The general thesis of the work on the history o f English law of bills and notes of which this paper is a part is that the image of the normative neutrality of commercial law is profoundly misleading. A satisfactory account of the history o f commercial law i n general, and bills and notes in particular, requires careful consideration o f the relationships between legal issues and controversies concerning economic policy and morality. This paper attempts to portray some o f the complexity o f these relationships by focussing on a group of seemingly dry, technical issues that troubled the English courts from the 1790s until the 1830s i n connection w i t h "accommodation bills."

I I . The Livesey Bankruptcy and Accomodation Bills I n the year 1788, the firm o f Livesey, Hargreaves & Co. of Lancashire went bankrupt. The firm had been one o f the largest cotton manufacturing enterprises that had developed in the early stages of the industrial revolution in England. According to the English economic historians Alfred Wadsworth and Julia Mann, the firm "employed between 700 and 1 000 printers, . . . they were said to be 'the means of giving bread to near 20 000 persons,' and their cloth out at bleaching was reputed to occupy more than twelve m i l e s . " 9 The outstanding debt o f the firm at the time of its bankruptcy has been estimated at nearly a m i l l i o n and a half pounds. 1 0 T o place those figures in perspective, one might note that in the 1780s the two largest cities in Lancashire, Liverpool and Manchester, each had populations of only thirty to thirty-five thousand people, 1 1 and that the entire outstanding note issue o f the Bank of England in 1788 was only about ten m i l l i o n pounds. 1 2 I n the aftermath of the Livesey failure, it was revealed that the firm had for some time been financing its operations by repeated issuance and circulation of accommodation bills. It seems likely that the statement made i n the preceding paragraph would, in the late eighteenth century, have produced a reaction among the public o f shock, horror, and outrage. It seems even more likely that to modern readers the statement is virtually incomprehensible. Thus, to understand the legal problems presented by the Livesey failure and other cases involving accommodation bills we must to attempt to understand late eighteenth century English views of financial propriety.

9

Alfred Wadsworth & Julia Mann, The Cotton Trade and Industrial Lancashire 16001780 (1931), 307. 10 Ibid. π Ibid. 311. 12 Sir John Clapham, The Bank of England: A History, 2 vols. (1945), 1: 297.

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We may begin by examining the form of financial transaction involving bills of exchange that would have been considered legitimate in the late eighteenth century. Suppose that a manufacturer such as Livesey has sold a shipment of cotton to a distributor in London, allowing the distributor a period of several months credit for payment. 1 3 Unless the manufacturer wishes to add credit extension to its business, the manufacturer w o u l d wish to find someone else w i l l i n g to provide the financing necessary to enable it to sell on credit. I f the manufacturer could obtain cash in exchange for its right to receive payment from its customer several months hence, the manufacturer could continue its manufacturing enterprise, leaving others to engage in the business of providing short term commercial financing. The typical mechanism for obtaining such financing w o u l d have been for the manufacturer to draw a b i l l o f exchange on the London distributor for the amount of the sale, payable at the end of the agreed credit period. The London distributor would accept the bill, thereby engaging to pay it when due. The manufacturer might take the b i l l to a bank or other financial entity and discount it for cash, or might make the b i l l payable directly to one of its suppliers or other creditors and use it to make payment of its obligations. Even i f the b i l l was initially used by the manufacturer to pay one of its suppliers, the end result w o u l d probably be the same, for the payee o f the b i l l w o u l d probably discount it for cash. Bills of exchange, then, were the commercial instruments used in the system by which manufacturers and merchants obtained what we would now call " w o r k i n g capital" financing from banks and investors in the money markets. Accommodation b i l l finance was, in essence, a device by which firms could raise funds in the market developed for working capital financing even though they had not actually engaged in sales transactions. 14 Suppose that a firm's sales

13 Although it is convenient for purposes of modern understanding to describe the typical transaction between firms as a sale, doing so may be somewhat anachronistic. Until the twentieth century, distribution through factors and commission agents was probably at least as common and economically significant as outright sales between firms. For example, Livesey might have shipped its cotton to a firm in London who undertook to sell the cotton as agent for Livesey, accounting to Livesey for the proceeds of the sale minus a commission. Bills of exchange, however, would have been used in essentially the same fashion as described above, for commission merchants commonly allowed their customers to draw bills on them for most of the expected proceeds in advance of the actual sale of the goods. 14 One of the difficulties in understanding the problem of accommodation bills is that we still use the word "accommodation" in modem negotiable instruments law, but do so in an entirely different sense. The Uniform Commercial Code, for example, has a number of special rules concerning the obligations of accommodation parties to bills and notes, see U.C.C. § 3-415. In the Code, the word "accommodation" means that the party in question signed the note for the purpose of acting as guarantor of the obligation of another party to the note. Thus, in modern law, the term accommodation is used to distinguish those who signed as guarantors from those who signed as principals. By contrast, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the classification of accommodation versus regular turned on the nature of the economic transaction out of which the bill arose. I f the bill arose out of an actual mercantile transaction, it would not have been

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have fallen off, that it wishes to expand rapidly and lacks capital to construct facilities or machinery, that its owners are siphoning off large sums for personal consumption, or that for any other reason the firm is desperate for cash. The firm's ability to raise money for other purposes would be greatly enhanced i f the firm could make it appear to the participants in the money markets that it was simply engaging in routine working capital financing via the discount of bills arising out of the sales of its output. The trick was to create bills that looked like the k i n d o f bills that arose out of the actual sale of goods in commerce. I n one common scheme, a firm wishing to engage in such practices w o u l d find another firm or individual w i l l i n g to assist — or "accommodate" — it by accepting bills even though no goods had been sold or shipped nor any other actual transaction had accourred between the firms. Thus, Firm A would draw a b i l l on Firm Β in some odd amount that looked like it might have been the amount due for goods shipped from Firm A to Firm B. Firm Β w o u l d accept the bill, and Firm A could then use it to pay creditors or could discount it for cash. O f course, when the b i l l came due, Firm Β would have to pay it, but, as long as the scheme held up, Firm Β might well be able to raise the funds to do so by simply repeating the process w i t h the parties switched. Firm Β w o u l d draw a b i l l on Firm A , Firm A w o u l d accept, and Firm Β would discount the b i l l to get the money needed to pay off the first bill. Some version of this scheme has probably been practiced as long as bills o f exchange have been in use. In The Wealth of Nations, for example A d a m Smith describes and decries the " w e l l k n o w n shift o f drawing and re-drawing to which unfortunate traders have sometimes recourse when they are upon the brink of bankruptcy." 1 5 It was, however,

called an accommodation bill, regardless of whether some of the parties to the bill had signed in a suretyship capacity. Today, we use no such term concerning the nature of the transaction; rather whether one is an accommodation party or not depends on whether one signs as a surety or a principal. Syntax reflects the deference in meaning. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the word "accommodation" usually modified bill; one spoke of accommodation bills versus real bills. By contrast, today the term "accommodation" modifies party; one speaks of accommodation parties to bills versus nonaccommodation parties. is Adam Smith, An inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations [1776], ed. Edwin Cannan (1904; reprint, 1976), Bk II, c. II, 326. Smith gives the following example: The trader A in Edinburgh, we shall suppose, draws a bill upon Β in London, payable two months after date. In reality Β in London owes nothing to A in Edinburgh; but he agrees to accept of A's bill, upon condition that before the term of payments he shall redraw upon A in Edingburgh for the same sum, together with the interest and a commission, another bill, payable likewise two months after date. Β accordingly, before the expiration of the first two months, redraws this bill upon A in Edinburgh; who, again, before the expiration of the second two months, draws a second bill upon Β in London, payable likewise two months after date; and before the expiration of the third two months, Β in London redraws upon A in Edinburgh another bill, payable also two months after date. This practice has sometimes gone on, not only for several months, but for several years together,

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the Americans who devised the most colorful slang for the practice. Nineteenth century American writers lamented the frequent use of "race horse b i l l s " that chased each other back and forth as swiftly as prize horses. 1 6 One difficulty w i t h carrying on a practice o f repeated issuance of accommodation bills was that i f the same names kept appearing on all o f the bills issued in scheme, it might well become apparent what was going on. That problem, however, could easily be solved. The firms simply made up names for various of the parties to the bills! This was precisely what Livesey, Hargreaves and Co. had been doing for some time prior to their bankruptcy. 1 7 The reports o f the various lawsuits that were prompted by the Livesey failure give a good picture of Livesey's b i l l finance practices. 1 8 A typical transaction is depicted i n Collis v. Emett. Livesey owed £ 1 500 to Thomas Jeffrey i n London for goods. Being unable to pay when the debt came due, Livesey persuaded Jeffrey to take a b i l l which he could then get discounted. Livesey, of course, w o u l d not have wanted it generally k n o w n that they could meet their obligations only by repeated issues of short-term paper, and so would have wanted it to appear that the b i l l was a "real b i l l " that had arisen out of an actual mercantile transaction. The b i l l that Livesey gave Jeffrey had this appearance. It was drawn by John Emett, one o f the partners at the Lancashire works, on the Livesey branch in London, payable to one George Chapman, accepted by Livesey, and indorsed by Chapman to Jeffrey. I n fact, however, there was no such person as George Chapman. Livesey had simply made up the name, drawn the b i l l to his order, and then indorsed it to Jeffrey in the name of Chapman. Indeed, the

the bill always returning upon A in Edinburgh with the accumulated interest and commission of all the former bills. More simply still, the borrower might just issue bills, persuading friends to endorse for him, get them discounted, and then repeat the practice as money was needed to pay the maturing bills. The second edition of Defoe's 'Complete English Tradesman' included an Appendix cautioning the traders against various dangerous financing practices, including a chapter entitled "Of Discounting and Endorsing Bills, and of the scandalous Practice of passing Promissory Notes, on purpose to borrow money by Discount." Daniel Defoe, The Complete English Tradesman, 2d ed (1727), suppl. 22-31. 16 See Ralph C. H. Catterall, The Second Bank of the United States (1903), 158-59. As was said in one of the Livesey cases "[t]he ovious reason of inserting the name of a fictitious payee is, that too many bills should not appear in circulation in the same name at the same time." Gibson v. Minet, 1 H. Bla. 569, 624-25, 126 Eng. Rep. 326, 356 (H. L. 1791) (Heath J.). In a similar case in 1769, Lord Mansfield had remarked that "The intent of the bill was only to enable Cox to raise money, and the reason why it was not made payable to his order was, that there were other bills at the same time made payable to his order; if this had also been payable to the same order, too many would have been in circulation at the same time, in the same name, which would have had the appearance of a fictitious credit." Stone v. Freeland, Κ . Β. 1769, reported in a note to Collis v. Emett. is Collis v. Emett, 1 H. Bla. 313, 126 Eng. Rep. 185 (C. P. 1790); Minet v. Gibson, 3 Term Rep. 481, 100 Eng. Rep. 689 (Κ. B. 1789), aff'd 1 H. Bla. 569, 126 Eng. Rep. 326 (H. L. 1791); Gibson v. Hunter, 2 H. Bla. 288, 126 Eng. Rep. 557 (H. L. 1794).

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London branch o f the Livesey firm seems to have keep on hand a stock o f bills drawn in blank which were filled in w i t h fictitious names and amounts and discounted whenever cash was needed. Evidence was given in one o f the other cases that Livesey regularly sent blank b i l l forms to an associate in Falmouth who signed them and returned them to Livesey in London where they were filled in, usually w i t h the name o f fictitious payees, and indorsed to creditors. The Livesey clerks who took the bills around to creditors in London had to take some care in handling the bills to avoid smearing the still wet ink on the completed bills that purportedly had come up from Falmouth. 1 9 The fictitious payee cases arising out of the Livesey bankruptcy were the first, and perhaps most spectacular, episode of a controversy that would dominate the law o f bills from the last decade of the eighteenth century through the early decades o f the nineteenth century. H o w should the legal system should respond to the crises left by the collapse o f those who had stretched the use o f accommodation bills past the breaking point? From the perspective o f the late twentieth century, however, it is easy to dismiss the accommodation bills cases as nothing more than instances in which people made foolish loans to uncreditworthy or untrustworty borrowers and had to suffer the consequences. T o approach the accomodation bills cases from that perspective, however, is to miss precisely what is most interesting about the episode, for the underlying tension i n these cases was whether the legal system should regard the problems in that light or should take a more active role in the effort to control economic abuses. I n order to gain some understanding o f how contemporary lawyers and judges might have percieved the problems presented by the accommodation bills cases, one must place them in the economic context of their time.

I I I . The Economic Context of the Accommodation Bills Cases 1. Bills of Exchange and Eighteenth Century Banking Practice In the century before the Livesey bankruptcy, banking and credit institutions had developed at an asthonishing rate in England. As Dean Coquillette's study published in this volume shows, banking in England was only i n its infancy in the late seventeenth century. The goldsmiths had made the transition from artisans to financial intermediaries, but their activities were still largely confined to London, and none of the goldsmith firms were particularly large establishments. Even in 1702, the notes and other deposits shown on the balance sheet of Richard Hoare, one of the major goldsmith bankers, amounted to only about £ 115 0 0 0 . 2 0 19 Gibson v. Hunter , 2 H. Bla. 288, 290-91, 126 Eng. Rep. 557, 558-59 (H. L. 1794). 20 H. P. R. Hoare, Hoare's Bank: A Record, 1673-1932 (1932), 25.

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Outside of London, there really were not institutions that could be called banks, although of the functions that we now think o f as banking were carried on to some extent by merchants, scriveners, tax collectors and others. 2 1 The great national institution of English finance, the Bank of England, was not to come into existence until the last decade of the seventeenth century. B y the end of the eighteenth century, by contrast, England had an extensive, nationwide, well-developed banking system. Despite its shaky foundations as part of a scheme to raise money for the French wars, the Bank o f England had not only survived, but prospered. The first public balance sheet drawn up by the Bank in 1696 showed a total of notes and deposits of about two m i l l i o n pounds; one hundred years later, the figure had increased nearly seven-fold, standing at £ 13 457 000 in February of 1796. 2 2 Although the Bank of England enjoyed a monopoly of joint-stock banking throughout the eighteenth century, private unincorporated banks flourished. A conservative estimate shows a doubling in the number of banking firms in London from 1725 to 1794, 2 3 and some assessment o f the increase in size o f such firms can be gained by noting that the deposits of Hoare's bank had grown to £ 8 9 5 000 by 1802. 2 4 Outside o f London, the growth i n banking was, i f anything, even more spectacular. Edmund Burke remarked that when he arrived in England in 1750, there were not more than a dozen banker's shops outside o f L o n d o n , 2 5 and his estimate has generally been credited by modern historians of banking. Estimates o f the corresponding figure by the end of the eighteenth century range from three to four hundred. 2 6 The growth of banking and the credit markets in the eighteenth century wholly transformed the English financial system. A t the end of the seventeenth century, money still meant specie; by the end of the eighteenth century, the bulk of the money supply consisted o f bank notes and deposits. 2 7 From the perspective o f the capital markets, the transformation was equally dramatic. A merchant or manufacturer in the late senventeenth century might have found some sources of financing from other merchants w i l l i n g to sell on long credit terms, from older merchants interested in investing in others' ventures, or from lenders w i l l i n g

21 See R. H. Tawney, Introduction to Thomas Wilson, A Discourse Upon Usury (1925), 86-104; L. S. Presnell, Country Banking in the Industrial Revolution (1956), 1-74. 22 Presnell, Country Banking, 280; Clapham, The Bank of England, 1: 297. 23 D. M. Joslin, London Private Bankers, 1720-1785, Economic History Review, 2d ser. 8 (1956): 173. 24 Hoare, Hoare's Bank, 42. 25 Edmund Burke, Regicide Peace, cited in Clapham, The Bank of England, 1: 157. 26 Presnell, Country Banking, 4-11; Clapham, The Bank of England, 1: 157-72. 27 It has been estimated that in 1688 specie in circulation amounted to £ 10 million, while banknotes and deposits totaled only £ 2 million; the corresponding figures for 1800 are specie £ 2 0 million, banknotes and deposits £ 3 0 million. Rondo Cameron, Banking in the Early Stages of Industrialization (1976), 42.

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to lend on mortgages, though all such financing was still conducted under the shadow o f the usury proscription. B y contrast, the merchants and emerging industrialists o f the late eighteenth century had access to a highly developed, nationwide system o f financial intermediation. B y virtue o f the relationships in London among private banks, bills brokers, and the Bank of England, borrowers in London had direct or indirect access to essentially all of the surplus investment funds held in London. Moreover, by virtue of the correspondent relationships between London bankers and country bankers, the entire country had access to the London money market, either as borrowers or investors. 2 8 Bills of exchange were, one might say, the stitches which together formed the complex tapestry of the late eighteenth century English monetary and banking system. The standard mechanism of bank lending at the time was the discount o f commercial bills of exchange. Thus, the bank notes that comprised the great bulk of the circulating medium were, in sense, simply the result of the exchange of a banker's promise to pay money to the bearer — a bank note — for the promise of a merchant to pay money to another merchant — a b i l l of exchange. Even bills of exchange that were not discounted for bank notes played an important role in the monetary system. Indeed, the principal medium o f exchange in some areas o f England, particularly the industrial areas of Lancashire, was neither specie nor bank note but circulating private bills of exchange. 2 9 Moreover, even i f neither discounted nor circulated, bills of exchange played a monetary role i n that they served as one o f the principal components o f the liquid balances held by firms, thereby diminishing their need for specie or bank notes. 3 0 28 T. S. Ashton has given a lucid account of the way in which the system of country banks, linked through correspondent relationships with London bankers, enabled the surplus funds of the agricultural regions to be channeled to investment in the developing industrial areas: The country houses fall into two broad classes. In the rural areas their chief function was to act as banks of deposit. Farmers and traders brought in bills they had received for their products: sometimes they would discount these for coin or notes, but often they were content to build up a balance. When the bills matured they were sent to the correspondent for collection, and the rural banks piled up funds in London. They were usually willing to pay a commission to the London bank for its services in finding profitable investments for these, and, in the later decades of the century, specialist bill brokers were serving as intermediaries between banks with money to invest and banks or merchants who wished to discount bills. In the growing manufacturing areas, on the other hand, the chief function of the banks was to provide advances to their clients. The demand for means of payment normally exceeded the supply, and the local banks had to draw on their correspondents in London. In order to do this they remitted to the metropolis parcels of bills which had not yet reached maturity. It was the business of the London banks to use the balances of the rural banks in discounting these; and hence to transfer purchasing power from areas in which it was relatively plentiful to those in which it was relatively scarce. Much of the investment in manufacture was provided, in this way, by the savings of agriculturists in other areas. T. S. Ashton, An Economic History of England: The 18th Century (1955), 184-85. 29 T. S. Ashton, The Bill of Exchange and Private Banks in Lancashire, 1790-1830, Economic History Review 15 (1945): 25.

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2. Bills of Exchange and Eighteenth Century Banking Theory I n eighteenth century banking and monetary theory, as i n the practice of banking, bills of exchange played a key role. From the earliest stages of the development of banking, it was perceived that banks could provide a medium of exchange to supplement or take the place of specie. 31 T o some, this seemed like the alchemists' dream: banks create money, people w i t h lots of money are rich, we would like to be rich, therefore let us have lots of banks! 3 2 The reality, thought, that unlimited creation of paper money would lead to inflation and economic dislocation could not long be ignored. The influx of vast stores of silver from the Americas i n the sixteenth and seventeenth century had not brought wealth and prosperity, as mercantilist theory w o u l d have suggested, but longterm inflation. The effort to understand this phenomenon had resulted by the mid-seventeenth century in the development o f the quantity theory o f money and the price-specie flow mechanism, articulated most influentially in England by David H u m e . 3 3 After the experiences of the collapse of John L a w ' s system in France and the South Sea Bubble in England in the early part o f the eighteenth century, the possibility that undue expansion of paper money could have the same adverse effects as expansion of the specie supply could hardly have been regarded as a mere theoretical p o i n t . 3 4 By the end of the eighteenth century, however, a theoretical account had developed that seemed to provide an elegant and simple solution to the potential problems posed by banks' ability to create 30 Henry Thorton — one of the leading monetary theorists of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, if not of all times — made this point quite lucidly: "[B]ills, though professedly drawn for the purpose of exchanging a debt due to one person for a debt due to another, are, in fact, created rather for the sake of serving as a discountable article, and of forming a provision against contingencies; . . . by being at any time convertible into cash (that is, into either money or bank notes) they render that supply of cash which is necessary to be kept in store much less considerable." Henry Thornton, An Enquiry into the Nature and Effects of the Paper Credit of Great Britain (1802), ed. F. A. v. Hayek (1939; reprint, 1965), 91. The question whether "money" should be defined as limited to specie and bank notes, or should include other financial assets such as bank deposits and bills of exchange was, however, a matter of some debate among monetary theorests of the time. Jacob Viner, Studies in the Theory of International Trade (1937), 243-54; Lloyd W. Mints , A History of Banking Theory in Great Britain and the United States (1945), 42-45. 31 Abbott Ρ ay son Usher, The Early History of Deposit Banking in Mediterranean Europe (1943), 180-82; Raymond de Roover, Money, Banking and Credit in Mediaeval Bruges (1948), 202-5. 32 John Driscoe, a proponent of a land bank scheme in the late seventeenth century rejected out of hand the objection that the bank might issue too many notes: "these bills being a new species of money, and to all intents and purposes answering the end of money; we may as well fear that we shall have too much money in the nation, which no wise man will complain of." John Driscoe, A Discourse on the Late Funds, 3d ed. (1696), 63-64, quoted in Mints, History of Banking Theory, 15. 33 Viner, Studies in the Theory of International Trade, 40-45, 74-87; D. P. O'Brien, The Classical Economists (1975), 143-47. 34 John Carswell, The South Sea Bubble (1960). 9 Piergiovanni

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paper money. Although elements of the theory can be found in earlier writings, 3 5 the most articulate and influential statement of the "real b i l l s " theory, as the doctrine has come to be known, was set out by A d a m Smith i n 1776. The starting point of Smith's theory is his discussion o f the principles that should govern the lending decisions of a prudent banker: A bank cannot advance to a trader the whole or even the greater part of the circulating capital with which he trades; because, though that capital is continually returning to him in the shape of money, and going from him in the same shape, yet the whole of the returns is too distant from the whole of the outgoings, and the sum of the repayments could not equal the sum of his repayments within such moderate periods of time as suit the conveniency of a bank. Still less could a bank afford to advance him any considerable portion of his fixed capital; of the capital which the undertaker of an iron forge, for example, employs in erecting his forge and smelting-house, his workhouses and warehouses, the dwelling houses of his workmen, &c. The returns of the fixed capital are in almost all cases much slower than those of the circulating capital; and such expenses, even when laid out with the greatest prudence and judgment, very seldom return to the undertaker till after a period of many years, a period far to distant to suit the conveniency of a bank. Traders and other undertakers may, no doubt, carry on a very considerable part of their projects with borrowed money. [But] the money which is borrowed, and which it is meant should not be repaid till after a period of several years, ought not to be borrowed of a bank, but ought to be borrowed upon bond or mortgage, of such private people as propose to live upon the interest of their money. 36 So stated, the theory is simply a matter of prudent practice for individual bankers, w i t h no necessary implications for the aggregate level of paper money created by all bankers. Yet, in a fashion that Smith does not entirely explain, he seems to have felt that i f banking operations were confined to the discount of real bills, the aggregate volume o f circulating paper w o u l d thereby be held to an appropriate level. As Smith puts it: What a bank can with propriety advance to a merchant or undertaker of any kind, is not either the whole capital with which he trades, or even any considerable part of that capital; but that part of it only, which he would otherwise be obliged to keep by him unemployed, in ready money for answering occasional demands. If the paper money which the bank advances never exceeds this value, it can never exceed the value of the gold and silver, which would circulate in the country if there was no paper money; it can never exceed the quantity which the circulation of the country can easily absorb and employ. When a bank discounts to a merchant a real bill of exchange, drawn by a real creditor upon a real debtor, and which, as soon as it becomes due, is really paid by that debtor; it only advances to him a part of the value which he would otherwise be obliged to keep by him unemployed in ready money for answering occasional demands. 37 35 Mints, History of Banking Theory, 13-25,J.K. Horsefield, The Duties of a Banker: The Eighteenth Century View, in Papers in English Monetary History, ed. T. S. Ashton & R. S. Sayers (1953), 1-5. 36 Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Bk II, c. II, 326-27.

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Thus, consistent w i t h the benign operation of the invisible hand, adherence to the limitations on credit dictated by the private interests of prudent bankers w o u l d automatically achieve the public objective o f preventing excessive issues of paper money. The key element of Smith's theory of money and banking was that the only instruments that should circulate, either directly or in the form of bank notes issued on discount of the instruments, were "real bills." It is, therefore, easy to see why the financing practices of the Livesay firm would have been regarded as an appalling abuse. There is, however, one final aspect of the economic context that must be understood before examining the accommodation bills cases.

3. The Bank of England Suspension and the Bullion Controversy In 1793, England joined the forces allied against Revolutionary France, beginning its participation in the great continental wars that w o u l d continue until the battle of Waterloo in 1815. I n December of 1796, a French fleet set out on an ill-fated expedition aimed at an invasion o f Ireland. Most of the French forces were lost or diverted by storms and English attacks, but a small force did land in Wales on 22 February 1797. Thought the French troops were quickly captured, the rumor of the invasion was not. A run on the banks began i n Newcastle and quickly spread to London. W i t h the specie reserves of the Bank o f England rapidly dwindling, Prime Minister Pitt called a meeting o f the K i n g and Council on Sunday morning 26 February 1797. The result was an order, later confirmed by Parliament, that the Bank o f England immediately cease payment of its notes in specie. 3 8 Since Bank of England notes were the single largest component of the money supply, and since the notes o f the country banks were, in practice i f not law, redeemable in Bank of England notes rather than specie, the effect of the order was that the English economy was placed, for the first time in history, on an inconvertible paper money standard. Though the suspension order was initially intended as a temporary mesure, the Bank was not to resume specie payment until nearly a quarter of a century later, in 1821. Somewhat surprisingly, economic conditions immediately after the suspension order remained relatively calm. However, w i t h the long continuance of the suspension, the public became concerned about whether the Bank of England, or the banking system in general, could be conducted on a sound basis in these unprecedented circumstances. One consequence of the suspension was that the early decades o f the nineteenth century were one of the most active and creative periods in the history of banking

37

Ibid. 323 (emphasis added).

38 37 Geo. 3, ch. 45 (1797). *

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and monetary theory in England. 3 9 For present purposes, the significance o f the suspension controversy is that it intensified, and brought to the forefront of public discussion and debate, the concerns about the distinction between real and accommodation bills that had been raised in eighteenth century banking theory. When A d a m Smith articulated the "real bills theory," he was discussing a banking system based on convertible notes. Accordingly, the occasion did not arise for h i m to consider in any detail whether confining bank discounts to real bills really was sufficient in itself to prevent excessive issuance o f paper money. The requirement that bank notes be paid in specie placed an independent l i m i t on overissue, for a banker who issued notes to excess, whether by discount of accommodation paper or in any other fashion, was subject to the restraint that he had always to keep on hand sufficient specie reserves to pay his outstanding notes. During the period o f suspension, however, the l i m i t i n g force of convertibility was removed. Unless some other restraint was operating, there seemed to be nothing to prevent a banker, and particularly the Bank of England, from issuing notes without l i m i t , thereby setting off a spiral of inflation. B y the end of the first decade o f the nineteenth century, suspicion began to grow that the Bank of England was in fact overissuing. The price of gold bullion rose to a considerable premium over the mint rate, and the foreign exchange value of the pound fell dramatically. A school of monetary writers, who have become k n o w n as the "Bullionists," contended that the rise i n the price of gold and fall i n the exchanges were caused by an overissue o f bank notes by the Bank of England. The matter became of sufficient public concern that a special commission was appointed by Parliament to study the problem. The hearings held by the B u l l i o n Committee and the Report that it issued in 1810 are among the most important documents in the history of English monetary theory, and they make clear that the "real bills doctrine" was at the very heart o f the controversy. The representatives of the Bank of England who testified before the Committee maintained strenuously that the Bank had not overissued, and that the rise in the price of bullion and fall in the exchanges was due to the extraordinary circumstances o f the wars, requiring massive payments abroad for the maintenance of the troops. O f more significance for present purposes, the Bank witnesses maintained

39 The literature on the monetary theory of this period is enormous. The account herein is based principally upon the following sources: The Paper Pound of 1797-1821: A Reprint of the Bullion Report, ed. Edwin Cannan, 2d ed. (1925; reprint, 1969); Thornton, An Enquiry into the Nature and Effects of the Paper Credit of Great Britain, Frank Whitson Fetter, Development of British Monetary Orthodoxy (1965); Horsefield, The Duties of a Banker; Mints, History of Banking Theory; Ο Brien, The Classical Enonomists; W. Santiago-Valiente, Historical background of the classical monetary theory and the 'real-bills' banking tradition, History of Political Economy 20 (1988): 43-63; Viner, Studies in the Theory of International Trade; The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics (1987), s. v. "Banking School, Currency School, Free Banking School," "Bullionist Controversy," "Classical Theory of Money," and "Real Bills Doctrine."

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that excessive issuance of bank notes was simply not possible, as long as notes were issued only on discount of real bills o f exchange. The B u l l i o n Report summarized the Bank's position as follows: The Bank Directors, as well as some Merchants who have been examined, shewed a great anxiety to state to Your Committee a doctrine, of the truth of which they professed themselves to be most thoroughly convinced, that there can be no possible excess in the issue of Bank of England paper, so long as the advances in which it is issued are made upon the principles which at present guide the conduct of the Directors, that is, so long as the discount of mercantile Bills is confined to paper of undoubted solidity, arising out of real commercial transactions, and payable at short and fixed periods. 40 For a number of reasons, the Bullionists rejected the Bank's position. 4 1 First, as one of the authors o f the B u l l i o n Report had pointed out i n earlier writing, tying note issues to discount of real bills w o u l d not necessarily result in an automatic regulation o f the volume of the currency, because the distribution of a given shipment of goods might result in one or dozens of bills, depending on the number of hands through which the goods passed and the credit terms of the sales. 42 More importantly, the Bank's position rested on the notion that the demand for loans was completely independent o f the cost of credit. The Bank directors contended that since no sane merchant would pay interest for a loan he did not need, no matter what the interest rate might be, no one would borrow unless the funds were truly needed to settle the transactions that had occured in the regular course of economic activity. 4 3 The Bullionists, by contrast, pointed out that whether firms borrowed or not depended on whether they expected to be able to earn a greater return on the venture financed than they had to pay for the funds borrowed. I f the expected returns in trade or manufacture exceeded the interest rate charged by the Bank, there w o u l d be essentially no l i m i t to the demand for loans, even those obtained on discount of bills arising out of real commercial transaction. 4 4 As Ricardo put it, "whilst the Bank is w i l l i n g to lend, borrowers w i l l always exist, so that there can be no l i m i t to their overissues." 4 5 Although modern writers on monetary theory have generally not thought much of the real bills doctrine, the matter o f importance to the present inquiry is not whether it was sound, but that it was held so strongly by as knowledgeable and

40 Bullion Report, 46. 41 "That this doctrine is a very fallacious one, Your Committee cannot entertain a doubt." Bullion Report, 50. 42 Henry Thornton, An Enquiry into the Nature and Effects of the Paper Credit of Great Britain, 85-87. 43 Bullion Report, 48. 44 Bullion Report, 51-52; Henry Thornton, An Enquiry into the Nature and Effects of the Paper Credit of Great Britain, 252-59. 45 David Ricardo, The Price of Gold, quoted in Fetter, Development of British Monetary Orthodoxy, 43.

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influential a segment of English society as the Directors of the Bank o f England. Nor did the theory soon die under the pressure o f the B u l l i o n Report's trenchant criticism. I n the first place, the B u l l i o n Committee's recommendation that convertibility should be restored forthwith was not accepted by Parliament; resumption of specie payment did not come until a decade after the Committee's Report. Moreover, as L l o y d Mints has shown, versions of the real bills doctrine continued to play an important role in debates on monetary theory throughout the nineteenth and into the twentieth century. 4 6 It is also important to bear in mind that the debate at the time o f the B u l l i o n Report was not about whether it was safe to lend on accommodation paper. N o one was so bold as to suggest openly that circulating or discounting accommodation bills was proper or safe. Quite the contrary, the B u l l i o n Report explicitly accepted the conventional view that the concern for the safety and solvency of individuals banks dictated that loans be limited to the discount of real b i l l s . 4 7 The point of dispute was not whether it was necessary to atvoid accommodation bills, but whether doing so was sufficient to prevent overissue of bank notes. The Bullionists thought not, while the Directors of the Bank o f England fervently maintained that adherence to the real bills doctrine provided complete assurance of a safe and stable banking and monetary system.

IV. The Judicial Response to Accomodation Bills As the preceding discussion of eighteenth century banking and monetary theory shows, the conventional wisdom at the time of the Livesey bankruptcy was that the issuance and circulation of fictitious or accommodation bills not only endangered the solvency of the banks or firms who took the bills, but threatened the stability of the monetary system as a whole. It is this aspect of the public concern w i t h the circulation o f accommodation bills that provides the perspective essential to understanding the accommodation bills cases arising out of the Livesey bank46 Mints, History of Banking Theory. Among the more significant manifestations of real bills as a general monetary theory were the Banking School writers' theory of "reflux" advocated by the in opposition to the Currency School theory adopted in Peel's Act in 1844, which strictly tied the note issue of the Bank of England to its specie reserves, and the effort of the framers of the American Federal Reserve System in 1913 to limit central bank lending operations to the discount of "eligible paper." 47 That Discounts should be made only upon Bills growing out of real commercial transactions, and falling due in a fixed and short period, are sound and wellestablished principles. But that, while the Bank is restrained from paying in specie, there need be no other limit to the issue of their paper than what is fixed by such rules of discount, and that during the suspension of Cash payments the discount of good Bills failling due at short periods cannot lead to any excess in the amount of Bank paper in circulation, appears to Your Committee to be a doctrine wholly erroneous in principle, and pregnant with dangerous consequences in practice. Bullion Report, 46.

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ruptcy and the similar cases that troubled the English courts from the 1790s through the 1830s. Seen only i n the light of private losses, a spectacular failure such as Livesey's might be regarded only as a warning to those who might be tempted to engage i n similar practices. Given a system where the entire banking and monetary system stood on a foundation o f bills of exchange, and given an economic theory that taught that the foundation was sound only insofar as it was built of real bills, those having responsibility for the formulation o f policy could hardly fail to see a calamity such as the Livesey failure as a challenge to see whether some means could be employed to check the circulation of accommodation paper. The history of the law of accommodation bills is the story of how one such public institution — the courts charged w i t h responsibility for the formulation and application of the rules o f private law governing commerce — struggled w i t h that challenge. From the perspective of the law of bills and notes, the beginning of the period in which the accommodation bills cases arose coincides w i t h the culmination o f a century of dramatic progress in the articulation and systemization of a body of private law designed to meet the needs of England's rapidly developing mercantile and industrial economy. A century before, there was little that could genuinely be described as a coherent law of bills of exchange. One hundred years before the Livesey bankruptcy, there were only about thirty-five reported decisions of cases on bills. The most fundamental issues concerning bills, such as the procedures for enforcing the obligations o f the parties,were still unsettled. N o treatise on the law o f bills had yet been written; indeed, the topic of "bills and notes" had not yet even appeared as a subject-matter category in any standard work on English law. B y contrast, by the end of the 1780s, Lord Mansfield's tenure as Chief Justice of K i n g ' s Bench had come to a close, the reports contained two hundred or more bills cases, the first legal treatises on bills had appeared, and the law o f bills was regarded as one o f the most important branches o f English law. Contemporary observers frequently remarked on the rapid development o f English commercial law during the eighteenth century. I n a well k n o w n passage in a case decided a year before Lord Mansfield's retirement in 1788, Justice Buller described Mans-' field as the "founder of the commercial law o f this country," and described the transformation of English commercial law i n the eighteenth century i n glowing terms: Thus the matter stood till within these thirty years; since that time the commercial law of this country has taken a very different turn from what it did before . . . Before that period we find that in courts of law all the evidence in mercantile cases was thrown together; they were left generally to a jury, and they produced no established principle. From that time we all know the great study has been to find some certain general principles, which shall be known to all mankind, not only to rule the particular case then under consideration, but to serve as a guide for the future. Most of us have heard these principles stated, reasoned upon, enlarged, and

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In this context, the problems presented by the accommodation bills cases must have seemed particularly urgent to the judges and lawyers of the common law system. Given their confident assessment of their own role in facilitating the last century's economic progress, should they not also be capable o f dealing w i t h the challenge of preserving the advantages of the system of bills finance while checking the abuses of accommodation bills?

1. The Livesey Fictitious Payee Cases The courts' first major encounter w i t h the problem of accommodation bills came in the series of cases in which holders of fictitious bills circulated by the Livesey firm sought to recover on the bills from Livesey and its associates, or, at least, to share in the distribution of their assets in bankruptcy. Unfortunately, however, the cases arose in the most difficult possible procedural setting. As was described above, the Livesey firm had been circulating bills which had been drawn payable to fictitious names in order to obscure the realities of their financial practices. For example, the b i l l o f exchange involved in Gibson v. Minet 49 which became the test case for resolution of the problems presented by the Livesey paper, had originally been made payable to the order of one "John White." The b i l l bore an indorsement purporting to be that of John White, and eventually ended up in the hands of Hughes Minet and James Fector. B y

48 Lickbarrow v. Mason, 2 Term Rep. 63, 73, 100 Eng. Rep. 35, 40 (K. B. 1787). In a similar vein, Blackstone noted that developments in trade and commerce had transformed the law in England, so that the rules governing personal property occupied as important a place in late eighteenth century English law as had the rules governing land tenures in earlier centuries: Our antient law-books, which are based upon the feodal provisions, do not often condescend to regulate this species of property [that is, personal property]. There is not a chapter in Britton or the mirror, that can fairly be referred to this head; and the little that is to be found in Glanvil, Bracton, and Fleta, seems principally borrowed from the civilians. But of later years, since the introduction and extension of trade and commerce, which are entirely occupied in this species of property, and have greatly augmented it's quantity and of course it's value, we have learned to conceive different ideas of it. Our courts now regard a man's personalty in a light nearly, if not quite, equal to his realty: and have adopted a more enlarged and less technical mode of considering the one than the other; frequently drawing from the rules which they found already established by the Roman law, whenever those rules appeared to be well-grounded and apposite to the case in question, but principally from reason and convenience, adapted to the circumstances of the times. William Blackstone, Commentaries of the Laws of England, 4 vols. (1766; reprint, 1979), 2: 385. 49 1 H. Bla. 569, 126 Eng. Rep. 326 (H. L. 1791).

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the time the b i l l was presented for payment, Livesey had failed, leaving Minet and Fector in the position of attempting to collect the b i l l by legal process. Under the by then well-settled rules governing procedure in actions on bills, one suing on a b i l l had to prove his title in order to establish a prima facie case. On the other hand, i f the b i l l was originally payable to the order of a specified person, the holder had to prove the authenticity o f the first indorser's signature. 5 0 I n the Livesey cases, the bills had all been made payable to the order o f named persons — John White in the example above. The problem was that there was no such person. The plaintiffs, then, found themselves in the peculiar position that in order to establish their claims, they had to accomplish the impossible task o f proving the authenticity o f the signature o f the fictitious people to w h o m the defendants had made the bills payable. The judges o f both K i n g ' s Bench and Common Pleas managed to evade the obstacle by permitting the holders of the bills to resort to the pleading fiction of declaring on the bills as i f they ad been made payable to bearer. 51 The issue, though, was sufficiently difficult and controversial that the test case o f Gibson v. Minet was taken up to the House of Lords, and became one o f the first cases on the law of bills and notes to reach the highest English court. 5 2 The fictitious payee cases arising out of the Livesey failure presented the courts w i t h a classic legal dilemma. Although the cases turned on very narrow and technical rules of pleading and evidence, major issues of justice and economic policy were implicated. From the perspective of the holders of the bills, the argument against them seemed outrageous — having resorted to the sham of issuing the bills in the name o f fictitious payees, the perpetrators o f the scheme now sought to escape liability on the grounds that the holders were unable to prove the handwriting of the non-existent payees. That view of the cases clearly influenced many of the judges. 5 3 The matter, however, was not really that simple.

50 In eighteenth century practice, indorsements were ordinarily made in blank, that is, the holder simply signed his name rather than writing "pay to the order of so and so" and signing his name. Since an indorsement in blank makes the bill payable to bearer, only the first indorsement was essential to the holder's proof of his title to the bill. Subsequent indorsements added security to the bill, by adding the obligation of additional parties, but their authenticity was not essential to the chain of title. 51 Tatlock v. Harris, 3 Term Rep. 174, 100 Eng. Rep. 517 (K. B. 1789); Minet v. Gibson, 3 Term Rep. 481, 100 Eng. Rep. 689 (K. B. 1789); Collis v. Emett, 1 H. Bla. 313, 126 Eng. Rep. 185 (C. P. 1790). 52 1 H. Bla. 569, 584, 126 Eng. Rep. 326, 335 (H. L. 1791). Kyd's treatise on bills includes a report of the case, including the opinions of Lords Kenyon, Loughborough, and Bathurst, and Lord Chancellor Thurlow, which are not included in Henry Blackstone's report of the case. Stewart Kyd, A Treatise on the Law of Bills of Exchange and Promissory Notes, 2d. Amer. ed. (1800), 214-68. 53 "It is . . . impossible not to feel that the Plaintiffs in error avow themselves to be in this situation, namely, of palpably endeavouring to avail themselves of their own fraud; an attempt, which the law will in no case endure, much less assist," 1 H. Bla. at

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Since Livesey had gone bankrupt, the real fight was not between the holders of the fictitious bills and the partners of Livesey, but between the holders o f such paper and other creditors of the firm. I f the holders of the fictitious paper could not recover, the other creditors w o u l d receive a larger dividend in the Livesey bankruptcy. 5 4 Thus, even as a matter o f private rights, the case was a hard one. The cases were made even more difficult by the public concerns they raised. These cases were the first real test o f how the law of bills should respond to the economic problems posed by use of accommodation paper. One o f the striking things about the cases is that it is clear that the judges understood the problem and quite openly discussed the possible economic and social consequences of the decisions that they were called upon to make. As Judge Heath said in his opinion in the House of Lords, It is agreed on all hands, that the circulation of these bills is extremely mischievous, and ought to be restrained. It is the great commercial evil of these days, which has grown to a gigantic height. It has enabled needy adventurers to engage in desperate untertakings, relying on the money which they raise on this fictitious credit. On the present question, a million of property now depends. No wonder that this traffic has spread poverty, distress, and bankruptcy, through large districts which it has pervaded. 55 There was, however, no agreement on the proper response of the legal system. Baron Hotham observed that "the great ends of circulation, the support of credit, and the extension o f commerce, would be in constant danger of fatal checks, i f bills were permitted to be made to as to enable confederate acceptors to set up their o w n fraud, as a justification for refusing payment." The opposing view was expressed most forcefully by L o r d Chief Baron Eyre: I take the interests of commerce to be deeply concerned to support fair, and to discountenance false credit. I take it that the interests of gentlemen who trade in the discount of paper money, and the interests of commerce are not exactly the same. I apprehend that the commerce of the kingdom may receive a deep wound from the failure of a capital house for half a million, when the persons who have been discounting the paper of such a house shall receive not less than twenty shillings in the pound, by proving their debts under twenty commissions of bankrupt. That gentlemen of this description should loudly complain of any check or interruption given to the circulation of fictitious bills of exchange, I can conceive. That the

584, 126 Eng. Rep., at 335 (Baron Hotham); "It is contrary to justice, and not to be endured, that fraudulent drawers and acceptors should receive benefit by their own acts, and their estates be exonerated from the demands of their just creditors." 1 H. Bla. at 589, 126 Eng. Rep. at 337 (Baron Perryn). 54 Although the opinions in Minet v. Gibson and the other cases make no mention of this aspect, it was certainly obvious to all. Stewart Kyd's treatise begins its discussion of the cases by noting that when Livesey went bankrupt "The other creditors felt it their interest to resist the claims of the holders of these bills." Kyd, Treatise on the Law of Bills of Exchange, 210. 55 1 H. Bla. at 624, 126 Eng. Rep. at 356.

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merchant should join in the complaint, is to me incomprehensible. He ought not to forget the original and true use of bills of exchange; that they are bottomed in real mercantile transactions, that they are then the signs of valuable property and equivalent to specie, enlarging the capital stock of wealth in circulation, and thereby facilitating and increasing the trade and commerce of the country. Such are the bills of exchange which the usage and custom of merchants originally introduced into the commercial world, and intended to protect. Let the merchant contrast such bills of exchange with that false coinage of base paper money which has been of late forced into circulation; the use of which is to encourage a spirit of rash adventure, a spirit of monopoly, a spirit of gaming in commerce, luxury, extravagance and fraud of every kind, to the ruin and destruction of those whose credulity can be practiced upon by a false appearance of regular trade, carried on upon a solid bottom; and then let him say whether he dreads the reversal of this judgment. I confess I thought that a fortunate occasion did not present itself, for interposing a most salutary check to a growing evil; an evil already swollen to a most enormous bulk, the weight of which must necessarily cramp and depress every man who trades upon his own capital, and which threatens to overwhelm the fair trader. Let us not deceive ourselves. There is but one remedy for the evil. If such bills may be recovered upon, if they may be proved under commissions of bankrupts, there are persons enough interested to give them circulation, let the hindmost fare as he may. To check them, and oblige men to deal fairly, as far as real names go to constitute fairness, the recovery must be stopped. If the real parties can keep back their own names by using fictitious names, they can cover this false credit an impenetrable darkness. 56 In the end, the Lords were unpersuaded by Baron Eyre's arguments; they upheld the ruling of K i n g ' s Bench allowing the holders to declare on the bills as i f they had been made payable to bearer, thereby dispensing w i t h the need for proof o f the payee's indorsement. Contemporary sources show that the issues in the fictitious payee cases were considered of utmost importance. The first edition o f Stewart K y d ' s treatise on bills, which appeared when Minet v. Gibson was under consideration in the House of Lords, described the cases and arguments at considerable length, noting that the fictitious payee issue "has long agitated the commercial w o r l d . " 5 7 B y the time the second edition appeared, the House o f Lords had decided the case, and K y d included very full reports of the opinions of all of the Lords; indeed, the discussion accounts for more than one-fifth o f the entire book. Other contemporary authors were, w i t h some regret, somewhat more restrained. Evans, for example, outlines the issues and then remarks that "the several opinions in support of these opposite positions, are stated i n M r . Henry Blackstone's Report's and M r . K y d ' s Treatise on Bills. I reluctantly forbear swelling this essay to a disproportionate extent by inserting them, but cannot too strongly recommend their 56 H. Bla. at 618-19, 126 Eng. Rep. at 353-54. 57 Stewart Kyd, A Treatise on the Law of Bills of Exchange and Promissory Notes (1790), 137-50.

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perusal to all who are engaged i n judicial studies." 5 8 Other treatises of that era also reflect the impact of the cases. Chitty, for example, added a passage in the introductory sections of the fifth edition of his treatise noting the dire economic consequences of accommodation b i l l s . 5 9

2. The Continuing Struggle with Accommodation Bills Although the fictitious payee cases growing out of the collapse of Livesey & Co. may have been the most spectacular legal manifestation of the economic problem of accommodation paper, they were by no means the only setting in which the courts were confronted w i t h thorny legal issues growing out o f the use o f accommodation bills. Over and again in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, courts struggled w i t h the question whether accommodation paper should be treated differently from real b i l l s . 6 0 Underlying many of these seemingly technical disputes was the fundamental conflict that faced the judges in cases on accommodation bills. Should the legal system attempt to check the use of accommodation bills, or should the courts proceed in a fashion neutral to the economic problems that were widely felt to flow from the extensive use of accommodation paper?

58 W. D. Evans, Essays on the Action for Money Had and Received, on the Law of Insurances, and on the Law of Bills of Exchange and Promissory Notes (1802), 204. 59 The pernicious effects of a fabricated credit, by the undue use of accommodation bills of exchange, drawn out of the ordinary course of trade, have been too much felt to require any observation; the use of them, where there is no real demand subsisting between the different parties, is injurious to the public as well as to the parties concerned in the negotiation. The use of fictitious names to bills has not been unfrequent, but this practice is not only censurable but in some cases punishable criminally. Joseph Chitty, A Treatise on the Law of Bills of Exchange, 5th ed. (1818), 5-6. 60 The most basic rules on accommodation paper were relatively easily settled. Although persons who signed bills purely for the accommodation displayed the common tendency to hope that their plea of " I didn't get anything" would amount to a legal defense, it was well settled that the acceptor of an accommodation bill would be liable to a holder who gave value for the bill, even if the holder took with knowledge the acceptor signed only for accommodation. Smith v. Knox , 3 Esp. 47, 170 Eng. Rep. 533 (1799) (Lord Eldon at nisi prius); Charles v. Marsden, 1 Taunt. 224, 127 Eng. Rep. 818 (C. P. 1808). Between the immediate parties, however, obligations would be determined by the usual rules of suretyship, regardless of the liabilities that might otherwise follow from the capacity in which they signed the bill. Thus, although a drawee who accepted a bill would ordinarily be liable on it to the drawer if the drawer were forced to pay, Simmonds v. Parminter , 1 Wils. 185, 95 Eng. Rep. 564 (K. B. 1747), an accommodation payee would not be liable to the person he accommodated. Rather, the drawer or other principal debtor was obligated to indemnify an accommodation acceptor who paid the bill. Jones v. Brooke , 4 Taunt. 464 128 Eng. Rep. 409 (C. P. 1812); Young v. Hockley , 3 Wils. 346, 95 Eng. Rep. 1092 (K. B. 1772). Beyond such simple points, however, agreement disappeared, and the fundamental conflicts over the proper function of bills emerged as a significant influence on the development of the law of bills.

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A good illustration is the dispute over the availability o f suretyship defenses to an accommodation acceptor. The conventional legal parsing o f the relationship of the parties to an ordinary "real b i l l " transaction was that once the drawee had accepted the b i l l he was the person primarily liable, and the drawer was a surety for the acceptor. 61 Thus, although the holder's failure to give proper notices or agreement w i t h the acceptor for an extension of time might discharge the drawer's liability, the acceptor w o u l d rarely be discharged by anything other than payment of the b i l l . 6 2 W i t h accommodation bills, however, the reality o f the underlying transaction was usually just the opposite. The acceptor was lending his credit to assist the principal debtor, usually the drawer, to raise money. Should an accommodation acceptor be able to raise suretyship defenses, or should he be bound by the form of the instrument? In 1809, the question came before Lord Ellenborough at nisi prius in Laxton v. Ρ eat. 63 So far as appears from the report, L o r d Ellenborough seems to have thought it a very simple case. "This being an accommodation b i l l w i t h i n the knowledge of all the parties, the acceptor can only be considered a surety for the drawer, and in the case of simple contracts, the surety is discharged by time being given, without his concurrence, to the p r i n c i p a l . " 6 4 To other judges, however the issue seemed far less clear. I n an 1813 ruling at nisi prius , Judge Gibbs of Common Pleas noted that "grave doubts have been entertained" about Ellenborough's decision in Laxton. 65 I n the particular case, Gibbs was able to distinguish Laxton , though he did lament that "the term accommodation b i l l ever found its way into the law, or that parties were allowed to get rid of the obligations they profess to contract by putting their names to negociable securities." When the issue came before the full bench o f Common Pleas later that year in Fentum v. Pocock ,66 the judges virtually recoiled i n horror at the suggestion that the acceptor should be able to raise suretyship defenses. As Chief Justice James Mansfield 6 7

61 Rowe v. Young , 2 Brod. & B. 165, 237, 129 Eng. Rep. 921, 954 (1820) (Bayley, J.). 62 Dingwall v. Dunster, 1 Doug. 247, 99 Eng. Rep. 161 (Κ. B. 1779). 63 2 Camp. 185, 170 Eng. Rep. 1123. 64 A few years later, the flip side issue came before Ellenborough at nisi prius, and he ruled, consistently with Laxton, that in an accommodation bill the drawer would not be discharged by time being given to the acceptor. Callot v. Haigh, 3 Camp. 281, 170 Eng. Rep. 1382 (1812). 65 Kerrison v. Cooke, 3 Camp. 362, 170 Eng. Rep. 1411. 66 5 Taunt. 192, 128 Eng. Rep. 660 (C. P. 1813). 67 James Mansfield, Chief Justice of Common Pleas from 1804 to 1814, had the misfortune of sharing his surname with the name taken by William Murray upon his being raised to peerage at the time of his appointment as Chief Justice of Kings Bench in 1756. Were it not for the inevitable comparsion with his more renowned namesake, James Mansfield might well have escaped such left-handed praise as Foss's description of him as "a good average lawyer." Edward Foss, Biographia Juridica: A Biographical Dictionary of the Judges of England (1870), 429.

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put it, " N o doubt i f the defendant can succeed in establishing the principle that we must so subvert and pervert the situation o f the parties as to make the acceptor merely a surety, and the drawer a principal, the consequence contended for must f o l l o w . " Deferentially observing that not even Lord Ellenborough could be expected to be infallible in the hurly-burly of nisi prius, Mansfield declined to follow Laxton, adding that "certainly the paying respect to accommodation bills is not what one would wish to do, seeing the mischiefs arising from t h e m . " 6 8 Later decisions in K i n g ' s Bench seemed to follow Fentum, 69 though it was generally said that in Equity the tendency was to allow the acceptor to prove his suretyhip defenses. 70 I n Fentum and other such cases, the judges faced the question o f the treatment of accommodation bills in the easiest procedural setting. The accommodation party was arguing for an exception to the usual rules o f the law o f bills, so that both economic policy and technical legal rules weighed in favor of the same result. The problems were considerably more difficult in circumstances where these concerns were not congruent. In a number of settings, the tendency to react w i t h aversion to accommodation bills gave rise to legal rules that proved difficult to apply and justify. The general rule of the law of bills was that the holder was required to give notice of dishonor to the drawer or other parties who might be secondarily liable on the bill; failure to do so would discharge those parties. A n exception to that rule was established in the 1786 decision of K i n g ' s Bench in Bickerdike v. Bollman. 71 In that case, a hard pressed debtor tried to hold off one creditor by giving h i m a b i l l drawn on another firm, even though the other firm not only held no funds due to the drawer but was actually owed a substantial sum by the drawer. The b i l l was, o f course, dishonored, and the holder did not bother go give notice to the drawer. The court ruled that notice of dishonor was unnecessary 68 Similarly, Judge Heath observed in Fentum that "whoever draws an accommodation bill, procures another to accept it, and negotiates it without letting the person to whom he passes it know it is an accommodation bill, is, as I think, guilty of a gross fraud." 5 Taunt, at 197, 128 Eng. Rep. at 662. 69 Price v. Edmunds , 10 Bam. & Cress. 578, 109 Eng. Rep. 566 (K. B. 1830); Nichols v. Norris, 3 Bam. & Adol. 41, 110 Eng. Rep. 15 (K. B. 1831); Harrison v. Courtauld, 3 Bam. & Adol. 36, 110 Eng. Rep. 14 (K. B. 1832) Judge Parke remarked in Price that " I think that the decision in Fentum v. Pocock . . . was good sense and good law." Judge Abbott, later Chief Justice of Kings Bench as Lord Tenterden, suggested in an 1819 nisi prius decision that an acceptor would be permitted to show that she signed for accommodation in order to avail herself of suretyship defenses, though the report does not indicate whether he considered the Fentum decision. Adams v. Gregg , 2 Stark. 531, 171 Eng. Rep. 726. In 1831, however, Tenterden remarked that the rule of Laxton had long since been overruled. Yallop v. Ebers, 1 Bam. & Adol. 698, 109 Eng. Rep. 946 (K. B. 1831). 70 John Barnard By les, A Treatise of the Law of Bills of Exchange, 8th ed. (1862), 226. 71 Term Rep. 405, 99 Eng. Rep. 1164 (K. B. 1786).

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in such a case. As Judge Buller explained, "The law requires notice to be given because it is presumed that the b i l l is drawn on account of the drawee's having effects of the drawer in the hands; and i f the latter has notice that the b i l l is not accepted, or not paid, he may withdraw them immediately. But i f he has no effects in the other'shands, then he cannot be injured for want o f notice." Moreover, the idea of drawing a b i l l on one who had no effects or other basis for paying it seemed, at least in 1788, an act wholly beyond the pale of legitimate dealing. As Judge Ashurst put it, to draw a b i l l in such circumstances "is a fraud in itself, and i f that can be proved, the notice may be dispensed w i t h . " Bickerdike was itself not really a case on an accommodation bill, for it seems that the drawee had not even been consulted before the b i l l was drawn, and did not accept it. The rule of Bickerdike , however, was equally applicable to an accepted accommodation bill. I n a 1797 case, Walwyn v. St. Quintin ,72 the problem came before the court o f Common Pleas, then headed by Chief Judge Eyre, who had argued so strongly against accommodation bills in the House of Lords deliberations in the fictitious payee cases. One Thomas had prevailed upon Deane and St. Quintin to assist h i m in raising money, the specific mechanism being that St. Quintin drew a b i l l on Deane payable to Thomas, which was indorsed to W a l w y n for value after acceptance by Deane. Thus, the reality of the transaction was that the payee was the principal debtor, and both the drawer and acceptor were acting for his accommodation. W a l w y n sued the drawer, St. Quintin, who sought to defend on the grounds that W a l w y n had unduly delayed in giving h i m notice o f dishonor. W a l w y n contended that since the acceptor held no effects of the drawer, notice o f dishonor was excused under Bickerdike. Although it was a bit difficult to apply the Bickerdike rule in this case where the principal debtor was the payee rather than the drawer, Judge Eyre left no doubt about how he felt about such transactions. In a regular bill transaction, the drawing by A. payable to B., or payable to A.'s own order, and indorsing the bill to B., is a mode by which the drawer pays a sum of monetary to his payee or indorsee through an acceptor. The transaction in this case, as far as it had any pretensions to be deemed a real transaction, was a mode by which the acceptor advanced a sum of money to the payee, and the drawer was a mere instrument of the acceptor. This is reversing the order of things. As far as concerns the drawer, it is what has been called a mere accommodation; and all consideration of effects of the drawer in the hands of the acceptor may be laid aside . . . If there by any case in which notice should be dispensed with, surely it is this . . . Where the drawer has no effects, and has not fair pretence for drawing, or where he draws without having effects intended to be applied in payment, and only for the purpose of raising money by discount for himself, and â fortiori for the acceptor, which is this case, it is fairly deducible from the cases which have been resolved, that notice need not be given.

72 1 Bos. & Pul. 652, 126 Eng. Rep. 1115 (C. P. 1797).

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I n case like Walwyn, the aversion to accommodation bills led the judges to create an exception to the usual rules governing bills, thereby precluding the accommodation party from escaping liability. The sense that there was something improper about accommodation paper might, however, lead to the opposite result. Consider, for example the question whether proof of consideration should be required in actions on accommodation bills, I n the usual action on a bill, consideration was presumed. In cases tainted by fraud or other suspicious circumstances, however, the holder was required to show that he had no connection w i t h the impropriety but had taken the b i l l for a good consideration. 7 3 Should such proof be required i f the defendant showed that he signed only for accommodation, or should the usual presumption of consideration apply? There seem to have been no clear holdings on the matter in the early decades of the nineteenth century, 7 4 but the practice seems to have been to require the holder of an accommodation b i l l to prove that he gave consideration. 7 5 That requirement would, at the least, make actions on accommodation bills somewhat more difficult, and could easily preclude a holder from recovering simply because he was unable to recall precisely how he came by the bill. Thus, in this setting, putting accommodation bills on the same footing w i t h transactions tainted by fraud led to a result rather favorable to the parties who had issued the bill. It was hard enough for the judges to decide what to do in cases where the desire to discourage future circulation of accommodation bills pointed in one direction and the desire to punish those had had already circulated the bills pointed in the opposite direction. Worse still, they were confronted w i t h cases where it was virtually impossible to figure out who w o u l d be benefited or harmed by one approach or the other. The best example are the cases that arose when 73 Duncan v. Scott, 1 Camp. 100, 170 Eng. Rep. 891 (1807) (Lord Ellenborough at nisi prius) (bill issued under duress — drawer imprisoned and threatened with guillotine if he did not draw it); De la Chaumette v. Bank of England, 9 Bam. & Cress. 208, 109 Eng. Rep. 78 (K. B. 1829) (stolen note); King v. Milsom, 2 Camp. 5, 170 Eng. Rep. 1062 (1809) (Lord Ellenborough at nisi prius) (same); Heath v. Sansom, 2 Bam. & Adol. 291, 109 Eng. Rep. 1151 (K. B. 1831) (bill issued by partner for personal debt). 74 There was, however, broad language in several opinions that was taken to imply that the holder must prove consideration whenever the defendant showed that he did not receive anything for the bill, Thomas v. Newton, 2 Car. & P. 606, 172 Eng. Rep. 276 (1827) (Lord Tenterden at nisi prius), or if the bill for any other reason would not have been enforceable among the initial parties, Heath v. Sansom, 2 Bam. & Adol. 291, 109 Eng. Rep. 1151 (K. B. 1831). 75 In an 1835 case in the Court of Exchequer, Lord Abinger stated that in his long experience at the bar, the practice had universally been to require such proof. Simpson v. Clarke, 2 Cr. M & R. 342, 150 Eng. Rep. 148 (Exch. 1835). Lord Abinger, James Scarlett, had been a distinguished barrister for more than four decades before his appointment as Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer in 1834. Scarlett's reputation was so great that "it became an actual race between litigants which should secure his services in the impending contest, and the loser felt that one of his best changes of success was snatched from him." Edward Foss, Biographia Juridical A Biographical Dictionary of the Judges of England (1870), p. 590.

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two firms had been accepting accommodation bills for each other, and then both firms went bankrupt. 7 6 The holders of the accommodation bills would have commonly had a cause of action against each of the firms, for on any given b i l l one o f the firms w o u l d usually have been liable as acceptor while the other was secondarily liable as drawer. I f the holders of the accommodation bills were allowed to prove their claims, it w o u l d become necessary to sort out the rights between the two firms. I n any case in which one of the firms was called upon to pay as drawer, it would in turn have an action over against the other firm as acceptor, unless, of course, the situation was to be analyzed under suretyship law rather than bills law, in which case the accomodation acceptor would have a right of recourse against the drawer. I f the holders of the accommodation paper were precluded from proving their claims, that might increase the dividend that could be paid to the other creditors by reducing the total amount of claims, or it might have the opposite effect by excluding the firm's claims for reimbursement in the bankruptcy of the other firm, thereby reducing the assets available for distribution. The only thing that is clear about these mutual accommodation cases is that the judges who were called upon to decide them had little more idea o f what was going on than the author of this paper did in writing the preceding paragraph. Lord Eldon candidly admitted as much in an 1821 case. Counsel for one of the parties had cited a previous case, Ex parte Walker , in support of his view of the problem, prompting the following reminiscence by Lord Eldon: I think I argued that case of Ex parte Walker , and I must say that the speculations about paper certainly outran the grasp of the wits of courts of justice. When I first came into Westminder Hall, there was no such thing as an acceptor saying that he had no effects: his acceptance was an acknowledgment that he had. That, however, was overruled, and it was decided that when the acceptor had no effects, it was not necessary to give notice; for before it was the constant rule to give notice, even if the acceptor was a bankrupt, and, therefore, every one knew that he could not pay a farthing. This new sort of circulating medium puzzled as able a man as ever sat here, Lord Thurlow. I remember the first case of it. It was then small in amount, one bill and another. He then considered the acceptance of the one as a consideration for the other, and allowed both to prove, but then there was this difficulty, that it lessened the fund for paying the holder of the bill, and thus by proving, they prejudiced their own creditors. It was found this would not do, and then it was said, if you will prove, you must first take up your acceptance, which got rid of the objection of the party proving in competition with his own creditor. Then came the case of those houses at Liverpool and Manchester drawing on one another to the amount of £ 500 000. What was to be done then? The Courts were 76 E. g., Cowley v. Dunlop, 1 Term Rep. 565, 101 Eng. Rep. 1135 (K. B. 1798); Ex parte Walker , 4 Ves. 373, 31 Eng. Rep. 190 (Ch. 1798); Ex parte Earle, 5 Ves. 373, 31 Eng. Rep. 883 (Ch. 1801); Ex parte Metcalfe , 11 Ves. 404, 32 Eng. Rep. 1143 (Ch. 1805); Ex parte Rawson, Jacob 274, 37 Eng. Rep. 854 (Ch. 1821). 10 Piergiovanni

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James Steven Rogers puzzled and distressed. At last, however, we came to a sort of anchorage in that case, Ex parte Walker; I have no difficulty in saying that I never understood it. I am satisfied that though, no doubt, the Court understood that judgment, yet none of the counsel did. 7 7

3. The Denouement: Reaching an Accommodation with Accommodation Bills B y the 1820s and 1830s the idea that legal rules should reflect economic policy discouraging accommodation bills began to hold less and less appeal. I n part, this shift in attitude may simply have been a reaction against the complexities of the rules that developed in the effort to distinguish between accommodation and real bills. L o r d Eldon's remarks so suggest, as do the frequent comments to the effect that the Bickerdike rule excusing notice o f dishonor where the drawee held no effects had proved to be so difficult to apply that it w o u l d have been better i f the exception had never been created. 78 It does, though, seem that more was involved than practical problems, and that the old attitudes toward accommodation bills were withering. For example, on the issue o f excuse o f notice, a case all but indistinguishable from Walwyn came before K i n g ' s Bench in 1820 in Cory v. Scott, 19 Lough & Co. had borrowed some £ 200 from Cory, giving a b i l l for the debt on which Scott and Gordon appeared as accommodation parties. The b i l l was drawn by Scott on Gordon, payable to Scott, and was indorsed to Lough & Co. after acceptance by Gordon.

77 Ex parte Rawson, Jacob 274, 277-78, 37 Eng. Rep. 854, 856 (Ch. 1821). The author has not positively identified the "case of those houses at Liverpool and Manchester" referred to by Lord Eldon, but does not think that it was one of the Livesey cases. 78 Even in "real bills" transactions, there might be circumstances in which a drawer had no effects in the drawee's hands at the time the bills was drawn, but had good reason to suppose it would be honored. A bill might be drawn against the expected proceeds of a shipment consigned to the drawee but not yet received, Rucker v. Hiller, 16 East 43, 104 Eng. Rep. 1005 (K. B. 1812), or a bill might be drawn on one with whom the drawer had fluctuating accounts from various transactions, Orr v. Maginnis , 7 East 359, 103 Eng. Rep. 139 (K. B. 1806). In such cases the drawer would have legitimate reason to complain of lack of notice. On the other hand, once Bickerdike had opened the door to one excuse for lack of notice, litigants were bound to argue for similar excuses in other circumstances where they could show that the drawer sustained no prejudice from the lack of notice, e. g., Staples v. Okines, 1 Esp. 332, 170 Eng. Rep. 375 (1795) (Kenyon, J. at nisi prius); Dennis v. Morrice, 3 Sep. 158, 170 Eng. Rep. 572 (1800) (Kenyon, J. at nisi prius.) Virtually every prominent judge of the early decades of the nineteenth century expressed regret that the Bickerdike rule had been established. Walwyn v. St Quintin, 1 Bos. & Pul. 652, 126 Eng. Rep. 1115 (C. P. 1797) (Eyre, C. J.); Ex parte Heath, 2 Ves. & B. 240, 35 Eng. Rep. 310 (Ch. 1813) (Lord Eldon); Orr v. Maginnis, 1 East 359, 103 Eng. Rep. 139 (K. B. 1806) (Ellenborough, C. J.); Cory v. Scott, 3 Bam. & Aid. 619, 106 Eng. Rep. 787 (K. B. 1820) (Abbott, C. J.). 79 Bam & Aid. 619, 106 Eng. Rep. 787 (K. B. 1820).

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Cory sued Scott on the bill, and Scott objected that he had not been given timely notice of dishonor. Cory contended that since neither Scott nor Lough & Co. had any effects in Gordon's hands, notice was not required under Bickerdike and Walwyn . The opinions in Cory , however, show that the Bickerdike rule had been significantly reinterpreted. Bickerdike and Walwyn had gone on the grounds that drawing a b i l l on one who held no effects was an act so far beyond the realm of legitimate dealting that the drawer could not demand the usual protection of the rules on notice of dishonor. B y the time of Cory , however, the critical question was not whether the drawer had effects, but, as Chief Justice Abbott put it, whether in the particular arrangement there were any other parties "upon w h o m the party to w h o m notice was omitted to be given might call for the money." Since the drawer, Scott, could have sought indemnity from the principal debtor, Lough & Co., and perhaps from the acceptor, the lack of timely notice might have prejudiced his ability to seek recourse. Accordingly, the court ruled that notice was required. Judge Holyroyd's opinion is ample evidence of the shift in attitude toward accommodation paper. After noting that the Bickerdike case "has been . . . considered as proceeding on the ground of fraud," he remarked that "here the party who has only lent his name as surety is guilty of no fraud." Twenty-five-years earlier, the attitude had been exactly the opposite. For Judge Eyre in Walwyn , the fact that the b i l l was mere accommodation paper was enough to take it out of the usual rules for regular b i l l transaction. For the judges of K i n g ' s Bench at the time of Cory , the task was to be sure that the rules were properly tailored to meet the circumstances o f accommodation b i l l dealings. A similar shift in attitude can be seen i n the cases dealing w i t h the question whether one suing on an accommodation b i l l had to prove that he gave consideration. In several cases in the early 1830s Judge Parke had suggested that accommodation bills should not be treated under rule governing cases where the b i l l or its acceptance had be obtained by fraud or duress. 8 0 The issue came to a head i n the 1830s in several decisions in the Court o f Exchequer. In Simpson v. Clarke, 81 the Chief Baron, Lord Abinger, expressed some surprise that the rule requiring proof of consideration in actions on accommodation bills had been questioned. Responding to the distinction made in argument between accommodation bills and bills obtained by fraud, Abinger remarked "is it so clear that an accommodation b i l l has nothing of fraud in it? . . . A t all events, they do not deserve much encouragement. A b i l l of exchange purports on the face of it to be a transaction between the parties for value; it imports primâ facie payment of a debt, or an acceptance by way of security for goods delivered. But in what

«ο Heath v. Sansom, 2 Barn. & Adol. 291, 109 Eng. Rep. 1151 (K. B. 1831); Percival v. Frampton, 2 Cr. M. & R. 181, 150 Eng. Rep. 78 (Exch. 1835). Parke served as a judge of Kings Bench from 1828 to 1834, and as Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer from 1834 until 1855. si 2 Cr. M. & R. 342, 150 Eng. Rep. 148 (Exch. 1835). 10*

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case is the public, i f bills o f exchange which are taken to be great indications of the flourishing state of commerce, and evidences of bonâ fide mercantile transactions, turn out to be mere nullities, indicative of no value whatsoever?" L o r d Abinger was, however, struggling against the tide; when the issue returned a year later in Mills v. Barber , he relented. The barons consulted w i t h the judges of K i n g ' s Bench, and the consensus was that proof o f consideration should no longer be required merely because the b i l l was accommodation paper. Perhaps the most revealing evidence of the shift in attitude toward accommodation bills is the tone of L o r d Abinger' s opinion in Simpson v. Clarke. Referring to Judge Mansfield's remarks about accommodation paper in the Fentum case some twenty years before, Abinger observed that " i t was the opinion at that time, more indeed as a question o f political economy than o f law, that to use a mercantile instrument, which may have a very extensive Circulation, and be supposed to represent a real transaction, but which had in fact no reality at all, was hardly moral, and bore w i t h it something of actual fraud." Continuing the reminiscence, Abinger recalled how decades before " L o r d Kenyon used to alarm the juries at Guildhall by the vigour w i t h which he poured out his eloquence against the toleration of accommodation bills at all." The wistful mood is apt, for Abinger' s opinion may have been the last hurrah of the abhorrence toward accommodation paper that had been so forcefully expressed i n the Livesey cases. Although real bills theory would continue to influence economic thought until well into the twentieth century, the effort to enforce that economic policy through the law of bills and notes seems to have been all but abandoned by the 1830s. I f one examines treatises on the law o f bills published i n the mid-nineteenth century, one finds that agreat deal o f the work is devoted to questions o f suretyship law arising out o f the flourishing of what previously w o u l d have been condemned as mere accommodation paper. 8 2 Sir Mackenzie Chalmers, the author of the British Bills of Exchange A c t of 1882, aptly summed up the attitude of nineteenth century English law in a remark contrasting the paths taken by English and French law on bills, " I n England bills have developed into a perfectly flexible paper currency. I n France a b i l l represents a trade transaction; in England it is merely an instrument of credit. English law gives full play to the system of accommodation paper; French law endeavors to stamp it o u t . " 8 3

82 For example, a separate chapter on issues of suretyship defenses, under the title "Indulgence," was added to Byles' treatise on the law of bills, beginning with the second edition. John Barnard Byles, A Practical Compendium of the Law of Bills of Exchange, Promissory Notes, Bank-Notes, Bankers' Cash-Notes, & Checks, 2d ed. (1834), 13644. Beginning with the fourth edition, the chapter was entitled "Of the law of Principal and Surety in its Relation to Bills and Notes". Idem., 4th ed. (1834), 181-92. 83 M.D. Chalmers, A Digest of the Law of Bills of Exchange, Promissory Notes and Cheques (1878), xii.

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V. Concluding Observations 1. The difficulties of seeing the Past That the history of the development of rules o f private law cannot be understood i n isolation from their economic, social, political, and ethical context is a principal thesis of this paper. From this perspective, the value of examining a topic such as the accomodation bills cases is that it would be difficult to find a set of issues that seem as technical and dry as the rules that developed out of these cases. The question whether a b i l l made payable to the order o f a fictitious person should be treated as payable to bearer or to order is not, after all, the sort of thing that calls to m i n d great clashes of economic or ethical principles or profound questions about the ability of legal rules to influence human behavior. Even the author o f this paper was, to be perfectly frank, utterly astonished to discover the rich and complicated story that lay beneath the surface of these cases. Inasmuch as similar factors may operate in other fields of law and legal history, it may be worthwhile to note some of the factors that have tended to obscure from modern eyes the actual issues involved i n the accommodation bills cases. First, of course, is the difficulty o f understanding the business practices described i n the cases. Given the enormous changes i n financial technique, one cannot expect to be able to understand the facts o f eighteenth or nineteenth century commercial cases from the reports alone, even i f one is quite familiar w i t h modern financial practice. Fortunately, the literature on the history of economic thought and on business and economic history provides ample resources for understanding the history of the law of commerce and finance. Regrettably, these sources have been little tapped by Anglo-American legal scholars. Second, there is the invidious problem that many o f the commercial instruments used in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, and much o f the language used i n describing them, are still in use today, though in vastly changed circumstances. The fictitious payee rule is a perfect example. The rule that any indorsement in the name of a fictitious person is effective to transfer good title to a negotiable instrument is still used i n modern commercial law. The rule, however, plays an entirely different role today than it did i n the Livesey cases in which it was developed. Today, the fictitious payee rule operates as a loss allocation rule for a common form of check fraud generally k n o w n as the "padded payroll" scheme. A dishonest employee who has authority to generate payroll checks makes up names of fictitious employees, causes payroll checks to be issued to them, and then indorses in the name of the fictitious payees when depositing or cashing the checks for his o w n benefit. I f the fictitious payees' indorsements were regarded as forgeries, the losses w o u l d fall on the banks that deposited or cashed the checks. The rule that the indorsements are treated as effective operates to place the loss on the employer of the dishonest employee. 8 4 Particularly given the

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common, but wholly inaccurate, perception that the law of bills and notes was settled centuries ago and has not changed in any fundamental respect since the days of L o r d Mansfied, a modern commercial lawyer seeing references in old bills treatises to the fictitious payee rule is likely to assume that the cases were of the same sort as the modern padded payroll cases, and therefore never bother to look at the cases themselves. 8 5 Finally, there is the problem that the conventional account of the history of Anglo-American law of bills and notes has been dominated by a single-minded focus on, indeed obsession with, the concept of "negotiability", in the sense of the rules that permit a holder in due course of a b i l l or note to take the instrument free from adverse claims and defenses. 86 Perhaps the most revealing evidence of the problems w i t h the approach is an offhand remark made by Judge Patterson of K i n g ' s Bench in an 1834 nisi prius decision, Whittaker v. Edmunds. 87 The case involved the dispute about proof of consideration in actions on accommodation bills that w o u l d be settled a few years later i n Simpson v. Clarke and Mills v. Barber. Patterson ruled that such proof should not be required, noting that recently "the consideration o f the Judges has been a good deal called to the subject; and the prevalent opinion amongst them is, that the Courts have o f late gone too far in restricting the negotiability of bills and notes." 8 8 A twentieth century lawyer reading that remark w i l l almost assuredly think that Patterson was talking about negotiability issues in the sense of the twentieth century holder i n due course rules. I n a very minor sense he was, for this particular dispute was about when the holder w o u l d be required to prove that he qualified as a bona fide purchaser for value. The important point, though, is that this was only one aspect of the larger issue about the proper relationship between the private law of bills and the disputes of economic policy and business morality involved in

84 See U.C.C. § 3-405; James J. White & Robert S. Summers , Uniform Commercial Code (Hornbook Series), 3d ed. (1988), 699-710. 85 The author has not yet determined when, or how, the fictitious payee rule was transformed from its origin role in the Livesey cases to its modem role as a check fraud loss allocation rule. That there was such a change is further obscured from modern eyes by the circumstance that until the enactment of the U.C.C. in the 1960s and 1970s, the fictitious payee rule was stated in exactly the same language as at the time of the Livesey cases. Section 7(3) of the British Bill of Exchange Act of 1882, and section 9(3) of the American Uniform Negotiable Instruments Law, promulgated in 1896, both state that a bill made payable to the order of a fictitious person may be treated as payable to bearer. 8 6 This theme is developed at greater length in James Steven Rogers , The Myth of Negotiability, 31 Boston College Law Review 31 (1990): 265-334. 87 1 M. & Rob. 366, 174 Eng. Rep. 125 (1834). 88 Judge Patterson's comment was quoted in the introduction to the third edition of Byles on Bills explaining that "since the last Edition the decisions of the Courts have, in some important particulars, completely changed what had generally been supposed to be the law." John Barnard Byles, A Practical Compendium of the Law of Bills of Exchange, Promissory Notes, Bank-Notes, Bankers' Cash-Notes, & Checks, 3d ed. (1839).

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the accommodation bills cases. Patterson's remark that judges had gone too far in restricting "negotiability", was simply an expression, in the idiom of the day, of the view that the judges should give up the effort to l i m i t the law of bills to proper real bills transactions. It is, then, a perfect illustration o f how the fallacy of assuming that the problems o f our own era are universal can distort our perceptions of history.

2. Thoughts on the Role of Law in Economic Controversies The most important lesson to be drawn from the accommodation bijls cases is that the common perception that normative issues and social conflicts have not played any significant role i n the development of the rules of private law governing commerce is, as a matter of historical fact, simply false. It would be difficult to find any less accurate way of describing the relationship betwen law and social policy manifested in the early accommodation bills cases then to say that law merely follows business. I n the hundreds of pages of opinions and treatise discussions of the Livesey fictitious payee cases, one cannot find a single word suggesting that anyone thought that the proper response to the problem was to say that since businessmen were using fictitious bills, law should simply accept that practice. Quite the contrary, the judges who decided the Livesey cases uniformly agreed that the financing practices involved were pernicious and should be stopped; they disagreed only on how legal rules should implement the relevant principles o f social and economic morality. Although the accommodation bills cases show clearly that legal rules — even those on topics as arcane as the rules of pleading and proof i n actions on bills — cannot wholly be divorced from their economic and social context, there is ample room for disagreement on the interpretation of the episode from the perspective of the relationship between law and social conflict. One might even contend that the ultimate lesson to be drawn from the accommodation bills cases is that whether or not commercial law has in fact always been normatively neutral, it ought to be so. One inclined to this reading might see the accommodation bills cases as a perfect example of the futility of attempting to use the rules of private law to force business practice to conform to the dictates of economic or ethical policy. The judges in the early accommodation bills cases explicitly sought to express in legal rules the conventional abhorrence of accomodation bills, but the found the task beyond their abilities. The cases involving the Bickerdike excuse of notice rule, and the cases involving the bankruptcy o f firms that had been accepting accommodation bills for each other, show that the effort to establish special rules for accommodation bills became hopelessly complex. Moreover, when the courts did seek to implement special rules for accommodation bills, they faced the dilemma of conflict between the desire to do justice in the immediate case, by ensuring that those who had circulated the bills not

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escape liability, and the desire to curtail future uses of such bills, by enunciating rules that w o u l d render precarious the legal position of those who took the bills. Eventually, they simply gave up in frustration, 8 9 and that should serve as a warning to any latter generation of judges and lawyers inclined to take up a similar task. One might, on the other hand, cast the episode in a very different light by focussing on possible economic explanations for the change in attitude toward accommodation paper that one sees between the 1790s and the 1830s. There is quite a close correlation between the shift in attitude toward accommodation bills evidenced in the opinions and significant changes in economic conditions. In 1810, the B u l l i o n Committee's recommendation that the Bank o f England resume specie payment forthwith may have seemed infeasible given the continuance of hostilities w i t h the French. However, w i t h the final defeat of Napoleon in 1815, the original cause and continuing justification for the suspension was removed, and demands for resumption increased. After many years of debate, the Resumption A c t of 1819 was passed, 90 calling for a phased-in resumption of specie payment that would lead to a return to the old standard of the gold value of the pound by 1821. W e have see that in the 1820s and 1830s, the judicial decisions show far less concern w i t h the potential problems of accommodation bills than in earlier decades. One explanation w o u l d be that w i t h the resumption of specie payment the volume of money that could be created by banking operations was once more subjected to the check provided by the requirement of convertibility. I n those circumstances, it may well have seemed less important to endeavor to stamp out accommodation paper than it had during the suspension period. Moreover, because the resumption plan took the form of a return to the old gold standard, essentially attempting to undue the previous decades' inflation, the economic effect o f resumption was a significant curtailment of credit facilities and drop in price levels. Thus, in the period after resumption, demands for increased bank lending came to be at least as significant a force in public discussion of economic conditions as had concern w i t h excessive lending in the suspension period. 9 1 Accordingly, legal rules designed to w i t h a view

89 As Chancellor Kent noted, "Accommodation paper is now governed by the same rules as other paper. This is the latest and best doctrine, both in England and in this country." James Kent, Commentaries on American Law, 4 vols. (1826-30; reprint, 1971), 3: 56-57. 9 0 59 Geo 3, ch. 49 (1819). 91 Jacob Viner has noted that the very different economic circumstances before and after resumption had a profound effect on economic thought in the period of the bullionist controversies: The suspension of specie payments by the Bank of England in 1797, and the currency, exchange, and price phenomena which followed it, gave rise to a controversial literature of great extent, and, on the whole, of surprisingly high quality. Until the resumption of specie payments was approaching, the general trend of prices and prosperity was upward; but resumption was followed by a long and

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toward caution and restraint i n banking and credit operations may well have lost a good deal of their appeal by the 1820s and 1830s. Another possible interpretation of the change in the judicial attitude toward accommodation bills would focus not on specific circumstances concerning the banking and monetary system but on general economic, social, and political changes in late eighteenth and early nineteeth century England. One might say that the approach to accommodation bills ultimately reached by the English courts in the 1830s was no less a reflection of social, ethical, and economic norms than was o f the position taken by Baron Eyre in the Livesey cases. The difference was that the relevant norms had changed, or, to put the matter in harsher terms, that the power elite whose norms are reflected in law had changed. One need look no farther than his o w n words to see Baron Eyre's contemptuous attitude toward those "gentlemen who trade in the discount of paper money" and whose new-fangled financial practices "encourage a spirit of rash adventure . . . gaming in commerce, luxury, extravagance and fraud o f every k i n d ; " and it but a light step to read these remarks as evidence o f the hostility of entrenched power and wealth to the challenge o f a new class of intrepreneurs. So too, one might read the words of Chief Justice Abbott that "one who has only lent his name as surety [to an accommodation b i l l ] is guilty o f no fraud," as the expression of the economic morality of that newer, and by 1820 nearly triumphant, class. It is worth noting that the period in which the shift in attitude toward accommodation bills was most pronounced, the 1820s and 1830s, was also the period of the struggles leading to the great Parliamentary Reform B i l l o f 1831, which by abolishing the "rotten boroughs" and establishing new seats drawn largely from the newly developed industrial and commercial centers such as Manchester and Liverpool effectively transferred a large measure of political power from the landed aristocracy to the middle classes. 92 trying period of falling prices and of economic distress. The change in circumstances led to a marked difference in the distribution of emphasis on the issues involved, and, in a number of instances, to a sharp reversal of doctrinal position by participants in the controversies of both periods. It will be convenient, therefore, to deal separately with the literature of the earlier and later periods, which can be distinguished as the inflation and deflation periods, respectively. Viner, Studies in the Theory of International Trade, 119. 92 Indeed, if one is willing to press sociological speculation to the limits, one cannot help but be struck by the circumstance that the most vociferous denouncer of accommodation bills was Baron Eyre, a descendent of an ancient Wiltshire family that traced its position back to one of Richard the Lionheart's fellow crusaders, while Judge Abbott — who delighted in pointing to his humble origins as the son of wigmaker even after he had been elevated to peerage as Lord Tenterden — seems to have been inclined to rule in favor of the accommodation party in any procedural setting, whether that meant treating accommodation bills the same as real bills by requiring notice of dishonor in Cory v. Scott, 3 Barn. & Aid. 619, 106 Eng. Rep. 787 (K. B. 1820), treating them under a different set of rules by allowing suretyhip defenses to an accommodation acceptor in Adams v. Gregg, 2 Stark. 531, 171 Eng. Rep. 726 (nisi prius 1819), or treating cases involving accommodation bills as akin to the cases of fraud or theft where the holder

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One need not, however, conclude that the accommodation bills episode shows that any effort by law to influence or implement economic and social policy toward business practice is futile, or that law merely operates as a passive reflection o f changing economic conditions, or that law's sometimes professed concern w i t h normative values is nothing more than a guise for reflection o f the interest of the currently dominant class. There may also be room for an interpretation that finds a valuable role for the legal system in the process of social change itself, regardless o f the particular direction that change may have taken. The undeniable fact is that the economic and social issues presented by the use of accommodation bills did become legal issues. Lawyers and judges openly and explicity discussed and debated the issues o f economics and ethics that were presented by changing financial practices, and they did so i n a public forum, which, by virtue o f implicit requirement that decisions be rationally justified, is particularly well-suited to conferring moral authority on the outcome of the discussion. Whether one characterizes it as an expression of rigorous ethical propriety, conventional economic wisdom, or the class interest o f the entrenched power elite, the views expressed by Baron Eyre in the Livesey cases were expressed, and, at times, influenced the outcome o f litigation and the formulation of legal rules. So too, the opposing position taken by Chief Justice Abbott, which is open to an equally broad range of characterization, was also expressed, and had its influence. It may well be that it ultimately made little difference to the outcome o f the social and economic conflict whether the courts took one view or the other. On the other hand, it may w e l l have been very important, and, in any event, inevitable, that the issues were discussed in the courts.

Summary James Steven Rogers' paper, "The problem o f Accommodation Bills: Banking Theory and the L a w of Bills i n the Early Nineteenth Century," is an effort to explore a subject which Prof. Rogers believes has been neglected i n much of the scholarship on the history of Anglo-American commercial law — the relationship between issues o f commercial law and controversies over economic and moral policy. The paper attempts to portray some of the complexity o f these relationships by focussing on a group o f seemingly dry, technical issues that troubled the English courts from the 1790s until the 1830s in connection w i t h "accommodation bills." In these cases, the English courts struggled w i t h the problem of the use of a form o f financing that was, at the time, widely thought to be both economically and ethically troublesome. The controversy began w i t h a group o f cases arising out of the spectular bankruptcy o f one o f the largest

was required to prove consideration in Thomas v. Newton, 2 Car. & P. 606, 172 Eng. Rep. 276 (nisi prius 1827).

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cotton manufacturing firms of the early industrial revolution period. Contrary to the common view that i n matters of commercial law courts have always regarded their proper role as following and facilitating existing business practices, the accommodation bills cases show that the English courts were quite w i l l i n g to attempt to use commercial law rules to influence business practices in the fashion that the judges thought best fit economic and ethical policy. The paper traces the shift in judicial attitudes toward accommodation bills that occurred during the early part of the nineteenth century, and identifies various factors that might have accounted for the shift, including judicial frustration w i t h the difficulty of effectively controlling business practice, changes in economic conditions and banking theory in the period o f the suspension of specie payments by the Bank of England from 1797 until 1821, and changes i n social values associated w i t h the increasing political power of the entrepreneurial class.

SIEGBERT L A M M E L

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I. Öffentliche Darlehen bis Anfang des 18. Jahrhunderts Z u den klassischen Tätigkeiten von Banken gehört das Darlehensgeschäft 1 . Für dessen Durchführung spielte es i m Prinzip keine wesentliche Rolle, ob auf Seiten des Darlehensnehmers eine Privatperson, zumeist ein Kaufmann, oder ein Landesherr bzw. eine öffentliche Korporation stand 2 . Der Vertrag war streng zweiseitig ausgerichtet: auf der einen Seite der (Privat-)Bankier als Darlehensgeber, dessen Aufgabe m i t der Hingabe der Darlehenssumme zunächst erfüllt war. A u f der anderen Seite stand der Darlehensnehmer, der die ausbedungenen Zinsen und nach A b l a u f der Vertragszeit den Darlehensbetrag zurückzuzahlen hatte 3 . Selbst bei der Sicherung des Darlehens gab es zwischen dem privaten Kaufmann und den adligen Herren keine wesentlichen Unterschiede. I n beiden Fällen konnte die Sicherung durch hypothekarische Belastungen desjenigen Vermögens erfolgen, das dem Darlehensnehmer zur Verfügung stand. Die Landesherren verpfändeten entweder zur Sicherheit bestimmte landesherrliche Einkünfte 4 , oder sie veranlaßten die Landstände oder einzelne Kammerräte zur Mitunterzeichnung der Schuldurkunde als Mitschuldner 5 . Unter den Anleihen öffentlicher Schuldner haben sich verschiedene Formen herausgebildet. Allerdings kann die Zwangsanleihe unter dem Gesichtspunkt der Bildung eines Kapitalmarktes vernachlässigt werden. Z u ihr wurde nur i n Notlagen gegriffen, in denen der Kredit des Staates nicht mehr ausgereicht hat, u m freiwillig die erforderlichen M i t t e l aufzubringen 6 . M i t ihr wurden besondere 1 Schmoller, Die Entwicklung des städtisch-kaufmännischen Bankwesens im 19. Jahrhundert, Bank-Archiv 1904, Nr. 9, Beilage, p. 1. 2 Schmoller, Grundriß der Allgemeinen Volkswirtschaftslehre I I (1923), p. 204; Bender, Der Verkehr mit Staatspapieren2 (1830), p. 26. 3 Auf die vielfältigen rechtlichen Gestaltungsweisen, die zur Umgehung des kanonischen Zinsverbotes gewählt worden sind, soll hier nicht näher eingegangen werden. 4 Landmann, Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte der Formen und der Organisation des öffentlichen Kredits, Finanz-Archiv 29 (1912), p. 15, 29-35. 5 Landmann, Geschichte des öffentlichen Kredits, in: Gerloff / Meisch (ed.), Handbuch der Finanzwissenschaft I I (1927), p. 490. 6 Nebenius, Der öffentliche Kredit (Neudruck 1967), p. 319.

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Gruppen der Untertanen belastet, insbesondere solche, die Forderungen an den Landesherrn hatten; es konnte sich dabei u m Mitglieder des Adels oder um Hoflieferanten handeln, deren Forderungen durch an Zahlungs Statt gegebene verzinsliche oder unverzinsliche Papiere beglichen wurden 7 . V o n den freiwilligen Anleihen hatte die schwebende Staatsschuld ebenfalls keine große Bedeutung für die Bildung eines Kapitalmarktes. Denn mit ihr sollte lediglich ein vorübergehender Kapitalbedarf gedeckt werden. Hierzu diente die Ausgabe kurzfristiger Schuldverschreibungen, die durch die Einkünfte des kommenden Jahres getilgt werden sollten 8 . Die regelmäßige Form der freiwilligen Anleihe bildete die fundierte Staatsschuld, zu deren Sicherheit besondere Einkünfte verpfändet wurden. So heißt es z. B. noch in einer Schuldurkunde des Fürsten zu Nassau aus dem Jahre 1804: „Damit aber die Gläubiger, die Herren Gebrüder Bethmann,deren Erben und Zessionarien, wegen dieses Darlehens und der Entrichtung seiner Zinsen hinlänglich gesichert sein mögen, so verschreiben wir ihnen hiermit alle unsere Landeseinkünfte und -mittel unterpfändlich, ausdrücklich aber zu einer Spezialhypothek, die noch unverpfändeten Renten und Gefälle unseres Amtes Atzbach, welche nach anliegendem solemnisierten Status jährlich 20 224 Gulden ertragen, damit aus diesem Spezialunterpfande und soweit als nötig, aus unseren übrigen Landeseinkünften, das laufende Interesse und dereinst das Kapital abgeführt und getilgt werden könne.. ." 9 . Diese private Form der „Staats 44 -Verschuldung blieb bis in das 19. Jahrhundert kennzeichnend für die Darlehensaufnahme kleinerer Landesherren. I n ihr spiegelt sich das Mißtrauen wider, das die Gläubiger gegenüber den landesherrlichen Schuldnern hinsichtlich der Rückzahlung der Kredite hegten 1 0 . Außerdem w i r d in dieser Schuldsicherung das Machtverhältnis zwischen Gläubiger und Schuldner sichtbar 1 1 . Gegenüber den verwaltungstechnisch entwickelten größeren Staaten mit ihrem entsprechenden Machtpotential waren solche, die finanzielle Souveränität einschränkenden Sicherungsmittel nicht mehr durchsetzbar. Andererseits garantierte auch die bürokratisch organisierte Staatsschuldenverwaltung eine geregelte Zins- und Schuldenrückzahlung. Die Wirtschaftspolitik genügte in diesen Fällen, um den Kredit des Staates auf dem Kapitalmarkt zu sichern. Hier diente die gesamte Wirtschaftskraft des Staates als Sicherheit. Entwicklungsgeschichtlich war die Rentenschuld die früheste Form der öffentlichen A n l e i h e 1 2 . Bei ihr bezog der Gläubiger nur eine fortlaufende Rente als

7 Landmann (n. 4), p. 38 / 39. » Bender (n. 2), p. 20; Görtz, Auswärtige Anleihen (1926), p. 18. 9 Stadtarchiv Frankfurt am Main (StAF), Bethmann Archiv, Ausstellung Nr. 44. 10 Landmann (n. 5), p. 492. 11 Berchum, Das Staatsschuldenproblem im Lichte der klassischen Nationalökonomie (1911), p . 4 / 5 . 12 Landmann (n. 4), p. 23.

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Verzinsung des eingezahlten Kapitals; der Schuldner war zu dessen Tilgung nicht verpflichtet, hatte sich das Tilgungsrecht aber zumeist vorbehalten 1 3 . Er w i r d die Ausübung dieses Rechts von den Bewegungen auf dem Kapitalmarkt abhängig gemacht haben, v o m Kurs der Papiere ebenso wie v o m jeweiligen Zinsniveau. War dieses niedriger als das der laufenden Rente, so wurde diese oftmals durch eine niedriger verzinsliche abgelöst. Die Tilgungsanleihen (Annuitäten) setzten hingegen eine fortgeschrittene Finanzverfassung des Staates wie auch einen ausgebildeten Kapitalmarkt voraus. Bei ihnen erfolgte neben der periodischen Zinszahlung auch eine an feste Termine gebundene (ratenweise oder gänzliche) Rückzahlung des Kapitals 1 4 . Bereits bei der Ausgabe der Anleihe wurde deshalb ein besonderer Tilgungsplan veröffentlicht. Eine spezielle Form dieser Tilgung fand bei den Lotterieanleihen statt. Nach einem bestimmten Verlosungsplan wurden die Kapitalanteile ausgelost, entweder zum Nennwert oder mit einer Gewinnprämie. Dafür zahlte der staatliche Schuldner keine Jahreszinsen, sondern die ersparten Zinsen wurden für die A b deckung der Prämien verwendet 1 5 . Durch diese Ausgestaltung der Anleihe wurde nicht nur das Interesse an der zinstragenden Anlage eines Kapitals geweckt, sondern darüber hinaus auch die Wettleidenschaft, da der Gewinn aus der Prämie den Nominalzins um ein Vielfaches übersteigen konnte 1 6 . Zentrum des Geldhandels überhaupt und insbesondere der Darlehensgeschäfte mit Landesherren war in Deutschland Frankfurt am M a i n 1 7 . Dies nicht nur zu Zeiten Luthers, der 1524 von dieser Stadt als dem Silber- und Goldloch gesprochen hat, „dadurch aus deutschem Lande fleußt, was nur quillet und wächst, gemünzt und geschlagen w i r d bei u n s " 1 8 . Diese Stellung behielt Frankfurt bis ins 19. Jahrhundert hinein 1 9 . Eine Aufstellung von Staatsanleihen, die bei Frankfurter Kapitalisten aufgenommen worden waren, führt für den Zeitraum von 1331 bis 1810 (mit dem Schwerpunkt i m 17. und 18. Jahrhundert) insgesamt 835 Anleihen von 167 verschiedenen Landesherren bzw. öffentlichen Korportionen auf, mit einem Volumen allein für das 18. Jahrundert i n Höhe von rund 65 M i l l i o n e n Gulden 2 0 . Kennzeichnend für das Anleihegeschäft bis etwa gegen Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts waren i m wesentlichen drei Merkmale: es war personal, individuell und

•3 Nebenius (n.6), p. 354. 14 Nebenius (n. 6), p. 331 /333. 15 Bender (n. 2), p. 23. 16 Wild, Die europäischen Lotterie-Anlehen (1865), p. 2. 17 Achterberg, Der Bankplatz Frankfurt am Main (1955), p. 138 ss.; Forstmann, Simon Moritz von Bethmann (1973), p. 12/13. ι» Bothe, Geschichte der Stadt Frankfurt am Main(1913), p. 278. 19 E. Klein, Deutsche Bankengeschichte I (1982), p. 76. 20 Dietz, Frankfurter Handelsgeschichte IV, 2 (Nachdruck 1970), p. 753 - 779; cf. auch Ρ allmann, Simon Moritz von Bethmann und seine Vorfahren (1898), p. 567 ss.

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national ausgerichtet. Personal als Gegensatz zu kapitalistisch verstanden deshalb, weil es auf persönlichen Vertrauensbeziehungen zwischen Anleihegeber und -übernehmer gegründet war. Individuell als Gegensatz zu kollektivem Handeln, w e i l auf der Seite des die Anleihe übernehmenden Kapitalisten überwiegend ein Bankhaus stand. U n d schließlich national, w e i l Anleihen bis auf wenige Ausnahmen nur von Herren aus dem Deutschen Reichsraum aufgenommen wurden; ebensowenig fand eine grenzüberschreitende Zusammenarbeit i m Sinne eines Konsortialgeschäfts unter den Bankhäusern statt. Diese Strukturen konnten nur in einer noch nicht v o l l entwickelten Geldwirtschaft bestehen bleiben. Denn sie bedeuteten für die beteiligten berufsmäßigen Geldgeber zum einen ein wachsendes Risiko: die persönlichen Beziehungen zum landesherrlichen Darlehensschuldner verstärkten die wirtschaftliche Abhängigkeit, das Risiko war auf wenige Gläubiger verteilt und mußte zu ihrem Zusammenbruch führen, sobald auch die Schuldner i m Wege des Staatsbankrotts ihre Zahlungen einstellten 2 1 . Ferner stellte die Zusammenarbeit in den damaligen Konsortien keine echte Risikostreuung dar, sondern nur eine, oftmals durch familiäre oder anderweitige geschäftliche Bindungen bedingte Beteiligung anderer Handelshäuser an Anleihen. Mangels grenzüberschreitender Beteiligungen blieben die Teilhaber der politischen Herrschaft des Darlehensnehmers m i t den entsprechenden wirtschaftlichen Konsequenzen unterworfen 2 2 .

II. Vom Privatgeschäft zum Kapitalmarkt A b dem ersten Drittel des 18. Jahrhunderts ergaben sich in diesem Geschäftsbereich drei wesentliche Änderungen. Z u m einen wurden die Anleihen nicht mehr von einem Bankier als Gläubiger übernommen, sondern von Konsortien aus mehreren Bankhäusern, wobei bereits eine internationale Zusammenarbeit stattfand. Z u m zweiten blieb die Anleiheobligation nicht mehr in toto beim übernehmenden Bankhaus, sondern es erfolgte eine Streuung unter dem anlagefähigen Publikum. U n d zum dritten ergaben sich aus dieser Eröffnung eines Geldmarktes Haftungsprobleme, die mit dem modernen Wort einer „Prospekthaftung" durchaus zutreffend umschrieben werden können.

1. Wirtschaftliche Voraussetzungen Diese Entwicklung hing von mehreren wirtschaftlichen Faktoren ab. Zunächst ließ sich der besonders durch Kriege verursachte gestiegene Geldbedarf der Regierungen nicht mehr auf dem herkömmlichen Wege des privatrechtlichen 21 Ehrenberg, Das Zeitalter der Fugger II (1922), p. 176-178. 22 Ehrenberg, Das Zeitalter der Fugger I (1922), p. 400.

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Darlehens decken. Weiter führten die Staatsbankrotte dazu, daß die Geldhäuser das in der Geldvergabe an Landesherren liegende Risiko möglichst gering halten wollten, wozu die Aufteilung der Schuld auf viele (kleine) Gläubiger diente. Schließlich setzte die Streuung des Darlehensbetrages ein kapitalkräftiges und auch risikobereites (wenn auch oftmals nicht risikobewußtes) Publikum voraus. Diese Elemente fanden sich zuerst in den entwickelten Handelsnationen Europas, also in zeitlicher Reihenfolge den Niederlanden und danach in England. Frankreich spielte insoweit eine Sonderrolle, als der Papierhandel dort nicht unbedingt auf seiner Handelskraft, sondern auf staatlich begünstigten Finanzoperationen beruhte 2 3 . In den beiden anderen Ländern war der Effektenhandel aufs engste verbunden mit dem Aufkommen von Aktiengesellschaften. Sie befanden sich in einer den Staaten vergleichbaren Situation 2 4 : die wirtschaftliche Nutzung der Kolonien überstieg die Finanzkraft einzelner Kaufleute, auch ihr Zusammenschluß zu Personenhandelsgesellschaften genügte nicht den Kapitalanforderungen der Überseegeschäfte. Also teilte man die Beteiligung an den Gesellschaften in Anteilscheine auf, die in kleinerer Stückelung zum K a u f angeboten wurden. Die Gesellschaftsform der Aktiengesellschaft war daher in ihren Frühformen eine Kapitalsammelstelle für den Kolonialhandel. Den Anfang machte 1602 die ostindische Compagnie der Niederlande, gefolgt von weiteren Kolonialhandelsgesellschaften 25 . Deren Aktien wurden bald nach Ausgabe an der Amsterdamer Börse gehandelt, da genügend kapitalkräftige Handelsleute ihr Geld in den als renditebringend eingeschätzten Papieren anlegen w o l l t e n 2 6 . A n der Amsterdamer Börse entwickelten sich aus diesen Ansätzen nahezu sämtliche Formen des Börsenverkehrs mit Wertpapieren 2 7 ; öffentliche Anleihen wurden i m verstärkten Maße allerdings erst gegen Ende des 17. Jahrhunderts gehandelt 2 8 . Ebenfalls stimuliert durch den Kolonialhandel entwickelte sich der Wertpapierhandel in England, das i m 18. Jahrhundert nach Umfang und Bedeutung des Börsenverkehrs die Niederlande ablöste. Mangels funktionierender Aktiengesellschaften 2 9 entwickelte sich der Effektenhandel in Deutschland auf anderer Grundlage. Hier bildeten weiterhin die landesherrlichen Anleihen den Ausgangspunkt für den Wertpapierhandel. Aus einer Kombination von ursprünglichem Darlehensgeschäft zwischen Landesherrn und Anleiheübernehmer und neuen Formen der Aufteilung der Anteile entstand 23 Ehrenberg, Die Fondspekulation und die Gesetzgebung (1883), p. 9 / 10. 24 Brunner, Die öffentliche Anleihe und die Organisation der Anleihegläubiger (1913),

p. 12.

25 Coing (ed.), Handbuch der Quellen und Literatur der neueren europäischen Privatrechtsgeschichte II, 2 (1976), p. 759/760. 26 Ehrenberg (n. 21), p. 293. 27 Ehrenberg (n. 21), p. 338 ss. 28 Laspeyres, Geschichte der volkswirtschaftlichen Anschauungen der Niederländer und ihrer Literatur (1863), p. 249. 29 Wehler, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte I (1987), p. 53. 11 Piergiovanni

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schließlich die endgültige Form der Konsortialanleihen, die nur zur Plazierung auf den Geldmarkt übernommen wurden 3 0 . Die neuen Konsortien i m Zusammenhang m i t den Staatsschulden waren i m Gegensatz zu den alten Bankiersgesellschaften nicht mehr Darlehensgläubiger, sondern nur noch Vermittler zwischen anleiheausgebendem Staat und kapitalanlegendem Publikum; diese neue Funktion stand selbst dann i m Vordergrund, wenn das Konsortium die Anleihe zunächst selbst übernahm und nicht lediglich als Kommissionär auftrat.

2. Zusammenarbeit in Emissionskonsortien Konsortien zur Übernahme von Staatsanleihen sind i m deutschen Raum seit dem frühen 18. Jahrhundert bekannt. Sie wurden gebildet, weil auch hier der Geldbedarf der Landesherren von einem einzelnen Bankier nicht mehr zu decken war und das i n der Übernahme solcher Staatsanleihen liegende Risiko durch Verteilung auf mehrere vermindert wurde. I n Frankfurt fiel dieser Funktionswandel der Konsortien zusammen m i t dem Aufstieg des Bankhauses Bethmann, das seit 1754 Anleihen zunächst in traditioneller Weise des persönlichen Darlehens übernahm, aber ab 1778 das Anleihegeschäft in der neuen Form praktizierte 3 1 . Zur Drehscheibe des kontinentalen Anleihehandels wurde Frankfurt nach dem Niedergang Amsterdams infolge der französischen Besetzung 1795. Was jetzt zu Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts neu am Konsortialgeschäft war, war die internationale Zusammenarbeit 3 2 . A l s Beispiel für einen derartigen Zusammenschluß soll das Konsortium dienen, das unter der Führung des Frankfurter Bankhauses Gebrüder Bethmann 1818 eine österreichische Métalliques-Anleihe auf den Markt brachte 3 3 . M i t dieser Anleihe versuchte die Finanzverwaltung die durch die Kriegsereignisse zerrütteten österreichischen Staatsfinanzen zu konsolidieren 3 4 . Für ältere verzinsliche Staatspapiere sowie einen Zuschuß in Papiergeld wurden neue Obligationen ausgegeben, deren Verzinsung in Münzgeld (deshalb Métalliques) zugesichert wurde35. Dem Konsortium für diese Anleihe gehörten außer dem Frankfurter Bankhaus noch die Häuser Geymüller & Co., Wien, Parish & Co., H a m b u r g 3 6 , Gebrüder Baring & Co., London, sowie Hope & Co. in Amsterdam an. Der zwischen 30 31 32 33 34

110.

Heyn, Private Banking und Industrialization (1981), p. 4 2 / 4 3 . Heyn (η. 30), p. 43. Heyn (η. 30), p. 44. Forstmann, Bankhistorisches Archiv, Beiheft 15 (1989), p. 20 ss. Beer, Die Finanzen Österreichs im XIX. Jahrhundert (Nachdruck 1973), p. 108-

35 Pohl, Deusche Bankengeschichte I I (1982), p. 23. 36 Ehrenberg, Große Vermögen I (1902), p. 77; id., Das Haus Parish in Hamburg (1905), p. 120.

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diesen Firmen geschlossene Gesellschaftsvertrag erweist, daß abgesehen von den bereits erwähnten wirtschaftlichen Bedingungen auch eine Veränderung in den rechtlichen Voraussetzungen für den Wandel i m Anleihegeschäft verantwortlich war. Denn die neue Form der Zusammenarbeit setzte eine Loslösung von den alten rechtlichen Bedingungen für Gesellschaftsverträge voraus, die erst ab Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts m i t der schrittweisen Durchsetzung der Vertragsfreiheit als inhaltlicher Gestaltungsfreiheit eingetreten war. Die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung sprengte die Fesseln, die den Wirtschafts Subjekten bei der Abfassung ihrer Verträge über Leistung und Gegenleistung durch das geschriebene Recht angelegt waren. Sie erforderte eine inhaltlich freie Gestaltung bei den Verträgen, m i t denen bislang nicht oder nicht in der gegebenen Form bekannte Geschäfte abgewickelt werden sollten. Als Ansatzpunkt für diesen Wandel boten sich die auch schon bisher als dispositiv behandelten Normen an, die durch Parteiabreden ergänzt werden konnten. Ein durchweg anerkanntes Beispiel hierfür war das Gesellschaftsrecht: hier galt bereits die Regel „pactum dat legem contractui" 3 7 . Aber das jetzt neu auftretende Element bei der Vertragsgestaltung war die nahezu völlige Verdrängung des geschriebenen Rechts und nicht mehr nur seine Ergänzung durch den Vertrag. V o n dieser Freiheit als Freiheit zur Gestaltung der eigenen Rechtssphäre haben mit als erste die Banken bei der Ausformung ihrer Rechtsgeschäfte Gebrauch gemacht; in ihr ist der Ansatz für die sich i m Laufe des 19. Jahrhunderts ausbreitenden Allgemeinen Geschäftsbedingungen zu sehen. Der Gesellschaftsvertrag 38 sah vor, daß die Anleihe in der Gesamthöhe von 50 M i l l i o n e n Gulden von den beteiligten Bankhäusern zu gleichen Teilen übernommen wurde. Damit war die juristische Streitfrage umgangen, ob eine Beteiligung an einer Gesellschaft möglich war, die bei Gewinn und Verlust unterschiedliche Anteile vorsah 3 9 . Die Beteiligten gehörten fünf verschiedenen Rechtsordnungen an, und der Vertrag selbst war am 14. M a i 1818 in Paris unterzeichnet worden, was internationalprivatrechtliche Verwicklungen geradezu heraufbeschwor 4 0 . U m derartige rechtliche Streitigkeiten zu vermeiden, die den wirtschaftlichen Erfolg des ganzen Geschäfts gefährden konnten, enthielt der Gesellschaftsvertrag einige Bestimmungen, wie Streitfragen zu klären wären. Zunächst galt unter den Mitgliedern des Emissionskonsortiums das Mehrheitsprinzip: für jede das gemeinsame Interesse betreffende Vereinbarung sollte die Stimmenmehrheit dem Ergebnis Gesetzeskraft (force de loi) verleihen. Rechtlich stellt diese Vertragsklausel in zweierlei Hinsicht eine frühe Manifestation der Privatautonomie bei der Ausgestaltung von Verträgen dar, die sich mit Materien des Handelsverkehrs befassen. Z u m einen w i r d die Einstimmigkeit bei Gesell37 Glück, Ausführliche Erläuterung der Pandecten X V (1813), p. 397. 38 StAF, Bethmann Archiv 11/33, Traité Sociale vom 14. Mai 1818. 39 Glück (n. 37), p. 405 ss., 419 ss. 40 Zu diesen Problemen Bekker, Über Couponsprocesse der österreichischen Eisenbahngesellschaften und über internationale Schuldverschreibungen (1881). 11*

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schafterbeschlüssen 41 zugunsten des Mehrheitsprinzips durchbrochen. Solch eine Modifikation des Gesellschaftsrechts war durch seinen dispositiven Charakter legitimiert 4 2 , von dem unter Handeltreibenden mehr Gebrauch gemacht wurde als unter „bürgerlichen" Gesellschaftern. Weit bedeutsamer ist zum anderen die Formulierung „force de loi". Technisch ist hierin eine Anlehnung an art. 1143 I code c i v i l 4 3 zu sehen, was angesichts des Vertragsortes Paris nahelag. Aber diese Formel weist über diesen Zusammenhang hinaus einen viel umfassenderen Bedeutungsgehalt auf. Sie nimmt bereits inzidenten Bezug auf eine Diskussion, die erst ab Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts in Verbindung m i t der Frage der Geltung von „Allgemeinen Reglements" v o l l entbrennen sollte, und deren Lösung in der Verknüpfung der Inhalte von „ A u t o n o m i e " und „lex contractus" gefunden wurd e 4 4 . I n der „lex contractus" bzw. der „force de l o i " des Gesellschaftsvertrages zeigt sich der W i l l e der Vertragspartner, ihr künftiges Verhältnis „autonom", d. h. ohne Eingriff der staatlichen Gesetzgebung zu regeln. Diese Regelung sollte gesetzesverdrängenden, aber privatgesetzlichen Charakter haben m i t der Rechtsfolge, daß auch die überstimmten Mitgesellschafter an die mehrheitlich getroffene Regelung gebunden waren. Die Klausel „force de l o i " ergänzt somit notwendigerweise die Klausel über die Einführung von Mehrheitsbeschlüssen. U m die Kommunikationsschwierigkeiten angesichts der weit auseinanderliegenden Geschäftssitze zu überwinden, sollte jedes Bankhaus, das nicht in Wien residierte, dort durch einen Bevollmächtigten vertreten sein, der aber ein Gesellschafter der beteiligten Häuser sein mußte. Darin spiegeln sich die noch zu Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts bestehenden Schwierigkeiten der Dogmatik wider, die Berechtigung und Verpflichtung eines Geschäftsherrn durch einen Dritten anzuerkennen. Das galt auch für die Verhältnisse einer Gesellschaft zu Dritten. I m Vordergrund stand hier der Geschäftsabschluß durch sämtliche Gesellschafter (hier: des beteiligten Bankhauses), woraus unproblematisch für alle eine Berechtigung und Verpflichtung entstand. Handelte hingegen nur ein Gesellschafter, so hing die Berechtigung der übrigen von der Zession der Rechte an sie a b 4 5 . Ihre Verpflichtung war hingegen von weiteren Voraussetzungen abhängig, so der Stellung des handelnden Gesellschafters als institor oder mandatar, oder der Genehmigung des Geschäfts durch die anderen Gesellschafter oder schließlich ihrer Bereicherung aus dem Geschäft 4 6 . Diese verkehrshemmenden Schwierigkeiten wurden durch die vertragliche Regelung überwunden. Ein Gesellschafter mußte der Bevollmächtigte w o h l deshalb sein, weil seine persönliche haftungsmä-

Bender, Handbuch des Frankfurter Privatrechts (1848), p. 754. Vangerow, Leitfaden für Pandekten-Vorlesungen I I I (1847), p. 442 n. 1. 4 3 „Les Conventions légalement formées tiennent lieu de loi à ceux qui les ont faites". 44 Pohlhausen, Zum Recht der allgemeinen Geschäftsbedingungen im 19. Jahrhundert (1978), p. 114. 45 Mackeldey, Lehrbuch des heutigen Römischen Rechts (1838), § 388. 46 Vangerow (n. 42), p. 454, n. II, 2. 42

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ßige Inanspruchnahme erfolgversprechender und außerdem seine Verpflichtungsbefugnis i m Einzelfall eher anzunehmen war als die eines Angestellten 4 7 . Ferner verpflichteten sich die Teilnehmer am Konsortium zur Verschwiegenheit gegenüber den Anteilszeichnern über die Details der Anleihe; modern gesprochen sollte der Ausnutzung der sog. Insiderkenntnisse entgegengewirkt werden. Abweichend v o m gemeinen Recht 4 8 sollte, abgesehen von allgemeinen Auslagen, keiner der Beteiligten eine Aufwandsentschädigung erhalten mit Ausnahme des Barons John Parish von Senftenberg, dem für seine Verhandlungen m i t dem Wiener Finanzminister zum Zwecke des Geschäftsabschlusses eine Sondervergütung zugebilligt wurde. Schließlich enthielt der Vertrag noch ein Wettbewerbsverbot: es war den Teilhabern untersagt (sur leur honneur), direkt oder indirekt Maßnahmen zu ergreifen, die das Anleihegeschäft oder den Kurs der Papiere beeinflussen konnten. Diese Vertragsbestimmung hatte sowohl einen praktischen wie auch einen rechtlichen Hintergrund. I m Laufe der Verhandlungen mit dem österreichischen Finanzministerium über die Konditionen der geplanten Anleihe versuchte der Bankier Bethmann, auch das Haus Rothschild für die Teilnahme am Konsortium zu interessieren. Rothschild zeigte nicht nur kein besonderes Interesse, sondern unternahm sogar einen Vorstoß beim österreichischen Botschafter in London, das Anleihegeschäft zu seinen Bedingungen unter Verdrängung der bisherigen Verhandlungspartner allein abzuschließen 49 . Die Verhandlungen über die Bildung solcher Konsortien berührten also die wirtschaftliche, am eigenen Gewinn orientierte Dispositionsfreiheit der Bankhäuser noch nicht i m Sinne einer vorvertraglichen Treuepflicht. War aber der Vertrag geschlossen, wurde die Bindung festgeschrieben. I n Übereinstimmung m i t der Rechtslehre unterlagen die Gesellschafter einer besonderen Treuepflicht 5 0 ; der Verstoß dagegen wurde mit Infamie bestraft 5 1 . Diese infamierende W i r k u n g wurde durch den Vertragstext noch einmal deutlich hervorgehoben. Der Vertrag enthält aber noch zwei Punkte, die die materielle Rechtsgrundlage wie auch die prozessuale Behandlung ganz wesentlich beeinflußten. I n dem Gesellschaftsvertrag w i r d mehrmals der terminus technicus „ K a u f 4 bzw. „ V e r k a u f 4 der Obligationen gebraucht: die Teilnehmer des Konsortiums kauften die Obligationen v o m österreichischen Staat, und sie verkauften sie wieder. M i t diesen Worten wurde eine rechtliche Einordnung der Umsatzgeschäfte vorgenommen, die damals nicht unumstritten war. Für die Weitergabe solcher 47 Bender (n. 41), p. 750. 48 Glück (n. 37), p. 441. 49 Forstmann (n. 33), p. 23. 50 Pohls, Darstellung des gemeinen Deutschen und des Hamburgischen Handelsrechts

I (1828), p. 211.

si Glück (n. 37), p. 426.

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Obligationen standen sich nämlich zwei Meinungen gegenüber, die in ihren Unterschieden zu weittragenden praktischen Konsequenzen führten. A u f der einen Seite wurde die Meinung vertreten, die Obligation und die mit ihr verbundenen Rechte würden i m Wege der Zession weitergegeben 5 2 , so daß der letzte Inhaber des Papiers bei der Geltendmachung der sich daraus ergebenden Rechte mit sämtlichen Einwendungen sowohl gegen den ursprünglichen Gläubiger als auch gegen die Zwischeninhaber konfrontiert werden konnte 5 3 . Diese auf der strikten Anwendung des römischen Rechts beruhende Ansicht war aber auf einen überschaubaren, individualistischen Verkehr mit Schuldurkunden abgestellt. Ihre konsequente Durchführung hätte den nunmehr aufkommenden Massenverkehr mit Schuldverschreibungen behindert, wenn nicht gar zum Erliegen gebracht. Denn die Interessen der Ausgeber wie auch der Inhaber solcher Papiere waren auf Umsatz, nicht auf Innehabung gerichtet 5 4 . Diesem Verkehrsbedürfnis entsprach die Meinung, die Weitergabe solcher Papiere erfolge i m Wege der Eigentumsübertragung 5 5 . Die Papiere wurden als Ware betrachtet und als solche verkauft 5 6 . A u f diese rechtliche Einordnung sollte der Vertragstext hinlenken; zugleich mit dieser Qualifikation wurde die Haftung des Verkäufers begrenzt auf die Verität des Papiers; sie erstreckte sich aber nicht auf seine B o n i t ä t 5 7 . In prozessualer Hinsicht sah der Vertrag zwei besondere Klauseln vor, um zu vermeiden, daß Streitigkeiten vor Gericht getragen würden. Z u m einen sollte bei solch schwerwiegenden Fragen, die nicht, wie an sich vertraglich vorgesehen, durch Stimmenmehrheit zu entscheiden waren, ein Schiedsgericht berufen werden. Jeder Teilnehmer durfte zu diesem Zwecke einen Schiedsrichter benennen, der unter reputierlichen Kaufleuten ausgewählt werden sollte, die weder direkt noch indirekt an der Anleihe beteiligt waren noch in derselben Stadt wohnten. Die so Benannten sollten mit Mehrheit entscheiden. Z u m anderen war ausdrücklich i m Vertrag bestimmt, daß ein appel aux tribunaux ausgeschlossen sei. U m

52 Gönner, Von Staatsschulden, deren Tilgungsanstalten und vom Handel mit Staatspapieren I (1826), p. 229; Bender (n. 2), p. 314-316, der aber inkonsequenterweise zum Einwendungsausschluß kommt. 53 v. Savigny, Obligationenrecht I I (1853), p. 95-98. 54 Bender (n. 2), p. 175; Wayna, Über den Handel in Staatspapieren, Zeitschrift für österreichische Rechtsgelehrsamkeit und politische Gesetzeskunde 1828 I, 275/282; a. A. v. Savigny (n. 53), p. 117. 55 v. Savigny (n. 53), p. 137; Bender (n. 2), p. 318. 56 Kgl. preuß. AG, 18. 11. 1829, Archiv für das Civil- und Criminalrecht der kgl. preußischen Rheinprovinzen 13 (1829), p. 271 / 274; Grattenauer, Über Jobberey- und Stockbörsen- Spielverträge, besonders über Schlußzettel, Danziger Obligationen betreffend, Jahrbücher für die Preußische Gesetzgebung, Rechtswissenschaft und Rechtsverwaltung 24 (1824), p. 233; Oberhofgericht Mannheim, 22. 2. 1815, Jahrbücher des Großherzoglich Badischen Ober-Hofgerichts zu Mannheim 3 (1826), p. 279. 57 Kuntze, Die Lehre von den Inhaberpapieren (1857), p. 707; weitergehend Bender, Über den Verkehr mit Staatspapieren in seinen Hauptrichtungen, AcP 8 (1825), Beilagenheft, p. 36/37.

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den Ausschluß des Rechtsweges zu den staatlichen Gerichten zu bekräftigen, war letztlich eine Vertragsstrafe für Zuwiderhandlungen vereinbart worden: Jeder Teilhaber, der entgegen der Schiedsklausel sich an die Gerichte wenden würde, sollte eine Strafe von 100 000 Gulden zahlen. Solche Vereinbarungen waren i m Wirtschaftsverkehr nicht unüblich 5 8 . Sie warfen jedoch in mehrfacher Hinsicht methodische und praktische Probleme auf, die sowohl ihre Gültigkeit unter den Vertragspartnern als Einschränkung der Vertragsfreiheit durch Ausnutzung der Vertragsfreiheit als auch ihre gerichtliche Anerkennung betrafen. Die zu Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts erst einsetzende Entwicklung stieß alsbald an die Grenzen ihrer Anerkennung. Schließlich wurde nur noch die Vertragsstrafe als solche zugelassen, ohne den Zugang zu den Gerichten zu beschränken 59 . Darüber hinaus verweigerten einige Staaten solchen Schiedssprüchen die zum Zwecke der Zwangsvollstreckung erforderliche Anerkennung 6 0 . Nach den Intentionen der Bankhäuser sollten die Gerichte derartige Geschäfte nicht beeinflussen; der Konsortialvertrag war für sie alleinige Rechtsgrundlage, so daß sich die Frage seiner Einordnung in eine nationale Rechtsordnung erübrigte. Der internationale Charakter solcher Konsortialgeschäfte kommt auch noch i n der Bestimmung über die Auswahl der Schiedsrichter zum Ausdruck. Da sie nicht in derselben Stadt wie der wählende Konsorte tätig sein durften (wohl um Interessenkollisionen zu vermeiden), mußten sie angesichts der damaligen territorialen Gliederung des Reiches i m Regelfall einer anderen Rechtsordnung angehören, was offensichtlich die Bankiers aber nicht gestört hat. Damit kommen in diesem Vertrag mehrere Tendenzen zum Ausdruck: zum einen das Bewußtsein eines international gemeinsamen (Handels-Gewohnheits-) Rechts, das bei Konsortialgeschäften anwendbar sein konnte; zum zweiten das Bestreben des Handelsstandes, hier repräsentiert durch international tätige Bankhäuser, die ihn betreffenden (Rechts-)Fragen unter Beiseiteschiebung des gesetzten Rechts eigenständig durch entsprechende Vereinbarungen zu regeln; und schließlich drittens die dem Handelsverkehr durchgängig zugrundeliegende Haltung, Streitigkeiten beizulegen, ohne hierfür auf staatliche Gerichte zurückgreifen zu müssen. Denn staatliche Gerichte waren — zumindest auch — mit Juristen besetzt, und diese verstanden zwar, mit den Subtilitäten des Rechts umzugehen, sie verstanden aber nichts von den Notwendigkeiten des Wirtschaftsverkehrs, bei dem es gerade nicht auf solche Subtilitäten ankam, sondern auf praktische Lösungen, die die wirtschaftlichen Fragen, konkret die Gewinn- und Verlustrechnung, mit berücksichtigten. Hierin kommt eine Haltung zum Ausdruck, die sich durch das gesamte 19. Jahrhundert zieht und uns heute auch nicht fremd ist: der Gegensatz zwischen Theorie und (Handels-) Praxis. Der Jurist mißtraute den

58 Bender (n. 41), p. 759. 59 Bender (n. 41), p. 759/760. 60 Bremer Handelsblatt vom 14. 11. 1857, p. 401/402.

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Gewohnheiten der Handels w e i t 6 1 , die Handelswelt ihrerseits stand der juristischen Tätigkeit verständnislos gegenüber 6 2 . Dies mußte dazu führen, daß sich der Handelsverkehr Wege außerhalb des juristischen Einflusses suchte; andererseits sah sich die Jurisprudenz durch diese Entwicklungen des Handels ständig aufs Neue herausgefordert. Z u m Zusammenstoß mußte es kommen, wenn die Handelswelt staatliche Hilfe i n Anspruch nehmen mußte, wie es letztlich bei der vollstrekkungsrechtlichen Durchsetzung von Vertragsstrafeversprechen der Fall war. Mangels einer Privatexekution bedurfte es hierzu der Inanspruchnahme der Gerichte. U n d diese nahmen die Gelegenheit wahr, die Rechtsgültigkeit der gesamtgen Vertragsbeziehungen zu untersuchen.

3. Zerlegung der Anteilscheine Blieb auf diese Weise der Konsortialvertrag eine interne Angelegenheit der Teilnehmer, die ihre Rechtsgrundlage und Rechtsdurchsetzung selbständig regelten, so erfolgte mit der Ausgabe sog. Partialobligationen eine Öffnung zum breiteren Publikum m i t allen rechtlichen Konsequenzen. Bis etwa Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts wurden Anleihen in Deutschland in einem Stück übernommen. Ihre Verkehrsfähigkeit war nicht nur durch ihr Volumen begrenzt, sondern auch durch die höchst streitige Frage, ob es sich bei den Schuldurkunden um Inhaberpapiere i m eigentlichen Sinne oder lediglich um Namenspapiere mit Inhaberklausel handelte 6 3 . Eine Änderung erfolgte erst dadurch, daß einerseits die Anleihe in Inhaberpapieren ausgegeben, andererseits eine Stückelung der Anleihe in Anteilscheine zugelassen und schließlich noch der einzelne Anteilschein mit Zinscoupons ausgestattet w u r d e 6 4 . Ihren Ausgang nahm diese für Deutschland neue Rechtsentwicklung (in England und Frankreich waren sowohl Papiere au porteur als auch die Stückelung in Anteilscheine schon früher bekannt) in der sächsischen staatlichen Praxis, für die Staatsschulden sog. Steuerscheine auszugeben, die Ansprüche auf Teile der künftigen Steuereinnahmen beinhalteten 6 5 . I m Laufe des 18. Jahrhunderts war die Staatsschuld auf 40 M i l l i o n e n Taler angewachsen und die Flut der Steuerscheine so unübersichtlich geworden und ihre Verwendung mit sovielen Mißbräuchen behaftet, daß 1763 eine gesetzliche Neuregelung getroffen werden mußte. Danach konnten die im

Gönner (n. 52), p. 195/ 196; Thöl, Der Verkehr mit Staatspapieren aus dem Gesichtspunkt der kaufmännischen Speculation mit Berücksichtigung seiner juristischen Natur (1835), p. V / V I . 62 Souchay, Über die Natur der auf jeden Inhaber lautenden Verschreibungen, AcP 10 (1827), p. 143 / 144; Kuntze (n. 57), p. IX. 63 Gönner (n. 52), p. 51; Büsch, Theoretisch-Practische Darstellung der Handlung I (1792), p. 299. 64 Landmann (n. 5), p. 510/511, Ulimann, VSWG 77 (1990) 75/81. 65 Kuntze (n. 57), p. 79-85.

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U m l a u f befindlichen Steuerscheine, seien sie auf den Namen oder den Inhaber ausgestellt gewesen, umgetauscht werden in neue Obligationen, die ohne Ausnahme an den jeweiligen Vorzeiger zahlbar sein sollten, also ausschließlich Inhaberpapiere waren. Zur Erleichterung der Zinszahlung und zur Vermeidung der Gefahren, die mit der Vorlage der Haupturkunde zum Nachweis der Empfangsberechtigung einer Zahlung verbunden waren, stattete sie die sächsische Deklaration von 1763 6 6 mit Zinsscheinen aus, welche einzeln abgeschnitten, selbständig umlauffähig und zur Verfallzeit von jedem Inhaber zur Zahlung präsentiert werden konnten. Damit waren sowohl selbständige Teil-Obligationen einer Gesamt-Schuld als auch negotiable Zinsscheine rechtlich anerkannt worden. War diese Form der Anleihe in Sachsen ersichtlich noch auf den Kleinkreditverkehr abgestellt, der sich unmittelbar, also ohne Zwischenschaltung einer Emissionsbank, zwischen Untertan und Staat abwickelte, weil der Staat seine Schulden zunächst nur in derartigen Steuerscheinen bezahlen konnte, so griff sie alsbald auf die eigentlichen großen Staatsanleihen über 6 7 . Das Verdienst, die Staatsanleihen erstmals i m deutschen Raum in der Form einer Submissionsanleihe m i t Partialobligationen auf den Markt gebracht zu haben, w i r d dem Frankfurter Bankhaus Bethmann zugeschrieben 68 . Dieses übernahm 1778 eine österreichische Anleihe und wurde für die folgenden rund 50 Jahre zum hauptsächlichen Geldgeber bzw. Anleihevermittler des kaiserlichen österreichischen Hauses 6 9 . I n den Jahren 1778 bis 1796 emittierte das Haus Bethmann insgesamt 54 Anleihen m i t einem Volumen von 31,5 M i l l i o n e n G u l d e n 7 0 , also nahezu der Hälfte des gesamten Anleihevolumens Frankfurter Kapitalisten während des 18. Jahrhunderts. Die Schuldurkunde über die erste Anleihe des Jahres 1778 in Höhe von 500 000 Gulden gestattete die Aufteilung des Gesamtbetrages in Einzel-(Partial-)Obligationen zu je 1 000 G u l d e n 7 1 . Damit war der Weg zum allgemeinen Kapitalmarkt eröffnet. Denn nunmehr konnte jeder kleine „Kapitalist" einen seinen Verhältnissen entsprechenden Betrag anlegen und gegebenenfalls mit dem Papier spekulieren. Die Urkunde über die staatliche Hauptschuld wurde zur Sicherheit beim Frankfurter Rechnei-Amt hinterlegt 7 2 , einer Behörde, die am ehesten mit einem heutigen Finanz- und Wirtschaftsministerium zu vergleichen ist. I n der Hinterlegung ist noch ein Rest der ursprünglich privaten Darlehensform zu sehen: der Schuldschein bewies die Hingabe des Darlehens, seine Rückgabe sprach hingegen für dessen Rückzahlung 7 3 . Die Hinterlegung der Hauptschuldurkunde bei einer 66 Codex Augusteus, 1. Fortsetzung, II, col. 299 ss. 67 Landmann (n. 5), p. 511. 68 Heyn (n. 30), p. 43; J. Sauer, Finanzgeschäfte der Landgrafen von Hessen-Kassel (1930), p. 85. 69 Dietz (n. 20), p. 627. 70 Dietz (n. 20), p. 629. 71 Geschichte der Handelskammer zu Frankfurt a. M. (1908), p. 1092. 72 Geschichte der Handelskammer (n. 71), p. 1095 / 1096. 73 Windscheid, Pandekten5 I I (1879), p. 310 n. 5.

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neutralen öffentlichen Stelle sollte sicherstellen, daß sie nicht vor vollständiger Rückzahlung der Anleihe an den Schuldner zurückgegeben w u r d e 7 4 ; aber auch, daß diese Rückgabe nicht auf Grund zwischenzeitlicher Verhandlungen zwischen den Emissionsbanken und der Staatsverwaltung erfolgen konnte, wodurch die Inhaber der Partialobligationen letztlich hätten geschädigt werden können. A u f der Partialobligation war oftmals die Hinterlegung vermerkt, um die Sicherheit und damit den Wert der Anleihe zu heben; auch enthielt die Partialobligation eine Abschrift der Hauptschuldurkunde 7 5 . Die Bestimmung der Anleihe für den Kapitalmarkt und nicht als privates Darlehen eines Bankhauses an den Staat zeigte sich in zwei eher technischformalen Gestaltungen. Z u m einen wurden die Partialobligationen in gedruckter Form herausgegeben, wobei sich bald ein formularmäßiger Inhalt herausbildete. I n der älteren Form enthielt die Obligation noch das vollständige Patent über die Eröffnung einer A n l e i h e 7 6 ; später entfiel dieser Hinweis. Die Schuldverschreibung bestand nur noch aus folgendem formularmäßigen Text:

74 Vier jähr, Handbuch der Staats-Papiere und der Geldwissenschaft (1836), p. 81: „Gegenwärtige Haupt-Schuld- Verschreibung und deren Anlagen soll bei Unserem Großherzoglichen Ober-Appellations-Gericht deponirt, auch gerichtlich beglaubigte Abschrift davon dem darleihenden Banquierhause behändigt und die Original-Urkunden nicht eher an Uns zurückgegeben werden, als bis die in Folge dieses Anlehen-Geschäfts ausgefertigten Fünf und Neunzig Tausend Stück Prämien-Scheine planmäßig verlooset, und vollständig eingelöset sind", wie es beispielhaft in den Bedingungen einer von Rothschild dem Großherzog von Hessen gewährten Anleihe heißt. 7 5 Dietz (n. 20), p. 628. 76 So e. g. bei der österreichischen Anleihe vom 29. März 1815, Salomon, Die österreichischen Staatspapiere und insbesondere die Staats-Lotterie-Anleihen (1846), p. 67; aus dem Jahre 1816, p. 76: Nro. * fl.C.M. Schuldverschreibung Über . . . * * Gulden in Conventions=Münze, welche die k.k. Universal=Staatschulden=Casse, in Folge der nach den Bestimmungen des beigedruckten allerhöchsten Patents geschehenen Anlage mit Fünf vom Hundert in Conventions=Münze, an den Überbringer der zu dieser Obligation gehörigen Interessen=Coupons, halbjährig verzinsen wird. Wien, am N. N. N. N. Vorstehende Schuldverschreibung ist in dem Credits= und Liquidations=Buche der k.k. Universal=Staatsschulden=Casse gehörig eingetragen. Wien, am Für die k.k. Universal-Staatsschulden-Casse N. N. N. N.

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1000 fl.

Nummer Staats=Schuldverschreibung Über Ein Tausend Gulden in Conventions=Münze, welche die k.k. Universal= Staatsschulden=Casse mit Vier vom Hundert in Conventions=Münze an den Überbringer der zu dieser Staats=Schuldverschreibung gehörigen Zinsen=Coupons halbjährig verzinsen wird. Wien, am 1. Dezember 1829 Unterschrift Unterschrift Vorstehende Staats=Schuldverschreibung ist in dem Credit= und Liquidations— Buche der k.k. Universal=Staatsschulden=Casse gehörig eingetragen. Wien, am 1. Dezember 1829 Für die k.k. Universal=Staatschulden=Casse Unterschrift 77 Ferner waren die Schuldverschreibungen mit fortlaufenden Nummern versehen. Bei den Lotterie-Anleihen ist zu trennen zwischen der Haupt- Schuldverschreibung und den einzelnen „Losen". Während die Hauptschuldverschreibung inhaltlich dem Eröffnungs-Patent bei den verzinslichen Anleihen entsprach, also den Verordnungstext enthielt, waren die „Lose" wieder für den U m l a u f bestimmt und daher formalisiert. Sie enthielten auf der Vorderseite das Schuldversprechen 7 8 , auf der Rückseite die Bestimmungen über die Rückzahlung und Verlosung mit dem Verlosungsplan 7 9 . Die entsprechenden von den Banken ausgearbeiteten Bedingungen wurden so ausgestaltet, daß durch die unterschiedlichen Gewinnchancen die Kapitalanleger jeweils erneut zur Übernahme der neuen Anleihen veranlaßt werden sollten 8 0 . Das andere Element, das die Hinwendung zum Kapitalmarkt zeigt, ist das der Werbung. Das emittierende Bankhaus veröffentlichte die Anleihebedingungen in den öffentlichen Zeitungen und forderte zur Subskription a u f 8 1 .

77 Salomon (η. 76), p. 77/78. 78 Wild, Die europäischen Lotterie-Anlehen (1865), p. 148: Schuldverschreibung Nr. 17428. Serie 875. Die k.k. Universal=Staatsschulden=Casse oder ihre Filialen werden dem Inhaber dieser Schuldverschreibung von Fünfzig Gulden Conventions=Münze, Nummer: Siebzehn Tausend vier Hundert acht und zwanzig, Serie: Achthundert fünf und siebzig, den entfallenden Gewinn mit dem fünften Theile in Conventions=Münze bezahlen. Wien, den 24. April 1839 (Unterschriften). 79 Wild (nJS), p. 315-317. so Rau, Grundsätze der Finanzwissenschaft 5 I (1864), p. 380. 8i Geschichte der Handelskammer (n. 71), p. 1092/ 1093.

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Damit Zinszahlungen z. B. in Frankfurt erfolgen konnten, waren die Anleihen mit formalisierten Zinscoupons ausgestattet 82 . Schließlich wurde nach Ende der Laufzeit einer Anleihe ihre Rückzahlung ebenfalls in Frankfurt zugesagt. Diese Lokalisierung der Zahlungen sollte sich zu einem wesentlichen Faktor der Rechtswahl entwickeln.

4. Ausgabe von Inhaberpapieren Der Vertrag über die unter Führung des Frankfurter Hauses Bethmann übernommene bereits erwähnte österreichische Métalliques- Anleihe des Jahres 1818 wurde i m Juni 1818 zwischen der österreichischen Regierung und dem Bankenkonsortium abgeschlossen 83 . I h m waren mehrmonatige Verhandlungen vorausgegangen. Geplant war von den Initiatoren, auch das sich zu dieser Zeit neu entwickelnde Haus Rothschild, das seinen Stammsitz ebenfalls in Frankfurt hatte, an dem Konsortium zu beteiligen. Rothschild lehnte einen Beitritt ab und gab über seinen Londoner Z w e i g (Nathan Rothschild) m i t einem englischen Partner (Reid Irving & Co.) ein Konkurrenzangebot a b 8 4 . Darin stellte er klar, daß für das Haus Rothschild nur eine Anleihe auf dem Londoner Markt in Betracht käme und nur auf Kommissionsbasis. Letzteres war zu diesem Zeitpunkt bereits unüblich geworden und bewies sein Mißtrauen gegenüber dem öffentlichen Kredit Österreichs. Denn die Übernahme einer Anleihe durch Bankhäuser nur als K o m missionäre war zwar zu Beginn der neuen Begebungsformen von Anleihen üblich. Angesichts der steigenden Nachfrage nach verzinslichen öffentlichen Papieren auf dem Anleihemarkt bestanden jedoch bald keine Bedenken seitens der Banken mehr, die Anleihe vollständig zu übernehmen, um sie danach auf dem Kapitalmarkt zu plazieren 8 5 . Hinsichtlich des Emissionsortes erkannte Nathan Rothschild zwar an, daß der österreichischen Regierung die Durchführung des Geschäfts in Wien angenehmer sein würde; dagegen sprächen jedoch unüberwindbare Einwände: da das in die Anleihe einzubringende Kapital ständig von Hand zu Hand gehen würde, müßte es (gemeint sind w o h l die einzelnen Anteile) in einer umlauf-

82 Salomon (η. 76), p. 21: Α. 20 Gulden. Nr. 6854 1. November 1836. K.K. unterm 1. November 1802 Allerhöchst verbrieften Anlehen zu 4 Procent. Neunter Abschnitt zu 20 Gulden nach dem Conventions=Zwanzig=Guldenfuße, welche nach Eingang, dem Überbringer desselben für das am 1. Mai 1845 ablaufende, halbjährige Interesse der auf einer mit vorgesetztem Buchstab und Zahl bezeichneten k.k. Partial= Obligation haftenden Tausend Gulden Capital in Frankfurt a. M. bei den Unterzeichneten ausbezahlt werden. Gebrüder Bethmann. 83 StAF, Bethmann Archiv 11/33. 84 Forstmann (n. 33), p. 23; Brief vom 27. 1. 1818, StAF, Bethmann Archiv 11/33. 85 Landmann (n. 4), p. 6 2 / 6 3 ; Lorenz vom Stein, Lehrbuch der Finanzwissenschaft 5 11,3 (1886), p. 301/302.

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fähigen Form verbrieft werden; daraus würde sich die Notwendigkeit ergeben, die Obligationen übertragbar und als Inhaberpapier auszugestalten. Rothschild ging offenbar davon aus, daß diese Bedingungen bei der W a h l Wiens als Geschäftsort nicht erfüllt werden könnten. Für die Rechtsgestaltung wesentlich ist an diesem Vorschlag, daß durch die Wahl des Emissionsortes gleichzeitig eine W a h l des Rechts getroffen werden sollte, dem die Anleihe unterliegen sollte. Rothschild verwies in seinem Angebot zusätzlich auf eine von ihm übernommene Anleihe Preußens aus dem Jahre 1818 8 6 , die in London aufgelegt worden war und deren Anteile ausdrücklich als übertragbare Inhaberpapiere ausgestaltet waren. Und i m preußischen Recht war die Handhabung der Anleihepapiere auf den Inhaber nicht unumstritten; das galt auch für Österreich 8 7 . Die Inhaberklausel warf eine Fülle dogmatischer Probleme auf, die hier nur angedeutet werden sollen: Zunächst erschien zweifelhaft, ob eine Obligation mit unbestimmten Gläubigern, als die sich eine reine Inhaberschuldverschreibung darstellte, überhaupt zulässig w a r 8 8 . Ihrer gemeinrechtlichen Unzulässigkeirt entkam man nur dadurch, daß für die Staatsanleihen die Zulässigkeit der Inhaberklausel i m Publikationspatent geregelt war, mithin ein öffentlich-rechtliches Gesetz die Frage i m bejahenden Sinne entschieden 89 und damit aus der privatrechtlichen Ebene herausgehoben hatte 9 0 . Die nächste Frage war die nach der Legitimationswirkung der bloßen Innehabung des Papiers 9 1 . Damit zusammenhängend und für die Umlauffähigkeit der Papiere von besonderer Bedeutung war die Frage der Vindikation; konnte also ein ehemaliger Eigentümer, dem die Papiere irgendwie abhanden gekommen waren, diese v o m derzeitigen Besitzer herausverlangen 9 2 ? Dies war in der Lehre alles andere als geklärt 9 3 , und auch die Gesetzgebung war nicht eindeutig. Unter der Geltung des preußischen A L R (I, 15, 4 5 - 4 7 ) konnten die Inhaberpapiere von einem unredlichen Besitzer herausverlangt werden, von einem redlichen nur i m Falle des unentgeltlichen Erwerbs, wobei wieder umstritten war, ob jeder Besitzer verpflichtet war, seinen Besitztitel anzugeben, um daraus seinen möglicherweise fehlerhaften Besitz herleiten zu können 9 4 . I n

86 Krug, Geschichte der Preußischen Staatsschulden (1861), p. 197-204; Vier jähr (n. 74), p. 153. 87 Zu den unterschiedlichen Motiven für die Ausgestaltung der Papiere cf. Rau (η. 80), p. 391-393. 88 v. Savigny (n. 53), p. 90/94. 89 v. Savigny (n. 53), p. 90 n. lit. c; p. 110. 90 Gens 1er, Handbuch zu Martini's Lehrbuch des teutschen gemeinen bürgerlichen Processes2 I (1821) Nr. V § m η. 100. 91 Glück, Pandecten X V I (1814), p. 441; Gönner (n. 52), p. 193. 92 Bender, AcP (n. 57), p. 24 / 25; Kuntze (n. 57), p. 652-675; Gönner (n. 52), p. 238 / 239. 93 Kuntze (n. 57), p. 657-675; Schümm, Die Amortisation verlorener, oder sonst abhanden gekommener Schuldurkunden, AcP 13 (1830), Beilage p. 57-69. 94 v. Savigny (n. 53), p. 171-177.

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Österreich konnten nach § 371 A B G B Papiere auf den Inhaber nur vindiziert werden, wenn der Kläger sein Eigentum beweisen und dem Beklagten seinen bösen Glauben beim Erwerb nachweisen konnte 9 5 . Für Frankfurt schließlich bestimmten Verordnungen aus den Jahren 1808 bis 1817 die Zulässigkeit der Vindikation bei bösgläubigem sowie bei unentgeltlichem E r w e r b 9 6 , wobei allerdings die Auslegung i m einzelnen wiederum umstritten w a r 9 7 ; andere Statutarrechte ließen hingegen die V i n d i k t i o n solcher Papiere unbeschränkt zu, die gegen den W i l l e n des Eigentümers aus seinem Gewahrsam gekommen waren 9 8 . Die englische Rechtsprechung stellte hingegen allein auf die Praxis des nationalen Anleihemarktes ab. Konnte nachgewiesen werden, daß das streitgegenständliche Papier auf dem englischen Markt zu einem je nach Börsenkurs variablen Preis verkauft wurde und von Hand zu Hand lief, so dokumentierte das Papier das Forderungsrecht für den redlichen Besitzer 9 9 . Dabei kam es nicht unbedingt auf die nationale rechtliche Ausgestaltung eines ausländischen Papiers an: selbst wenn es keine Inhaberklausel tragen sollte, konnte es durch eine entsprechende Praxis am Londoner Wertpapiermarkt faktisch zu einem Inhaberpapier werden 10 °. In den Verhandlungen mit dem Bethmännischen Konsortium brauchte diese Frage zwar keine besondere Rolle zu spielen. Denn der Vertrag ging dahin, daß es von der österreichischen Finanzverwaltung Obligationen der Anleihe vom 29. 10. 1816 übernahm. I n deren Gründungspatent bestimmte § 3, daß für die geleisteten Einlagen Obligationen ausgegeben würden, die auf den Überbringer lauteten 1 0 1 . Allerdings vermied die Wiener Finanz Verwaltung bei den Vorverhandlungen über die neue Finanztransaktion ersichtlich eine Festlegung der rechtlichen Klassifikation der Papiere. Sie gestattete zwar die Erneuerung der Zinscoupons durch die Handelshäuser, um eine Vorlage der Obligationen durch den Eigentümer in W i e n zu vermeiden. Aber es wurde nichts über die Legitimationswirkung der einzelnen Obligation gesagt. Hierzu äußerten sich lediglich ihre Vertragspartner in internen Bemerkungen. Darin begrüßten sie die geplante Tauschklausel, da die Kosten und Gefahren einer Übersendung der Papiere nach W i e n zu hoch seien; außerdem würde eine solche Bedingung den Preis der Anleihe vorteilhaft beeinflussen. Nur in diesem Zusammenhang bedienten sie sich des Terminus effets au porteur 102. Der endgültige Vertrag über die Anleihe vermied zwar immer noch den terminus technicus effets au porteur. Er bestimmte aber in Ziffer 11, daß die Besitzer 95 Nebenius (n. 6), p. 544. 96 Kuntze (n. 57), p. 688/689. 97 Bender (n. 2), p. 338 / 339. 98 Bender (n. 2), p. 337 n. 9. 99 Gor gier v. Mieville (1824), 2 Law Journal Rep. K. B. 206/207. 100 Lang v. Smyth (1831), 9 Law Journal Rep. C. P. 91 /94-95. ι 0 1 Politische Gesetze und Verordnungen Franz I., 44, p. 369-377. 102 StAF, Bethmann Archiv 11/33.

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der Partialobligationen das Recht haben sollten, die Papiere als ihr freies Eigentum zu veräußern und nach Belieben zu übertragen. Damit war zwar die umständliche Übertragungsform sowohl der Namenspapiere als auch der dem Inskriptionssystem i m Staatsschuldenbuch unterliegenden Papiere beseitigt und die Umlauffähigkeit der Obligationen hergestellt. Nicht ausdrücklich gewährleistet war hingegen, daß auch der jeweilige Inhaber des Papiers ohne jeden weiteren Nachweis seiner Berechtigung die verbriefte Forderung geltend machen konnte. Dies konnte wiederum nur indirekt aus Ziffer 12 des Vertrages geschlossen werden. Danach wurde den Eigentümern der Obligationen i m Falle eines zufälligen Verlustes oder einer Zerstörung die Möglichkeit eingeräumt, die Amortisation der Papiere zu verlangen. Nach den entsprechenden Patenten 1 0 3 galt hingegen als Grundsatz, daß „keine, die Zahlung zur Verfallzeit hemmende Amortisation oder gerichtliche Verbote W i r k u n g haben, weil es die Eigenschaft dieser Staatspapiere mit sich bringt, daß jeder Überbringer derselben als der wahre Eigenthümer angesehen w e r d e " , 0 4 ; eine Amortisation war erst nach A b l a u f bestimmter Fristen seit Fälligkeit zulässig. A u c h die von Bethmann herausgegebene Mitteilung über die neue Anleihe enthielt sich einer entsprechenden Klarstellung 1 0 5 . Diese Undeutlichkeiten über die Rechtsnatur des Papiers standen ganz i m Gegensatz zum Prospekt der von Rothschild 1818 i n London herausgebrachten preußischen Anleihe; darin wurden die Teilobligationen „ i n the form o f Transferable Bonds, payable to bearer" ausgegeben. Entsprechend sah sein Vorschlag für die Bedingungen der österreichischen Anleihe auch vor, daß „obligations transférables, payables au porteur" ausgegeben werden sollten. A n den ausländischen Börsen wurden die Métallique-Obligationen auch als Papiere „au porteur" geführt 1 0 6 . Rothschilds Begehren, die projektierte Anleihe i n London herauszubringen, wurde also nachträglich dadurch gerechtfertigt, daß der transferable Charakter der Papiere gleichsam in der Schwebe gehalten wurde, obwohl hierfür angesichts der eindeutigen Regelung i m Patent v o m 29. Oktober 1816 keine Veranlassung bestand.

5. Bedeutung der Anleihekonditionen War der erste Kreis bei der Gestaltung einer Anleihe, die Bildung eines Emissionskonsortiums, noch v ö l l i g von der Abkehr und Abwehr äußerer rechtlicher Regelungen und rechtlicher Institutionen gekennzeichnet, so zeigte sich bei dem zweiten Kreis, der Aushandlung der Anleihebedingungen 1 0 7 zwischen Ausgeber 103 Vom 28. 3. 1803, 16. 8. 1817, Salomon (η. 76), p. 228 -231. 104 Patent vom 28. 3. 1803, Ziff. 1. los Frankfurter Intelligenz-Blatt Nr. 50, 16. 6. 1818. 106 Bresson, Des Fonds Publics 7 (1834), p. 156; Lamst, Manuel de la Bourse 16 (1854), p. 173-175. 107 Masinger, Anleihekonditionen als emissionspolitische Instrumente (1971), p. 31, erwähnt erstaunlicherweise die rechtlichen Rahmenbedingungen überhaupt nicht.

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und Übernehmer, daß zum einen rechtliche Rahmenbedingungen nicht v ö l l i g ignoriert werden k o n n t e n 1 0 8 , daß aber zum anderen durch die gezielte Plazierung der Anleihe auf einem bestimmten Kapitalmarkt die anzuwendende Rechtsordnung ausgewählt werden sollte. Gerade in der Frage der Zulässigkeit von Inhaberpapieren zeigte sich ferner eine deutliche Verknüpfung von Rechtsdogmatik und wirtschaftlichen Interessen. Das Inhaberpapier war für den Kapitalmarkt wesentlich interessanter als das Namenspapier. Die dogmatische Einordnung des Papiers beeinflußte den Wert der Obligation und damit auch den zu erwartenden Gewinn der Teilhaber des Emissionskonsortiums. Denn das Inhaberpapier m i t seiner leichten Übertragbarkeit und Verkörperung des verbrieften Rechts kam der Tendenz der Kapitalanleger zur Spekulation entgegen 1 0 9 . U n d zu den Kapitalanlegern gehörten oftmals auch die die Anleihe plazierenden Bankhäuser, die einen Teil der Obligationen selbst übernahmen, um ihn bei entsprechender Kursentwicklung weiter zu veräußern 1 1 0 . Marktgeschehen und Rechtsdogmatik zeigten auf dieser Ebene des Anleihegeschäfts erstmals Berührungspunkte. Eine Einschaltung der Gerichte war hier ebenfalls nicht vorgesehen. Maßgebend war die i m einzelnen ausgehandelte Vertragsordnung, deren Einhaltung i m gegenseitigen Interesse lag, aber nicht erzwungen werden konnte. Wurde die Bedienung einer Anleihe notleidend, so ersetzten neue Vertragsverhandlungen und gegebenenfalls eine neue Anleihe eine gerichtliche Streitentscheidung 1 1 1 . Da die Verhältnisse zwischen Gläubiger und Schuldner der Staatspapiere sich nicht mehr auf der Basis privatrechtlicher Darlehensgeschäfte gründeten, sondern von den besonderen Anleihebedingungen bestimmt wurden, wirkte sich diese rechtliche Umqualifizierung auch auf die Rechtsverfolgung aus. A n sich wäre seit Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts eine Klage gegen den Staat als Fiskus jedenfalls bei den Ländern möglich gewesen, bei denen verwaltungstechnisch eine Trennung zwischen staatlichem und monarchischem Vermögen durchgeführt worden i s t 1 1 2 . Dieser Grundsatz erlitt jedoch in mancherlei Hinsicht Einschränkungen, so daß weder auf Zahlung der Staatsschuld noch auf Einhaltung der Bestimmungen über Zinsen, Tilgung des Kapitals, Größe und Anweisung des Tilgungsfonds sowie auf Einhaltung des Tilgungsplanes geklagt werden k o n n t e 1 1 3 .

ίο» Jèze, Die Technik des öffentlichen Kredits, in: Gerloff / Meisel (ed.), Handbuch der Finanzwissenschaft I I (1927), p. 597 ss. 109 Nebenius (n. 6), p. 410. no Landmann (n. 5), p. 512. m Biedermann, Zur MikroÖkonomik von Kreditmarktinteraktionen (1987), p. 168. n 2 Gönner (n. 52), p. 312, zitiert zwei entsprechende Entscheidungen des kgl. bayr. Oberappellationsgerichts aus den Jahren 1824 und 1825; cf. auch Neues Archiv für Preußisches Recht und Verfahren I (1834), p. 351-355; ablehnend v. Savigny (n. 53), p. 120; cf. auch Nebenius (n. 6), p. 416. 113 Gönner (n. 52), p. 199.

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I I I . Emission und Haftung Die dritte und letzte Ebene bei den Anleihegeschäften, die Veräußerung der Obligationen auf dem Kapitalmarkt, ist hingegen ganz wesentlich v o m Recht geprägt und w i r d daher auch von den Gerichten beeinflußt. Die Aufteilung der Anleihe in die sog. Partialobligationen hatte zur Folge, daß sich an dem Anleihegeschäft nicht nur m i t dem Kapitalmarkt vertraute Kapitalisten beteiligten, sondern jeder, der Gelder zur Anlage zur Verfügung hatte. M i t der Öffnung des Anleihegeschäfts für das breitere Publikum nahm es einen spekulativen Charakter an, der durch die leichte Übertragbarkeit von Inhaberpapieren noch verstärkt wurde. Denn natürlich wollte der kleinkapitalistische Anleger einen Gewinn (und nur einen Gewinn) aus seiner Anlage ziehen. Daß die Beteiligung am Effekten verkehr auch ein Risiko in sich barg, kam ihm bei dem damaligen Stand der Kenntnisse nicht in den Sinn, zumal für Deutschland die breite Kapitalanlage in Effekten i m Gegensatz zu England, Frankreich und Holland verhältnismäßig neu war. A u c h war die Zulässigkeit des Handels m i t Staatspapieren wegen der darin liegenden Spekulationsmöglichkeit auf Kursdifferenzen stark umstritten 1 1 4 . Gerieten die erworbenen Papiere in Wertverfall, sei es durch Sinken der Börsenkurse, sei es auch durch Währungsschwankungen, so suchten sich die Anleger bei den emittierenden Banken schadlos zu halten. Dies um so mehr, als der Absatz der Obligationen bald wesentlich v o m Vertrauen i n diese Bank abhing und nicht mehr vorrangig von der Kreditwürdigkeit des die Anleihe ausgebenden Staates. So wies z. B. eine Darstellung der österreichischen Finanzverhältnisse mit Bezug auf die Anleihe von 1818 darauf hin, daß diese Obligation von den „führenden Banken" Europas übernommen w ü r d e 1 1 5 .

1. Prospektgestaltung als Haftungsgrundlage Ansatzpunkt für einen solchen Schadensersatzanspruch war zumeist der v o m Bankhaus oder dem Konsortium herausgegebene Verkaufsprospekt, der entweder nicht alle die Wertschätzung der Obligationen beeinflussenden Tatsachen enthielt oder diese Tatsachen nur in verschleiernder Form mitteilte. Für beide Fälle gibt es Beispiele, die in der Emissionspraxis Frankfurter Bankhäuser ihren Ausgang genommen haben. Weitaus unproblematischer und m i t den Regeln des gemeinen Rechts über den Kaufvertrag direkt zu lösen waren jene Fälle, in denen der Verkäufer von Wertpapieren direkt gegenüber dem Käufer, also ohne den U m w e g 114 Schilling, Über den Handel mit Staatspapieren in staatswissenschaftlicher Rücksicht, Archiv für Cameralrecht und Staatsverwaltung I, 1 (1826), p. 123 ss.; Wayna, Über den Handel in Staatspapieren, Zeitschrift für österreichische Rechtsgelehrsamkeit und politische Gesetzeskunde 1828 I, p. 275 ss.; Seuffert, Bemerkungen über Lieferungsgeschäfte in Staatspapieren, AcP 9 (1826), p. 433 ss. us Journal de Francfort, No. 176, 25. 6. 1818.

12 Piergiovanni

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über einen Prospekt, falsche Angaben über den Wert der Papiere gemacht hatte. I n einer frühen derartigen Angelegenheit, in der ein Frankfurter Wechselmakler bei einem Verkauf von westfälischen Obligationen 1831 dem Käufer vorgespiegelt hatte, daß diese Papiere v o m Königreich Hannover als Rechtsnachfolger des ehemaligen napoleonischen Königreichs Westfalen bei Fälligkeit v o l l bezahlt würden, obwohl die Hannoversche Liquidations-Casse bereits 1814 gerade die Serie der verkauften A r t von der Einlösung ausgeschlossen hatte, wurde der Makler in allen drei Instanzen dem Grund nach zur Rückzahlung des Kaufpreises verurteilt 1 1 6 . A l s Beispiel für die erste schadensträchtige Form der Prospektgestaltung sollen zwei Anleihen dienen, die das Frankfurter Haus Rothschild i m Jahre 1820 zusammen mit dem Bankhaus David Parish emittiert hatte. I n diesem Jahr brachte das Konsortium zwei österreichische Anleihen heraus, die eine i m Monat A p r i l und die andere i m Monat Juli. Hierbei hatte es zur Subskription für die erste Anleihe in Höhe von 20 800 000 Gulden aufgefordert, ohne i m Prospekt zu erwähnen, daß es v o m österreichischen Staat beauftragt worden war, noch eine zweite Anleihe i m Volumen von 37 500 000 Gulden zu emittieren, obwohl am selben Tag der Vertrag über beide Anleihen abgeschlossen und die kaiserliche Genehmigung für sie erteilt worden war. Darüber hinaus waren die Bedingungen der zweiten Anleihe vorteilhafter als die der ersten 1 1 7 . I n der Zeit zwischen der Ankündigung der ersten Anleihe Mitte A p r i l 1820 bis zur Ankündigung der zweiten Anleihe am 1. August 1820 war der Kurs der ersteren auf 140 gestiegen 1 1 8 , um danach wieder bis auf 91 zu fallen 1 1 9 . Subskribenten der ersten Anleihe — die in dieser Zwischenzeit gezeichnet hatten — versuchten i m Wege des Schadensersatzes ihren Verlust infolge der Kursdifferenz zwischen dem Tag des Vertragsschlusses und dem Tag der Lieferung von den Emissionshäusern ersetzt zu erlangen. Über diesen besonderen Fall ist keine Veröffentlichung einer gerichtlichen Entscheidung bekannt. Er bot jedoch offensichtlich Anlaß für heftige literarische Auseinandersetzungen über die Gültigkeit von Zeitgeschäften in Staatspapieren. M a n ging davon aus, daß i m Grunde von den Parteien keine reale Erfüllung des Kaufvertrages gewollt gewesen sei, sondern lediglich ein „Spiel"- Vertrag über die Differenz der Kurse am Tag des Vertragsschlusses und dem der versprochenen Lieferung. Bedeutsam erscheint in diesem Zusammenhang die überproportionale Beteiligung Frankfurter Juristen an dieser Diskussion: so stammte die erste grundlegende Abhandlung über den Handel m i t Staatspapieren von einem dem Frank116 StAF, OAGL Ζ Nr. 89: v. Schweitzer c. Berlyn, Urteile vom 22. 2. 1836 (Stadtgericht), 11. 1. 1837 (Appellationsgericht), 10. 7. 1838 (OAG Lübeck). 117 Gönner (n. 52), p. 60 / 61 ; id. (anonym), Das Rothschilder Lotterie-Anlehen ( 1820), p. 10-24. us Gönner, Rothschilder Anlehen (n. 117), p. 12. 119 Gönner (n. 52), p. 74.

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furter Recht verbundenen Rechtspraktiker 12 °, und weitere A r t i k e l wurden ebenfalls von Frankfurter Advokaten veröffentlicht 1 2 1 . Diese bejahten letztlich die Rechtsgültigkeit der Differenzgeschäfte mit der Begründung, Gegenstand des Vertrages sei kein Spiel zum Zeitvertreib, sondern ein Handelsgeschäft zur Gewinnerzielung, das sich in dieser Beziehung von anderen Handelsgeschäften nicht wesentlich unterscheide 1 2 2 . Die hierin liegende Berufung auf die normative Kraft des Faktischen wurde von rechtstheoretischer Seite zwar nicht g e b i l l i g t 1 2 3 , aber auch unter genauer Berücksichtigung der Regeln des gemeinen Rechts erzielte man dasselbe Ergebnis , 2 4 . V o n den Gerichten wurden j e nach ihrer Nähe zur Handelspraxis 1 2 5 Klagen auf Erstattung der Coursdifferenz stattgegeben 126 oder abgewiesen 1 2 7 . A u c h hierin w i r d deutlich, daß jenseits aller dogmatischen Schwierigkeiten die Handelspraxis über die Rechtstheorie den Sieg davongetragen hat. Dies w i r d besonders deutlich an der Entwicklung der Rechtsprechung des O A G Lübeck zu dieser Frage. I n seiner ersten einschlägigen Entscheidung aus dem Jahre 1825 ignorierte es den Differenzcharakter des Geschäfts. Es führte nämlich für die Rechtsgültigkeit des Vertrages aus, dieser sei auf die Erfüllung, nämlich die Lieferung der Staatspapiere gerichtet gewesen. Der Anspruch auf Ersatz der Kursdifferenz ergebe sich lediglich zufällig aus der Nichterfüllung des Vertrages 1 2 8 . Zehn Jahre später billigte es unter Hinweis auf seine ständige 120 Bender, AcP (n. 57), 2. Auflage (n. 2.). 121 Böhmer, Über das Stellgeschäft, AcP 9 (1826), p. 415 ss.; Souchay, Über die Klage des Verkäufers von Staatspapieren gegen den säumigen Käufer, Zeitschrift für Civilrecht und Prozeß 2 (1828), p. 448 ss.; id., Über verschiedene Rechtsfragen in Bezug auf Einkaufs- und Verkaufs-Commission von Staatspapieren, ibid. 3 (1829), p. 190 ss.; id., Über verschiedene Geschäfte mit Staatspapieren und die Frage: ob sie klagbar oder als Spiel oder Wette unklagbar sind?, ibid. 3 (1829), p. 328 ss.; id., Einige Bemerkungen über Obligationen und Coupons au porteur, ibid. 5 (1831), p. 42 ss.; id., Über die mora accipiendi beim Verkauf von Staatspapieren, Allgemeine juristische Zeitung 2 (1829), p. 269 ss. Souchay vertrat in einem Prozeß, in dem es um die Erfüllung eines Kaufvertrages über Staatspapiere ging und dessen Instanzenzug in den Jahren 1829-1830 lief, das klagende Bankhaus, StAF, OAGL Ζ Nr. 936. 122 Souchay (n. 121), 3 (1829), p. 334; Bender (n. 2), p. 422. 123 Linde, Beiträge zur rechtlichen Beurteilung des Verkehrs mit Staatspapieren, Zeitschrift für Civilrecht und Prozeß 3 (1829), p. 18-19. 124 Thöl (n. 61), p. 235-272. 125 Gönner (n. 52), p. 39-40. 126 StAF, OAGL Ζ Nr. 1214: v. Rothschild c. v. Schweitzer; Nr. 1434: Fulda c. v. Schweitzer; Nr. 1435: Goldschmidt c. v. Schweitzer, jeweils aus dem Jahre 1835; preuß. Obertribunal 6. 1. 1818, Rechtssprüche der preußischen Gerichtshöfe I (1834), p. 246/ 249; für Augsburg cf. Gönner (n 52), p. 76 n.*; nach Pratobevera, Materialien für Gesetzkunde und Rechtspflege in den österreichischen Staaten V (1821), p. 378-382 sahen die österreichischen Gerichtshöfe in solchen Verträgen keine Wette. 127 Rheinischer Appellations-Gerichtshof, 30. 4. 1827, Archiv für das Civil- und Criminal-Recht der Königl. Preuß. Rheinprovinzen 11 (1828), p. 11 -14; KG, 12. 4. 1791, Annalen der Gesetzgebung und Rechtsgelehrsamkeit in den preußischen Staaten 26 (1819), p. 199 ss.; Königl. sächs. Appellationsgericht 1825, in: Kori (ed.), Erörterungen praktischer Rechtsfragen aus dem gemeinen und sächsischen Civilrechte und Civilprozesse I I I (1833), p. 115. 1*

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Rechtsprechung die Auffassung des Frankfurter Appellationsgerichts, wonach nunmehr jeder Vertrag, also auch der auf die Kursdifferenz gerichtete, klagbar sei, solange ihm nicht durch ein bestimmtes Gesetz die Klagbarkeit abgesprochen worden s e i 1 2 9 . Lediglich i m Königreich Bayern hat diese Rothschilder Anleihe größere Aufregung verursacht, die bis zu parlamentarischen Beratungen über eine gesetzliche Regelung des Staatspapierhandels geführt hat. Besonders in Augsburg scheint die Spekulation i m Hinblick auf diese Anleihe zu zahlreichen Insolvenzen geführt zu haben, wobei primär nicht die dortigen bedeutenden Handelshäuser, sondern das sonstige spekulierende Publikum, wie Brauerei- und Gutsbesitzer, betroffen waren 13 °. Kennzeichnend für die Situation war der Satz: Die Rothschilder Anleihen hätten in Augsburg zu Verlusten, in Frankfurt aber zu Gewinnen geführt. M i t Bezug auf diese schadensstiftenden Folgen erschienen einige Streitschriften in Augsburg und München, die überwiegend gegen die Rechtsgültigkeit der Differenzgeschäfte Stellung nahmen 1 3 1 . Die daraufhin eingeleiteten Bestrebungen, den Differenzverträgen die Klagbarkeit zu versagen, führten nur zu dem Beschluß, „den Gegenstand . . . der Regierung i m Allgemeinen zu besonderer Berücksichtigung bei der bevorstehenden Gesetzgebung zu empfehlen" 1 3 2 . A u c h hier setzte sich letztlich die Auffassung durch, daß „jede Einmengung der öffentlichen Gewalten in Handelsgeschäfte bedenklich" s e i 1 3 3 , obwohl die Gerichte mangels einer gesetzlichen Entscheidungsnorm die Prozesse über die Rothschilder Anleihen sehr unterschiedlich entschieden hätten 1 3 4 . I n diesen Zusammenhang gehört auch die anonym erschienene Schrift von v. Gönner über das Rothschilder Anlehen von 1820 1 3 5 . Darin setzte er sich m i t der Haftungsfrage auseinander und kam zu dem Ergebnis, daß die Emissionsbanken wegen dolus beim Kaufvertrag haften würden, da sie wissentlich bei der Emission der ersten Anleihe das baldige Erscheinen einer zweiten Anleihe verschwiegen hätten; die Tatsache der kurz bevorstehenden Emission der zweiten Anleihe stelle eine wertbildende Eigenschaft der ersten Anleihe d a r 1 3 6 . 128 StAF, OAGL Ζ Nr. 1567, 21. 12. 1825, Voigt c. Clausius. 129 StAF, OAGL Ζ Nr. 1434, 25. 11. 1837, Fulda c. v. Schweitzer. 130 Verhandlungen der 2. Kammer der Stände Versammlung des Königreichs Bayern 1825, Band 3, p. 199, 253. 131 Anonym (v. Gönner), Die Stock-Jobberey und der Handel mit Staatspapieren, nach dem jetzigen Zustand politisch und juridisch betrachtet, 1820; J. St., Rechtliche Ansichten über Lieferungsverträge in Staatspapieren. Dem Königl. Baier. Ministerium der Justiz überreicht am 15. Oktober 1820; S. M., Ansichten über Lieferungsgeschäfte in Staatspapieren, in spezieller Berücksichtigung auf die Wechselgerichts=Kompetenz, 1820; Anonym, Einige flüchtige Bemerkungen eines praktischen Kaufmanns über die Broschüren „Die Stock-Jobberey" und „Rechtliche Ansichten . . . " , 1820. 132 Verhandlungen (n. 130), p. 317. 133 Verhandlungen (n. 130), p. 229. 134 Verhandlungen (n. 130), p. 258. 135 n. 117.

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Interessant an dem Gutachten ist nicht so sehr die rechtliche Begründung für eine Schadensersatzpflicht, sondern die Auffassung v. Gönners darüber, wie er sich die Verwirklichung des Anspruchs vorgestellt hat. Zwar betonte er sein Vertrauen i n die Gerechtigkeit der Gerichte der Freien Stadt Frankfurt und des Oberappellationsgerichts der Freien Städte zu L ü b e c k 1 3 7 . Aber er möchte den Fall dennoch nicht justizförmig entschieden wissen: „Zur Herstellung des inneren Friedens möchte der Justizweg am wenigsten dienen. Die Justiz muß strenges Recht aussprechen, ihre Urteile sind immer schneidend gegen den Kläger oder den Beklagten, und ihr ist die Billigkeit fremd, welche bei allgemeinen Verwicklungen allein vermag, den Knoten, den die Justiz durchhaut, sanft zu lösen, und durch Nachgeben auf beiden Seiten die Häuser aufrecht zu halten, von welchen im Rechtsgange das eine gewiß einstürzt, öfters sogar das andere im Sturze bald nachfolgt. In Sachen des Handels besonders würden wir jedes Mittel vorziehen, die jetzige Verwicklung unter Inländern durch Ausgleichung des positiven Verlustes unter allen Beteiligten nach Billigkeit, ohne Intervention der Gerichte, zu heben." 1 3 8 Er schlug dementsprechend die Bildung von Schiedsgerichten vor, die auf der Grundlage der Billigkeit den Verlust unter beiden Teilen ausgleichen sollten 1 3 9 . M i t diesem Vorschlag kam er den Interessen des Handelsstandes entgegen, sich einem justizförmigen Verfahren zu entziehen. Die M o t i v e für dieses Verhalten waren zwar verschieden, in ihrer Abwertung der Gerichte trafen sich jedoch beide Seiten: „Überhaupt möchte in solchen Dingen wenig von teutschen Gerichten zu erwarten seyn, solange die Richter zu sehr an dem Buchstaben der Gesetze hängen und alles klar im Gesetz entschieden zu suchen gewöhnt, für Gegenstände, die aus dem Leben und nach dem Wesen des Handels aufgefaßt werden müssen, den geübten Blick und richtigen Sinn nicht haben . . 1 4 0 .

2. Der Lucca-Pistoja-Aktien-Streit Ein Fall, der etwa 30 Jahre später seinen Ausgang wiederum in Frankfurt nahm, gab erstmals den Gerichten Gelegenheit, zur Frage der Haftung einer Bank für ihre Emissionstätigkeit Stellung zu nehmen. Hierbei handelte es sich um den für die damalige Zeit aufsehenerregenden Lucca-Pistoja-Aktien-Streit.

136 137 138 139 140

Gönner Gönner Gönner Gönner Gönner

(n. 117), p. 30-37. (n. 117), p. 48. (n. 117), p. 50/51. (n. 117), p. 51. (n. 52), p. 84.

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A m 18. A p r i l 1853 veröffentlichte das Frankfurter Bankhaus Benedikt Hayum Goldschmidt durch die beeidigten Sensalen folgende Aufforderung zur Zeichnung von Akten: „Zur Vollendung der Eisenbahnlinie von Lucca nach Pistoja, von welcher die größere Strecke von Lucca nach Pescia bereits in Exploitation ist, wurde die Gesellschaft dieser Eisenbahn von der Toskanischen Regierung ermächtigt, eine Anleihe von Lire 5 250 000 Prioritäts-Actien aufzunehmen. Diesen Prioritäts-Actien sind, laut Großherzoglichen Décrété vom 8. Dezember 1852 und 4. März 1853 von der Toskanischen Regierung 5 pCt. Zinsen pro anno auf 99 Jahre garantiert; außerdem werden diese Prioritäts-Actien gleichmäßig mit den Stamm-Actien (im Betrage von Lire 8 400 000) an dem Mehrertrage der Gesamtstrecke von Lucca nach Pistoja participieren, nachdem die Besitzer der Stamm-Actien 2 1 / 2 pCt. Zinsen erhalten haben werden. Nach den mit großer Genauigkeit aufgenommenen Daten dürfte auf eine Rentabilität bei dieser Bahn von bedeutend mehr als 10 pCt. zu rechnen sein, da solcher durch den Anschluß an die Bahn von Pistoja nach Florenz, von Lucca nach Pisa und an die große italienische Centrai-Bahn, eine große Zukunft bevorsteht. Von diesen 5 250 000 Lire Prioritäts-Actien sind nun für den hiesigen Platz 3 000 000 Lire reserviert worden, auf welche das Haus B. H. Goldschmidt in Frankfurt a. M. Einzeichnungen entgegennimmt und zwar zum Kurs von 93 pCt. Die auszugebenden Original-Prioritäts-Actien in Beträgen von 1 500 Lire werden mit halbjährigen Zins-Coupons und besonderen Dividenden-Scheinen versehen, welche in Florenz und auch in London und Frankfurt a. M. bei den Bankhäusern der Gesellschaft zahlbar sind" 1 4 1 . Soweit der für die folgenden Rechts Streitigkeiten interessierende Inhalt der Ankündigung. Die Emission war noch am selben Tag um das drei- bis vierfache überzeichnet; die Zeichner erhielten bei Einzahlung von Teilbeträgen Interimsscheine; die Teilzahlungen wurden danach ebenfalls mit 5 pCt. verzinst. Bis zum 31. Januar 1855 wurden die garantierten Zinsen regelmäßig gezahlt, also für maximal drei Zinstermine. Der Kurs der A k t i e n stieg zunächst auf 95 3 / 4 , um noch i m Jahre 1853 stetig zu fallen, bis i m Juni 1855 ein Kurs von 52 erreicht war. Ursache dieses Kursverfalles war die Einstellung der Zinszahlungen auf Grund der schlechten Geschäftsergebnisse der Eisenbahngesellschaft; die Bahn konnte nämlich erst i m Jahre 1859 auf der gesamten vorgesehenen Strecke ihren Betrieb aufnehmen 1 4 2 . Nach Einstellung der Zinszahlungen erhob eine Vielzahl von Käufern Klage gegen das emittierende Bankhaus mit dem Antrag auf Rückgängigmachung des Kaufvertrages oder zumindest auf Ersatz der Kursdifferenz zwischen Kaufdatum

141

Goldschmidt, Der Lucca-Pistoja-Actien Streit (1859), p. 1 / 2 ; soweit ersichtlich, war Goldschmidt mit dem Inhaber des Bankhauses Goldschmidt nicht verwandt. m Goldschmidt (n. 141), p. 3-10.

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und dem Tag der Einstellung der Zinszahlungen. Insgesamt wurden mindestens 26 Verfahren eingeleitet 1 4 3 . Da das Frankfurter Prozeßrecht noch das Institut der Aktenversendung kannte 1 4 4 , waren mit dem Rechtsstreit u. a. die Rechtsfakultäten der Universitäten T ü b i n g e n 1 4 5 , W ü r z b u r g 1 4 6 , Gießen 1 4 7 , L e i p z i g 1 4 8 , Erlangen 1 4 9 , Jena 15 °, M ü n c h e n 1 5 1 , B e r l i n 1 5 2 und Göttingen 1 5 3 befaßt. Parteigutachten erstatteten die Professoren L . G o l d s c h m i d t 1 5 4 und Sachße 1 5 5 aus Heidelberg; Verfasser zweier Urteile der Gießener Fakultät war Rudolph von I h e r i n g 1 5 6 · 1 5 7 . Gestützt wurden die Klagen i m wesentlichen auf zwei Punkte: Z u m einen seien die Käufer Aktionäre der Gesellschaft geworden, während sie nach der Ausschreibung davon hätten ausgehen können, daß sie Gläubiger werden würd e n 1 5 8 . Z u m anderen sei aus der Ankündigung nicht ersichtlich gewesen, daß die 99jährige Zinsgarantie i n den toskanischen Dekreten von der Bedingung abhängig gemacht worden sei, daß die Bahn bis zum 1. Januar 1855 fertiggestellt sein würde; würde diese Bedingung nicht eingehalten, würde die Konzession der Gesellschaft für die Errichtung der Bahn einschließlich aller übrigen Zusagen erlöschen 1 5 9 . 143 StAF, OAGL Ζ Nr. 94, fol. 159. 144 Bender, Handbuch des Frankfurter Civilprocesses (1854), p. 237/241. 145 StAF, OAGL Ζ Nr. 481, fol. 19-44. 146 StAF, OAGL Ζ Nr. 20, fol. 21-36. 147 StAF, OAGL Ζ Nr. 94, fol. 152-307; Nr. 20, fol. 170 -197. 148 StAF, OAGL Ζ Nr. 47, fol. 50-70. 149 StAF, OAGL Ζ Nr. 1063, fol. 23-34. 150 StAF, OAGL Ζ Nr. 47, fol. 157-196. 151 StAF, OAGL Ζ Nr. 812, fol. 124-142. 152 StAF, OAGL Ζ Nr. 348, fol.; auch gedruckt unter dem Titel „Urtheil höchster Instanz nebst Entscheidungsgründen in Sachen Eyssen und Claus in Frankfurt, Kläger, contra Β. H. Goldschmidt, daselbst, den Verkauf von Lucca-Pistoja-Actien betreffend", Frankfurt 1864. 153 StAF, OAGL Ζ Nr. 1063, fol. 110-152. 154 cf. η. 141, mit „Nachtrag zu den handelsrechtlichen Erörterungen über den LuccaPistoja-Actien-Streit (1861) als Antwort auf die Druckschrift zweier die jeweiligen Kläger vertretenden Anwälte, Blum / Friedleben, Zur Widerlegung der Druckschrift von Dr. L. Goldschmidt, betitelt: Der Lucca-Pistoja- Actien-Streit (I860)". Eine weitere Stellungnahme Goldschmidts datiert vom November 1863 in Form eines gedruckten Schreibens an den Advokaten Harnier. 155 Ueber die Haftbarkeit der Ausgeber von Werth- und Kreditpapieren, gegen die Inhaber dieser Papiere, Zeitschrift für deutsches Recht und deutsche Rechtswissenschaft 17 (1857), p. 29 ss. 156 cf. η. 146/147; gedruckt in: Ihering, Vermischte Schriften juristischen Inhalts (1879), p. 241-361. 157 Femer erschienen zwei anonyme Abhandlungen: eines „praktischen Juristen", Zum Lucca-Pistoja-Actien-Streit, ZHR 3 (1860), p. 135-154; sowie ,Ein Rechtsfall über die Frage, wie weit man bei Contracts-Unterhandlungen von dem Nichtwissen seines Mit-Contrahenten Vortheil ziehen dürfe?' Neues Archiv für Handelsrecht I I (1860), p. 196-210. iss Ihering (n. 156), p. 250. 159 ZHR 3 (1860), p. 140.

184

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V o n den sieben aktenmäßig nachvollziehbaren Rechtsstreitigkeiten, die vor das O A G Lübeck gelangt waren, obsiegten die Kläger in vier Verfahren, wobei, wie Ihering in der Einleitung zu seinem Gießener Urteil schrieb, das Gutachten Goldschmidts eine deutliche Zäsur erkennen ließ: „Denn seine Schrift sei darauf berechnet, den Ungrund der gegen den Beklagten erhobenen Ansprüche darzutun, und sie unterziehe sich dieser Aufgabe m i t einem Aufwände von Scharfsinn, Gründlichkeit und einer blendenden Dialektik, welche auch von dem, der den Einfluß, den sie ausgeübt habe, nur beklagen könne, in hohem Grade anerkannt werden müsse" 1 6 0 . I n der Sache selbst meinte Ihering, sein einfaches Rechtsgefühl und seine juristische Überzeugung würden sich mit der Schrift gleichmäßig i m Widerspruch f ü h l e n 1 6 1 .

b) Entscheidungsgründe Chronologisch begannen die Verfahren mit einem Erkenntnis des Stadtgerichts Frankfurt v o m September 1856. Es verurteilte darin das verklagte Bankhaus, weil der Kläger auf Grund des Prospektes habe davon ausgehen können, daß er nur Gläubiger der Eisenbahngesellschaft werden würde. Denn der Prospekt habe von einer Anleihe gesprochen. Da aber tatsächlich Aktien geliefert worden seien, greife die Anfechtung des Käufers wegen Irrtums über eine wesentliche Eigenschaft des Kaufgegenstandes d u r c h 1 6 2 . I m Dezember 1856 änderte das Appellations-Gericht zu Frankfurt das Urteil ab und wies die Klage ab, da es unter Würdigung der i m Prospekt verwendeten Worte nach dem Geschäftsleben nicht davon ausgehen wollte, daß dem Kläger etwas anderes geliefert worden sei als er gekauft habe 1 6 3 . Das Oberappellationsgericht der vier freien Städte zu Lübeck bestätigte in einem Urteil v o m M a i 1858 insoweit die Vorentscheidung, änderte sie aber zu Lasten des Beklagten wegen des zweiten Klagegrundes ab. Denn der Beklagte habe wesentliche Elemente für die Bewertung des Kaufgegenstandes dadurch arglistig verschwiegen, daß er die Bedingung, unter der die Zinsgarantie gestanden habe, nicht offenbart habe 1 6 4 . I n dem sich an dieses Erkenntnis anschließenden Beweisverfahren ist der Beklagte nach einer weiteren Entscheidung des O A G Lübeck v o m A p r i l 1860 wiederum unterlegen 1 6 5 .

160 Ihering (n. 156), p. 243. 161 Ihering (n. 156), p. 243. 162 StAF, OAGL Ζ Nr. 799, fol. 4 8 / 4 9 ; gedruckt in: Sammlung der Entscheidungen des Oberappellationsgerichts der vier freien Städte zu Lübeck in Frankfurter Rechtssachen, herausgegeben durch einen Verein von Juristen IV (1860), p. 87. 163 StAF, OAGL Ζ Nr. 799, fol. 43 ss. 164 Samlung (n. 162), p. 101-102. 165 Sammlung (n. 162) V (1862), p. 255-257. Der hier zugrundeliegende Rechtsstreit Küchler c. Goldschmidt ist übrigens der einzige, der in die gedruckten Sammlungen aufgenommen worden ist.

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Danach erschien das Gutachten Goldschmidts 166, das zwar bereits in dem zitierten Beweisverfahren vorgelegt worden war, angesichts der negativen Vorentscheidung zum Haftungsgrund an der endgültigen Verurteilung aber nichts mehr ändern konnte. Goldschmidt stützte sich wesentlich darauf, daß bei der Ankündigung der Prioritäts-Actien hinsichtlich der die Zinsgarantie beschränkenden Bedingung deshalb kein arglistiges Verhalten des Verkäufers vorgelegen habe, weil eine derartige Bedingung (Erlöschen der Konzession bei Nichtfertigstellung innerhalb einer bestimmten Frist) 1. einer inneren Notwendigkeit entsprec h e 1 6 7 ; 2. gemeinrechtliche Geltung wegen der rechtlichen Natur der Eisenbahnkonzession beanspruchen k ö n n e 1 6 8 ; 3. nach allgemeinem europäischen Gewohnheitsrecht gelte. Z u m Beweis hierfür zog er Gesetze aus Preußen, Österreich, Bayern, den dänisch-deutschen Landesteilen, aus Baden, Württemberg, dem Großherzogtum Hessen, Frankreich, Belgien, der Schweiz, England und der Nordamerikanischen U n i o n heran 1 6 9 ; 4. schließlich ergebe sich ihre allgemeine Geltung aus zahlreichen Staatsverträgen und Konzessionsreglements deutscher und auswärtiger Eisenbahnen 1 7 0 . Angesichts dieser Aufzählung mußte er zu dem Ergebnis kommen, daß sich der Zeichner der Emission in einem unentschuldbaren Irrtum hinsichtlich der Bedingung befunden habe mit dem Ergebnis der Enthaftung des Bankhauses 1 7 1 . Zunächst schien der Einfluß dieses Gutachtens auf die Entscheidungspraxis gering zu sein. Die nächste stadtgerichtliche Entscheidung v o m September 1 8 5 9 1 7 2 nahm es überhaupt nicht zur K e n n t n i s 1 7 3 , sondern schloß sich nahezu wortwörtlich dem Urteil des Oberappellationsgerichts in Sachen Küchler c. Goldschmidt 174 a n 1 7 5 . Aber bereits in der Appellationsinstanz übernahm die juristische Fakultät Erlangen, an die der Rechtsstreit i m Wege der Aktenversendung gelangt war, v ö l l i g die Argumentation Goldschmidts und wies die Klage a b 1 7 6 . Doch das Oberappellationsgericht änderte diese Entscheidung auf Grund des Spruchs der juristischen Fakultät zu Göttingen wiederum ab und gab der Klage statt 1 7 7 .

166 Supra η. 141. 167 Goldschmidt (η. 141), p. 43. 168 Goldschmidt (η. 141), p. 45. 169 Goldschmidt (η. 141), p. 47-52. 170 Goldschmidt (η. 141), p. 53. 171 Goldschmidt (η. 141), p. 58/59. 172 In Sachen Oplin c. Goldschmidt, StAF, OAGL Ζ Nr. 1063. 173 Wie Goldschmidt selbst vorwurfsvoll bemerkte, ZHR 3 (1860), p. 150. 174 Supra, η. 163. 175 Abgedruckt in: ZHR 3 (1860), p. 148-150. 176 StAF, OAGL Ζ Nr. 1063, fol. 23 - 34, insbesondere fol. 29. Ebenso haben entschieden das OAG 1864 in Sachen Eyssen und Claus c. Goldschmidt, StAF, OAGL Ζ Nr. 348, fol. 224-317; das OAG 1866 in Sachen Baruch c. Goldschmidt, StAF, OAGL Ζ Nr. 47, fol. 157-196; das Appellationsgericht 1865 in Sachen dAndelarre c. Goldschmidt, StAF, OAGL Ζ Nr. 20, fol. 21-36.

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Es verwarf die von Goldschmidt entwickelte Auffassung über die jeder Eisenbahnkonzession immanenten Einschränkungen. Bei den Konzessionsbedingungen handele es sich weder u m allgemeine Rechtssätze noch u m Gewohnheitsrecht, so daß sie die Einstandspflichten des Verkäufers nicht beeinflussen könnten 1 7 8 . Danach belegte es das beklagte Bankhaus m i t dem Vorwurf, es habe die Begrenzungen der Zinsgarantie absichtlich verschwiegen, w o m i t der Klagegrund des dolosen Handelns beim Verkauf der Aktien bejaht w u r d e 1 7 9 . U n d schließlich stellte es für die Verteilung der Beweislast die Regel auf, daß bei wissentlichem Verschweigen eines für den Vertragsschluß wesentlichen Umstandes davon auszugehen wäre, daß bei dessen Kenntnis der Vertrag nicht geschlossen worden wäre; der Beweis des Nichtabschlusses des Vertrages dürfe nicht dem Kläger auferlegt werden, da angesichts der Schwierigkeiten einer negativen Beweisführung anderenfalls der Unredlichkeit i m Rechtsverkehr Vorschub geleistet würde180. M i t dieser Entscheidung sind die wesentlichen Elemente für die Haftung einer Emissionsbank bereits herausgearbeitet: unabhängig von der dogmatischen Einkleidung des Geschäfts als Zession oder als Kaufvertrag ist die Bank verpflichtet, ihr bekannte, den Wert von Obligationen beeinflussende Tatsachen zu offenbaren. Erfüllt sie diese Pflicht nicht, so kann der Vertrag rückgängig gemacht werden, wobei allein noch streitig blieb, ob der Erwerber daneben auch noch Schadensersatz, also Ersatz des entgangenen Gewinns, verlangen kann. Die Kausalität zwischen dolosem Handeln und dem Vertragsschluß w i r d vermutet, so daß der Bank der Gegenbeweis o b l i e g t 1 8 1 . Der nächste Rechtsstreit 1 8 2 brachte insofern einen Rückschritt, als sowohl das Appellationsgericht als auch das Oberappellationsgericht unter weitgehender Berücksichtigung der Ausführungen i m Gutachten Goldschmidt die Klage abgewiesen haben. Beide Instanzen gingen davon aus, daß die Kläger auf die gewöhnlichen und regelmäßigen Beschränkungen in einer Eisenbahnkonzession hätten gefaßt sein müssen 1 8 3 . Das Oberappellationsgericht legte den Klägern sogar eine Nachforschungspflicht auf; für sie als m i t dem Wertpapierhandel vertraute Personen weise der Prospekt keine Zweideutigkeiten auf, sie hätten ihn eben auch zwischen den Zeilen lesen müssen 1 8 4 . 177 StAF, OAGL Ζ Nr. 1063, fol. 100-154; auch als Separatdruck erschienen: Urtheil und Entscheidungsgründe publiciert am 30. Juli 1863 von dem Oberappellationsgericht in Lübeck, verfaßt von der Rechtsfacultät in Göttingen in Sachen L. Oplin gegen Β. H. Goldschmidt, betreffend Rescission eines Kaufs von 80 Lucca- Pistoja-Eisenbahn-Actien, Frankfurt a. M. 1863. 178 Supra η. 177, fol. 124 ss. 179 Supra η. 177, fol. 131. 180 Supra η. 177, fol. 133. 181 B. Mayer , Die Emission von Wertpapieren (1900), p. 101. 182 Eyssen und Claus c. Goldschmidt, StAF, OAGL Ζ Nr. 348. iss StAF, OAGL Ζ Nr. 348, fol. 60, 302.

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Dieses Urteil veranlaßte Ihering, sich in seinem V o t u m für die Gießener juristische Fakultät 1 8 5 nochmals ausführlich mit dem Gutachten Goldschmidts auseinanderzusetzen. Er hielt den v o m Bankhaus Goldschmidt veröffentlichten Prospekt für mindestens zweideutig. Für ihn bedeutete der Passus über die Zinsgarantie „laut Großherzoglichen Décrété . . i m allgemeinen Verständnis einen Hinweis auf den Grund der Garantie, nicht aber auf deren Einschränkung 1 8 6 . Hätte das Bankhaus diese Klausel anders verstanden wissen wollen, so hätte es sie deutlicher i m Prospekt darstellen müssen. Da dies nicht geschehen sei, habe es ein Papier mit unbedingter Zinsgarantie versprochen, aber nicht liefern könn e n 1 8 7 . Außerdem nahm Ihering noch eine Haftung wegen dolus an, da der das Geschäft vermittelnde Bankier die Bedingung gekannt und sie wissentlich verschwiegen habe 1 8 8 . Diese Haftung könne nur durch ein positives Wissen des Klägers von der bedingten Zinsgarantie oder von einem geradezu undenkbaren Nichtwissen ausgeschlossen werden. Den Einwand der culpa des Anleihezeichners, worauf Goldschmidt wesentlich sein Gutachten gestützt hatte, ließ er m i t folgendem plastischen Vergleich nicht gelten: könne der Betrüger dem Betrogenen einen V o r w u r f daraus machen, daß derselbe ihm Vertrauen geschenkt, ihn für einen ehrlichen M a n n gehalten habe, während er ihn für einen Betrüger hätte halten sollen 1 8 9 ? I m Kern der Sache ging es hierbei um die Entscheidung der Frage, w e m eine Pflicht zur weiteren Erhellung der tatsächlichen Umstände eines Geschäfts auferlegt werden sollte, dem Verkäufer i m Wege einer Aufklärungspflicht oder dem Käufer i m Wege einer Nachforschungspflicht. Während sich Goldschmidt für die Nachforschungspflicht entschieden hatte 1 9 0 , ging Ihering von der Aufklärungspflicht aus. Er hielt die Deduktion Goldschmidts, der Käufer hätte wissen sollen, daß die Zinsgarantie unter einer Bedingung gestanden habe und damit die entgegengesetzte Versicherung des Prospektes für eine handgreifliche Unwahrheit hätte halten müssen, für eine so gewagte, „daß es Befremden erregen muß, ihr i n richterlichen Urteilen und einer wissenschaftlichen Schrift zu begegnen"191. Damit war aber auch der äußerste Rahmen einer Haftung der Bank bei Wertpapieremissionen erreicht. Denn den der Klage stattgebenden Urteilen lag stets eine unmittelbare vertragliche Beziehung zwischen Subskribenten und Emis-

184 iss 186 187 iss 189 190 191

StAF, OAGL Ζ Nr. 348, fol. 287 R, 291 R. StAF, OAGL Ζ Nr. 94, fol. 152-307. Ihering (n. 156), p. 279/280. Ihering (n. 156), p. 281. Ihering (n. 156), p. 283/284. Ihering (n. 156), p. 294. Ebenso ZHR 3 (1860), p. 141. Ihering (n. 156), p. 301.

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sionsbank zugrunde 1 9 2 . Über diesen Rahmen wollte und konnte man nicht hinausgehen. Die nächsten Fälle wiesen gegenüber den bisherigen Verfahren die Besonderheit auf, daß zwischen Emissionsbank und Erwerber noch ein weiterer Bankier als Vermittler des Geschäfts zwischengeschaltet 1 9 3 oder der Erwerb erst nach A b l a u f der Subskriptionsfrist erfolgt w a r I 9 4 . Mangels direkter vertraglicher Beziehungen zum Emissionshaus hätte dieses nur mit der actio doli belangt werden können, was vorausgesetzt hätte, daß aufgrund der Veröffentlichung des Zeichnungsprospektes ein dolus gegenüber der anlagewilligen Allgemeinheit begangen worden wäre. V o r diesen „abenteuerlichen Konsequenzen" 1 9 5 schreckte man zurück. Der in der für die Öffentlichkeit bestimmten täuschenden Willenserklärung liegende Ansatz für eine allgemeine Prospekthaftung 1 9 6 wurde nur einmal v o m Frankfurter Appellationsgericht aufgenommen 1 9 7 , ansonsten aber durchweg abgelehnt. Der dritte Empfänger der A k t i e n konnte nur dann gegen das Bankhaus vorgehen, wenn der Vermittler in seinem Namen als sein direkter Vertreter gehandelt hatte 1 9 8 oder wenn er sich dessen Ansprüche gegen die Emissionsbank hatte abtreten lassen 1 9 9 , wozu es wegen der geschäftlichen Verflochtenheit der Banken w o h l nicht gekommen war.

IV. Ausblick Diese dritte Ebene der Emissionstätigkeit der Banken hat gezeigt, daß mit dem Aufsuchen des allgemeinen Kapitalmarktes für Anleihen und deren Verteilung unter ein breiteres, insbesondere auch nicht-kaufmännisches Publikum, die Anwendung des allgemeinen Rechts nicht nur nicht mehr ausgeschlossen, sondern zu einer Kontrollinstanz für die Emissionstätigkeit werden konnte. Aber auch erst auf dieser Stufe des Marktgeschehens konnten Gerichte tätig werden und die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung durch ihre Entscheidungen beeinflussen. Der konkrete Fall zeigt darüber hinaus, daß derartige Streitfälle, die auf Grund der 192 Die Entscheidung Küstner c. Goldschmidt, StAF, OAGL Ζ Nr. 812 vom 23. 5. 1864, stützte sich vollinhaltlich auf das Urteil in Sachen Küchler c. Goldschmidt (n. 162), ; auch hier hatte das Appellationsgericht die Klage abgewiesen, fol. 27-32. 193 StAF, OAGL Ζ Nr. 94, Berolzheimer c. Königswarter und Goldschmidt; Nr. 20, Graf d'Andelarre c. Goldschmidt. 194 StAF, OAGL Ζ Nr. 47, Baruch c. Goldschmidt. 195 So Ihering in dem Verfahren d'Andelarre c. Goldschmidt, StAF, OAGL Ζ Nr. 20, fol. 180. 196 Sachße (n. 155), p. 55. 197 StAF, OAGL Ζ Nr. 47, Baruch c. Goldschmidt, fol. 50-70; die Klage scheiterte aber an der Kausalität, da der Prospekt nur zur Subskription, nicht aber zum Kauf der später ausgegebenen Aktien aufgefordert hätte. 198 Ihering (n. 156), p. 351. 199 Goldschmidt (n. 141), p. 96-108; Ihering (n. 156), p. 352-361.

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wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung neue rechtliche Überlegungen erforderten, durchaus m i t den M i t t e l n des gemeinen Rechts gelöst werden konnten. Der Vorteil des gemeinen Rechts zeigt sich hier i n seiner Abstraktheit; es konnte unabhängig von der jeweiligen politischen und wirtschaftlichen Lage Rechtsfälle sachgerecht entscheiden, so daß die noch heute gültigen Kriterien für die Haftung des Verkäufers von Wertpapieren herausgearbeitet werden konnten. Die moderne Rechtsprechung des deutschen Bundesgerichtshofes hat sich gleichfalls für eine umfassende Aufklärungspflicht des Emittenten von Anlagepapieren entschieden. Denn nicht der Käufer, sondern der Emittent habe die tatsächliche Möglichkeit, sich einfacher und genauer über die wertbildenden Faktoren der Anleihe zu informieren 2 0 0 . Ebenso trifft den Anlagevermittler die Darlegungs- und Beweislast dafür, daß der Schaden auch bei pflichtgemäßer Aufklärung und Information eingetreten w ä r e 2 0 1 . Daß die einzelnen Gerichte hierbei zu unterschiedlichen Ergebnissen gekommen sind, was Ihering i m Zusammenhang mit dem Lucca-Pistoja-AktienStreit zu einem Vergleich mit einem Lotteriespiel veranlaßt hatte, ist nicht dem gemeinen Recht anzulasten, sondern findet sich noch heute i m modernen Recht, wobei in Wirtschaftssachen die Rolle der Privatgutachter nicht unterschätzt werden darf.

V. Summary A t the turn of the eighteenth century the conditions o f bond issuing operations by banks changes radically. T i l l the end of the eighteenth century, underwriting of loans i n Germany has been a personal, individual and national matter. Personal, because o f the personal (friendly) relations between the banker and the borrower; individual, because of the fact that only two persons were committed at the transaction: banker and borrower; and finally, national, because of the lack of international relations either on the part of the banker or of the borrower. These forms had been independent of the borrowers status, who might have been a private merchant or a public authority. The change of these conditions depends on a far-reaching change of the commercial situation in the European countries. The exploration o f the colonies needed more financial resources than the merchants alone could raise. Therefore, the participation at the trading companies was devided in single shares w i t h small nominal value, so that small investors could buy them. On the other hand, flourishing commerce led to increasing wealth which was looking for profitable investments. 200 Emmerich, in: Münchener Kommentar BGB 2 , Vor § 275, Rdn. 72-74; BGH NJW 1990; BGH NJW 1991, 1108. 201 BGH NJW 1981, 1440; BGH NJW-RR 1988, 831; BGH NJW-RR 1989, 1102.

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Following this movement the public loan was no longer underwritten by only one banking house but by a committee o f banks. This committee did not keep the loan but began w i t h trading the papers by first underwriting firmly and then selling the bonds. A n d finally, this development led to the question of responsibility for erroneous information on the terms of an issue and to suits for damages. As in Germany, Frankfurt on M a i n is since this time the outstanding banking place, these developments having begun i n this town. Here, we found issuing syndicates as well as court sentencing on the problem o f responsibility. Significant for the contract forming and issuing syndicate, is the nearly complete negligence of written law and legal institutions. The contract formed the only base o f the cooperation. It tried to avoid any conflict between the members by a system o f certain measures, reaching from a mere quorum to the installation of an arbitration committee and the exclusion from access to courts. The issue of bonds into the market, depends on the negotiable character of the shares. For this purpose the loan was subdivided into individual debt certificates (so-called Partialobligationen); these certificates had been created in the form of transferable bonds, payable to bearer, and finally each of these „Partialobligationen" had been provided w i t h interest coupons. The Frankfurt banking house Bethmann was said to be the first introducing these new forms into the German capital market. The transferable character of the bonds was fixed either i n the contract between the issuing syndicate and the government issuing the loan or by choosing a certain primary market w i t h a more suitable legal order. As persons w i t h no commercial experience got the chance to speculate when the market was opened to a certain loan, they suffered severe losses too. T w o issuings beginning in Frankfurt are good examples for those consequences: one by Rothschild in 1820 and another concerning the Lucca-Pistoja-Railway Company. The issue o f shares of this railway company led to a famous series of decisions by the Supreme Court o f the Four Free Towns o f Germany at Lübeck. The grounds o f the actions were formed by indifferent or merely wrong explanations in the issuing prospectus. The decisions of the Supreme Court gave the rules on which today the liability for statements made in the prospectus is still founded. Nevertheless the different opinions offered by lawyers in this case showed the close relation between commercial interest and legal structures.

BARTOLOME CLAVERO

Entre ocio de banco y negocio de cambio: Pecunia depositada bajo régimen catolico

I. A mediados del siglo X V I , el 25 de mayo de 1551 exactamente, "Enrique Bul, cambio", vecino de Valladolid, otorga una „carta de obligaciôn" formalizando garantias y fianzas, „ c o m m o es costumbre", para el desempeno en Toledo del „offiçio de vanquero e cambiador", para la apertura en esta ciudad de un „vanco e cambio". L a escritura especifica sus funciones, figurando entre ellas la de recibir y tener „en guarda y fiel encomienda" lo que le fuera „puesto, librado e consignado, depositado e dado e entregado" por parte de „qualesquier conçejos e universidades, iglesias e monasterios, ospitales e cofadrias, perlados, grandes e cavalleros, e otras personas particulares de qualquier estado e condiçion que sean"; lo depositado, lo que puede darse para guarda y encomienda entre otras formas en deposito, también se concreta, comenzândose por el numerario: „maravedis, ducados e castellanos, coronas e florines, libras, sueldos e dineros, e otras monedas" 1 . A l g o se dice también sobre el régimen que ha de mediar entre los depositantes y el depositario: habrân precisamente de estar a ley de vanco. L a expresiôn se refiere a la disponibilidad de los fondos y a la especial responsabilidad que el banco contrae al proposito: „les daré, entregaré a pagaré todo aquello que asi en del dicho m i vanco fuere puesto e consignado, librado e depositado, por las tales persona ο personas segun dicho es, cada quando e en las partes que me lo pidieren e fuere obligado a se lo dar e pagar llanamente a ley de vanco sin pleito ni rebuelta ni condiçion ni contradiçion alguna, so pena de lo dar e pagar a sus duenos con el doblo e costa e danos, yntereses e menoscabos, que sobre ello se les siguieren e recrescieren por nombre de ynterese convençional". Este régimen de responsabilidad para „cambios e vancos", para „vanqueros e cambiadores", ι El documento, ya conocido por H. Kellenbenz , Eine Bankgründung in Toldedo, Revue Internationale d'Histoire de la Banque 1 (1968) 67-82, puede verse ahora nuevamene transcrito en el apéndice tercero de B. Clavero, Antidora: Antropologia catolica de la economia moderna, a publicarse en la Biblioteca per la Storia del Pensamiento Giuridico Modemo, con otras referencias y con mi intento de contextualizacion de este mismo capitulo bancario.

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en la fiel encomienda de dineros se entiende que es de carâcter comun, reforzândosele por „otras penas establesçidas por leyes e premâticas destos reynos", sin mayores especificaciones sobre lo uno, un derecho general, n i acerca de lo otro, un derecho particular. Nada se dice sobre la vertiente cambiaria del oficio n i sobre la disponibilidad de los fondos por el banco y consiguiente posibilidad de participation de los depositantes en estas otras utilidades del mismo establecimiento. Alguna relaciôn habrfa entre cambio e vanco, entre vanco e cambio , pues el sintagma lo repite el documento. Desde su inicio refleja la c o n d i t i o n previa de quien se establece: „Enrique Bul, cambio" ο cambiador. N o era un simple vecino de una capital cercana, Valladolid. Y a estaba realmente introducido en el trâfico financiero. Pocos anos antes, en 1534, puedo encontrârsele en las ferias mas importantes de los reinos de Castilla, las de Medina del Campo, interviniendo como parte librada a cuenta del monarca en una operation de cambio por valor de un m i l l o n y medio de maravedies. En el „libro manual de su cambio" asi quedaba registrado: „Debe Alonso de Baeza por Alberto Kuehn y Antonio Martin 1 quento D m i l que se los da por Hugo Angelo, por lo de la artilleria de Alemania"; el primero consta que era „ e l tesorero de Su Magestad", cargo efectivo 2 ; los otros, industriales y financieros que se habian encargado de la fundicion de un centenar de piezas para el ejército imperial. En la documentation de este caso de cambio, también hay algo que no se especifica: la utilidad ο rendimiento efectivo del negocio para las partes que financian, con Enrique B u l entre ellas 3 . En esto ya comienza por faltar transparencia. Enrique B u l no abandona ni descuida su negocio financiero tras su establecimiento bancario en Toledo. E l documento no lo hacia sospechar ni asi en realidad acontece. E l mismo volumen de sus operaciones parece que ahora se incrementa. Sigue actuando en las ferias de Medina del Campo atendiendo pagos y giros a cuenta, entre otros, del monarca. En 1556 percibe una liquidation de cerca de treinta millones de maravedies, comprendidos unos intereses que luego se nos explicarân; asi se refleja en el libro de cuentas del tesorero real: „ A Enrique B u l y Francisco de Paredes çiento a treinta y très m i l l e quinientos y çinquenta y çinco mrs. que les ovieron de aver por el contado de 26 796 520 que pagaron, y los reçivieron en libranza e razôn de çinco al miliar, lo quai se les pago por razon que de todo lo que reçiven en libranza y lo pagan de contado an de aver lo que en ellos se conçierta, y se conçerto lo dicho, de lo quai se entregaron en la quenta que con ellos se tuvo en la dicha feria, lo quai fué el mas baxo contado 2 E. Hernândez Esteve, Creaciôn del Consejo de Hacienda de Castilla, 1523-1525, Madrid 1983, 105-136; C. J. de Carlos, El Consejo de Hacienda de Castilla en el reinado de Carlos V, 1523-1556, Anuario de Historia del Derecho Espanol 59 (1989) 49-159. 3 R. Carande, Carlos V y sus banqueros, I, La vida economica en Castilla, 15161556, Madrid 1965, 529-530.

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que en feria se suele d a r " 4 . Habia podido anticipar el principal. Enrique B u l disponia de fondos que no serian solo propios. Contaba como banquero con depositos ajenos. Se trata en efecto du un cambiador, de un négociante con del dinero. En calidad de tal es como se hacia vanquero. E l negocio asi se expande. Ahora ha venido a captar en otra capital, Toledo, dineros eclesiâsticos y corporativos, nobiliarios y plebeyos. N o iba a mantenerlos ociosos. A esto responderia el mismo régimen especial de responsabilidad que hemos visto. Eran unas precauciones para los depositantes. Se sabe que los fondos no van a estar sencillamente almacenados. E l vanco es cambio ; antes que oficina de depositos, es centro de negocios, Y ambas cosas se compaginan. Hay indicios anteriores de una practica conjunta por estas mismas latitudes 5 . El oficio cambiario de establecimientos bancarios resultabe publico y notorio. L o que no parece que lo fuera es la comunicacion y vinculacion entre una vertiente y la otra, entre la salvaguarda c i v i l y el movimiento mercantil de numerario, entre el depôsito y el cambio, con toda la problemâica juridica del caso. E l cambio que identificaba al propio establecimiento de vanco ya era de por si negocio. L a utilidad principal no la représenta el interés de la liquidaciôn al contado que se ha reconocido y se nos explicarâ. E l rendimiento se encuentra en unas operaciones cambiarias que manejaban y aprovechaban los movimientos entre mercados distintos y, sobre todo, entre medios de intercambio y especies monetarias diversas. A s i era aunque la misma ganancia no tuviera un reflejo directo en la documentation. E l propio fenomeno de las ferias financieras como las castellanas de Medina del Campo respondia a un negocio cambiario muy desarrollado a estas alturas de mediados del X V I . N o nos incumbe aqui la historia particular de este mercado 6 , como tampoco el mecanismo concreto del instrumente de cambio 7 ; no nos interesan estas cuestiones 8 . Nos importa el problema del punto que résulta mas opaco, el de las relaciones entre el banco y el cambio, entre la parte depositante y la négociante. A q u i nos intriga y ocupa la ley de vanco que expresivamente decia el documento de 1551. 4 E. Hernàndez Esteve, Las cuentas de Fernân Lopez de Campo, primer factor general de Felipe I I para los reinos de Espana, 1556-1560, Hacienda Pùblica Espanola 87 (1984) 85-105 (100-101). 5 J. Martinez Gijôn, La comenda en el derecho espanol, I, La comenda-depôsito, Anuario de Historia del Derecho Espanol 34 (1964) 31 -140 (84). 6 C. Espejo y J. Paz, Las antiguas ferias de Medina del Campo, Vallodolid 1908; H. Lapeyre, Une famille de marchands: les Ruiz, Paris 1955, parte II, capitulo 4; H. A. AiHussein, Trade and Business Community in Old Castille: Medina del Campo, 15001575, traducciôn de varios capitulos, E. Lorenzo (ed.), Historia de Medina del Campo y su Tierra, II, Madrid 1986, 13-266. 7 R. De Roover, L'évolution de la lettre de change, XlVe - XVIIIe siècles, Paris 1953; H. Lapeyre, Une famille de marchands, parte I, caps. 5-7; G. Cassandro, Saggi di storia del diritto commerciale, Nâpoles 1978, 29-123; D. R. Coquillette, The Civilian Writers of Doctor's Common, London, Berlin 1988, 217-255. 8 B. Aguilera, Historia de la letra de cambio en Espana, Madrid 1988. 13 Piergiovanni

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N o estamos ante meras entidades de deposito; nos encontramos con verdaderos negocios financieros que parecen recurrir a la captation de fondos para el mismo incremento de sus propias disponibilidades y de la correspondiente oferta dineraria, tanto comercial como politica. Y ocurre que el cambio que se establece a dicho efecto como banco ofrece a sus depositantes seguridades y garantias respecto a la disposition y recuperation de los fondos, pero, con todo el cuidado que se pone en el asunto, nada dice sobre la utilization que requiere taies precauciones ni acerca tampoco de la participation en las utilidades. U n vanco que al tiempo es cambio parece que solo se ocupase de la guarda y fiel encomienda del dinero. ^No existe tal conexion tan presumible entre banco que dépara numerario y cambio que négocia con él? E l punto oscuro esta aqui, en las relaciones entre una y otra parte. Nuestra cuestion es ésta, la de una relation social o, si asi résulta, jurfdica.

IL Durante el siglo X V I otra capital de los reinos de Castilla, Sevilla, se convierte en una plaza bancaria de carâcter permanente, no ferial 9 . Su capitalidad es la del trâfico con las Indias, con América. Como centro financiero se desarrolla segun el modelo visto, que no séria aqui tampoco desconocido 1 0 , de vanco e cambio , de comerciantes particulares que se dedican al negocio cambiario procurândose fondos mediante la practica bancaria; a este segundo efecto ofrecian seguridades al mismo tiempo que por el primero asumian riesgos. Eran establecimientos de titularidad privada que podian también llamarse bancos pùblicos por cuanto que abrîan al publico en general, no limitândose al sector mercantil ni al politico. E l régimen de fianza y licencia que para el caso hemos visto en Toledo venia descuidândose precisamente en Sevilla 1 1 . V i n o la bancarrota, una verdadera quiebra colectiva. En el ùltimo tertio del siglo, esta banca sevillana entra en profunda crisis llegândose en pocos anos a su practica desaparicion 1 2 . Tampoco es que fuera mejor la suerte de otras plazas, las de ferias incluidas 1 3 ; la intervention publica de fianza y licencia no previno

9 E. Otte, Sevilla, plaza bancaria europea en el siglo X V I , A. Otazu (ed.), Dinero y Crédito (siglos X V I a XIX), Madrid 1978, 89-112. 10 /. Gonzâlez Gallego, El Libro de los Privilegios de la Nation Genovesa, Historia, Instituciones. Documentos 1 (1974) 275-358 (307). 11 E. Hernândez Esteve, Establecimiento de la partida doble en las cuentas centrales de la Real Hacienda de Castilla, I, Pedro Luis de Torregrosa, primer contador del libro de caja, Madrid 1986, pp. 103-105. 12 E. Lorenzo, Comercio de Espana con América en la época de Felipe II, Valladolid 1979-1980, I, 154-207. 13 F. Ruiz Martin , Las ferias de Castilla, E. Lorenzo (ed.), Historia de Medina del Campo, II, 267-299; B. Yun, Sobre la transition al capitalismo en Castilla. Economia y sociedad en Tierra de Campos, Salamanca 1987, 182-218.

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ni remediô mucho. Pero no nos importan en si estos avatares. Solo nos interesan por lo que puedan iluminar nuestro problema del depôsito. E l caso como el de Sevilla podrâ resultar, no solo el mas relevante para entonces, para una economia cada vez mas volcada hacia América, sino también el mas ilustrativo para nosotros, para nuestro particular esclarecimiento. Sigamos con él. N o lo abandonemos. Con la importancia politica de la quiebra, pronto se producen reacciones por parte de la propia monarquia. En 1577 se encuentra elaborado un proyecto de „constituciones y ordenanzas" para el establecimiento de otro tipo de banco en Sevilla 1 4 . N o séria un negocio particular, sino una institution oficial, bajo responsabilidad regia y municipal, a cargo de gestores y notarios de ambas administraciones. Séria ademâs una entidad de depôsito, pero no de cambio. No cumplirîa estas funciones de trâfico y crédito financieros. Crédito, tan solo igualmente lo atenderia publico, de la monarquia y mas regularmente del municipio: „para la utilidad de la republica y no para otra cosa". Tendrfa ademâs un monopolio, no permitiéndose „en la ciudad ninguna persona ni casa de crédito n i donde se pasen ni asienten partidas si no fuere en el dicho banco". En cuanto a los depositos, habrian de ser enteramente disponibles, a la vista: „que se tenga mas diligentia en pagar que en recebir, para honor e crédito del dicho banco", „que ninguna persona que tuviera dinero e venga por él, se dé lugar a que vuelva segunda vez". L a relation con el establecimiento no séria tan opaca como en el caso del banco. N o existiendo negocio, el depôsito resultarfa gratuito; no séria retribuido, pero tampoco oneroso. E l sostenimiento de la institution habria de recaer sobre la misma parte publica a la que correspondia el provecho: „ E de lo que se grangeare por parte de la ciudad con este dinero, sirva para salarios e costas de dicho banco, porque no ha de ser a cuenta de él cosa ninguna". N o era una invention nueva. Se tomaban por modelo las taulas municipales del mundo mediterrâneo que, como entidades de depôsito, resultan mas conocidas 1 5 . También se hablarâ aqui de tablas para evitarse la confusion con los negocios particulares llamados no solo bancos, sino también bancos pùblicos como hemos dicho. Banco por antonomasia era el cambio e vanco; éstos de titularidad publica se decian tablas , también, en su sentido distinto, bancos pùblicos . L o seguiremos comprobando. Por lo poco que llevamos visto, las

14 E. Hernàndez Esteve, Aportaciones al estudio de la banca castellana en el siglo X V I , Actas del Segundo Congreso sobre Archivos Econômicos de Entidades privadas: Fuentes para la historia de la banca y del comercio en Espana, Madrid 1988, 15-42 (17-22). 15 A. P. Usher , The Early History of Deposit Banking in Mediterranean Europe, Cambridge (Mass.) 1943, 237-504; M. Riu, Banking and Society in Late Medieval and Early Modem Aragon, AA.VV., The Dawn of Modem Banking, New Haven 1979, 131 167; H. Lapeyre, La Taula de Canvis en la vida econômica de Valencia a mediados del reinado de Felipe II, Valencia 1982. 1*

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diferencias existen. Para los mismos depositaries, no parece que se tratase de entidades sencillamente intercambiables. En Sevilla, el hecho es que, aun con toda la quiebra bancaria, este otro proyecto de una tabla lo que provoca es rechazo. Se discutio ampliamente, barajândose alternativas de bancos y no dejândose de considerar la extension por Castilla del modelo de tabla . Se defiende con empeno el de cambio e vanco . U n informe oficial de la administration regia, fechado en 1581, trata " e l punto de si sera conveniente al bien y beneficio pùblico destos reynos que aya en las ciudades principales dellos, como Sevilla, Burgos y Valladolid y otras, tablas generales ο bancos pùblicos, haviendo considerado los inconvenientes que de aver bancos en la forma que los a avido se experimentaron y la falta y dano que se padece no los aviendo" 1 6 . Comienza diciendo que "este negocio tiene dos partes", la de garantia de los depôsitos y la de conveniencia del comercio. A l primer proposito, respecto a la seguridad de unos fondos, se reconoce que pudiera resultar ,,mâs conbeniente que en estas ciudades se yntroduxesen tablas publicas y generales, que no bancos, y que éstas las tuviesen las mismas ciudades y las administrasen". L a propra ciudad extraeria de esto su provecho. Pero sobre todo se conseguirra dicho aseguramiento de los depôsitos que en uno de los casos sabrfa especialmente apreciarse, „pues todos los bancos que se an puesto en Sevilla de treinta anos acâ y mas, an quebrado, sin escaparse casi ninguno", habiéndose asi arriesgado y perdido dineros ajenos. N o hay duda entonces de la oportunidad del proyecto de establecimiento de tablas. Pero al segundo efecto, el dictamen cambia. Los bancos, y no las tablas, „hazen mucho mas que esto". Ademâs de guardar depôsitos, atienden libramientos „aunque no tengan allr dineros muchas veces" los ordenantes; basta con una relation regular, „por tenerlos por sus parroquianos y que allr tengan su dinero y quenta siempre", para poderse operar mediante el banco con crédito. Y eran ademâs convenientes para el comercio entre plazas de diversidad monetaria, con la necesidad de giros y cambios. He aqui el interés de los comerciantes. N o es solo que prefiriesen la entidad bancaria; es que llegaban a considerarla imprescindible. Precisaban de unos servicios que la tabla no les ofrecra. Como en conclusion se decra, si se ha de „facilitar y acomodar el comercio, mucho mas se consigue esto con los bancos que con las tablas, las quales no asientan ni acetan sino lo que reciven". A esto responde la propuesta concreta. L a solution vendrfa, no por la sustitucion del modelo, sino por la modulation del bancario en la linea determinada de reforzarse garantras e introducirse contrôles. E l debate prosigue, pero tampoco es cosa que en si nos interese. Las medidas adoptadas van en la direction dicha de bancos mas limitados y controlados 1 1 . Incluso, por decision de la administration regia contra el parecer expreso de la 16 17

E. Hernândez Esteve , Banca castellana en el siglo XVI, 24-28. J. Martinez Gijôn, La comenda-depôsito, 95-119.

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municipal, se ensaya temporalmente el establecimiento en Sevilla bajo régimen de monopolio de un banco publico, que no tabla general, de negocio asi particul a r 1 8 . L a ciudad no se conforma. En 1594 ha confeccionado un informe „de como es provecho universal haber muchos bancos publicos en esta ciudad y el dano y perjuicio que se sigue de lo contrario" 1 9 . Expone la position favorable, no solo al banco contra la tabla, sino también a la banca plural frente al monopolio bancario. Sigue haciéndose siempre mérito del interés econômico de la parte cambiaria, no de la bancaria: „Cuando hay un solo banco es en su mano subir el precio de los cambios que se toman para las ferias y sacar todo el dinero desta ciudad para llevarlo fuera del reino por el mas valor que a l l i tiene la moneda"; es secuela de „estanco del crédito" que trae tal „estanco del dinero". Frente a ello se propugna que de nuevo „todos los que quisieren y diesen fianzas en esta ciudad pudiesen poner bancos pùblicos" como ,,lo permite Vuestra Magestad en Medina del Campo y en Madrid y en otras partes y es permitido por buena gobernaciôn en Roma, Nâpoles, Florencia, y en ninguna parte es tan necesario como en esta ciudad", Sevilla. Respecto a los depositantes, no parece haber nunca mas interés que el de la conservation del depôsito: „Habiendo muchos bancos pùblicos y no solo uno en esta ciudad de Sevilla, las personas que tuvieren su dinero en el banco tendrân mucha mas seguridad, porque de ordinario reparten sus caudales en todos los bancos que hay, y asi estân mas seguros de los sucesos y quiebras de los dichos bancos que muy de ordinario suelen quebrar y faltar". N o parece sino que esta custodia representara el interés unico y exclusivo de la clientela no mercantil de unos bancos incluso en una plaza del movimiento financiero de Sevilla. ^Como podia ser esto? ^Es que no habia relation entre los fondos depositados y los cambios negociados? i ß s que una cosa no sustentaba la otra? ^Es que no existia participation alguna de los depositantes en las utilidades del negocio? ^,Es que su interés definitivamente se reducia al de la salvaguarda del depôsito? ^Por qué entonces no hubo un movimiento significativo a favor de las tablas? ^Por qué este otro proyecto entrô y quedo en via muerta? ^Tanto era el peso de los comerciantes no solo en la administration municipal, sino también en la regia? ^Tan nimia era la influencia de aquellos otros sectores sociales, eclesiâsticos y nobiliarios entre ellos, que veiamos desde un principio entre los depositantes de la banca?

is Ε. Schäffer, El Consejo Real y Supremo de las Indias, Sevilla 1935, I, 339-340; J. A. Rubio, La fundaciön del Banco de Amsterdam, 1609, y la Banca de Sevilla, Moneda y Crédito 24 (1948) 3-31; G. Lohmann Villena, Les Espinosa: Une famille d'hommes d'affaires en Espagne et aux Indes à l'époque de la colonisation, Paris 1968, 120-126. M. Cuartas, Los bancos en Sevilla a finales del siglo X V I : Documentos, Actas del Primer Congreso sobre Archivos Econômicos de Entidades Privadas, Madrid 1983, 177-183.

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E l informe de la administration regia de 1581 que y a concluia a favor del modelo de banco, no dejaba de admitir en el mismo momento de las conclusiones que esto era lo que convenia al comercio mientras que, para los depositantes, ,,lo mas seguro y conbeniente a ellos serfan las tablas generales". A q u i estaba el punto opaco. ^Era la misma la relation de deposito en el banco que en la tabla? ^Tan solo se trataba de unas seguridades? ^Como se habian entonces aceptado por parte de los propios interesados los riesgos palmarios que suponian para los depôsitos las actividades cambiarias de los banqueros?