The Development of Double Entry (RLE Accounting): Selected Essays

This compilation concerns account books, not books on accounting. Most of the essays analyse the account book(s) of a single person or business. In each case the account book(s) demonstrate the presence of, at least, elements of double entry. The essays come in pairs, beginning with Geoffrey Lee’s paper on Florentine bank ledger fragments of 1211, some of the earliest relics of Italian bookkeeping. Subsequent papers trace the development of double entry over the centuries until 1786 when fu...