Jacques Savary

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Jacques Savary (engraving by Antoine Coypel )

Jacques Savary (born September 22, 1622 in Doué-la-Fontaine , † October 7, 1690 in Paris ) was a French merchant and administrative clerk and is considered a co-founder of commercial science .

Jacques Savary - Frontispiece from Le Parfait Négociant (1675)

Life

After his father's death, his uncle Guillaume Savary raised him in Paris and trained him as a merchant. He began an apprenticeship in a noble guild and also took up work for a lawyer and a notary. He then worked as a merchant in the cloth wholesale trade, factory owner, publisher and prepared 109 expert opinions as an appraiser. In 1650 he married Catherine Thomas († 1685), daughter of the wealthy Parisian merchant Pierre Thomas, who gave him 17 children (11 boys and 6 girls). In 1658 he left the economy and, on the recommendation of Finance Minister Nicolas Fouquet, went as administrator of the royal state domainsin the civil service. After the fall of Fouquet in 1661, Savary lost his post as domain administrator and did not get his substantial private advances back into the treasury. He acted as an appraiser and complied with Louis XIV's request with two reports to submit proposals for the elimination of abuses in trade . He thus attracted the attention of the Minister of Economics, Jean-Baptiste Colbert , who brought him to the State Chancellery of Louis XIV in 1667. This appointed him in 1670 to the reform committee consisting of 13 members ( French Conseil de Réforme ), which should develop a uniform French commercial law. The trade order ( French Ordonnance de Commerce ) published in March 1673 comes largely from him and was henceforth also known as the “Law of Savary” ( French Code Savary ). The French Commercial Code ( French Code de Commerce ) published in September 1807 , which in turn formed the basis for the German Commercial Code (HGB) of January 1900, was based on this. Therefore, the HGB still shows similarities with the "Code Savary" today.

Works and reception

Two years after the "Ordonnance de Commerce" came into force, Savary published his systematic legal commentary on this in 1675 under the title "Le Parfait Négociant" ( German  The Perfect Merchant ), which contained the entire commercial and commercial knowledge of the time and in over 20 Editions appeared. After that, business cannot live without order , even if you have all the necessary knowledge. He dealt extensively with the inventory , the arbitrage and the acquisition costs , "so that nobody pays off rich". In addition, he systematically dealt with the French bill of exchange law for the first time and for the first time understood insurance as part of commercial science. The book was considered a "treasure trove for all scientists who later made use of the work". The second edition of 1679 already consisted of 714 pages. In 1688 he brought out "Business rules - advice and guidance on the most important materials in commerce" ( French Les Parères - ou Avis et Conseils sur les plus importantes Matières de Commerce ). He also designed a business encyclopedia, which was posthumously launched after his death by his sons Jacques Savary des Bruslons and Louis-Philémon Savary in 1723 under the title Dictionnaire universel de commerce . This is where the term entrepreneur ( French: entrepreneur ) found its way into the professional world for the first time .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lars Wächter, Economists at a Glance , 2017, p. 63 ff.
  2. ↑ Œuvres de M Jacques Savary , 1721, o. P.
  3. ↑ Dieter Schneider, History and Methods of Economics , Volume 4, 2001, p. 129
  4. ^ Yannick Lemarchand / Robert Henry Parker (eds.), Accounting in France: Historical Essays , 1996, p. 113
  5. ↑ Lars Wächter, Economists at a Glance , 2017, p. 64
  6. ↑ Lars Wächter, Economists at a Glance , 2017, p. 65
  7. ^ Jacques Savary, Le parfait négociant , 1675, p. 177
  8. ^ Jacques Savary, Le parfait négociant , 1675, p. 202
  9. ^ Jacques Savary, Le parfait négociant , 1675, p. 325
  10. ↑ Edmund Sundhoff , Dreihund Jahre Handelswissenschaft , 1991, p. 38
personal data
SURNAME Savary, Jacques
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French financier and commercial scientist
DATE OF BIRTH September 22, 1622
PLACE OF BIRTH Doué-la-Fontaine
DATE OF DEATH October 7, 1690
Place of death Paris