Raymond de Roover

Raymond de Roover (born August 28, 1904 in Antwerp , † March 18, 1972 in Brooklyn ), with full name Raymond Adrien Marie de Roover , dealt with the economic thinking of the late Middle Ages and the economic and trading techniques derived from it, such as the Bills of exchange or credit , but also the structures of the Florentine banks and trading houses, such as those of the Peruzzi or the Medici .

Life

Raymond de Roover worked first in a bank, then in an international sea transport company. During this time he made frequent visits to the archives in Bruges to examine the account books of bankers, changers and merchants of the 14th and 15th centuries. But it wasn't until he got to know Henri Pirenne that the autodidact became a historian . He also met Florence Edler (1900–1987), who at that time was an associate researcher at the Medieval Academy of America . As early as 1934 it had a reference work that is still widely used today, the Glossary of mediaeval terms of business. Italian series, 1200–1600 published. The two scientists married in London in 1936 . De Roover gave up his position and was awarded a scholarship to the Harvard Graduate School . There he received his diploma, master's and doctorate in economic history and became an American in 1940.

He has taught at Harvard University , the University of Chicago , Boston College, and Brooklyn College at the City University of New York . He was also a Guggenheim Fellow in 1949 . Besides Federigo Melis, he was considered one of the best in the field. He was the first to recognize that the change was the decisive development for most internationally operating banks. His wife discovered the secret papers of the Medici Bank in the Florentine archive, with the help of which de Roover was able to support and deepen his hypotheses, as he explained in his publication. In doing so, he dealt with the social and theological backgrounds, with the problems of interest collection against the background of the biblical interest ban and with the monetary theories of the late Middle Ages , beyond the economic techniques in the narrower sense .

His main works are The Rise and Decline of the Medici Bank, 1397–1494 and Business, Banking, and Economic Thought in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe from 1963 and - post mortem - 1974. Together with the works of Armando Sapori and Federigo Melis they changed the view of the late medieval world of money, banking, credit and trade, and above all of the far-reaching ideas on which these processes, known as the commercial revolution of the Middle Ages, were based.

De Roover dealt with the economic forms of organization, but also with the economic theory of scholasticism . He was not satisfied with the assumption that their protagonists were only forerunners of later economic theories. He recognized the creative power that the dominance of the church, for example through the prohibition of interest, unfolded without knowing it. Some churchmen at the end of the 15th century, such as the general of the Dominican order Thomas Cajetan (1469–1534), were very aware of the interaction between theology and economy. In addition to theological writings, as De Roover pointed out, he also published writings on exchange, or rather on monetary theory (De cambiis), on usury and on the Montes pietatis , which he strictly rejected for economic reasons.

Works (selection)

• The Commercial Revolution of the Thirteenth Century , discussion contribution to NSB Grass: Capitalism - Concept and History . In: Business History Review , Vol. 16 (1942), pp. 34-39, reprinted 1962.
• Money, Banking and Credit in Medieval Bruges. Italian merchant-bankers, Lombard and money-changers. A study in the origins of banking . Mediaeval Academy of America, Cambridge, Mass. 1948.
• L'évolution de la lettre de change, 14e-18e siècles . Colin, Paris 1953.
• The Development of Accounting prior to Luca Pacioli According to the Account Books of Medieval Merchants . In: Ananias C. Littleton, Basil Selig Yamey (eds.): Studies in the History of Accounting . Sweet & Maxwell, London 1956, pp. 114-174; Reprinted in: Business, Banking, and Economic Thought in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe , ed. By Julius Kirshner. University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1974, pp. 119-180.
• The Concept of the Just Price: Theory and Economic Policy . In: The Journal of Economic History , Vol. 18 (1958), pp. 418-434.
• The Rise and Decline of the Medici Bank, 1397-1494 . Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1963.
• San Bernardino of Siena and Sant 'Antonino of Florence. The two great economic thinkers of the Middle Ages . Baker Library, Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, Boston 1967.
• La pensée économique des scolastiques. Doctrines et méthodes . Institut d'études médiévales, Montréal 1971.
• Business, Banking, and Economic Thought in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Selected Studies of Raymond de Roover , ed. Julius Kirshner. University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1974.

literature

• Charles Verlinden : Roover (Raymond-Adrien-Marie-De) , in: Biographie Nationale, Vol. 42, Brussels 1977, pp. 737 f.
• David Herlihy: Raymond de Roover, Historian of Mercantile Capitalism , in: Journal of European Economic History 1 (1972) 755-762
• Richard A. Goldthwaite: Raymond de Roover on late medieval and early modern economic history , in: Business, Banking, and Economic Thought in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. Julius Kirshner, Chicago, London :, The University of Chicago Press 1974, pp. 3-14.
• Julius Kirshner: Raymond de Roover on scholastic economic thought , in: Business, Banking, and Economic Thought in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe , ed. Julius Kirshner, The University of Chicago Press, 1974, pp. 15-36.
• Thomas W. Blomquist: De Roover on Business, Banking, and Economic Thought , in: Journal of Economic History 35 (1975) 821-830.
• Oliver Finley Graves, Ernest Stevelinck: Raymond De Roover (1904-1972) Business historian , in: The Accounting Historians Notebook 11 (1988)

Remarks

1. ^ The Italian Merchant in the Middle Ages, 1970 and Studi di storia economica , Florence 1955.
2. ^ Federigo Melis: Aspetti della vita economica medievale (Studi nell'Archivio Datini di Prato) , Siena 1962.