Public accounting and innovation in the Late Middle Ages: Princely institutions and the growth of numerical culture in a conservative order
Santamaria, Jean-Baptiste
Public accounting and innovation in the Late Middle Ages: Princely institutions and the growth of numerical culture in a conservative order - 2019.
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The transformations of accounting techniques in the Late Middle Ages have a complex relationship with another phenomenon: the development of stable and regulated institutions responsible for auditing accounts. Although a first generation of institutions accompanied the implementation of a series of techniques between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, these bodies gradually became unsuited to the rapid changes in management methods and to the documentary innovations that emerged in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It was in response to these new demands, which sometimes stemmed from the administration, that the “Chambres des comptes” emerged during the course of the fourteenth century. Despite initially lagging behind when it came to the documentary changes, they soon became ardent promoters of these new techniques. Once fully established, these institutions did not so much invent as acclimatize, and they implemented a series of past innovations. After this phase of “reformation”, during which long-lasting rules of good practice were put into place, an “institution effect” came into play: the “Chambres des comptes” stoutly defended their “style”, which became an element of their autonomy and their identity and served to guarantee the validity of their actions. This meant that princes struggled to impose new uses upon them.
Public accounting and innovation in the Late Middle Ages: Princely institutions and the growth of numerical culture in a conservative order - 2019.
26
The transformations of accounting techniques in the Late Middle Ages have a complex relationship with another phenomenon: the development of stable and regulated institutions responsible for auditing accounts. Although a first generation of institutions accompanied the implementation of a series of techniques between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, these bodies gradually became unsuited to the rapid changes in management methods and to the documentary innovations that emerged in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It was in response to these new demands, which sometimes stemmed from the administration, that the “Chambres des comptes” emerged during the course of the fourteenth century. Despite initially lagging behind when it came to the documentary changes, they soon became ardent promoters of these new techniques. Once fully established, these institutions did not so much invent as acclimatize, and they implemented a series of past innovations. After this phase of “reformation”, during which long-lasting rules of good practice were put into place, an “institution effect” came into play: the “Chambres des comptes” stoutly defended their “style”, which became an element of their autonomy and their identity and served to guarantee the validity of their actions. This meant that princes struggled to impose new uses upon them.
Réseaux sociaux