How do you verify a debt or payment in a mostly illiterate society? What records can you rely on? Trade and credit in the medieval world required some way of tracking amounts due and paid without the aid of written records. In medieval England, wood sticks were used to represent debts and by a simple…
Whether in finance, or in other professions, the most transformative changes happen gradually. To be sure, many of the triggers of these changes may be discrete events, absent today and here tomorrow. However, for the effects to filter through to the methods of ordinary professionals, and the markets they operate in, some time must usually…
The flow of information is an important part of any financial system. Whether it be in the agglomeration of important institutions in a single financial center or the communications technology used, the need for information has left its mark on financial services. For centuries, business could only be done as quickly as a courier’s legs…
