Factors of the origin of double-entry bookkeeping in the works of A. Ch. Lyttleton and R. de Roover: an amateur's view

Abstract

One of the cornerstones of the study of any historical event is the contexts in which this event occurred. As such, the traditional hypothesis uses the factors that contributed to the invention of double-entry bookkeeping and were described in the works of very authoritative English-speaking historians: A. Сh. Lyttleton and R. de Roover.Among these factors, Littleton attributed the presence of private property, capital, trade, credit, writing, money and arithmetic in a favorable socio-economic environment. De Roover supplemented this list with factors of mediation and companies. According to Littleton, all the factors he named first appeared only in medieval Italy, which made the origin of double-entry bookkeeping inevitable in this place and in this era. The article shows, firstly, that the theses of Littleton and de Roover are not properly reasoned, and secondly, that all the factors they named appeared in ancient Rome, where they were much more developed than in medieval Italy. And if these factors really "made the emergence of double-entry bookkeeping inevitable," it would have appeared in ancient Rome.