The Earliest Traces of Negotiable Instruments

Abstract

Probably the best way of bringing the subject before the reader will be to refer briefly to the prevalent ideas concerning the introduction of negotiable instruments. Their origin and early history are admittedly very obscure; legal textbooks usually refer the student to the brief r6sum6 of the history of these instruments by Lord Chief Justice Cockburn in the case of Goodwin v. Robarts (House of Lords 1 App. Cas. 476). He, no doubt, gave the main facts as they were known at that time (1875-76). His account of the origin of these instruments is extremely meager, and even so given with apparent hesitation. The Florentines and the Venetians are given the credit of having first brought into use bills of exchange in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, respectively. Others give the priority to the Venetians, and it is also stated that they had become acquainted with the use of these bills through the Jews.' It is very significant that this early trace should point toward Orientals as the first employers of bills of exchange in Europe. This state of knowledge concerning the origin of negotiable instruments is found very unsatisfactory by legal historians. Thus Mr. Edward Jenks in his essay on the history of negotiable instruments2 deplores the lack of interest in the study of the origin of legal institutions. Says he in a somewhat satirical vein: No example better than that of negotiable paper. Bills of Exchange, with their kindred documents, have rendered international commerce possible. They are familiar to the business man, the lawyer, the impecunious-a category somewhat comprehensive. They have been the occasion of scores of statutes and thousands of reported decisions. Without them modern life would be impossible or unrecognizable. Yet it is hardly going too far to say that, in England, we have as yet no serious attempt to trace the origin of negotiable instruments. Some of the writers who profess to deal with the law of Bills of Exchange make no allusion whatever to it. Others devote a page