DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.22140#0085
THE DEVELOPMENT OF CREDIT AGENCIES. 69
preserve credit if possible, is of most ancient origin. It was
coexistent with the municipal or local law of Rome and Greece.
As you are probably aware, the civil law had an historical begin-
ning, was gradually consolidated, and at last codified under the
authority of Justinian. Our own common law, though its
origines are lost in barbarism, was, by the peculiarities of its
details, the simple work of a half-savage race. These early codes
were collected by Balue and the Grimms, and are a rugged but
interesting study. But commercial law transcends them all in
antiquity. Its beginnings are lost in the unrecorded past. But
it has had an unbroken continuity, for it could not be dispensed
with. The intercourse of civilized man, even of imperfectly
civilized man, has been continuous, and the obligatory usages of
such an intercourse are necessarily continuous too. The code of
Carthage and Rhodes has been transferred from the civil law into
our common law.
I have promised myself, at some future time, to read you a
lecture on the Italian trading towns of the early Middle Ages. No
country has ever been so overrun by savages as Italy has. No
country has ever so humanized its victors. Goth and Lombard,
Saracen, German, Frenchman, Spaniard, have occupied and
ravaged it. But the invaders have never destroyed its muni-
cipalities. Some, like Venice, maintained themselves against all
comers. And the annals of Genoa, Pisa, and Florence, are nearly
as distinct and brilliant. At last Italy became divided as Greece
was, and remained till recently, as Napoleon called it, a geogra-
phical expression.
I know no writer who is more laborious and more copious than
Muratori. He puts to shame our puny collections. He is even
more industrious than our Prynne was. His materials for Italian
history can never be exhausted. Their amount is appalling. I
am mainly concerned for the present with one, his " Antiquitates
Medii Oevi." I owe a good many facts to it in connection with my
researches into ancient currencies, and the relative value of the
two precious metals. But to those who read it carefully, there
comes out the commercial life and the commercial law, i.e., the
protection of credit in those dark times, and from these volumes
I have gathered my proof as to the continuity of commercial law.
preserve credit if possible, is of most ancient origin. It was
coexistent with the municipal or local law of Rome and Greece.
As you are probably aware, the civil law had an historical begin-
ning, was gradually consolidated, and at last codified under the
authority of Justinian. Our own common law, though its
origines are lost in barbarism, was, by the peculiarities of its
details, the simple work of a half-savage race. These early codes
were collected by Balue and the Grimms, and are a rugged but
interesting study. But commercial law transcends them all in
antiquity. Its beginnings are lost in the unrecorded past. But
it has had an unbroken continuity, for it could not be dispensed
with. The intercourse of civilized man, even of imperfectly
civilized man, has been continuous, and the obligatory usages of
such an intercourse are necessarily continuous too. The code of
Carthage and Rhodes has been transferred from the civil law into
our common law.
I have promised myself, at some future time, to read you a
lecture on the Italian trading towns of the early Middle Ages. No
country has ever been so overrun by savages as Italy has. No
country has ever so humanized its victors. Goth and Lombard,
Saracen, German, Frenchman, Spaniard, have occupied and
ravaged it. But the invaders have never destroyed its muni-
cipalities. Some, like Venice, maintained themselves against all
comers. And the annals of Genoa, Pisa, and Florence, are nearly
as distinct and brilliant. At last Italy became divided as Greece
was, and remained till recently, as Napoleon called it, a geogra-
phical expression.
I know no writer who is more laborious and more copious than
Muratori. He puts to shame our puny collections. He is even
more industrious than our Prynne was. His materials for Italian
history can never be exhausted. Their amount is appalling. I
am mainly concerned for the present with one, his " Antiquitates
Medii Oevi." I owe a good many facts to it in connection with my
researches into ancient currencies, and the relative value of the
two precious metals. But to those who read it carefully, there
comes out the commercial life and the commercial law, i.e., the
protection of credit in those dark times, and from these volumes
I have gathered my proof as to the continuity of commercial law.