Bookkeeping methods and accounting controls: Developments within the Abbey of Montecassino from the 15th to the 17th century

Journal title CONTABILITÀ E CULTURA AZIENDALE
Author/s Matteo Palmaccio, Alessandra Lardo, Benedetta Cuozzo, Rosa Lombardi
Publishing Year 2017 Issue 2017/1
Language English Pages 21 P. 7-27 File size 199 KB
DOI 10.3280/CCA2017-001002
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

The purpose of this paper is to discover the connection between the introduction of the double entry bookkeeping method and accounting controls within the Abbey of Montecassino. In particular, the analysis aims to explore the accounting history at the time of the entrance into the Santa Giustina Congregation from the 15th to 17th century. Adopting a diachronic approach, the paper is developed with the aim to understanding if there is a link between entrance into the Santa Giustina congregation and introduction of the double bookkeeping method in 1504. It proves that accounting behaviours are strongly connected with the need for controls between accountants and external users of accounting books, confirming the hypothesis of the new accounting history theory that considers bookkeeping as social construction. The methodology is based on a comparison between two different methods of recording in the Abbey of Montecassino: the first refers to the period from 1450 to 1504 (Commendatory era) while the second considers the period after entrance into the Santa Giustina Congregation in 1504.

Keywords: Monastery accounting history, bookkeeping methods, accounting controls, New Accounting History, Abbey of Montecassino, Santa Giustina Congregation.

  1. Bigoni M. e Funnell W. (2015). Ancestors of governmentality: Accounting and pastoral power in the 15th century. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 27: 160-176.
  2. Bigoni M., Gagliardo E.D. e Funnel W. (2014). Contabilità e potere pastorale. Il contributo delle tecniche contabili al rafforzamento del potere della Chiesa nel XV secolo. Contabilità e cultura aziendale, 1: 55-83.
  3. Bisman J.E. (2012). Surveying the landscape: The first 15 years of Accounting History as an international journal. Accounting History, 17(1): 5-34.
  4. Booth P. (1993). Accounting in churches: A research framework and agenda. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 6(4): 37-67.
  5. Bryer R.A. (1993). Double-entry bookkeeping and the birth of capitalism: accounting for the commercial revolution in medieval northern Italy. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 4(2): 113-140.
  6. Carmona S. e Ezzamel M. (2006). Accounting and religion: A historical perspective. Accounting History: 11(2): 117-127.
  7. De Roover R. (1946). The Medici Bank Financial and Commercial Operations. The Journal of Economic History, 6(2): 153-172.
  8. De Roover R. (1955). New perspectives on the history of accounting. The Accounting Review, 20(3): 405-420.
  9. De Roover R. (1974). R.Business, banking, and economic thought in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  10. Dell’Omo M. (1999). Montecassino. Un'abbazia nella storia, 6. Montecassino: Pubblicazioni cassinesi.
  11. Dobie A. (2008). The development of financial management and control in monastic houses and estates in England c. 1200-1540. Accounting, Business & Financial History, 18(2): 141-159.
  12. Dobie A. (2011). A review of the granators’ accounts of Durham Cathedral Priory 1294-1433: an early example of process accounting?. Accounting History Review, 21(1): 7-35.
  13. Drury C.M. (2013). Management and cost accounting. Springer.
  14. Foucault M. (1976). Sorvegliare e punire. Nascita della prigione. Torino: Einaudi.
  15. Gatti M. e Poli S. (2011). L’evoluzione del sistema contabile e di controllo della Santa Casa di Loreto tra il XVI e il XVIII Secolo: un’interpretazione tra sacro e profano. Contabilità e Cultura Aziendale, 11(1): 5-30.
  16. Gomes D. e Sargiacomo M. (2013). Accounting and accountability in local government: an introduction. Accounting History, 18(4): 439-446.
  17. Haskins C. (1924). The Abacus and the Exchequer. In: Haskins C. (ed.). Studies in the History of Medieval. Science Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press: 327-335.
  18. Hopwood A.G. e Miller P. (1994). Accounting as social and institutional practice (Vol. 24). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  19. Hoskin K.W. e Macve R.H. (1986). Accounting and the examination: A genealogy of disciplinary power. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 11(2): 105-136.
  20. Jones M.J. (2010). Sources of power and infrastructural conditions in medieval governmental accounting. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 35(1): 81-94.
  21. Stewart R.E. (1992). Pluralizing our past: Foucault in accounting history. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 5(2): 57-73.
  22. Sargiacomo M. (2001). Pro & contro delle procedure contabili di monaci benedettini nel XVI secolo. In: Proceedings of 6th SISR Conference (Roma: Istituti editoriali e poligrafici internazionali) (pp. 599-616).
  23. Riccaboni A., Giovannoni E., Giorgi A. e Moscadelli S. (2006). Accounting and power: evidence from the fourteenth century. Accounting History, 11(1): 41-62.
  24. Quattrone P. (2004). Accounting for God: Accounting and accountability practices in the Society of Jesus (Italy, XVI-XVII centuries). Accounting, Organizations and Society, 29(7): 327-360.
  25. Proceedings of the Conference of Spoleto (1982). VII Congresso Internazionale di studi sull’alto Medioevo, “San Benedetto e il suo tempo”, Norcia-Subiaco-Cassino-Montecassino, 29 settembre-5 ottobre 1980, Spoleto.
  26. Prieto B., Maté L. e Tua J. (2006). The accounting records of the Monastery of Silos throughout the eighteenth century: the accumulation and management of its patrimony in the light of its accounts books. Accounting History, 11(2): 221-256.
  27. Pacaut M. (1999). Nepotism in the Middle Ages. Popes, cardinals and noble families.
  28. Montrone A. e Chirieleison C. (2009). I prodromi della partita doppia in una corporazione monastica: la contabilità dell’Abbazia di San Pietro in Perugia dal 1461 al 1464. De Computis: Revista Espanola de Historia de la Contabilidad, 10: 239-263.
  29. Miller P., Hopper T. e Laughlin R. (1991). The new accounting history: An introduction. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 16(5-6): 395-403.
  30. Miller P. e O’Leary T. (1987). Accounting and the construction of the governable person. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 12(3): 235-265.
  31. McPhail K., Gorringe T. e Gray R. (2004). Accounting and theology, an introduction: Initiating a dialogue between immediacy and eternity. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 17(3): 320-326.
  32. Littleton A.C. e Zimmerman V.K. (1962). Accounting Theory: Continuity and Change. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.
  33. Leardini C. e Rossi G. (2013). Accounting and power in religious institutions: Verona’s Santa Maria della Scala monastery in the Middle Ages. Accounting History, 18(3): 415-427.
  34. Laughlin R. (1988). Accounting in its social context: An analysis of the accounting systems in the Church of England. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 1(2): 19-42.
  35. Lai A., Lionzo A. e Stacchezzini R. (2015). The interplay of knowledge innovation and academic power: Lessons from “isolation” in twentieth-century Italian accounting studies. Accounting History, 20(3): 266-287.

  • Time, space and accounting at Nonantola Abbey (1350–1449) Michele Bigoni, Laura Maran, Silvia Ferramosca, in The British Accounting Review 100882/2021 pp.100882
    DOI: 10.1016/j.bar.2020.100882

Matteo Palmaccio, Alessandra Lardo, Benedetta Cuozzo, Rosa Lombardi, Bookkeeping methods and accounting controls: Developments within the Abbey of Montecassino from the 15th to the 17th century in "CONTABILITÀ E CULTURA AZIENDALE" 1/2017, pp 7-27, DOI: 10.3280/CCA2017-001002