Raymond Adrien Marie de Roover (1904–1972) was an economic historian of
medieval Europe,[1] whose scholarship explained why
Scholastic economic thought is best understood as a precursor of, and wholly compatible with,
classical economic thought.[2] In contrast, many mid-20th-century economic historians, such as
R.H. Tawney, taught that
Karl Marx was the last and greatest of the Scholastic economists.[3]
Life
De Roover was born in Antwerp on 28 August 1904.[4] He studied commercial and financial science at the Higher Institute of Commerce Saint-Ignace (the origin of the
University of Antwerp) and began working as a bookkeeper while spending his free time studying the history of bookkeeping.[4] In 1928 he published a study of
Jan Ympijn, who had written the first Flemish treatise on double-entry bookkeeping (published 1543).[4] In 1929 he came across the accounts of the exchange merchants Colaert van Marke and Willem Ruweel in Bruges city archives, their records having been sequestered by the city at their bankruptcy in 1369.[4] This led to a number of publications, including a 1937 article in Annales d'histoire économique et sociale.
In 1936 De Roover married the American historian
Florence Edler, and emigrated to the United States.[4] He studied for an
Master of Business Administration at
Harvard Business School, graduating in 1938, and in 1943 obtained a doctorate in economics from the
University of Chicago. In 1940 he was naturalised as a US citizen.[4] His early research had focused on the technicalities of banking and exchange in medieval Flanders. In the United States, he expanded his research to the history of the
Medici Bank and to more abstract medieval economic thought.
(1930). "Quelques considérations sur les livres de compte de Collard de Marke (1366-1369)", Bulletin de l'Institut supérieur de Commerce Saint-Ignace, 7, pages 445-475
(1934). "Le livre de comptes de Guillaume Ruyelle, changeur à Bruges (1369)", Annales de la Société d'Emulation de Bruges, 77, pages 5-95.
(1937). "Aux origines d'une technique intellectuelle: la formation et l'expansion de la comptabilité à partie double", Annales d'histoire économique et sociale9, pages 171-193, 270-298.
(1968). The Bruges Money Market around 1400, with a statistical supplement by Hyman Sardy. Brussels:
KVAB.[7]
(1971). La Pensée Économique des Scolastiques: Doctrines et Méthodes. Montréal: Institut d'Études Médiévales.
(1974). Business, Banking, and Economic Thought in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Selected Studies of Raymond de Roover. University of Chicago Press.
Sources
^Kathryn Reyerson, review of Bruges, Cradle of Capitalism, 1280-1390, by James M. Murray, in Business History Review, Winter 2006, Volume 80, Issue 4
[1].
^David Herlihy (1972). "Raymond de Roover, Historian of Mercantile Capitalism", Journal of European Economic History1, pages 755-762.
^David A. Martin, R. H. Tawney as Economist, Journal of Economic Issues, Volume 16, Number 3 (September, 1982), pages 829-853