Accounts and Accountability in Late Medieval Europe: Records, Procedures, and Socio-Political Impact, ed. Ionuţ Epurescu-Pascovici (Turnhout, 2020: USML 50, viii+306 pp. ISBN 978-2-503-58853-7.

An interdisciplinary study of the development of institutional accountability in the later Middle Ages, highlighting innovations in auditing procedures, administrative professionalisation, and the political and social impact of the reforms. Accounts and Accountability in Late Medieval Europe traces the momentous transformation of institutions and administration under the impact of accounting records and procedures, c. 1250–1500. The volume’s focus on the materiality and organising logic of a range of accounts is complemented by close attention to the socio-political contexts in which they functioned and the agency of central and local officials. The volume is divided into three parts: the role of financial accountability in the political designs of late medieval states, the uses of accounts auditing and information management as tools for governance, and their impact on the everyday life of local communities. Covering both the centre and the periphery of medieval Europe, from England and the papal curia to Savoy and Transylvania, the case studies evince the difficult passage from the early experiments with financial accounts towards an accountability of office.

This title is available in Open Access from: https://www.brepolsonline.net/series/usml-eb

Contents:

Ionuţ Epurescu-Pascovici, “the Auditing of Accounts to Institutional Accountability in Late Medieval Europe”

Part One: Financial Accountability and Late Medieval Politics

Richard Cassidy, “The English Exchequer, the King, and the Counties from Reform to Civil War, 1258-1264”

Roberto Biolzi, “Military Recruitment and Funding in Savoy: Piedmont and Chablais, Late-Thirteenth to Mid-Fourteenth Century”

Vittoria Bufanio, “Accountability in Building Projects in Piedmont under Philip of Savoy-Achaea: Administrative Experimentation and Political Consolidation”

Part Two: The Tools of Governance: Auditing, Information Management, and Budgeting

Esther Tello Hernández, “Auditing of Accounts as an Instrument of Royal Power in Catalonia (1318-1419)”

Alessandro Silvestri, “From Auditing to Budgeting in Late Medieval Sicily: Institutions, Administrators, and Information Management”

Armand Jamme, “From Administrative Control to Fighting Corruption? The Procedural Steps of Accounts Auditing in the Papal State (Thirteenth to Sixteenth Century)”

Ekaterina Nosova, “A Codicological Approach to the Auditing Process: the Duke of Burgundy’s Household Accounts during the Swiss Campaign (1476)”

Guido Castelnuovo, “The Rolls, the Prince, and their Depositories: The Archiving of Late Medieval Financial Accounts Reconsidered (Savoy, Mid-Fourteenth to Mid-Fifteenth Century)”

Part Three: Financial Accounts and Local Communities

Nicolas Carrier, “Local Communities and Fiscal Reform in Late Medieval Savoy: Lords, Peasants, and Subsidies”

Aude Wirth-Jaillard, “A Century of Insults, Adultery, and Fight: Justice and its Administration in the Accounting Records of the Castellany of Pont-de-Vaux (Savoyard Bresse, 1274-1375)”

Dean A. Irwin, “From Chirograph to Roll: The Records of Thirteenth-Century Anglo-Jewish Moneylending”

Adinel C. Dincā, “Churchwardens and their Accounts in Transylvania, Fourteenth to Sixteenth Centuries: A Preliminary Assessment”