STORIES

OF

BANKS AND BANKERS.

I. ORIGIN OF BANKING.

"THEN have ye Lombard Street, so called of the Longobards and other merchants; strangers of divers nations assembling there twice every day. Of what original, or continuance, I have not read of record, more than that Edward the Second, in the twelfth of his reign, confirmed a messuage, sometime belonging to Robert Turke, abutting on Lombard Street toward the south, and toward Cornhill on the north, for the merchants of Florence, which proveth the street to have had the name of Lombard Street before the reign of Edward the Second." So says John Stow, in his "Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster," published in the year 1598. The "Longobards" of Lombard Street were

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doubtless the first bankers in this country, though some sort of dealing in money as a merchandize, consisting chiefly in the exchange of foreign and English coin, was carried on, long prior to their appearance in this country, by the Jews. The parable of the slothful servant, in which it is said, "Thou oughtest to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury," shows that the Jews, as a nation, well understood the art of investment; but the system, in all probability, was as rude as all Oriental banking has remained to the present moment. It was in Italy that the art of banking, as known in our own time, first came to be introduced. The earliest public bank established in modern Europe was that of Venice, which was founded in 1157. It originated in a loan which the State raised during the great war of the Republic with the Greek empire (1156-71). To meet the exigencies of the crisis, contributions were levied on the most wealthy inhabitants, and the Chamber of Loans-Camera degl' imprestiti-was established for the purpose of managing the funds thus collected, and of paying a guaranteed interest of four per cent. to the creditors. These creditors were subsequently incorporated into a company for the manage