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Medieval Sourcebook:
Partnership Agreements:
For Money Changing, 1248


The intricate art of money-changing was a business requiring a large capital of anyone wishing to enter it. The provisions of this contract are unusual, and sufficiently illuminating to justify careful study.

May the twenty-second in the year of the Incarnation of the Lord, 1248.

I, Bernard of St. Victor, son of Peter of St. Victor, with permission of my father who was present, wished, and assented to it, acknowledge and confess to you, William Sansier, that I have had and received in partnership from you 125 pounds in mixed money now current in Marseilles, renouncing, etc. In this partnership I ought to put fifty pounds of my own money, and I ought to exercise the art of money-changing for the partnership and to work for it on the advice of yourself, from the next feast of Pentecost for two complete and continuous years, and I should have half the profit which God permits me to make by the said partnership. I should also have fifty solidi every year over and above my half of the profit, and you should have the other half of the profit. I promise by this agreement to look well and faithfully after the affairs of the partnership and to do business for it as well as I am able and as well as I know how. And I promise to repay you the 125 pounds with half the profit, as has been said, at the end of the stipulated two years, and to come to a proper reckoning with you whenever you please and to tell you the truth and to be faithful to you in all things, and to carry the joint capital nightly to your house, pledging all my goods and renouncing the protection of all laws, etc.

To this, I, the said Peter of St. Victor, father of the said Bernard, do agree and pledge myself to you, William Sansier, as debtor to you for all things agreed and done by my son under pledge of all my goods both present and future, renouncing the protection, etc.

Witnesses, etc.


Source:

From: L. Blancard, ed, Documents Inédits sur le Commerce de Marseille au Moyen Age, (Marseilles: Barlatier-Feissat, Pere et Fils, 1884), Vol. II, p. 182, reprinted in Roy C. Cave & Herbert H. Coulson, A Source Book for Medieval Economic History, (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Co., 1936; reprint ed., New York: Biblo & Tannen, 1965), pp. 189-190.

Scanned by Jerome S. Arkenberg, Cal. State Fullerton. The text has been modernized by Prof. Arkenberg.


This text is part of the Internet Medieval Source Book. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and copy-permitted texts related to medieval and Byzantine history.

Unless otherwise indicated the specific electronic form of the document is copyright.Permission is granted for electronic copying, distribution in print form for educational purposes and personal use. If you do reduplicate the document, indicate the source. No permission is granted for commercial use.

© Paul Halsall, September 1998
[email protected]

 



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