Proto-Bill of Exchange in the Middle Ages

Timeline

1. 900–1050Commercial centers of the Islamic world · MesopotamiaWritten payment orders (sakk) in Islamic commercial law and Jewish merchants' agency networks across Mediterranean ports offered European merchants a model for remote settlement; scattered use of similar instruments first appeared in the contact zone of southern Italy and Sicily.
2. c. 1071–1080Champagne fairs · ChampagneChampagne's periodic fairs drew merchants from Italy and northern France, where written orders for payment at a distance began to appear, reducing the risk of carrying silver coins between fairs; such practice is seen as an important proto-stage before the European bill of exchange system took shape.
3. 1150–1300Genoa and Venice · ItalyGenoa, Florence and other cities preserved large numbers of 12th-century bill-of-exchange documents; debates in urban commercial law and canon law gradually confirmed their legal validity, while exchange rates (agio) and double-entry bookkeeping developed alongside, forming a recognizable medieval bill-of-exchange system.