II.   Sovereign

Bookkeeping is the systems and methodologies of recording of financial transactions such as purchases, sales receipts and payments by an individual or organization. In the 16th Century, England adopted the Venetian “double entry” bookkeeping system for the recording of all accounts and transactions of the crown under bankruptcy and under the control of the Court of the Exchequer.

All bookkeeping systems are based “in theory” on recording the position and effect of financial transactions to ascertain the solvency of an individual or organization and to optimize resources. In the normal course of business:

(i) Every transaction involves an event and every event occurs in chronological order of time. Thus all events are recorded in Memoranda, whether or not a document is yet produced or exists for each transaction; and

(ii) As documents are produced or received, they are tallied against the Memoranda daily by entries into Journals or “Day Books” such a Sales Journal or Cash Payment Journal; and

(iii) The details of the Journals are then summarized into Ledgers.

The collection of documents, books and records relating to an Account may include an Inventory, Manifest, Memorandum, Journal, Ledger and Statement:

(i) An Inventory is the survey of all property, or debts or credits associated with the Account completed immediately after its creation and thereafter at an appointed regular time; and

(ii) A Manifest is the history of ownership and possession of any property, rights, money and other interests now recorded as associated with the Account; and

(iii) A Memorandum is a book of detailed records of all transactions associated with the Account, including minutes, resolutions, letters, correspondence, decisions and procedural actions recorded in day and time order; and

(iv) A Journal is a book that extracts the information recorded and memoralized in the Memorandum and arranges it in category order and then day/time order according to a journal; and

(v) A Ledger is a book that extracts the information recorded in a Journal Entry and extracts the highest level information matched according to double entry bookkeeping; and

(vi) A Statement is an extract of a Ledger Balance or Simple Balance of Assets and Debts, or Concessions and Remittances of the Account.

The term Account and Accounting is derived from three (3) Latin words ac- meaning “to, towards or near”; and con- meaning “with; together” and te meaning “the letter t and balance”.  Thus account (acconte) in its original etymological form literally defined “to balance the T (debts and credits)”. 

Two (2) of the oldest concepts of calculation and financial reckoning is checking an inventory and crossing values received and given known as “checking the I’s and crossing the T’s” whereby:

(i) A tablet or papyrus writing surface is prepared and two (2) lines drawn being one (1) down the center separating the surface into two (2) halves. The second line separates the top of the surface into two (2) small boxes into which the top left lists a reference in time / space / age for the review and the right references some total or confirmation of check; and

(ii) Into the left hand side of the surface is placed all those values received and credited, while into the right hand side are all those values given, paid or stored in inventory; and

(iii) What is received is then added up against what is pair or stored in inventory and the total value should be 0. If the number is still in the positive, then an asset or value has not been properly accounted. If the number is in the negative then an expense or inventory has not been properly accounted.

(iv) This system existed until its dramatic corruption in 14th Century by the Venetians in association with the Roman Death Cult by its inversion thus perversely creating debt into an asset and debits into credit.

While the recording, keeping and calculation of financial information is a feature of virtually all advanced civilizations for at least seven thousand (7,000) years, the “modern” system of accounting was formalized by the Venetians in the 14th Century:

(i) General accounting practices, particularly the concept of “double-entry bookkeeping”- whereby each transaction is extracted into a summary ledger as two “separate” entries under different categories of debt and credit - was well established by the Persian traders and Byzantine Empire well before the 4th Century CE. While almost all historic records have otherwise been destroyed or lost over time, there is sufficient evidence to suggest ancient double entry bookkeeping treated income as credits and expenses as debt, consistent with natural logic. Therefore, the Venetian invention in the 14th Century is the reversal of ancient logic and a new system of bookkeeping based on ecclesiastical principles; and

(ii) During the growth of dominance of the Pisan Empire of the Western and Eastern Mediterranean during the 12th and 13th Century, followed by the civil war between major centers such as Genoa versus Venice from 14th to 16th Century, major houses increasingly faced ruin from defaults against loans. At the same time, from 1356 following the “Golden Bull” of Charles IV, the primary of the Venetian-Pisan controlled Roman Death Cult over the true Catholic Church of France-Saxony was secured. The changes to accounting by the Venetians was in response to “harnessing” this new found power to enforce their financial claims against delinquent debtors; and

(iii) The Venetians through the development of the theology of the Roman Death Cult from the 14th Century, firstly infused the notion that all transactions on Earth have a mirror twin in Heaven and so to default against a loan on Earth is a grave and mortal sin against Heaven. This introduced a much stronger precedence to the notion of “all debts must be paid” even if such debts are unfair and carry extraordinary levels of interest. The Venetians then secondly promoted the notion that giving to pay ones debts is the only “true credit”, whereas to receive is the lesser and in effect an obligation and a “debt”- flipping seven thousand (7,000) years of logic on its head. This introduced the perverse notion of cerebrating “poverty” as somehow a gift and grace; and

(iv) To reinforce the dramatic changes in philosophy concerning the reversal of ancient accounting practices by make its purely ecclesiastical in terms of the philosophy of the Roman Death Cult, the Venetians also introduced a step by step ritual, to mimic the concept of sacraments both as claimed “proof” and to reinforce the sacred nature of proper accounting. (1) Competent owners were required to be able to account for their property through a detailed inventory, renewed annually; and (2) Merchants were required to record in a memorandum detailed records of all transactions associated with the Account, including minutes, resolutions, letters, correspondence, decisions and procedural actions recorded in day and time order; and (3) Periodically, merchants then were required to extract the information recorded and memorialized in the Memorandum and arranges it in category order and then day/time order according to a journal; and (4) Upon important days, merchants then were required to submit a book (ledger) that extracted the information recorded in a Journal Entry to the highest level information matched according to double entry bookkeeping whereby all value received (Credit) was to be entered as Debit and all value given (Expense or Debit) was to be entered as Credit; and

(v) The Venetian system of converting accounting into a purely administrative recording of sacred ecclesiastical events, combined with the detailed “proof” of Inventory, Memorandum, Journal and Ledger System both dramatically improved the financial management of Venetian resources, but enabled Venetian and later Genoese traders to periodically demand the enforcement of the repayments of debts by sovereigns in default, using the military forces of the Holy Roman Emperor as well as the ecclesiastical threats of the Vatican for “committing the sin” of failing to pay “valid” debts; and

(vi) It is the original creation by the Pisan and Venetian families of the concept of accounting being divinely inspired first and temporal second from the 14th Century that introduced the notion of fiduciary (accounting competence) responsibility being of the highest importance; and

(vii) The earliest surviving copy of describing the Venetian double-entry bookkeeping system is by Luca Pacioli an Summa de Aithmetica” from 1494 demonstrating the revised Venetian system of making accounting “ecclesiastical” was well established by this time; and

(viii) The first books on accounting practice in German appear in 1531 through Johan Gotleb with “Ein Tentsch…” and in Dutch by Jan Ympyn Christoffels in 1543 through “Nieuwe Instructie Eude Bewijs…”. However, the first books on accounting in English does not appear until 1588 and John Mellis through “a briefe instruction and maner to keepe books of accompts after the order of Debitor and Creditor..”; and

(ix) Contrary to deliberately false information, it appears the Venetian - Pisan method of double entry bookkeeping faced two (2) significant obstacles within England until a more complete work was published in 1636 called “The Merchants’ Mirror or Directions for the Perfect ordering and Keeping of His Accounts”: (1) the level of numeracy in England by 1500 was less than four percent (4%) of the population, well lower than Continental Europe and (2) a persistent refusal by the educated classes of England to adopt the illogic of flipping income to debit and expenses to credit as per the Venetian Ecclesiastical system of accounting. However, by the mid 18th Century, the Kingdom of Great Britain had become an accounting powerhouse through its banking and merchant practices in adopting the Venetian Vatican standards of accounting.