Raymond de Roover

Raymond Adrien Marie de Roover (August 28, 1904 – March 18, 1972) was an economic historian of medieval Europe, whose scholarship explained why Scholastic economic thought is best understood as a precursor of, and wholly compatible with, classical economic thought. In contrast, many mid-20th-century economic historians, such as R.H. Tawney, taught that Karl Marx was the last and greatest of the Scholastic economists.

Life De Roover was born in Antwerp on 28 August 1904. He studied commercial and financial science at the Higher Institute of Commerce Saint-Ignace (the origin of the University of Antwerp) and began working as a bookkeeper while spending his free time studying the history of bookkeeping. and in 1949 a Guggenheim Fellow. He became a fellow of the Koninklijke Academie van België and of the Mediaeval Academy of America.

Publications (1930). "Quelques considérations sur les livres de compte de Collard de Marke (1366-1369)", Bulletin de l'Institut supérieur de Commerce Saint-Ignace, 7, pages 445–475 (1934). "Le livre de comptes de Guillaume Ruyelle, changeur à Bruges (1369)", Annales de la Société d'Emulation de Bruges, 77, pages 5-95. (1937). "Aux origines d'une technique intellectuelle: la formation et l'expansion de la comptabilité à partie double", Annales d'histoire économique et sociale 9, pages 171–193, 270–298. (1948). Money, Banking and Credit in Medieval Bruges. Cambridge: Mediaeval Academy of America. Routledge, 2000. (1948). The Medici Bank: its Organization, Management, Operations and Decline. New York University Press. (1949). Gresham on Foreign Exchange; an Essay on Early English Mercantilism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. (1953). L'Évolution de la Lettre de Change: XIVe-XVIIIe Siècles. Paris: Armand Colin. (1958). "The Concept of the Just Price: Theory and Economic Policy", The Journal of Economic History 18 (4), pages 418–434. (1963). The Rise and Decline of the Medici Bank, 1397–1494. Harvard University Press; W.W. Norton, 1966; Beard Books (August 1999), (1968). The Bruges Money Market around 1400, with a statistical supplement by Hyman Sardy. Brussels: KVAB. (1971). La Pensée Économique des Scolastiques: Doctrines et Méthodes. Montréal: Institut d'Études Médiévales. (1974). Business, Banking, and Economic Thought in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Selected Studies of Raymond de Roover. University of Chicago Press.