Summaries of papers presented at the First International Accounting History Symposium

              R. H. Homburger
WICHITA STATE UNIVERSITY
SUMMARIES OF PAPERS PRESENTED AT THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL ACCOUNTING HISTORY
SYMPOSIUM
The State of Bookkeeping in Upper Germany at the Time of the Fuggers and Welsers
By Dr. Hermann Kellenbenz University of Cologne
I. Since the work of Penndorf on the subject, appearing in 1913, substantial new research has been done and considerable progress been made. Among the authors being mentioned are the following:
Prior to World War II: Jakob Strieders, A. Hummel, Alfred Weitnauer, Joseph Loef-fenholz.
After World War II: Raymond deRoover, Wolfgang Stromer von Reichenbach, Goetz, Freiherr von Poelnitz, Hanns Linhardt, and his students Hartmut Schiele and Manfred Ricker.
II. Bookkeeping developments in Germany can be observed since the end of the 13th century. The earliest books are in Latin; but since the middle of the 14th century, a gradual change to the German language can be observed. The earliest available sources come from the hanseatic cities of Lower Germany, such as Luebeck and Rostock. Their approach to bookkeeping procedure is very con-servative and no traces of double entry are noticeable in these early records.
In South Germany, more reliance was placed on the Italian method at an early stage, considerably earlier than the publication of Pacioli's Summa. It was customary to send the sons of South German merchants to Italy to study the Italian double entry method —Jacob Fugger visited there in 1473; thus South German firms, in Nuremberg and other cities, developed bookkeeping under the Italian method. The transition from Roman to Arabic numerals was