The transfer of accounting technologies within a religious order: the case of the Monastery of Silos (Spain) in the nineteenth century

Abstract

ABSTRACT After a long period of abandonment due to the confiscation of its ecclesiastical properties in 1835, life at the Monastery of Silos recommenced in 1880, with the arrival of a group of Benedictine monks from France. This study focuses on the accounting system that the French monks brought with them to illustrate how accounting technology was transferred between two monasteries of the same religious order located in two different countries. The archives of the Monastery of Silos shed light on the differences between the accounting practices implemented at the end of the nineteenth century compared with those that had existed up until 1835. Our findings suggest that the French monks acted as agents for the transfer of technology by importing the accounting practices used at the Monastery of Ligugé (France) to the Monastery of Silos (Spain). The accounting approach used in Ligugé was notably less sophisticated than the one used for centuries at Silos. However, these new accounting practices fitted well with the needs of the Monastery of Silos at a time of scant economic resources, primarily focused on the reconstruction of the monastery’s buildings, activity which extended from the end of 1880 up until January 1883.