The development of financial management and control in monastic houses and estates in England c. 1200–1540

Abstract

This paper traces developments in the financial management and control of monastic houses and their estates in England in the later Middle Ages, and seeks to identify the factors which lay behind these developments. It draws upon ecclesiastical, economic and accounting history literature. It finds first that this period of monastic history is not as uneventful as sometimes depicted; and second that previous accounting history studies have focused largely on the agency relationship between the lord and the steward responsible for the management of agricultural properties, whereas the network of accountability and information flows in monastic establishments was more complex. Furthermore, the impetus for accounting change was more diverse than is often portrayed. A large variety of possible factors existed: these were not mutually exclusive and may have acted to reinforce each other. This paper concludes that there is a need for more detailed research at the micro-level on individual monastic houses to reconstruct and explain the evolution of their accounting and management techniques and processes.