32. Trade fair notebook. Medina del Campo, 17 June 1584 to 7 August 1586

Trade fair notebooks are auxiliary accounting books generally in octavo whose purpose is to facilitate payment by the compensation of bills of exchange that reach maturity at the time of the fair. They are very similar to the Italian ‘scartafacci’ and the French ‘carnets de pagements’. They function in a similar way to fair ledgers, with the ‘debit’ and ‘credit’ registered on the left- and right-hand pages respectively (i.e., the verso and the recto), the sums of which are carried over page by page until the end. Thus, this trade fair notebook records the compensations or settlements that took place at the time of this particular trade fair between 17 June 1584 and 7 August 1586. The use of these trade fair notebooks in bookkeeping practices started late in the life of Simón Ruiz’s companies. Sixty-three different copies are preserved in his archive, and this is the earliest of them.

(Antonio Sánchez del Barrio)