Hospital accounts and accounting systems: a study in the French region of Toulouse from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century

Private charity was the origin of the foundation of hospitals in prerevolutionary France and at the same time their principal source of income; the church played an important role. The Revolution introduced many changes to hospitals. This article has two objectives: to describe hospital organization and accounting practices between the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries as seen in three hospitals in the Toulouse region, and to show how the accounting model adopted was suited to their structure and aims.     

The accounting practices of a sixteenth-century pastel merchant from the French region of Toulouse

Until the end of the sixteenth century the French region of Toulouse was an important centre for the export of pastel, the plant used at that time to produce blue dye. What does the ledger belonging to the factor of a Toulouse pastel producer (pastelier) teach us about the role played by accounting in the relationship between the factor and the commissioning merchant? Under what accounting methods did the agent carry out his business mission? Was the accounting technique used double entry or that which we could call the factors' accounting system?