page_title: History of banking
section_title: Development of central banking
hierarchical_section_title: History of banking / 17th–19th centuries – The emergence of modern banking / Development of central banking
caption_attribution_description: English: Sealing of the Bank of England Charter (1694) by Lady Jane Lindsay, 1905. Français&#160;: Sealing of the Bank of England Charter (1694), Lady Jane Lindsay, 1905. L'apposition du sceau de la charte de la Banque d’Angleterre en 1694.
context_page_description: The history of banking began with the first prototype banks which were the merchants of the world, who gave grain loans to farmers and traders who carried goods between cities. This was around 2000 BC in Assyria, India and Sumeria. Later, in ancient Greece and during the Roman Empire, lenders based in temples gave loans, while accepting deposits and performing the change of money. Archaeology from this period in ancient China and India also shows evidence of money lending.
  Many histories position the crucial historical development of a banking system to medieval and Renaissance Italy and particularly the affluent cities of Florence, Venice and Genoa. The Bardi and Peruzzi Families dominated banking in 14th century Florence, establishing branches in many other parts of Europe. The most famous Italian bank was the Medici bank, established by Giovanni Medici in 1397. The oldest bank still in existence is Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, headquartered in Siena, Italy, which has been operating continuously since 1472.
  Development of banking spread from northern Italy throughout the Holy Roman Empire, and in the 15th and 16th century to northern Europe.
context_section_description: The Bank of Amsterdam became a model for the functioning of a bank in the capacity of monetary exchange and started the development of central banks. An early central bank was the Sveriges Riksbank, established in 1668, although this was short-lived.
  In England in the 1690s, public funds were in short supply and were needed to finance the ongoing conflict with France. The credit of William III's government was so low in London that it was impossible for it to borrow the £1,200,000 (at 8 per cent) that the government wanted. In order to induce subscription to the loan, the subscribers were to be incorporated by the name of the Governor and Company of the Bank of England. The bank was given exclusive possession of the government's balances, and was the only limited-liability corporation allowed to issue banknotes. The lenders would give the government cash (bullion) and also issue notes against the government bonds, which can be lent again. The £1.2M was raised in 12 days; half of this was used to rebuild the Navy. The establishment of the Bank of England, the model on which most modern central banks have been based on, was devised by Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, in 1694, to the plan which had been proposed by William Paterson three years before, but had not been acted upon. He proposed a loan of £1.2M to the government; in return the subscribers would be incorporated as The Governor and Company of the Bank of England with long-term banking privileges including the issue of notes.  The Royal Charter was granted on 27 July through the passage of the Tonnage Act 1694.
  Although the Bank was originally a private institution, by the end of the 18th century it was increasingly being regarded as a public authority with civic responsibility toward the upkeep of a healthy financial system. The currency crisis of 1797, caused by panicked depositors withdrawing from the Bank led to the government suspending convertibility of notes into specie payment. The bank was soon accused by the bullionists of causing the exchange rate to fall from over issuing banknotes, a charge which the Bank denied. Nevertheless, it was clear that the Bank was being treated as an organ of the state.
  Henry Thornton, a merchant banker and monetary theorist has been described as the father of the modern central bank. An opponent of the real bills doctrine, he was a defender of the bullionist position and a significant figure in monetary theory, his process of monetary expansion anticipating the theories of Knut Wicksell regarding the "cumulative process which restates the Quantity Theory in a theoretically coherent form".  As a response 1797 currency crisis, Thornton wrote in 1802 An Enquiry into the Nature and Effects of the Paper Credit of Great Britain, in which he argued that the increase in paper credit did not cause the crisis. The book also gives a detailed account of the British monetary system as well as a detailed examination of the ways in which the Bank of England should act to counteract fluctuations in the value of the pound.
  Until the mid-nineteenth century, commercial banks were able to issue their own banknotes, and notes issued by provincial banking companies were commonly in circulation. Many consider the origins of the central bank to lie with the passage of the Bank Charter Act of 1844. Under the 1844 Act, bullionism was institutionalized in Britain, creating a ratio between the gold reserves held by the Bank of England and the notes that the Bank could issue. The Act also placed strict curbs on the issuance of notes by the country banks.
  The Bank accepted the role of 'lender of last resort' in the 1870s after criticism of its lacklustre response to the Overend-Gurney crisis. The journalist Walter Bagehot wrote an influential work on the subject Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market, in which he advocated for the Bank to officially become a lender of last resort during a credit crunch (sometimes referred to as "Bagehot's dictum").
  Central banks were established in many European countries during the 19th century. The War
caption: The sealing of the Bank of England Charter (1694).
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