Payment Order of Antiquity and the Middle Ages

Benjamin Geva, LL B Heb Univ, Jerusalem. LLM, SJD, Harvard, is Professor of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School of York University, Canada.

• 1. Money, Payment in Money, and the Order to Pay Money 2. Money and Monetary Legal Theory in Antiquity and the Middle Ages 3. Funds Transfers in Antiquity: Instruments, Institutions and Mechanisms 4. Deriving History from Law: Are Cheques Traceable to the Talmud? 5. The Payment Order under Roman Law 6. The Medieval Hawale: The Legal Nature of the Suftaj and Other Islamic Payment Instruments 7. Funds Transfers under Talmudic Law: Orthodoxy and Adaptation 8. Payment Orders in Medieval Continental Europe: Book Transfers and Bills of Exchange 9. Payment Orders under English Common Law: The Bailment of Money and the 'Reception' of the Bill of Exchange 10. Evolution and Transformation: The Birth of the Modern Payment System in Post-Medieval England 11. Turning the Wheels of Post-Medieval Change: Paper Circulation and Negotiability under English Law 12. Staying on Course: The Footprint of Ancient and Medieval Doctrine and Practice on Modern Payment Laws Epilogue: From Barter to Electronic Funds Transfers and the Role of Law

...by publishing The Payment Order of Antiquity and the Middle Ages: A History, Professor Geva amply demonstrates the depth and breadth of his learning in this area as the foundation for his scholarship on current and likely future issues in payments law. All banking lawyers should be delighted that he has produced this volume, so that they, too, may benefit from his lifelong devotion to the study of that law.This book is both lengthy and very detailed, as well as being very closely argued throughout and no review can do justice to the scholarly riches found therein....a very fine work of immense learning and scholarship. It is well-written, well-organized, and once chapter one has been consumed, intelligible to the interested non-expert reader. The historical matter is presented in meticulous and logical detail, a testimony to a very precise and logical mind. I learned an enormous amount from reading the book, expect to return to it frequently, and commend it heartily to readers.