In Florio's _A New Worlde of Wordes_; or, _Dictionarie in Italian and English_ (1598), we find the following entries:--
In Torriano's edition of Florio (1650) we come upon these amplified entries--
'Banca-rotta, a bankrout merchant, one that hath broken his credit.
'Banca fallito, a bank broken, a merchant's credit crackt.'
This is the explanation that commends itself to Dr. Murray (_New English Dictionary_), who writes that he cannot trace the reference to a broken bench earlier than that of Dr. Johnson, who introduced the suggestion with the formula 'it is said.'
There is, however, an early note bearing on this derivation in Sir John Skene's remarkable little book, _De Verborum Significatione_ (1641),[351] where we read under the words 'Dyour, Dyvour' this explanation: 'In Latine, _cedere bonis_, quhilk is most commonly used amongst merchandes to make bankrout, bankrupt or bankrompue; because the doer thereof, as it were, breakis his bank, stalle or seete quhair he used his traffique of before.'
No earlier date for the use of the word than the reign of Henry VIII. has been found by Professor Skeat or Dr. Murray, but surely an earlier reference must be lurking somewhere. In the First Folio of Shakespeare the word is printed 'bankeroute' (pronounced as four syllables), but this was altered in later editions to bankrupt. There can be no doubt that the word is directly derived from _bancarotta_, and that the form bankrupt is an afterthought of the learned to connect it with the Latin language.
The point that has to be accounted for is the strange appropriation of an expression meaning broken bench or broken bank to the individual whose credit is broken. This one would naturally expect to be a secondary meaning.
In concluding this chapter it is necessary to make an allusion to the Statute merchant (11 Edw. I.) for the recovery of debts. The first two Letter Books of the City of London are chiefly concerned with recognisances of debts, and they are of great value as illustrating the commercial intercourse of the citizens of London in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries with Gascony and Spain, more especially in connection with wine and leather.
By the Statute of Acton Burnel (11 Edw. I.) it was enacted (_inter alia_) that recognisances of debts should be taken before the Mayor and a clerk appointed by the King. Nevertheless within a very short while after the passing of this Statute and notwithstanding its express provision to the contrary, we find the Mayor, sheriffs and aldermen declaring that such recognisances should be made before the city chamberlain, who might, if he liked, receive, as he frequently did, the recognisances at his own house instead of at the Guildhall.[352]