Bad debts: did you know?

• The word bankruptcy is formed from the latin bancus, meaning bench, and ruptus, meaning broken.  A bank originally referred to the bench on which the first bankers traded.  When a banker failed, he broke his bench to show that he was not in business.

• The hebrew law of debt forgiveness, in Deuteronomy XIV, 1-2 says that all debts should be released every seven years.

• Philip II of Spain had to declare four state bankruptcies in 1557, 1560, 1575 and 1596.  Spain was first sovereign nation to declare bankruptcy.

• In ancient Greece if a man owed money and could not pay, his family were forced in slavery for his creditor.

• According to al-Maqrizi, an Egyptian historian, Genghis Khan mandated the death penalty for anyone who became bankrupt three times.

• In France more than 40,000 insolvency proceedings were opened in 2004.  Fewer than 600 were opened in Spain.

• Bankruptcy was introduced in Britain under the Bankruptcy Act 1571.  Traders could discharge their debts by an equitable and independent dsitribution of assets.  All other debtors were insolvent debtors and could be jailed.  Many lied about their work to qualify as traders and escape debtors' prison.

• John, the father of Charles Dickens, was sent to Marshalsea prison for failing to pay his debts.  Dickens described Marshalsea in Little Dorrit.

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