Bookkeeping Ledger.

Wirtschafts=Manual und Rechnung bey der Hofgräfl. von Schlabrendorffischen Herrschaft und dazu gehörigen Güthern über empfangene und verausgabte Natural- und Materialien…Vom 1 Julii 17[ ] bis Ult[im]mo Junii 17[ ].

[Brandenburg], s.n. c. 1780s.

Folio (373 x 242 x 111 mm.). [i], 1056, [1 blank]p. Gothic and roman type, in from two to twenty-eight columns, title long-line.

Contemporary blind-ruled sheep-backed and -tipped gray pressed paper boards (minor defects, upper rear joint neatly repaired), spine with blind-ruled sewing cords, uncut.

What follows. The question is — why?
            This massive tabular account-management ledger for the Schlaberndorf(f) estate itemizes some seven dozen categories of crops and goods produced on or acquired by the property during a twelve-month period, from 1 July to the following 30 June. The categories include building supplies such as lime, axle grease and roofing shingles, several types of grains (just harvested, threshed, milled…), livestock, brandy, beer (ordinair or doppel), potash, salt, yarn, beeswax and oil for burning. The granularity extends to the amount of bread destined to the dogs and to the poor, the species and size of each fish in the pond, the age of the horses, and the contractual food allowance (cheese, eggs, beer…) for different classes of laborers, the use of tally sticks and the amount of loss suffered commodity by commodity.
            Highly organized, each category has its own set of quarterly and annual summaries, which uniformly specify the various uses of the materials (including sale, taxes and payment in kind) and the exact pages covered by each list.
            Due to the cost of type composition and printing, professional scribes long dominated the production of commercial account books. Did our anonymous printer attempt to reach a new market by issuing a commercially viable “edition” of this ledger, suitable to customization through word or phrase substitution? Was this intended to reach similar landed families in his region, or was it simply a one-off for the Schlabrendorffs?
            The present example seems the only to survive. In excellent condition, uncut, preserved in its original binding.

Item #11305

Price: $5,200.00