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Creative Commons: "Christine de Pizan in Her Studies" is licensed under CC BY 2.0, courtesy of user 'centralasian' on Flickr

Dr Frances Miley and Andrew Read, senior lecturers at the University of Sussex Business School, were recently awarded the Academy of Accounting Historians’ prize for best publication of 2017 for their article ‘Choreography of the past: accounting and the writing of Christine de Pizan’.

The article, which originally appeared in the American Accounting Association’s Accounting Historians’ Journal, examines the 1405 manuscript of Christine de Pizan, a French noblewoman trying to provide for her children and extended family when her husband died in a plague epidemic.

Dr Miley explains: “Christine de Pizan’s manuscript is certainly unusual in explaining the role of accounting, as it describes the keeping of accounts and budget management as a religious imperative! De Pizan describes accounts and budget management as functions where the three divine virtues of reason, rectitude and justice come together so the proper keeping of accounts and budgets is a way to demonstrate love of God.”

Although historical accounting records show how accounting was done, De Pizan’s manuscript explains why it was done. In giving a rationale for single-entry bookkeeping and budgeting, the manuscript provides a source that allows those attempting to undertake contemporary analyses of accounting records from this historical period to avoid reaching conclusions based solely on current standards and circumstances.  

Dr Miley continues: “Corporate accounting scandals are now commonplace and accounting has moved a long way from its sacred roots. Our research is part of a larger research agenda that seeks to understand how accounting operates in society.”

Apart from their particular interest in early French accounting, Dr Miley and Andrew Read use accounting history to examine the stigmatisation of vulnerable groups in society, including people with mental illness, orphans, indigenous Australians and oppressed minorities.

“When people become appalled by an historical injustice, and then we can demonstrate that a similar injustice continues today, there is an opportunity to discuss issues without the contemporary politicisation that can surround them,” Dr Miley says.

Andrew Read adds: “When people think of accounting academics, they tend to think of people who spend their time analysing numbers in company financial statements but the Business School has an active group of critical and interpretive qualitative accounting researchers, including accounting historians, who examine the broader impacts of accounting in society and the link between accounting and social change.”

Find out more about Accounting research taking place at the Business School