• DOI:10.2307/3310431
• Corpus ID: 152366234

Origin of the Negotiable Promissory Note

@article{Rabinowitz1956OriginOT,
  title={Origin of the Negotiable Promissory Note},
  author={Jacob J. Rabinowitz},
  journal={University of Pennsylvania Law Review},
  year={1956},
  volume={104},
  pages={927}
}

• J. Rabinowitz
• Published 1 May 1956
• Law
• University of Pennsylvania Law Review

The origin of the negotiable promissory note has been widely discussed by legal historians. Brunner, who has devoted a number of articles to the subject,1 maintains that the principles underlying the negotiable promissory note are traceable to Germanic law and that the main elements of the negotiability clause are discernible in Lombard documents of the eighth, ninth and tenth centuries.' Under the Germanic law of procedure, Brunner asserts, the emphasis was upon the validity or invalidity of the defendant's defense and not upon the validity of the plaintiff's claim. In other words, it was incumbent upon the defendant to show why he was not liable to the plaintiff. Therefore, he says, when the promise ran to the person in whose hands the instrument would appear, the defendant had no valid defense against the holder of the instrument who was not required to show how the defendant became liable to him.3 It seems, however, that Brunner's so-called "principle of the Germanic law of procedure," which supposedly lays stress upon the validity of the defendant's defense-a most peculiar principle indeed-is but a product of his own imagination. He cites no evidence whatsoever for this principle, except the facts which he seeks to explain by it. Furthermore, Brunner would apparently have us believe that the spirit of the Germanic law of procedure, having asserted itself through the Lom-