Bills of exchange are undoubtedly of Italian origin,3 and were first used about the beginning of the thirteenth century.4 The use of these instruments was rapidly spread throughout all Western Europe by the Italian bankers and money-changers. Early bills of exchange contained no words of negotiability.

3 All of the early specimens of these instruments which are extant are written in Italian, even when neither drawn nor payable in Italy.

4 "The precise era of that most useful invention does not appear to have been exactly ascertained; but that it originated * * * in the usages and customs observed and in the regulations adopted at fairs, from considerations of general security and convenience, there is every reason to believe. And after it was once established upon a small scale, the utility and convenience of the invention behooved gradually to lead to its more extensive adoption, particularly in foreign and maritime commerce. Indeed, it seems probable that bills of exchange, such, or nearly such, as we have at present, first came into general use in the course of the extended commerce carried on by the maritime cities of Italy, and of the south of France and Spain, under their comparatively free and well-administered governments. Weber in his Ricerche sull' Origine e sulla Natura del Contratto di Cambrio, published at Venice in 1810, states positively that such documents were in use at Venice in 1171; and a law of Venice of 1272 clearly designates bills of exchange. The unpublished statute of Avignon, of 1243, contains a paragraph entitled De Litteris Cambii. A statute of Marseilles, dated 1253, presents evident traces of them; and a transaction of this description is attested by a document of 1256, relative to England." Reddie's Historical View of Laws of Maritime Commerce.