Bookkeeping

1. Scan the passage below and identify its subject.
In attempting to explain why double entry bookkeeping developed in fourteenth century Italy instead of ancient Greece or Rome, accounting scholar A.C. Littleton describes seven "key ingredients" which led to its creation:
Private property, Capital, Commerce, Credit, Writing, Money, Arithmetic
Many of these factors did exist in ancient times, but until the middle ages they were not found together in a form and strength necessary to push man to the innovation of double entry.