The origins of the stock exchange: from the Ter Buerse inn to Wall Street

In 2023, the imposing building that formerly housed the Brussels stock exchange (known as the “Bourse” or “Beurs”) was given a new lease of life. The city transformed it into a trendy public venue, housing restaurants, exhibition spaces, an archaeological site and even a museum devoted to beer. The building, designed by Léon Suys and originally known as the “Palais de la Bourse” or “Beurspaleis’”, was inaugurated by the City of Brussels in 1873. Back then, it served as a genuine stock exchange – a financial centre where stockbrokers could trade financial instruments, such as shares. The stock exchange remains a familiar concept to this day, just think of the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street. But how did the first stock market come about? To find out, we need to go back in time to medieval Bruges or, alternatively, visit the first floor of the Museum.

Although trade flourished in Bruges, most of the city’s inhabitants were not actively involved in these pursuits. The city’s innkeepers, however, did play an important – albeit indirect – role as intermediaries between foreign merchants, bringing them into contact with one another. They not only provided merchants with accommodation, warehousing space and meals, but also took on a brokerage role. As there were no official stock market listings at the time, they gathered information about the local economy and the state of foreign markets for, and through, their itinerant guests. Given how central this role was to trade, innkeeping was one of the city’s most respected professions. One of the most important innkeeping families in Bruges was the Van der Buerse family, which ran the Ter Buerse inn for five generations, with the oldest records dating back to the thirteenth century. As early as 1285, Robrecht Van der Buerse was operating the inn. Over the course of the fourteenth century, the square in front of Ter Buerse (the “Beursplein”) developed into the commercial and financial centre of Bruges.

Merchants gathered on the square each day to conduct business. At that time, they didn’t trade in shares but rather mainly in bills of exchange, goods and important commercial information. From 1370, the exchange rates of several cities were regularly published there, as were, starting around 1400, those of the leading trading and banking centres in Europe such as Barcelona, Venice, London and Paris. To facilitate transactions, notaries and money changers also set up offices there. The leading foreign merchants joined forces to form associations, by nation, which operated from so-called “nation houses” on the Beursplein. These houses were also used as consulates, meeting rooms and warehouses. The Venetians established a nation house as early as 1322; the Genoese did likewise in 1397, and the Florentines followed suit in the fifteenth century. Although the Beursplein was a public space, entry was forbidden to beggars and vagrants during trading hours for fear that they would harass the merchants. To prevent this from happening, a bailiff kept a watchful eye on the square. Not much is known, however, about the practical organisation, governing rules and supervision of the activities carried out at the Beursplein, as this first stock exchange operated on the basis of custom and little to nothing was officially recorded. The Antwerp stock exchange was the first to keep written records, starting in the 16th century.

Nevertheless, the name of the old Bruges innkeeping family lives on in the modern-day words for “stock exchange” in a number of languages, including French (bourse) and Dutch (beurs). The name and coat of arms of the Van der Buerse family, which featured three purses or “beurzen” in Flemish, were undoubtedly decisive in creating an association between the Beursplein in Bruges and the concept of a stock market. Yet the term originally referred to the square rather than the inn located there. The first writer to mention the Beursplein was Hieronymus Muenze, a German physician from Nuremberg who travelled extensively throughout Europe in 1495. His travel journals show that, in that year, he stayed at a guesthouse on the square in front of Ter Buerse. In one entry, he writes that, “[T]here is a square in Bruges where merchants assemble; it is called De Beurs. There, Spaniards, Italians, English, Germans, Orientals, in short, all nations gather.” When Bruges declined in importance the following century, financial activity shifted to Antwerp. People there soon spoke about “the new beurs”, with reference to the square in which merchants gathered. From Antwerp, the word beurs made its way to France, Italy, Spain, and Germany, where it became bourse, borsa, bolsa and Börse. The word “Burse” was also used in England between 1550 and 1775, until it was supplanted by the term “Royal Exchange”.