The word every stock exchange still owes to a canal

Every time someone says bourse, börse, borsa or bolsa, they're quoting a family that ran an inn on a Bruges canal in the thirteenth century, whether they know it or not.

The Van der Beurze family had been running the place since 1285, right on the water, and their coat of arms showed three purses, buerzen in Flemish. Merchants gathered there to trade, and the family kept staff who spoke half the languages of Europe, so deals could actually get done. It wasn't all smooth running though. When an innkeeper died in 1351, some clients' money was still tied up in his estate, and the scandal that followed dented Bruges' reputation for a good while. The inn itself is long gone. The word it gave the world never left.

I painted the canal in watercolour and ink, all that reflected brick and quiet water. There's a poster with a letter home and a postcard,  if you'd like one.

Shop the poster here: Bruges Canal, Belgium · Travel Poster