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The Medieval World: Money |
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Note: The "Medieval World" pages were originally written for a friend of mine who was (and still is)
writing a fantasy novel, to provide some background information on how pre-industrial societies actually work. The
text remains unchanged from the original document.
Money exists because barter is inefficient. To exchange goods you not only have to find someone who has what you want, you then have to persuade them to accept what you have got in return. It is therefore much better to use something everyone will accept as a medium of exchange. Modern coins and notes are entirely abstract tokens of exchange, whose intrinsic value (as scrap metal or paper) is a tiny fraction of their face value. In the times we are dealing with, however, coins only have any worth as a currency because of their intrinsic value. When you pay for goods with a gold coin, you are effectively just swapping them for a lump of precious metal: it is an exchange of goods for something of equal intrinsic value. It is closer to barter than the modern, abstract conception of money, with precious metals being used simply because they are something that everybody is willing to accept. Thus, a gold coin is best seen as being just a lump of gold, that happens to be stamped with a particular design as a guarantee that it is genuine. However, it should be remembered that because coins were made of gold or silver, they were worth a lot. To go to the market and buy some food with a gold coin would be like trying to buy a newspaper with a £100 note. Now, the extent to which this applies will vary greatly in different times and places, and I freely admit that I am unsure of the details of this. However, where the only coins available are of high value, it will mean that for ordinary people shopping with money will either be for large-scale purchases (e.g. sell your excess produce in the local town's market, then buy a new iron ploughshare) or will be essentially done on credit - you pay when you've brought a coin's worth of goods. Money is also political: it's propaganda in your pocket. For a king to circulate his own coinage is to make a statement about his wealth and influence, and the way in which the king is portrayed and described on his coins can be very revealing about how he wants to be seen. An excellent example of this is the coins issued by the Germanic kings who controlled Western Europe after the passing of the Roman Empire. These dark age monarchs still looked up to Rome as the pinnacle of power and civilization, representing everything that they aspired to. Therefore when they issued coins that imitated those of Rome, and which portrayed those kings in the manner of Roman Emperors, this was a deliberate claim to be the successors of Rome, and the inheritors of all its glories. |
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Last Updated: 1 Oct 07 |  |
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