The Bewildering Number of Coins in... Medieval Europe!

in cryptoblurt •  4 years ago 

If you think that today's crypto landscape is awash with a mind-boggling array of coins, then you can find kinship with the Medieval European trader.

Peter Spufford’s Handbook of Medieval Exchange (London, 1986) lists approximately 500 different coins in use in Europe between the 12th and 15th centuries.

Luckily, there is a handy search page where you can do a historical coinswap.

For example, in about 1400, 1 ducat of Venice was worth about 3 hyperpyron of Byzantium; by 1450 this had risen to about 3.33 hyperpyron.

You can read about it here and use this and other similar currency databases.


A ducat of Venice, 1382-1400. wikimedia

But imagine having to carry them around, and test their purity in the face of constant debasement, and then locate an exchanger willing to trade your coin for the local currency. Fun times!

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I'm not readily finding information with a quick search. But the U.S. went through a strong antibank sentiment in the 1800's, seeing many different populist banks springing up printing their own currency in their localities. I want to say it was rampant in the 1840s as I seem to remember that was one of the charges leveled against LDS founder Joseph Smith. Currencies were distrusted by many, stirred in part I believe by the criticisms from such heroic notables as Andrew Jackson who recognized the threat to liberty the central bank presented to the American people.

  ·  4 years ago  ·  

One currency was, however, successful: the Penn Scrip. They were pissed off at having the dollar rammed down...

looks like an old site, the search works if you use their preset "choose from list" items.

Neither DuckDuckGo or Google ( I try not to use them but sometimes DuckDuckGo isn't that good) shows me a website for this. Could you link to the website you're mentioning so I can check it out more?

Imagine a currency so good you need to make lots of laws prohibiting the use of anything else. lol Good ole Federal Reserve Notes of debt. Enslaving the "citizens" of the United States since 1913.

  ·  4 years ago  ·  

a website for?

  ·  4 years ago  ·  

sorry, hadnt read the whole thread - u mean the Penn Scrip?
was also called the Penn Pound
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_pound
wnkipedia kinda useless.

This is probably the best article I found, from 1896 ;-)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1009592.pdf

also if u include JSTOR in your searches ul find many more articles - tho ul need to signup to JSTOR - it's free, if I recall just pretend ur an independent researcher lmao.

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  ·  4 years ago  ·  

Thanks!

  ·  4 years ago  ·  

These are both interesting and chaotic. These people of old times should have payed more attention to simplicity and elegance.

  ·  4 years ago  ·  

Like how?
they had a simple accounting system using ledgers and tally sticks. The tally sticks were a form of encryption in that nobody could duplicate the exact same slither of wood ;-)

  ·  4 years ago  ·  

Great find! Unfortunately reblogging does not work just now, yet a comment will do give me a reminder.