Search

T -I HE study of medieval coinage is of far more than numismatic significance. In comparison with modern conditions, an economy based on a silver coinage, with no paper currency and very limited credit facilities, seems simple indeed. But by means of various simple operations governments could effect considerable changes in the monetary system. In I 895 Crump and Hughes suggested that the amount of coin in England increased roughly fourfold during the reign of Edward I.2 This conclusion has attracted little comment, but if such an increase did take place, then both government finances and the economy as a whole must have been very considerably affected. In what ways could governments at this period alter currencies? By means of recoinages it was possible either to debase or to improve the standard of the coinage. The proportion of base metal in the alloy could be altered, and the weight of the coins might be changed. By means of alterations in the rate of profit charged by the mints, the price of silver could be raised or lowered, with an attendant effect on the flow of bullion in or out of the country. It was the intention of every medieval government that only those coins minted under its own auspices should be current within its territory. But as trade was financed by the export of coin from one country to another in payment for goods, this was hard to enforce, although attempts were made by legislation to prohibit the export of bullion and to forbid the use of foreign coin as currency. The monetary policies of governments might be designed to ensure that there was a strong and stable currency, or in time of acute need the currency might be manipulated in order to increase revenue, with no regard for the detrimental effects that this might have. The first recoinage of Edward I's reign was begun inI 279. The king made the primary motive for it very clear. The currency was in a poor state, debilitated by the number of worn and clipped coins in circulation, as was only natural since it was some thirty years since the great recoinage of Henry III's reign. The initial measure was to place a prohibition on the export of plate and clipped coin: this was necessary, as merchants might have found it more profitable to take such bullion abroad rather than have it recoined in England.3Judicial commissions were set up to inquire into offences concerning the currency,4 the Jews suffering most of all from their activities. 5 New wardens of the mints were appointed, and the technical side of the operations put in the hands of William de Turnemire, an expert moneyer from Marseilles. Accounts survive only for the London and Canterbury mints, and not for the various provincial mints that were opened to