The History of Currency, 1252 to 1896

by William Arthur Shaw

make trial every fifteen days of the value of any foreign scudi, and to publish the result.

There is a wonderful simplicity about this enactment. In order to defend themselves from a flood of cheap and cheapening silver, the Florentine authorities adopted a virtual gold monometallism. That the enactment was not permanently regarded and kept can only be attributed to the strength of commercial custom, and to a true perception in the mercantile community at large of the essential difficulty of the problem and its remedy. The Florentines were simply obliged to circulate all coins, gold as well as silver, because such was the universal custom of mediæval Europe. By 1552 silver foreign monies were again current in Florence, in such quantities and with such effects on the native gold currency, that they had to be again prohibited and banished (by law of 18th May 1552); renewed three years later (28th February 1555), and again in 1557 (29th April). Indeed, within the period here treated of, up to, i.e., 1660, there is a series of thirteen or fourteen separate re-enactments of the prohibition relating to these monies and the depreciated Florentine billon money ("quattrini neri"). If, during this period, Florence had occupied the commanding position that Antwerp did, quite unique interest would attach to the record of this monetary policy or experiment. But not being in that position, and being, too, quite apparently unable to enforce her own enactments in her own territory, even this merely depressive policy was partially broken down. In so

far as it was broken down she lay at the mercy of the monetary changes around her, and of the Netherland financiers, as did every other country of Europe. By the law of 5th April 1630, all species of foreign ducatoons were prohibited, "in consideration that, within the short time they have been introduced, so great a quantity, and of such differing standards, has been imported from the various foreign Mints." Five years later the gold coin was in so depreciated a state as to call for legislative interference (9th February 1635, renewed on 5th February 1645); and again in 1661 (3rd February) it was found necessary to prohibit the circulation of the silver reals of Peru and every other kind of Spanish silver, except at bullion value. These are only a few from a long list of similar enactments, but they serve adequately to show the trend of events on small as well as large fields of operations. What an amount of commercial disturbance and disaster lies behind the dry details of these legal enactments, the case of England will serve to show.

Germany.

The monetary history of Germany is one of extreme confusion and intricacy. The lack of coercive power in the central authority—in the Emperor himself—was as conspicuously displayed in the monetary ordinances of the empire as in the political sphere. The imperial edicts were disregarded, and each separate circle of the empire, or each separate prince or union of princes, left to shift or act

for themselves. Amid all the confusion of such a disorganised and reeling system sufficient is perceptible to indicate the broad tendency of events, and to show how closely analogous was her experience to that of Europe generally within the same period.

In Germany, as in the Netherlands, France, and England, the influence of the discovery of America only begins to express itself about 1520, and in the usual way—influx, movements and disorders in the currency and ratio, and general complaints. In 1520 a monetary convention was summoned to meet at Forchheim. This was followed by the debate in the Reichstag at Nürnberg (1522), where great complaints were made of the unusable, false, and depreciated coinage, "due to the stealing away and exchanging abroad of the gold gulden and silver coins." It was in consequence of the representations of this Reichstag that the first of the series of three imperial Mint ordinances was issued by Charles V. (at Esslingen, 1524). The main details of this ordinance will be found in the accompanying tables and in [Appendix V.]

The effect of the first imperial ordinance was to change the ratio from something between 10 and 11 to 11.38. The gulden was raised from 17s. 4 pf. to 17s. 6 pf. All foreign gold was to be taken at equivalent rates, and whoever gave more for foreign coins of gold was to suffer a heavy penalty. Further, the export of gold and silver was forbidden, on pain of life and goods.

The ordinance remained a dead letter, and the monetary disorder of the country only increased.