Schillingen.Pfennige.Schillingen.Pfennige.
Oct. 1609 36 0July 1618 42 6
1610-13 37 0Sept. 43 0
Dec. 1614 37 6Nov. 44 0
Aug. 1615 38 9Sept. 1619 46 6
Jan. 1616 40 0Oct. 48 0
Aug. 41 0Aug. 1620 52 0
April 1617 40 6Feb. 1621 53 0
Aug. 41 0Mar. 54 6
Sept. 41 6May 54 0
Nov. 42 0May 1622 48 0

It was in anticipation of the approaching disorder that on the 3rd of March 1609 a Mint treaty had been made between Mecklenburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, and Hamburg, "for protection against the Mint disorder, which is most disastrous to land and people, and to take precaution against the advance of the larger silver specie." Seven years later, on the 10th January 1616, the merchants and financiers of Hamburg drew up a petition complaining that, through the monetary disorder, trade and exchange was being driven from the city, as within a short period the exchange with Frankfort had fallen from 74 kreutzer (=32 schillingen Lübeck) to 62

kreutzer (=32 schillingen Lübeck), and the exchange with Amsterdam from 46 stivers (=32 schillingen Lübeck) to 39 stivers. To the Senate's proposal for the erection of an exchange bank, the merchants would, however, have nothing to say, considering it unnecessary and dangerous, and called for the suppression of the notes which the merchants had brought into use to facilitate their settlements.

Three years later, however, the Senate declared more strongly for the establishment of a bank, premising in the preamble of their resolution that "it is many ways known and plain how disastrous a disorder has hitherto been in the currency, both from the rise of the larger silver species and from the excessive importation of smaller depreciated specie, whereby not only private individuals but also common interests, as churches, hospitals, widows, and orphans are greatly pinched in their incomes."

GERMANY: HAMBURG IN 1619

It was as the outcome of this resolution that the celebrated Hamburg bank was instituted in 1619, the later life of which was to become of so much importance for the monetary and commercial history of North Germany.

The curious point to observe is the short time—a few months merely—by which the crisis in Germany preceded that in England, and the analogy of some of the manifestations, although there were no such Mint and coinage disorders in England as had aggravated and in the first place partly induced the movement in Germany.

In 1623 a great Mint deputation from all the circles was held, and in accordance with its representations the new imperial basis was established, which remained in force until the conclusion of the period of which we here treat. By that basis the mark of silver was coined into 9 Reichs thalers 2 groschen. The thaler was fixed at 90 kreutzers, the gold gulden at 1 florin 44 kreutzers, and the ducat at 2 florins 20 kreutzers. This disposition remained the Mint law over all the weary, disastrous period of the Thirty Years' War, which is practically a blank for the monetary history of Germany. It is not until 1665—the opening of a fresh period—that complaints of the state of the lower denominations of the coinage are again heard. But how far this quiescence is to be attributed to the economic wisdom of the settlement of 1623, or to the mute, dumb, inarticulate agony of Germany during that strife when her commerce, much more even than her national life, was suspended, is hidden from us in almost complete darkness.

Spain.