Can someone run down the Italian monetary system of c. 1360 for me or point me to a good reference? Also, how did exchange of foreign currency work in this period? If I were say, English, and had English currency could I use it to purchase goods and services in France or Italy? Would I have to exchange the currency? Are the ecxhange rates of the period known?

I can't tell you what the position is in italy, but I can tell you what the reverse position would be, ie using italian money in England.

First off, I'd suggest that you're probably not moving that much actual, physical money around within a country, let alone between countries.

Actual money is heavy, inconvenient and an invitation to robbery. If you're a merchant or noble, you aren't going to do this if you can avoid it.

Much better to get a letter of credit by depositing your cash with one of the italian banks before you leave, and just pick up what cash you need at your destination. Mechanisms for this are well-developed by your tme period (ESPECIALLY in italy), and well-attested.

For small amounts - if you're a soldier with a few coins, for example - there's still no real problem spending it in another country.

Most medieval coins have intrinsic value, being made of bullion, albeit diluted to a greater or lesser extent, and can therefore be spent anywhere. Indeed, England actually suffers from coin shortages in this period, and large amounts of continental coinage comes into use just to keep the economy liquid.

Any merchant of standing is going to possess a coin balance and a good knowledge of the bullion content of the most common foreign coins.

You'll have more of a problem with small traders or outside towns, where people will be less sure how much a foreign coin is worth. This won't stop them taking your money, but they'll probably err on the conservative side when converting, so you'll effectively pay a hefty markup for paying in "Furrin money" rather than good english silver.

Finally, it's worth remembering that there's no such place as "Italy" until 1870. In 1360, italy is a mess of competing city states (Florence, Milan, venice etc), all issuing their own money. If anything, I'd suggest that a place where the money changes every hundred klicks or so is going to be even more used to working with foreign currencies than a big, unified kingdom like england.

Hope that helps

I am not sure how useful this book would be to you.

Money and its Uses in Medieval Europe by Peter Spufford, Cambridge University Press, 1989. (Currently Out of Print) ASIN: 0521375908

Bob has read it a couple of times and it might contain some useful information. I will give him a nudge this evening and see if he can recall anything that might be useful to you.

Jenn

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Thanks, that all makes a lot of sense. I guess merchants in particular and folks in general were probably more concerned about the value of the gold, silver, etc. than who's picture was on the coins. I read that coins were sometimes under or over valued so that the stated value was actually more or less than the value of the metal. Do you think merchants were wise to this? I suppose they either rufused to accept under-valued coins or made their own adjustments for true value when transactions took place.

Jenn,

I think that the book I made reference to discusses the debasing of coins.

Let me check around on the board and see if I can dig up the old thread as I think that this may have been mentioned somewhere.

Jenn

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Androu, debasement of coinage tended to take place at specific times and in specific countries, rather than being a general phenomena, but yes, it did happen, and lead (predictably) to both inflation and to an "exchange rate" between the new, debased coins and old, purer ones, so that ten new pennies were worth nine old ones or whatever, rather than people refusing to accept them. After all, if the king choses to debase the currency, they'll debase it all, not just some of it, so what're you going to do, refuse to use money?

I'd also draw your attention to the practice of "clipping" coins, by shaving material from the edge, to make them less valuable. Punished severely, and coins redesigned to make it harder, but it still happened, and "clipped" coins were again accepted at a discount.

You can find a lot of them at www.addall.com/used

Title Search: Handbook of Medieval Exchange

There is also a database related to the above mentioned book:
http://www.scc.rutgers.edu/memdb/GeneralPages/TopLevel/databaseList.asp

Jenn

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