The fact that he does not sell the fish and use the
money to buy wine, but barters the fish for it, corresponds with the
“Dark Ages” view of the early medieval period, in which all
infrastructure collapsed and people lived in self-sufficient
enclaves. As Metcalf puts it:
a later school of historians, …- have tended to see the early middle ages in north-western Europe as an age of local self-sufficiency, with only limited monetization of the economy, and in which coinage was mainly used for the purchase of luxury goods by the ruling class, and (in the extreme case) for gift-exchange and similar ritual functions. On a broad perspective this state of affairs persisted (they assert) until the beginnings of recovery from the Viking assaults upon north-western Europe.
But of course the picture is far more complex and a
variety of coinage has survived from this period. Its existence in
itself does not tell us how it was used; but there is also good
reason to believe that it circulated and was an integral part of the
economy. Whether it was the main medium of trade is another question,
one too large to more than survey here.
- What coins existed and when?
- What were they intended for (trade, taxes, charity, etc.)?
- How widely did they circulate?
- Who used them and for what?
- How did they obtain them?
- How essential were they to daily trade?
- What do they say about international trade?
- Where did the metal come from?
If research continues on all these points, none can
be answered completely or with certainty. But enough information, or
sometimes informed speculation, exists to take us beyond a simple
“Dark Ages” view of the period.
For more about the early Middle Ages
Feasting with the Franks
The First French Medieval Food
The first coinage in medieval France, as in much of
the Western world, was Roman. Bear in mind that even
after the Franks took over Gaul (and ultimately displaced other
Germanic groups there) they ruled a country which had been part of
Rome and which for a long time remained Roman in many ways. This was
more true in the Gallo-Roman south, but it also held true for much in
the north. The Franks themselves were certainly familiar with Roman
coinage; they had long been clients of Rome and had no doubt been
paid in Roman currency.
Even as they began to make their mark on their new
domains, they looked to Byzantium – that is, the Eastern Roman
Empire – for models. Though the Byzantines were Greeks, it is
important in considering their relationships with the Franks to know
that, after the fall of Rome itself, they represented the
continuation of the Roman Empire. One result was that even as the
Franks and others began to strike their own coins, they not only
imitated Byzantine coins, but, in doing so, even closely tracked the
changes in emperors.
the transformation of imperial coinage, which had been the unique modern means of exchange for five centuries, into a multitude of local currencies specific to these populations which occupied the empire's land and organized, in the conquered domains, their administration. Thus are born the mintings of the Ostrogoths in Italy, those of the Burgundians, of the Franks or the Visigoths in Gaul and the Suevi in Spain. In the same period the Vandals struck coins in Africa and from the seventh century on Arabs imitated the Byzantine types and created a typologically original coinage from the start of the eighth century.
... This world of a millennial monetary tradition will in effect produce an autonomous coinage which will take almost a century to definitely separate itself from its Byzantine prototypes.
In Gaul, these
“national” coinages begin to appear in the sixth century in the
parts of Gaul occupied by different Germanic groups. For the first
three-quarters of a century (and later in Provence and the valley of
the Rhone) the names of Byzantine emperors on solidi and tremisses (a
third of a solidus) are specific enough to establish a chronology,
until the reign of Clothar II (reigned 613-629).
For much of the sixth
century, Byzantine coins and local coins circulated together in the
north; in the south (which was closer to the Eastern trade of
Marseille) the former were dominant. By the seventh and eight
centuries, these disappeared within Gaul, probably first because they
were melted down for use in local coinage, but possibly too because
of a decline in trade.
Aside from Byzantine
gold, there was copper, largely minted in Carthage (in north Africa).
Other non-Merovingian coins in circulation were Visigothic tremisses
and Anglo-Saxon thrymsas.
At the end of the sixth
century, numerous local types began to appear. Adelson estimates that
minting of pseudo-imperial coinage probably began around 574, but had
ended by 616. Two of the major mints, at Marseille and Arles,
probably opened after 580. Metcalf: "During the 'long century', 561-674, and more particularly from the 590s onwards, tremisses were issued at an exceptionally large number of places in Gaul." He presents these as high-value coins: “A tremissis had a substantial purchasing power. Comparisons with today are rather meaningless, but one might say, very approximately, that a tremissis was worth some tens of euros, or even as much as a hundred euros.” At the same time, it represented a third of the value of the solidus, so that its increased use suggests a general devaluation which ultimately made silver the preferable option.
Though Byzantine coinage
included low-value copper pieces, the dominant metal in coinage in
Gaul long became gold. One reason for this, says Adelson, is that the
Germanic groups had come to distrust silver coinage under the Romans.
He also writes that “in the areas conquered by the barbarians it
was not the solidus that was the principal coin but the triens [a tremissis], which
was only one-third of the Byzantine pieces.”
All this changed in 675,
when, with the denarius (denier), silver replaced gold and would, for seven centuries, remain the
base of Frankish coinage.
Coins in texts
Metcalf writes that “the
documentary evidence,.. is virtually silent on the subject [of
monetary trade] - a silence which has unfortunately been construed as
negative evidence.” This is largely the case, making the evidence
of archeology and numismatics disproportionately important in this
case. Still, some references to coinage do appear in written texts.
In describing the early
Germans, Tacitus writes: “There are proportionate punishments for
lighter crimes, the offender being fined so many sheep or cattle upon
conviction.” But by the time the Franks wrote down their laws,
probably very near the start of their reign in Gaul, these payments
in kind had become monetary and Salic law is largely an inventory of
compensations to be paid either in solidii (Roman gold) or the
equivalent in denarii (Frankish silver). Subsequent laws for
other Germanic groups – the Bavarian law, the Ripuarian law, the
Alamannic law, the Frisian law, etc. – also specify amounts, often
in the same coins, sometimes in tremisses (alternately, triens).
Since these laws were issued at different points under Frankish rule,
they suggest that those who wrote them assumed people would have
access to coins all through this period. It is less clear if this was
the case as a matter of course or if people condemned to such
payments were expected to make a special effort to obtain them. But
none of these laws specify alternate payments in kind and anyone who did
not regularly use coins presumably would have had to monetize –
i.e., sell – whatever goods they did have to pay such
compensations.
If Gregory de Tours
provides at least one specific example of barter, he also mentions
coinage in several passages. In one passage, “there was a poor old
woman... who, having nothing else, devoutly threw two minuta
in the church storeroom.” In another tale, a poor man delegated by
the other “blessèd
poor” to receive alms while they “dispersed” is given a triens but tells the others he got an argenteus. Both
tales appear to be referring to a type of small silver coin, possibly one especially intended for the poor. Grierson and Blackburn cite a rare
text, probably from the sixth or seventh century, referring to
minutos argenteos (tiny silver coins) which were scattered to
the poor. In yet another tale, Gregory tells of a man who had barely
earned enough to have a triens, which he used to buy wine. Having
watered the wine, he then sold it for argenteos, which if it
means the same thing here. also suggests that he was selling it to
people of limited means. Ultimately, he turned such a profit that he
earned one hundred solidii (as much as Gregory disapproves, to a
modern reader, this could also be taken as a rare example of creative
entrepreneurship in the period).
Grierson and Blackburn
are dubious however about the coinage in these tales: “Unless these
are merely pious anecdotes repeated from one source another, they are
events that must have occurred during Gregory's youth, for no silver
coins remained in circulation in Gaul in the 570s and 580s, at the
time that he was writing.” This might be arguable however; the fact
that these were no longer minted does not necessarily mean they were
not in circulation and the lack of archeological evidence may simply
mean that such low-value, easily melted coins did not survive. As it is, one argenteus has been found at Saint-Martin-de-Fontenay imitating one of Justin I (518-527); it is not in the least unreasonable to think it, or coins like it, might have survived another fifty years.
UPDATE 6-9-2014: The French Library's Cabinet of Medals also holds a quarter of a siliqua (a small value silver coin) from the reign of Clothar I (555-561); that is, very close to Gregory's time. It is an imitation of an Ostrogoth coin.
UPDATE 6-9-2014: The French Library's Cabinet of Medals also holds a quarter of a siliqua (a small value silver coin) from the reign of Clothar I (555-561); that is, very close to Gregory's time. It is an imitation of an Ostrogoth coin.
At the least, Gregory's
accounts here all seem to take for granted that his readers will be
familiar with the coins involved; nothing in his language suggests
these are artifacts of a former time.
Silver coinage aside, he
mentions other uses of coins. In describing a famine, he says
“Merchants cruelly ransomed the people, to the point that they gave
at most a muid of wheat or a half-muid of wine for a triens.” The
very fact that merchants could charge exorbitant rates for wheat or
wine shows that these were sold for coins and that there were
standard prices for these. In another case he mentions a man lending
a triens to a friend, who returns it to him a few days later; again,
this is a very matter of fact monetary transaction. In another, a man
who is struck dumb immediately gives a waterman a triens to take to a
saint's chapel; the fact that he has the coin at hand is taken for granted.
(When he gets home, he sees “a gold piece like a triens” but
weighing as much as a solidus.)
More important in these
tales than the specific coins is the simple fact of people at
different levels of society using coins as a matter of course.
Gregory was Gallo-Roman and probably more familiar with those who
maintained Roman customs; what he describes may have been less the
case further north. But it seems clear that if a monetary economy was
not universal in Gregory's experience, nor was it at all unusual.
By Charlemagne's time,
the use of currency had become standard enough to inspire some of the
first price controls. In his Frankfurt Capitulary of 794, he not only
sets the prices for grains – “For a modius of oats, one denier,
for a modius of barley, two, modius of rye three, modius of wheat
four deniers” – but sets prices for bread: “"If one wants
to sell it as bread, twelve loaves of wheat, each of two pounds, must
be given for one denier..." Note that he does not mention bakers
here, simply anyone who wanted to sell grain made into bread.
Charlemagne himself had bakers on his estates, but it does not seem
that public bakers had yet become as common as they had been under
the Romans. This hints at a still young market economy. Overall,
however, the very fact that price controls were necessary shows that
a monetary market had been in existence for long enough for abuses to
arise (as they already had, as noted above, in Gregory's time).
Arguably, the two
centuries between Gregory and Charlemagne leave a gap where the use
of coins is not documented beyond official purposes. But the
surviving texts neither prove nor disprove the existence of a
monetary economy in that time.
Following the coins
With such minimal
documentary data, the best evidence for the use of coins comes from
the ever-expanding finds of coins themselves; as analyzed, that is,
by expert numismatists. Almost all modern work on the French side
refers back to the numerous papers of Jean Lafaurie; one person to
analyze these in English is D. M. Metcalf, who specifically focused
on circulation in Gaul from 561 to 674. Metcalf's analysis is often
very technical and in the language of statistics, so unfortunately it
cannot be simply summarized. But his conclusions are clear enough.
He points out above that
"general historians... and... archaeologists... cling to the
belief that the monetary sector of the economy was negligible,”
going on to say “the old idea of local self-sufficiency appears to
be contradicted by, or perhaps one should say appears to be in
complete conflict with, the fact that single coins are, seven or
eight times out of ten, a long way from the place where they were
issued.”
A range of finds in
France provides a broad view of circulation in the period. “Because
the empirical evidence is distributed so profusely all over France...
the historical assessment can be based... on a rolling perspective
and on multiple comparisons.” This includes "the coins from
small mint-places in the same way as coins from the larger mints. The
innumerable small mint-places, which are so difficult to understand
historically, produced a good third of the stock of currency."
He divides the finds and
corresponding mints into ten regions:
1. Brittany, Lower Normandy, etc. (Includes Rennes, Le Mans as the most important mints).
2. The lower Seine basin (Includes Paris, Rouen).
3. The North : Pas-de-Calais, Nord, Somme, and Aisne. (Includes Soissons.)
It would be appropriate to extend this region into modern Belgium, to include Flanders and Brabant. There is also a substantial number of finds from the Netherlands.
4. The East : Austrasian territory in the Meuse basin, the Moselle, and the middle Rhine. (Includes Metz, Verdun.) The départements of Aube, Yonne, and Nièvre are included here, rather arbitrarily. Yonne and Nièvre could equally well have been assigned to region 8, but they were included in 561 in Thierry's Austrasian kingdom.
5. The lower Loire basin, and as far south as the Vendée, Deux-Sèvres, and Vienne, i. e. the ancient Poitou. (Includes Nantes, Angers, Tours, Orléans, and Poitiers.)
6. Western Aquitaine : Atlantic coastlands, from Charente to the Landes. (Includes Bordeaux.)
7. Upland Aquitaine : the higher ground, with the Massif central (Includes Limoges, Clermont, Toulouse, and the mint-places of Banassac and Javols.)
8. Burgundy, with the Rhône and Saône corridor, as far north as the Plateau of Langres (Includes Chalon-sur-Saône.) It would be appropriate to extend this region into Switzerland.
9. Provence (Includes Marseille, Aries).
10. Septimania. Also the French Pyrénées (where Visigothic monetary influence is evident).
Metcalf examines the
exchanges of coins between these regions meticulously and at length,
tracing movements in different directions. Here is a sample:
Even in the southern half of region 8, that is to say south of the Rhône and of the Lake of Geneva (Léman), there are coins from a wide range of exterior mints, which demonstrate the spread of coinage in a southerly direction too. Coins from present-day Switzerland entered region 8, e.g. from the mints of Saint-Maurice-d'Agaune, Lausanne, Orbe, and Sion. ...In short, monetary circulation was predominantly by gradual diffusion locally, while the long-distance routeway was of secondary importance in determining the currency of the region.Similar details show all manner of movement of coins between the different regions.
Metcalf's view (based on
this and other analysis) is that “it seems to imply that, over all,
the local economy was everywhere monetized, even at a village
level.... A monetized economy was not confined to towns; over all, it
reached countless villages, as is seen from the circulation patterns
of tremisses minted at very small places.” Further, “There was
no single political authority, and the coins minted in one kingdom
certainly passed as current in other kingdoms too. Single finds and
hoards alike demonstrate that in all regions of France a miscellany
of coins, from many mint-places and with little or no uniformity of
design were acceptable commercially.”
In other words, based on
numismatic analysis, coins were not only minted in numerous places in
early medieval France, they circulated between regions in a way that
implies an active monetary economy.
The international view
The most striking aspect
of international circulation in this period is that of
Byzantine coins in Gaul. As noted above these tended to come from the
south. But at end of the sixth century those found in the north seem
to have come from the north or east.
Finds from along the
Atlantic and north sea route are less common, but finds along these
coasts exist. This is particularly important because, says Lafaurie,
"on this route, the valleys of the Garonne, of the Loire and of
the Seine allow penetrating into the interior; here again, the
testimony of finds joins that of texts attesting for instance to the
presence of "Syrian" merchants – already numerous in
Provence and in the Narbonnaise – in Bordeaux or in Orleans.”
Note that “Syrian” merchants were probably in fact any Christian
Easterners (contrasted with the Jewish merchants who also played a
major part in trade with the East). Adelson:
Merchants of western origin had declined in importance during the period of the Roman Empire, and their position had been taken by easterners – Syrians, Jews, and Greeks... The appearance of merchants of eastern origin during the Merovingian period in Gaul is certainly more marked than during the preceding Roman epoch or the following Carolingian age.
Among the Byzantine copper
coins, those from Carthage are preponderant; in Lafaurie's analysis
this suggests commercial usage. Its presence also suggests that of
Byzantine gold, which the Franks could melt and reissue in a devalued
form:
If this copper coinage, with weak purchasing power, thus penetrates into Gaul in a modest but not negligible way, it is normal to think that gold coins... also arrived there in certain quantity. The ports which received it, endowed with a mint, changed it into local, Merovingian coinage, and the profit... of 12% must have incited seeking out these foreign coins which produced so neat a profit to the monetary authority.
Byzantine gold however
may have had a particularity; that used for export, says Adelson, was
lighter than that used in Byzantium itself. These lighter issues
appeared just as the Germanic groups were leaving their “wandering”
and settling permanently in places like Gaul. Mints in Gaul struck
their own copies of these lightweight coins.
The stability of the
Byzantine regime restored trade in the West as well: “The rebuilt
Byzantine fleet certainly controlled the entire Mediterranean in the
period preceding the death of Heraclius [reigned 610-641], and, as a
direct result, trade in the West became safer than it had been at any
time since the Vandals reached Carthage." "The case is very
clear cut for a great expansion of that trade during the sixth and
seventh centuries after a period of decline during the preceding
epoch.” (Adelson)
Overall, in fact:
Virtually all historians agree that the Germanic invasions did not mark a turning point in the economic history of Europe though they may well have accelerated the decline and disintegration of the Roman Empire.
Nevertheless, as soon as the first waves of these invaders had settled down in the new successor states, the Byzantine merchants revived western trade.
This trade was largely to
the West's advantage:
The Byzantines had an unfavorable balance of trade with Western Europe during the very early Middle Ages....Western Europe in the sixth and seventh centuries was at a low economic and cultural level, without the taste and desire for exotic and refined luxury items and products of industry in great quantities, but with an excess of raw materials available for export.
Among these last,
Adelson notes, were slaves, the sale of whom may have helped the West
draw currency its way.
Moving towards the
eighth century, Byzantine coins become rare in finds. As noted above,
this may be in part because they were melted to produce local
coinage. But, says Lafaurie, “the stoppage of all the finds of
Byzantine coins, be they in gold or copper, in all the parts of Gaul,
whether or not they are the sites of active mints, is then the sign
of the thinning out of commercial and political exchanges between the
Eastern Mediterranean and the West.”
Adelson notes various
conclusions based on monetary circulation of the time: “The trade
route from Italy by land to the Frisian coast...never seems to have
been entirely closed.” Under Chlotar II, "the subsidiary trade
route along the Rhine was probably used to a greater degree than in
the reigns just preceding that of Phocas [reigned 602-610].” “The
concentration of finds of Ostrogothic silver coins and those of the
Exarchate of Ravenna in the middle Rhine region seems to be
conclusive proof of a continuous use of that trade route during the
pre-Carolingian era”.
The numismatic record
then reflects a lively international trade under the early Franks,
largely, but not only, with the Byzantines.
How did people get
coins?
None of these writers
address an issue which may at first glance seem obvious: how anyone
but the elite of society got coins at all.
Consider that many
people were simply slaves. Others were bound to the land, with no
wages. Even when work contracts appear much later in the Middle Ages,
they often define payments in kind, such as cheese and beer. If a
monetary economy did exist through all levels of society, then, it is
not obvious how anyone who was not, for instance, royalty or a
merchant came into possession of coins.
One can certainly
speculate. Slaves after all have been known to buy their freedom in
different societies, showing that somehow they were able to earn a
monetary income; eighteenth century French galley slaves often set up
small trades when on land. Grierson and Blackburn cite later mentions
of moneta pauperum, coins struck especially to be given to the
poor. As mentioned above, they cite a passage describing how tiny
silver coins were given to the poor (specifically, thrown by the
consul while the king smiled benevolently on). It may be that similar
customs continued, though otherwise unrecorded.
The most likely means
would have been by sale. Even a slave might have had some excess
production that he or she could (licitly or not) sell. The least likely
means would have been through any kind of wages, a concept that does
not seem to appear in early medieval texts. But all this is frankly
speculative; the very existence of a monetary economy in this period has not always
been acknowledged and still less have scholars sought to understand
what fed it on a local level.
In conclusion...
Nothing in the above is
at all definitive. Even to the degree that these questions have been
studied, it is difficult to summarize the result in a limited space.
What does seem clear is that some degree of monetary economy survived
from Roman times and was certainly revived by the time of
Charlemagne. But whether it ever fully disappeared or how much it
co-existed with a barter economy is likely to remain an open
question. The most important point here, as with so many subjects, is
that societies in the early Middle Ages were more structured and intricate than
has often been thought, even if we are unlikely to ever make out all
the details of the related systems.
FOR FURTHER READING:
Tacitus, Publius Cornelius,
Germany: a transl. [by C.I. Elton]. 1874
Monnaie d'argent de Clotaire Ier (555-561), quart de silique, frappée à l'imitation des monnaies des Ostrogoths. Bibliothèque nationale, cabinet des médailles.
Fagniez, Gustave, Documents relatifs à l'histoire de l'industrie et du commerce en France V1 1898
CNRS video on medieval
coins:
English version
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