Money and Finance in Central Europe during the Later Middle Ages

Roman Zaoral

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781137460233
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Economic History
• Index: Economics

The wealth of the Central European archives, particularly in urban records, has not been fully realised by Western European historians. However, the records are not always straightforward to use and many studies tackle the methodological problems inherent in gathering and analysing medieval sources. This book presents an original review of past and present research of national historiographies on medieval financial history from Central Europe. Covering material ranging from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries, it explores the eastern regions of the Holy Roman Empire, including Bohemia, Silesia, Austria and Germany, and extending to Poland and Hungary. The authors firstly discuss the monetary policy of the Holy Roman emperors during the Middle Ages, before moving on to wider aspects of state finance, including credit mechanisms used by rulers. The book then investigates civic records and what they reveal about urban life and trade. It lastly investigates the financial activitiesof the church, from papacy to the cathedral chapters in Prague. Using numismatic and documentary evidence, Money and Finance in Central Europe during the Later Middle Ages provides an invaluable point of comparison with the financial conditions in Western Europe during the Middle Ages.

Part I

Money and Minting

1

A New Perspective on the Imperial Coinage

Hendrik Mäkeler

The significance of the imperial coinage in the 14th century is its approach to the inclusion of both Italian and French gold coinage. More specifically, the intention was to facilitate the clearing of Italian florin coinage, which was also minted in Bohemia and the German lands, and the French écu d’or. On a political level, this monetary policy reflects the intermediate positions of the German emperors between Bohemia and France, and they are significant for the life story of the German emperors of the period, who were raised at the Bohemian and the French court respectively.

The ‘return to gold’, as Robert S. Lopez adequately named the general development of the West European monetary systems at the beginning of the Late Middle Ages, provides also the general setting for the following story. In 1231, Emperor Frederick II had augustales minted in Messina and Brindisi, and, in 1252, Genoa and Florence reintroduced gold coins. This measure ended a long period during which silver coins prevailed in Western Europe. As the face value of any coin was based on its intrinsic value, this measure resulted in a multiplication of the money stock, and it facilitated economic growth that had been limited by the prevalent silver currency. Thus, ‘the return to gold did more than provide symbols and tokens: it relieved the strain which economic growth was placing on a chronically inadequate currency’. (Lopez 1956, p. 219)

Despite rather limited gold deposits, even rulers in the German lands were attempting to mint gold coins. While several German gold coinages of the 14th century are well known and extensively published, the legal background of their emergence has been debated for more than a century. There are three different theories (Mäkeler 2010, p. 120ff):

(i)		Arnold Luschin von Ebengreuth held that the minting of gold, as opposed to the right to mint silver, was seen as a jus regale, a royal prerogative. As a consequence, it had to be conferred specifically, even to authorities that already possessed the minting privilege (Luschin von Ebengreuth 1926, p. 209).
(ii)		Walter Schwinkowski maintained that the opposite was true. According to him, there existed no legal concept concerning the minting of gold before the inception of gold coinage in the period of Emperor Louis the Bavarian and John the Blind (Schwinkowski 1910, p. 321).
(iii)		Heinrich Troe in turn suggested that if the Golden Bull of 1356 specifically grants the right to mint gold to a group of princes, then the other princes do not possess this privilege (Troe 1937, p. 29, no. 2).

The most important argument for an understanding of the right to mint gold as a special right that is independent of the right to mint silver is therefore based on the Golden Bull, which, however, was not to be compiled until 1356. In consequence, it cannot act as a source for legal development during the reign of Louis the Bavarian. The relevance of the previous assertions on the matter seems doubtful. It is therefore necessary to take a survey of contemporary evidence that can shed light on this issue. There are privileges to mint gold for the cities of Speyer (1324), Frankfurt am Main (1339), and Lübeck (1340). Except for Lübeck, these privileges did not bring any gold coinage into being within the foreseeable future. While the majority of the cities, despite their privileges, were hesitant to enter into the business of running a gold mint, the opposite was true for the prince electors. The right to mint gold coins was only granted to the electors of Trier and Cologne in 1346, but Cologne had already issued gold coins prior to receiving the corresponding privilege. Hence, it becomes clear that the right to mint gold was not a jus regale during Louis the Bavarian’s reign. Not before the reign of Charles IV did it become possible to establish an imperial prerogative to grant the right to produce gold coins (Mäkeler 2010, p. 121).

In order to overcome the complexity of gold coins that had different values and a multitude of issuers, an imperial gold coinage was established by Louis the Bavarian. Again, there are huge differences in the scientific reconstructions of the circumstances of the minting process. The problems mainly derive from different stories that are told in the written evidence. There are three different sources, and two divergent stories told (Mäkeler 2010, pp. 52–55):

Jean le Bel (c. 1290–1370) holds in his chronicle, which was compiled 1352–1361 and covers the period 1326–1361, that Edward III was granted the right to mint gold coins at his election as imperial vicar. Soon after, he had écu d’or minted in Antwerp in the emperor’s name.

Jean Froissart (1337–c. 1404) in his first chronicle (compiled c. 1360–1390 and covers 1325–1378) repeats Jean le Bel’s information. However, the different versions of Froissart’s chronicle omit ever more details that had been included in Jean le Bel’s chronicle. At first sight therefore, Froissart’s versions seem to tell a story that differs from Jean le Bel.

The third chronicler who provides information on the matter is Edmond de Dynter (1382–1449). His chronicle covers the period to 1442. According to de Dynter, Duke John III of Brabant was granted the right to mint gold coins in Antwerp. De Dynter even provides a detailed description of the design of the coins. They were supposed to be impressed with the imperial title and the emperor’s coat of arms. De Dynter also mentions that Duke John had the coins minted by the mint master Falcon de Lampage from Pistoia.

The problem is that it is impossible to simply dismiss one of the different versions. While Jean le Bel was a contemporary witness of the coin production, de Dynter had served as a secretary of the dukes of Brabant since 1406. He can, therefore, be supposed to have been well informed about the history he wrote of in his chronicle. If, therefore, both Jean le Bel’s and de Dynter’s versions should be deemed trustworthy, quite an interesting picture emerges. As Marie-Luise Heckmann suggested, both King Edward III of England and John III of Brabant were elected imperial vicars, although Edward III was ranked higher. Therefore, it is possible that John III had the écu d’or minted in the name of Louis the Bavarian at the Brabant mint in Antwerp at the request of Edward III. Hence, the subsidies that Edward III paid to Louis the Bavarian were recoined into the écu d’or with the emperor’s title in Antwerp. To some extent, this coinage could therefore be claimed as the earliest English gold coinage of the Late Middle Ages. In order to oversee the coinage, an Italian mint master was employed. The coins were minted in 1338–1351/55 (Mäkeler 2010, pp. 55–59).

The écu d’or minted in the emperor’s name in Antwerp continued to be of some significance for the legal concept of the empire even later on. A royal letter of complaint survives but it was not recognised before. The letter reads as follows:

Consangwinee karissime, dilectionem tuam affectuose petimus et rogamus, quatenus scutas aureas seu aliam quamlibet monetam sub impressione ymaginis et expressione nominis quondam Ludewici de Bavaria, qui se imperatorem gessit, in terris tue iurisdictioni subiectis eidem peramplius fabricari non sinas ... . (Kühn 1974–1983, p. 44)

From its content, it becomes obvious that the sender was Charles IV, who complained about the écu d’or that during his own reign were still being minted in the name of Louis of Bavaria. The letter was probably sent to either John III of Brabant or to his successor Wenceslaus I of Luxembourg and triggered a short-lived coinage in the name of Charles IV. These écu d’or were probably minted in his name in 1356–1357, before the city of Antwerp became part of Flanders. Therefore, it took no less than ten years before the change of the king (Charles was elected king in 1346) was acknowledged on the coins’ inscriptions, which might be explained by the fact that they were minted in the emperor’s name. Even so, it took at least a year after Charles had become emperor in 1355 to have the inscriptions on the écu d’or changed (Mäkeler 2010, pp. 132–135).

While Charles IV had écu d’or minted in his name in Antwerp, a florin coinage was also minted in his name in Bohemia (Mäkeler 2010, pp. 135–138). These two coinages even reflect the biography of the Luxemburg king: He was raised at the French court, but he was also the son of the Bohemian King John the Blind and his wife Elizabeth of the Přemyslid dynasty. This may explain why Charles attempted to establish a common European currency that would involve both the écu d’or and the florin.

Charles IV’s plans are recorded in the Collectarius perpetuarum formarum which has largely been neglected by numismatic research. The Collectarius was compiled c. 1380 by John of Gelnhausen who served as a writer at Kutná Hora (Kuttenberg) and in the chancery of Bishop Jan IX ze Středy (Johannes von Neumarkt). John of Gelnhausen was thus well informed about monetary issues. Interestingly, the Collectarius even contains a text entitled “De moneta imperii”. It is not dated, but internal evidence proves that it was most likely written between 1365 and 1369. It provides detailed plans for the future development of the coinage in the empire. Two different kinds of gold coins were supposed to be minted: the heavier écu d’or, valued at 13 groats, and the lighter florin types, valued at 12 groschen. These gold coins were meant to feature the enthroned and crowned image of the emperor on the obverse and a cross fleury on the reverse. Additional to the gold coins, silver groats valued at twelve pennies were even planned. Although mentioning pennies, the Collectarius did not include any regulations for such petty coins (Mäkeler 2010, pp. 199–209).

Even though this text was compiled some ten years later than the Golden Bull of 1356, it might very well shed some light on Charles’s original plans that foundered on the opposition of the electoral princes. According to the Strasbourg messenger Claus von Grostein, however, these plans were valid when the diet of Nuremberg and Metz commenced in 1355. After long-term negotiations, it was instead ambiguously decreed in the Golden Bull of 1356 that the emperor had the right to coin in his lands. The phrasing allowed for two interpretations. It related either to Bohemia or to the German lands in general (Mäkeler 2010, pp. 191–198). While an outspoken imperial claim to control the gold coinage existed, there were only limited consequences of this claim in reality. Applying an imperial eagle as a detail in the image of some florin coinages may be interpreted as one such consequence (Mäkeler 2010, pp. 183–184).

The development of gold coinage was rather unsatisfactory from an imperial point of view. This is why the silver coinage became more and more important, starting with the so-called Sulzbach Heller legislation that was decreed by Charles IV immediately after the Nuremberg and Metz diet in 1356. The Sulzbach Heller legislation explicitly relates to the negotiations concerning the gold coinage, which had proved unsuccessful, and suggests regulating silver coinage instead. Along with the amount of silver content, even the image of the coins is clearly defined: A cross on the obverse and a hand in combination with a letter indicating the mint on the reverse. Since all mints that received the right to produce hellers were supposed to mint according to the regulation for Nuremberg, it was possible to control the silver coinage centrally. Henceforth, when the regulation for Nuremberg was changed, all the other heller mints had to follow suit (Mäkeler 2010, pp. 210–215).

It is quite fascinating to see the Emperor Charles IV being limited in practice to the regulation of nothing but the pettiest coins, while the lack of central power is reflected in the creation of regional monetary unions. These monetary unions produced the higher-value silver denominations, mainly groats, and the prevalent gold coinages. The heyday of monetary unions within the German lands was the period of Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia, whose efficient governance, which was no longer based on continuous travelling, earned him the nickname ‘the Idle’. However, three out of six monetary unions from that period had already been founded during the reign of Charles IV.

Possibly the most important regional monetary union was the one founded by the Rhenish elector princes in 1357, shortly after the failed attempt to create a common currency for the Empire. Within this union, the basic unit of account was supposed to be the florin. The elector princes were intending to guarantee their currencies within the borders of their bishoprics. However, the florin coinage gained momentum and became the prime gold currency within the whole Empire (Mäkeler 2010, pp. 246–258).

Even the Hanseatic League founded a monetary union in 1373 to reorganize the monetary system of the northern part of th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction: Medieval Finance in Central European Historiography
• Part I  Money and Minting
• Part II  Medieval Court Funding
• Part III  Trade and Towns
• Part IV  Church and Money
• Index