What were the “dollars of the Middle Ages” and why did they also circulate in Italy

With “medieval dollars” we refer to a particular type of gold coins that during the medieval periodfrom the fall of the Roman Empire to the threshold of the modern age, were at the center of mercantile and maritime traffic, outside and inside Europe, from East to West. These coins were authentic instruments of trust and power. For this reason their history, apparently far from contemporaneity, can be useful for understanding an important part of pre-industrial economic history.

The solidus Byzantine (also called nomenclature) played a central role, as did the dīnār Arabic. But there were also other fine gold coinsthe so-called “large” coins such as those minted in Florence and Venice.

The first “dollar of the Middle Ages”: the solidus Byzantine

The expression “dollar of the Middle Ages” was coined by the Italian naturalized American historian Roberto Sabatino Lopez in 1951.

It evoked a suggestive parallelism: as well as the United States dollar was the global reference currency in the post-World War II periodThe solidus (from which the term “soldo” comes) had been the currency of trust in a geographical area that included the present-day Middle East and North Africa, the ports of the Italian peninsula and the areas near the Spanish and French coasts.

In the Middle Ages there was no monetary sovereignty as we understand it today and within kingdoms, feudal territories, city-states or embryonic national states foreign currency circulated together with local currency. Generally speaking, despite the presence of very different languages, structures, conventions and contexts, the Byzantine currency became the universal medium of exchange of trade in the Mediterranean Sea starting from the 5th-6th century AD According to the testimony of the Greek monk Cosmas Indicopleustes (formerly a merchant and traveler) the solidus was accepted “from one end of the earth to the other”.

The reason was simple: who received it he knew exactly what he was holding in his hand. He could be reasonably certain of not being deceived and exclude sudden devaluations capable of reducing the value of a transaction. The coinage of the Byzantine Empire therefore had a recognized reliability along the Mediterranean. The solidusminted uniformly, maintained the same quantity of gold, approximately 4.5 grams, for a few centuries. This continuity became one warranty.

The other “dollars of the Middle Ages”

The importance of the stability of solidus it is better understood by taking into account the monetary fragmentation of the Middle Ages. They were running at the same time, in fact, many different coins minted by different authorities. There were no large codified and regulated systems. Furthermore, exchange rates between currencies fluctuated regularly. Travelers almost always had to handle coins with a changing, precarious, discontinuous value.

Often those who governed were unable to maintain the same the metallic content of their coinsor he didn’t want to. Coins deteriorated with use, or were devalued for short-term interest or minted with smaller quantities of precious metal inside (to save money). All this especially affected “small” coins, those for everyday use made of poor alloys, such as copper.

In this disorder, the solidus it shone like a beacon of certainty. The Byzantine Empire was a large political entity and relied on gold coins for large-scale trade. The solidusafter all, was the symbol of the order in force in Constantinople, the capital (also known as Byzantium).

As time passed, however, everything changed: the Byzantine Empire headed towards a slow decline; between military setbacks, civil conflicts, political frictions and financial ruins. Other coins of lower alloys also appeared and the amount of gold in the solidus was reduced. Its value, in practice, decreased. At the end of the11th century one was attempted rather drastic reform of Byzantine coinage but nothing went back to the way it was before. What’s more the beginning of the Crusadesthe Christian wars for the reconquest of Jerusalem, distorted the meditaranean scenario.

The Byzantine gold coin did not cease to be used but its reputation, so to speak, was tarnished. The more enterprising merchants looked elsewhere. That’s why the historian Carlo M. Cipolla wrote of “medieval dollars”, in the plural, arguing that in reality in the medieval centuries there was no single hard currency in the Mediterranean (the solidus) but at least three others. Other gold coins, as a means of exchange and payment, gained ground.

One of these was The dīnār in the Islamic worldfirst in a subordinate position compared to solidus (which inspired him). The dīnārof 4.25 grams of gold, managed to break the monopoly of Constantinople in parallel with the consolidation of Islamic expansion. It was coined at the end of the 7th century by the mint (word that comes from Arabic dār al-sikkai.e. “seat of minting”), as part of a restructuring of the administrative apparatus desired by the caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwān of the Umayyad dynasty. The dīnār it kept its value intact until the 10th century, under the Abbasidsand circulated well beyond the Middle Ages.

Another notable event then occurred in the 13th centurywhen the two eastern coins (the Byzantine and the Arab) were joined by two Western gold coins: The florin of Florence and the duchy of Venice.

Because it was in Italy that valuable gold coins were minted

After the year 1000 Western Europe recorded progressive manufacturing development, an increase in population and a growing demand for money. There was a slow but irreversible transition. Merchants and money changers (from whom the first bankers were born) invented techniques for circulate money without having to physically move itsuch as bills of exchange, or forms of proto-credit that increased the liquidity in circulation. The rules of the new city statutes opened spaces of freedom within the old feudal system. Italy was at the center of the change.

Italian cities, sometimes independent, perfected communication routes and commercial networks. As starting from the Late Middle Ages, Despite a thousand difficulties, new gold coins were minted, two of which managed to excel even beyond the mobile borders of the peninsula.

In Florence, now a production hub and a financial center (by the standards of the time), in 1252 was beaten gold florin (weight: 3.5 g), in a privileged and prominent position until the 14th century. TO Veniceone of the Maritime Republics was instead coined the duchy In the 1284 (weight: 3.5 g of gold), which gained the upper hand during the fifteenth century and lasted, later taking the name of secchino, until the eighteenth century.

The solidusThe dīnār, The florin, The duchy they were not the only medieval gold coins but they stood out in alternating phases thanks to three elements in common. According to Cipolla: “High unit value, intrinsic stability, support of a strong, healthy and at the same time predominant economy in the international trade system”.

For this reason the history of dollars in the Middle Ages tells more than simple monetary events: it explains the evolution of power dynamics in the Mediterranean and the rise, decline, or transformation of empires and cities.