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AWAKENING MONETARY ECONOMY

Even if with the expansion of German-Germanic rule over vast areas of the former Roman Empire the over lordship over the gold and silver treasures of the bygone cultures came in the hands of new masters, a use in order to benefit culture could only come if the dead metal became living, blossoming gyrating money supply. Emperor Charlemagne gave decisive impulses to this development. Of course, have other people like Goths, Lombards, Celts and other people issued coinage before those times? Their obverses depict, however, more or less matching and oftentimes totally mutilated copies of old Greco-Roman Coinage.

To issue gold coins and to put the own picture onto the coin was once the privilege of the Roman Emperors. This privilege had not been touched during the people migration and only Theoderic’s son Theodebert I. of Austrasia (534–548) dared to coin a gold solidus bearing his name. Procopius, chronicler of the Goth Wars, has registered the event as upsetting insolence. It is astonishing that the church became more and more a mint master out of her own absolute power during the 6th century increase of coinage issuance. This happened especially west of the River Rhine in the area of modern France where we should note the dioceses of Rennes, Orleans, Le Mans, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Anger and others.

From the 6th century, mentioning the name and style of the king went more and more into the background, while the mint and its moneyer were favored instead. The mint masters from whom we know 2000 names, who developed out of the guild of goldsmiths, executed their trade for kings, bishops, and feudal lords. During the 8th century the privilege to coin, which was managed with increased negligence within the Frankish Empire, was taken up through Pipin the small with renewed energy, after the last Merovingian king Chilberich was deposed. The first Carolingian, who had taken the imperial crown himself, simplified the coinage of the Frankish Empire by introducing a silver currency. Gold coins were not issued anymore. They only coined silver denarii, first 300 per Roman pound and later 264 per Roman Pound. Pipin’s son Charlemagne expanded these beginnings of a new order of coinage through the whole “Holy Roman Empire of German Nation” in a goal-oriented way. He put his picture and name onto the coinage and even the lords to whom he gave the privilege to mint, had to put his name on the coinage. The number of mints increased from 40 at the beginning of his reign to 80, among them Cologne, Bonn, Mainz, Worms, Speyer, Strasbourg, Dursteede, Basle and Chur. Charlemagne also stayed with a silver currency. He did obviously not issue gold coins for general trade. The few gold coins detected in finds were just coined from booty as war salary according to scientists.

Charlemagne’s coinage was based on the rule to coin 240 silver denarii out of one pound of troy silver. There is, however, uncertainly regarding the weight of the pound; information fluctuates between 367 and 491 gram. In the contemporary constitution of mints, a denarius constituted a silberpfennig (silver penny) in German. 12 denarii or pennies constituted one shilling (Latin: solidus) and 20 shillings constituted one pound accordingly. This Carolingian system of coinage exists with the Anglo-Saxons to date: 12 pence = 1 shilling, 20 shillings = one pound, as much as also the denomination “1 pound Sterling” originally means one pound of silver coins that has been brought into the country by Easterlings: merchants coming from the East (Germany). The introduction of the Carolingian coinage system to England is attributed to the Anglo-Saxon scholar Alcuin, who had been invited by Charlemagne to his court.

Coinage of Shillings was not implemented by the coinage system of Charlemagne. The denomination was just used for calculations. Only during the expanded circulatory needs during the 13 th and 14th Century a corresponding coinage emanated as “Groschen”. The Groschen constituted a big and thick penny, which had the value of 12 denarii and so it accorded to one shilling. However in some areas they coined Groschen of value less than 12 denarii. That everywhere the issuance of a bigger coin was a consideration of increasing economic demand is also demonstrated through the large denarius, which emanated in the 12th century in Florence as “Grossoni”, in France as “gros tournois” and in England as “groats”. The relation to the denarius was, however, not everywhere the same like in Germany (see Karl Helfferich: “Das Geld”, page 39).

During the general development of culture, the effect of return of money-based economy could naturally, only show slowly. The Empire of Charles was too large and vast and only the Southwestern part was old cultivated land. Craftsmanship, husbandry and agriculture had to be developed and taught first. The monasteries that the Emperor supported dedicated themselves to this task with extraordinary zeal. During those times new coinage was minted usually on the occasion of important historical events or other commemorative days in the life of the master of mint. Charlemagne coined together with Pope Hadrian III a penny after finishing the Lombards in 784 A.D. in order to commemorate the event. He also had a penny issued upon his coronation as Emperor in 800 A.D. The averse showed his bust and the reverse depicted the Church as whose protector he felt.

The strict order of the coinage system, which was implemented by Charlemagne, was lost again under his successors. In an order of the Emperor was once determined (805 A.D.) that coins could only be minted at imperial palatines and it was compulsory “that these new pennies circulate and have to be accepted in every location, in every market square and in every city”. According to A. von Ebengreuth (Grundriss der Münzkunde), sovereignty over coinage was a considerable privilege of the Roman Emperor from whom it went over to the Kaiser (= Caesar, George Reiff) of the Holy Roman Empire of German Nation. Thomas Aquinas, however, founded and spread the teaching that sovereignty over coinage was also a privilege of the Pope and the Church. This opinion found entry into the law books of medieval times and so accordingly everybody who held a supreme power, a supremum imperium, owned also the privilege of sovereignty over coinage, which he could transfer below in order to receive taxes, services or as domains for vassals.

Under Charlemagne’s successor Louis the pious, the princes of the Church gained influence and importance in the field of coinage; and this influence strengthened afterwards more and more when the weakness of the Carolingians became visible. This development is, however, not completely incomprehensible because churches and monasteries had taken on large tasks and financing this necessitated corresponding income. After converting the Saxons to Christianity the Corvey Monastery was founded and equipped with ample donations: for example the establishment of a mint and conferral of the profits onto the monastery itself. Similarly, it continued in numerous other cases and coming times. St. Gallen Abbey, the free Imperial Abbey Hersfeld and also women monasteries like Quedlinburg Abbey received the mint privilege. The Teutonic Order, who later on became active in the colonization of the East, received this privilege as well.

Under the Frankish and Saxon Emperors the tendency to hand over the mint privilege to princes of the church and abbeys grew stronger as now the clergy, bishops and abbots were the real pillars of the Emperor’s rule against demands and coveting of the nobility. With emerging weakening of imperial power, the princes of the church became more and more independent in the field of issuance of coin. Additionally, the mint privilege was also being transferred to dukes and margraves in exchange for taxes and vassal services and so an ample supply of money was available for the upstarting money based economy. The latter fact was the decisive influence for the general development of economy and culture, and so it was rightfully so that mugs and bowls and plates and goblets went into the mint and came thereafter as shiny silver pennies onto the market squares.