Abstract
The suggestive title of the book is as interesting as the contents. Martin Allen’s Mints and Money in Medieval England, besides presenting a thorough examination of the topic, includes a compilation of the works of Allen as well as relevant references to other authors on the theme. Allen, a key author in the area providing understandings of the evolution of the English economy since medieval times until the sixteenth century, approaches the difficult task and objectives set for this book in practical terms, providing insights into how and why the English economy became what it was not, and the role played by the mints in such a process.
Coinage has been, and is, a fundamental element in the development of economies and their finances. In the eighteenth century, for example, many European countries followed mercantilist policies aimed at wealth accrual by the state, especially through the accumulation of precious metals, and this involved the effective use of coinage policies to stabilise commerce (Gomes et al., 2008; see also Day, 1999). Such policies went further than merely governing exchanges of commodities within a country. As Ezzamel and Hoskin (2002: 356–357) pointed out, “Coinage represents the writing of a standard value onto metal which is itself deemed to have value”. Such coinage, as they remarked following Foucault (1974), assumed the standardisation of exchange ratios, transforming commerce in the direction of monetary units instead of physical units (Ezzamel and Hoskin, 2002). Thus, the need for the production of perfect coins, which appropriately and intrinsically represent their marked value, would impel relevant economies to improve their coinage in order to boost exchange and trade with other countries. Therefore, governments’ attempts to stabilise their national coins aimed at creating better conditions to improve national wealth (Day, 1999).
The problems associated with coinage are not specific to England, and similar historical issues concerning the value of coins were common in Spain (Baños and Gutiérrez, 2012), France and Portugal (Day, 1999). In 1696, with reference to the English economy, R Ford wrote, “I shall not waste any Time in an unprofitable Inquiry into the several Means and Degrees whereby our Coin hath been reduced to its present ill Condition”, and he enumerated the “Evil Consequences that will attend the low valuation of Silver” (Ford, 1696: 4, 5). France, perceiving that its coin system lacked a stable relationship with other coins in the periods from 1689 to 1715 and 1718 to 1720, established a standard bimetallic relationship in 1726 (Day, 1999). Portugal focused on England as the central destination of their finances, and so Portuguese coinage was fixed to the valuation of English coins. Thus, as Day recognised, “[t]he common thread that runs through the tangled history of monetary standards in pre-industrial Europe is the chronic instability of the metallic money supply” (1999: 108).
This book goes further, given that it considers less recent times and includes the medieval era, which, at first glance seems to be of less interest than more recent centuries, but this is, perhaps, rather due to our lack of knowledge of the period. Moreover, without a clear idea of how coinage developed up to the sixteenth century, we cannot fully understand more recent times. The book is divided into 12 chapters, with a clear division into three parts. The first part, composed of three chapters, deals with the historical evolution of the mints from the end of the tenth century to the middle of the sixteenth century. The second part of the book is focused on activity at the mints and the daily work of these institutions, and is also covered in three chapters. The last section is particularly interesting due to the impact of coinage and the evolution of coins in the period in the city of London. This final section is divided into five chapters. Lastly, Chapter 12 offers some conclusions based on the research developed in the previous chapters and opens the door for future research.
Not only is this book interesting as a result of careful editing and writing, but moreover, for the wealth of statistics offered as appendices. There are more than 30 such pages, providing statistics on mints, profits and hoards, and which warrant further investigation to assess more precisely the role of the mints in the English economy in a crucial period of the history of that nation.
This book covers both an historical area and era which are not especially well known to accounting historians. Thus, the book occupies a fundamental position and examines an indispensable aspect of history which has not been appropriately reviewed previously. Its content offers the reader many potential areas in which to develop future research.