This sounds fascinating. I was always fascinated how complicated life could be in days past. Like how we take decimalization for granted today or the cheap conversion of money and the enormous availability of modern currency (i.e. Paper money and coins).
I once read about coin shortages and how that could impact an entire region. Fascinating stuff.
Do you happen to have book recommendations on the topic of coins or economic history of Europe (or even more specifically the German speaking area)?
If you happen to speak German I’d recommend “Das Geld der Deutschen” by Bernd Sprenger for an overview as he touches a lot of eras and different subtopics, starting from antiquity and ending with the Euro. Alternatively, “Kleine Geschichte des Geldes” by Michael North is another popular (and a little newer) survey book that I enjoyed. The most insightful parts for me were the in-depth explanations of the concept of bill of exchanges and cashless payments in general during the early modern period.
Since my focus is on monastaries and money is only one aspect, I did not research this sub topic comprehensively, even if it interests me personally - hence I conveniently didn’t search much further than mostly German literature. I just checked: The only “English book” on the topic from my bibliography is the conference proceedings “Münzprägung, Geldumlauf und Wechselkurse” / “Minting, Monetary Circulation and Exchange Rates” (Trier Historische Forschungen, volume 7) from 1984. It is a little older but was still worthwhile to me, quite recently. Despite the name it only includes a few German but mostly English essays. They are not limited geographically to the German lands. As a small word of caution: Some of the essays are rather theoretical by nature, so this might not be the very best entry point if you want an overview, or you could simply skip these essays.
I do not love to recommend it here, but asking the English collegues on reddit via /r/AskHistorians might give you a much better answer if you’re looking for good entry-level English literature on the topic. They also provide a list of recommended books that features a small “Political and Economic History” section. They included a book by Joseph Gies and Frances Gies that looks quite promising (but focuses on the time 1000-1500). Other than that I cannot find anything particularly relevant in that list. Asking over there might be worthwhile, though.
I am actually German so thank you for all the recommendations! I will check out some of the books (even though I know it will take me some time to get to them. I have a rather long reading list, but I will check them out!)
This sounds fascinating. I was always fascinated how complicated life could be in days past. Like how we take decimalization for granted today or the cheap conversion of money and the enormous availability of modern currency (i.e. Paper money and coins).
I once read about coin shortages and how that could impact an entire region. Fascinating stuff.
Do you happen to have book recommendations on the topic of coins or economic history of Europe (or even more specifically the German speaking area)?
If you happen to speak German I’d recommend “Das Geld der Deutschen” by Bernd Sprenger for an overview as he touches a lot of eras and different subtopics, starting from antiquity and ending with the Euro. Alternatively, “Kleine Geschichte des Geldes” by Michael North is another popular (and a little newer) survey book that I enjoyed. The most insightful parts for me were the in-depth explanations of the concept of bill of exchanges and cashless payments in general during the early modern period.
Since my focus is on monastaries and money is only one aspect, I did not research this sub topic comprehensively, even if it interests me personally - hence I conveniently didn’t search much further than mostly German literature. I just checked: The only “English book” on the topic from my bibliography is the conference proceedings “Münzprägung, Geldumlauf und Wechselkurse” / “Minting, Monetary Circulation and Exchange Rates” (Trier Historische Forschungen, volume 7) from 1984. It is a little older but was still worthwhile to me, quite recently. Despite the name it only includes a few German but mostly English essays. They are not limited geographically to the German lands. As a small word of caution: Some of the essays are rather theoretical by nature, so this might not be the very best entry point if you want an overview, or you could simply skip these essays.
I do not love to recommend it here, but asking the English collegues on reddit via /r/AskHistorians might give you a much better answer if you’re looking for good entry-level English literature on the topic. They also provide a list of recommended books that features a small “Political and Economic History” section. They included a book by Joseph Gies and Frances Gies that looks quite promising (but focuses on the time 1000-1500). Other than that I cannot find anything particularly relevant in that list. Asking over there might be worthwhile, though.
I am actually German so thank you for all the recommendations! I will check out some of the books (even though I know it will take me some time to get to them. I have a rather long reading list, but I will check them out!)