When historians and economists speak of the monetization of European society in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, they are speaking in relative rather than absolute terms of a multi-faceted social process. Increases in the volume of coinage in circulation and the frequency of monetary transactions are only two of many factors involved. The process of monetization was inextricably tied to what has been called “the commercial revolution of the thirteenth century”: the rapid growth of trade, markets, and towns; the acceleration of agricultural and craft production; the evolution of specialized commercial enterprises and techniques; and the penetration of monetary and commercial values into all areas of social life. In this sense, the process of monetization is first apparent in the Italian cities of the late eleventh and twelfth centuries. For England and France, historians identify the “long” thirteenth century – that is, between approximately 1180 and 1320 – as the period of most rapid monetization.

The accelerated use of money had ever-expanding social, economic, and intellectual consequences. As the process of monetization gathered speed, habits of thought and perception initially restricted to those actively engaged in commerce came to be adopted by members of all segments of society. Among the most characteristic of these new habits were: the focus on monetary profit and loss in a wide range of decision making; the recognition of the importance of detailed written records for this calculation; the resulting broad development of literacy and numeracy; and the translation of qualitative values into quantitative, often monetary, terms as a way to simplify the process of calculation.