Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- List of tables
- List of graphs
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I Before the Commercial Revolution
- Part II The Commercial Revolution of the Thirteenth Century
- 5 New Silver c. 1160 – c. 1330
- 6 The Balance of Payments and the Movement of Silver
- 7 European Silver and African Gold
- 8 New Mints
- 9 Ingots of Silver
- 10 New Money
- 11 The Place of Money in the Commercial Revolution of the Thirteenth Century
- Part III The Late Middle Ages
- Conclusion
- Appendix I The Coins Most Commonly in Use in the Middle Ages
- Appendix II Money of Account
- Appendix III Production at Some Later Medieval Mints
- Bibliography
- Coin Index
- General Index
5 - New Silver c. 1160 – c. 1330
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 November 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- List of tables
- List of graphs
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I Before the Commercial Revolution
- Part II The Commercial Revolution of the Thirteenth Century
- 5 New Silver c. 1160 – c. 1330
- 6 The Balance of Payments and the Movement of Silver
- 7 European Silver and African Gold
- 8 New Mints
- 9 Ingots of Silver
- 10 New Money
- 11 The Place of Money in the Commercial Revolution of the Thirteenth Century
- Part III The Late Middle Ages
- Conclusion
- Appendix I The Coins Most Commonly in Use in the Middle Ages
- Appendix II Money of Account
- Appendix III Production at Some Later Medieval Mints
- Bibliography
- Coin Index
- General Index
Summary
The German humanist, Georgius Agricola, writing on the spot, but in the 1540s, related the traditional story of the discovery of the first major new source of silver in Europe since that at Goslar:
It came about by chance and accident that the silver mines were discovered at Freiberg in Meissen. By the river Saale … is Halle … famous and renowned for its salt springs … When some people were carrying salt from there in wagons … they saw lead ore (galena) in the wheel tracks, which had been uncovered by the torrents. This lead ore, since it was similar to that of Goslar, they put into their carts and carried to Goslar, for the same carriers were accustomed to carry lead from that city. And since much more silver was smelted from this ore than from that of Goslar, certain miners went at once to that part of Meissen in which is now situated Freiberg, a great and wealthy town; and we are told by consistent stories and general report that they grew rich out of the mines.
According to Agricola, this happy accident had taken place some 380 years earlier, in other words in the 1160s, in the reign of the Margrave Otto of Meissen.
In 1189, towards the end of his reign, Otto, nicknamed, unsurprisingly, ‘the Rich’, had the contents of his treasury seized by the Bohemians.
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- Money and its Use in Medieval Europe , pp. 109 - 131Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1988