Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- List of tables
- List of graphs
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I Before the Commercial Revolution
- 1 Roman–Barbarian Discontinuity
- 2 The Appearance of the Denier and the Revival of Trade
- 3 ‘Feudal’ Deniers and ‘Viking’ Dirhams
- 4 Saxon Silver and the Expansion of Minting
- Part II 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
4 - Saxon Silver and the Expansion of Minting
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
- 1 Roman–Barbarian Discontinuity
- 2 The Appearance of the Denier and the Revival of Trade
- 3 ‘Feudal’ Deniers and ‘Viking’ Dirhams
- 4 Saxon Silver and the Expansion of Minting
- Part II 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
Over 70,000 German pfennigs and over 30,000 Anglo-Saxon pennies, almost all of the period 990–1050, have so far been found in Sweden. This indicates both the changed orientation in Scandinavian economic life, and also a considerable increase in prosperity in both Ottoman Germany and Anglo-Saxon England in the tenth and eleventh centuries. For Ottoman Germany the increased quantity of coin in circulation can be linked very closely with an increase in the mining of silver. A long series of pfennigs began to be struck in Saxony for the Empress Adelaide in conjunction with her grandson, Otto III, for whom she was regent from 991–95, and continued to be struck in their joint names for a further forty years after her death. Spectrographic analysis of the trace elements of various minor impurities in them has shown that the majority of them were minted from the silver mined out of the Rammelsberg above the town of Goslar in the Harz mountains. This appears to be the mine whose discovery was recorded by the chronicler Widukind of Corvey, between 961 and 968. It seems to be nothing more than a fortunate coincidence that mining of silver in Germany began at almost exactly the same time as access to the failing silver-mines of Transoxiana came to an end. Although silvermining in the Harz began in the 960s, its development, at least as measured by the coins produced from it, seems to have been slow, until the 990s.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Money and its Use in Medieval Europe , pp. 74 - 106Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1988