The first half of the fourteenth century saw the transformation of Europe from an area that primarily used silver for currency, to one that primarily used gold. Gold coinage had already been minted in western Europe from the mid thirteenth century, but its use had been largely limited to Mediterranean lands and the ultimate source of the gold lay outside Europe. However, the last great sources of precious metal to be exploited on a large scale in the expansive ‘long thirteenth century’ were the Hungarian gold deposits around Kremnica (Kremnitz or Körmöczbánya) in Slovakia, which were opened up about 1320. (See Map 26.)

The mining of gold in Hungary was not new in 1320, but the scale of operations changed radically at that point. Occasional direct references to gold-mining in Transylvania go back to the very beginning of the thirteenth century. The earliest reference to the transit of gold up the Danube through Vienna is slightly earlier still, in 1196, so that some mining must have taken place as early as this. Other Viennese documents suggest that a small but frequent quantity of gold passed through the city to Passau, Regensburg, and Swabia throughout the thirteenth century. By the end of the century Magyar gold was to be found in Bruges.

A certain amount of Magyar gold was also sent southwards in the thirteenth century. As early as 1217 the King of Hungary, Andrew II, when he was bargaining over the cost of hiring Venetian galleys for his part in the Fifth Crusade, also negotiated that Hungarian gold should be exempt from customs duties in Venice.