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NEW APPRECIATIONS IN HISTORY 4 Published by The Historical Association Currency and the Economy in Tudor and early Stuart England by C. E. Challis NEW APPRECIATIONS IN ^ HISTORY 4 XT Currency and the Economy in Tudor and early Stuart England

by C. E. Challis

The Historical Association 59a Kennington Park Road, SE11 4JH Acknowledgements \s I wish to thank Emeritus Professor A. J. Brown and Or A. R. Bridbury for their stimulating and helpful comments on the draft of this pamphlet. The Trial Plates of 1560 are published by kind permission of the Deputy Master of the Royal . The and tokens are published by kind permission of the Curator of the Leeds University and Collection. Introduction, Page 5

This pamphlet has been edited by Gareth Elwyn Jones Mint Output and the Supply of , Page 7 The Historical Association, founded in 1906, brings together people who share an interest in, and love for, the past. It aims to further the study and teaching of history at all levels: teacher and student, amateur and professional. This is one of The Circulating Medium, Page 14 over 100 publications available at very preferential rates to members. Membership also includes journals at generous discounts and gives access to courses, conferences, tours and regional and local activities. Full details are Offsetting, Barter and Payments in Kind, available from The Secretary, The Historical Association, 59a Kennington Park Page 18 Road, London SE11 4JH, telephone: 01-735 3901

The publication of a pamphlet by the Historical Association does not necessarily Petty Credit and Tokens, Page 21 imply the Association's approval of the opinions expressed in it.

© C. E. Challis, 1989. Conclusion, Page 26

ISBN 0 85278 307 8 Printed Works Cited in the Text, Page 31 Originated and published by The Historical Association, 59a Kennington Park Road, London SE11 4JH and printed in by The Chameleon Press Limited, 5-25 Burr Road, London SW18 4SG

The front cover illustration is a groat of I lenry VII ( 14H5-1509)

L Figure 1. Trial Plates by which the and coins ordered in 1560 were tested. Currency and the Economy in Tudor and early Stuart England

Then, as now, it was a royal Introduction monopoly.1 Before the development of paper money, which in England did not really Unlike many European states at that occur until the later seventeenth time, England had no official coins in century, the circulating medium or billon (a copper/silver consisted of coins and tokens. The unit in which copper predominated), which of account in which they were valued meant that coins were either of gold or was the , in which there of silver. In each case the face value of were twenty shillings each of twelve a coin was determined by, first, the pence, making 240 pennies in all. In weight of the metal it contained; value terms, coins were unquestionably second, the fineness (or purity) of that more important than tokens and, metal; and, third, the cost of coinage, although from time to time coins were by which is meant not only the cost of imported, the overwhelming number actual manufacture but also the profit throughout the Tudor and early Stuart offered to suppliers to induce them to period were produced at home. The bring bullion in. Thus, in 1560, 1 Ib. of ending of the franchises in the later silver coin had a face value of 60s. but years of Henry VlII's reign, whereby contained only 55s.6d. worth of pure the of Durham and the silver. Since the mint charged ls.6d. archbishops of Canterbury and for manufacture, the supplier gained had minted small quantities of silver 3s., or 5 per cent of the face value of under royal licence, was followed by a his new coins. This third factor, though brief period in which some minting small in comparison with the other occurred in the provinces under direct two, was of vital importance because it royal control, and there was a ensured that the value which weight subsequent, if minor, resurgence of and fineness gave to a coin (its provincial minting following intrinsic value) was always less than 's seizure of the Tower mint the face value assigned to the coin by in 1642. In general, however, minting government. Consequently, the coin, in England was synonymous with being more valuable as coin than as output at the Tower mint, London. bullion, stayed in circulation. Whenever this relationship was effective, alloy in circulation. In view Table 1. Value in £s of English Coin Output, J460-1660 reversed, by the cost of bullion rising of this, it seems more profitable to see and causing the intrinsic value of coins the introduction of a new standard in to exceed their face value, remedial 1526 not as an abandonment of the (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) ((>) (7) Cold Silver Total Gold as % Annual Index action was essential if the money traditional policy of avoiding Total Average 1485-1526 supply was to be maintained and took depreciation through a reduction in £ £ .£ = 100 the form either of raising the face fineness, but of the recognition of the value of existing coins sufficiently high superior merits of an alternative alloy. 1460-1485 762,106 1,041,861 41,674 to make their face value once again 279,755 73 103 1485-1526 1,271,986 394,954 1,666,940 40,657 100 higher than their intrinsic value — a Commonly, depreciation is quite 76 1526-1544 360,244 603,381 963,625 53,534 132 process normally referred to as mistakenly described as debasement, a 37 1544-1551 1,314,188 2,724,479 4,038,667 576,952 1419 enhancement — or of reducing the phenomenon for which the years 33 1551-1560 88,201 228,500 316,701 28 35,189 87 quantity of metal in a coin. 1542-51 were especially notorious. As we have seen, in normal circumstances 1560-1603 769,502 4,594,128 5,363,630 14 124,736 307 1603-1625 4,346,022 1,642,857 5,988,879 73 272,221 670 In respect of this process two points a coin's face value equalled its intrinsic value plus the charge made for coinage 1625-1649 3,212,081 8,673,858 1 1 ,885,939 27 495,247 1218 are worth particular emphasis. First, 1649-1660 97,448 751,954 849,402 12 77,218 190 regardless of which technique was and it is obvious that when depreciation occurred this relationship used to restore the correct relationship Totals 12,221,778 19,893,866 32,115,644 38 160,578 between intrinsic and face values, the was not disturbed. It could hardly have result was always the same: a coin of a been otherwise, given that given denomination contained less depreciation was a mechanism Source: Challis, A New History of the Royal Mint, Chapter 3. than previously, and the deliberately employed to keep the coinage as a whole depreciated in equation in balance. When debasement alterations in the English currency and notably of various gaps in the evidence value. Second, in England it was quite was being practised, however, this the fortunes not only of the exchange for the Tower and of the breakdown in exceptional for depreciation to be equation was extended to include a rate but also of overseas trade is an the practice of making up the mint achieved by altering the fineness of large profit for the which was important area of study, it lies beyond accounts on a regular basis, using the coins. Time out of mind the standard obtained by reducing the weight the scope of the following discussion same annual accounting period, which of English silver coin, 'sterling' in and/or the fineness of the precious which is entirely devoted to the means that, even for the Tower, there contemporary parlance, had been fixed metal content of a coin, through the domestic circulating medium. We shall are difficulties in presenting a uniform at 11 ounces 2 pennyweights, or 925 substitution of copper, without this look, first, at the expansion of the set of figures. Nevertheless, it remains parts in a thousand pure metal, and reduction being reflected in the coin's coined money supply and the more true that the principal details of gold at 23 carats 3'/2 grains, or 994.8 face value. By this means the mint's obvious factors which determined this; English mint output are here set out parts in a thousand. Being high and output became fiat money, in which then at the relationship between that with some accuracy and we may feel dependable, these standards ensured face value was determined not by supply and what appears to have been confident, especially when these details that English coin had a remarkably precious metal content but by the transactions demand for money; are aggregated together over good reputation, not least abroad. government edict, and was thus open and, finally, at forces which tugged in reasonable periods of time, that they Leaving on one side the wholly to doubt wherever and whenever that opposite directions, on the one hand may be taken as a trustworthy basis for edict could not be enforced. This was exceptional circumstances of the increasing the demand for money and further analysis.2 1540s and 1550s which arose from the particularly obvious when English coin on the other greatly economising in its fiscal exploitation of the coinage, the travelled abroad and circulated quite use. From Table 1 two conclusions stand was never reduced in outside the jurisdiction of the English out: first, the marked fluctuation in the the Tudor and Stuart period for Crown. On the one hand, correctly Mint Output and the level of mint output and, second, the depreciation purposes; nor was that of depreciated coin, in which the face pronounced swings between gold and gold, except on one occasion. In 1526 value did reflect the current market Supply of Bullion silver. From the index in the last a second , 'crown' gold, value of the precious metal content, Table 1 sets out the value in is of column, which expresses all periods of of 916.6 parts in a thousand was was readily acceptable at an unchanged known production at the Tower and output in terms of the average annual introduced and, although for many rate of exchange against other provincial mints during nine periods of output for the early — a years it existed in parallel with the old currencies managed on the same coin production from the Yorkist era time when relatively settled conditions standard, eventually, from the death of principle while, on the other, debased up to the period of the Commonwealth prevailed at the mint — it can be seen Charles I, it alone was used. The coin was promptly discounted and and the Protectorate. that, although the level between 1485 advantage of gold standard caused the exchange to move against and 1526 was roughly what it had over its predecessor was that it was a sterling. The imperfections in these figures been in the Yorkist period, from 1526 more durable, and therefore more Although the connection between should not be ignored, being the result this ceased to be the case. At first, Figure* \\'m\t Milder there was a modest rise; then, a very respect of the relative importance of James I & Charles I sharp one, as debasement drove up gold and silver (column 5). In the later (years to-ginning 1 April) gold and, particularly, silver output. fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries £lm- The devaluation of 1551, which gold was the senior partner, reduced the face value of silver by 50 accounting for roughly three- quarters per cent, was followed by nine lean of mint output, but then silver took years after which the recycling of the over, dominating from the 1520s and old silver coin during the recoinage of predominating under Elizabeth I. James 1560-1 and subsequently some longish I's reign saw a speedy and dramatic periods of sustained activity brought a return to gold and the reign of his son welcome revival. On average, output an equally dramatic reversal from 1632 between 1560 and 1603 was roughly in favour of silver. This trend three times what it had been between continued and was reinforced under 1485 and 1526. Under James 1 output the Commonwealth and the rose higher still, to average more than Protectorate, at which time silver 100,000 - twice its previous level, and though accounted for nearly nine-tenths of the under Charles I this pace slackened whole. This dramatic shift from one somewhat the average output for his metal to the other is set out clearly for reign as a whole was no less than the reigns of James I and Charles I in twelve times what it had been in the Figure 2, where the height of each later fifteenth century. Under the column represents total output for that Commonwealth and the Protectorate year and the shaded and non-shaded the mint experienced a marked decline areas the respective shares which gold to a level of output more reminiscent and silver had in that output. In Figure of the early sixteenth century than of 3 (which traces the depreciation of the the early seventeenth. pound sterling between 1460 and 1660) we may see equally clearly that, 10,000- It would be a snare and a delusion even if it were assumed (and in reality to read too much into the precision matters are not quite as straightforward which the figures in this index indicate as this) that lighter coins should mean — after all, they could easily be that there would be more of them, the adjusted simply by dividing up the rising tide of output cannot be chronological span into different explained by depreciation alone. In periods of time. Even so, the trends are 1526 the traditional standard in which clear enough, as, indeed, are those in English coin was weighed, the Tower

figure 3. DrpiwiaUon oflhe c Su-rlniR. 1460-1660 (grains of flae.melal) 1,000 - Silver GoM 4000- -400

:woo- -300

2000- -200

Gold 1000- -100 100- o- - 0 1610 1620 1630 1640 1480 1500 1520 1540 1560 1580 1600 1620 1640 that depreciation remained after the especially created for the purpose. Ib. of 5400 grains, was replaced by the was itself a direct supplier of the mint, coinage had been restored in October troy Ib. of 12 ounces, in which each sending in, for example, under Henry 1551 it follows that, quite irrespective The prime determinant of all this ounce contained 20 pennyweights and VIII, part of the pension paid by of the debasement policy, a measure of activity was the price paid by the mint each pennyweight 24 grains, France, as well as much of the plate depreciation was inevitable at that for its bullion, which government amounting in all to 5760 grains. confiscated from the monasteries; time. However this may be, it is raised by stages until early in 1549 Measuring the silver pound sterling in under Elizabeth, scrap plate from the important to distinguish clearly gold reached .436 per Ib., a rise of troy grains, we find that it contained jewel house and bullion and foreign between depreciation and debasement. one-third on its pre- debasement level, 3330 grains of fine metal in 1460 and coin from the exchequer; and under Whereas the first was a long-term and in 1 551 silver reached &6 per Ib., only 1719 grains two hundred years Charles I, part of Henrietta Maria's condition which, as we have seen, a rise of 152 per cent over the same later, which meant, in effect, that in dowry and, after parliament had seized involved the reduction in the intrinsic period. The size of the premium which 1660 it had only 52 per cent of its power, considerable quantities of plate value of metallic coins to take account the mint price at a given time offered 1460 content. Over the same period to support the parliamentary cause.3 of rising bullion prices over which on the open market price of bullion gold content dropped from 322 grains Secondly, it was government which by England had no control, the latter was was a measure of the inducement to 128 grains, which gave a pound in defining the weight and fineness of a fraud instigated by the English government was prepared to give in 1660 only 40 per cent of the gold it coins fixed their intrinsic values and government purely for fiscal purposes. order to attract supplies. The had had in 1460. In 1660, therefore, a when rising bullion prices on the open When contemporaries comprehended explanation of why the mint price for given amount of bullion would market caused intrinsic values to float the extent of this fraud they attributed gold was not raised further after 1549 produce twice the amount of silver above face values, thus not only to it not only the rise in prices which in order to attract more bullion and coin or two and a half times the rendering existing coins of full weight they observed but also the fall in the thereby prolong fiscal exploitation is to amount of gold coin as it would have liable to melting but also removing the exchange, and sadly bemoaned their be found in the very nature of done two hundred years before; but, as normal incentive to take bullion to the fate: 'O Lord be merciful unto us for it debasement. Being a fraud, in which Table 1 shows, mint output rose by a mint, it was the job of government to is the greatest plague that ever came to the mint advertised ever higher bullion quite different order of magnitude. ensure that readjustment took place. In England'.s prices but did not announce in short, the precise pattern of the advance the standard and fineness of Despite considerable recent research depreciation which has already been the coins to be returned to its some of the mechanisms which drove After an initial two years of alluded to was dictated by government suppliers, it followed that dealing with fresh quantities of bullion to the mint experimentation, which was kept and it is that pattern, accompanied at the mint during the debasement was a remain today as shadowy as ever. hidden from public view, open each step by recoinage of existing debasement (open in the sense that lottery in which the supplier only Consequently, not only are some coins and/or the attraction of fresh stood to gain if he could dispose of his occurrences, even important ones like debased coins were put openly onto bullion supplies, which is set out in debased coin before it was discounted the great upsurge in gold output in the the market) began in 1544 and, in a Figure 3. Thirdly, government series of steps over the next seven to its true value. Since dealers in gold mid 1620s, still not fully explained, but influenced mint supply through its years, progressively reduced the were traditionally accustomed to test also we are obliged on grounds of prerogative to decide which coins intrinsic value of the coinage. The their coins for weight and fineness, plain commonsense to assert, as in should be included in the circulating there was in reality no way in which respect of favourable balances in result was that the pound sterling medium and which should not, for debasement of gold could long remain overseas trade, that a particular activity reckoned in terms of, first, the worst when demonetisation did take place concealed and, once the deterioration must have been important from time debased gold coins — the 22 carat the mint was invariably the principal in the pound sterling caused by to time in inducing mint supply, (916.6) issue of 1549 rated at £34 per beneficiary. This was true for silver Ib. — and, secondly, the worst debased debasement matched the degree of without ever being able either to especially in 1560-1, when Elizabeth I silver coins — the 3 ounce (250) issue depreciation which the market in assign an order of magnitude to it or to Withdrew the old debased coins of her of 1551, rated at 72s. per Ib. — general believed sterling should suffer give it very precise chronological father and brother, and to a lesser contained only 73 per cent of the gold at that time, it was pointless to expect definition. This said, the overall pattern extent for gold in 1561-2, when all and no more than 17 per cent of the that debasement of gold could be of mint supply is reasonably clear and foreign gold coins other than the silver it had had in pre-debasement prolonged. within it the important contribution of French, Flemish or Burgundian crowns times. The end result, a handsome net government cannot be missed; for were demonetised.4 profit to the Crown of £1.27 millions, As far as silver was concerned, unquestionably the greater part of the was achieved by a massive throughput government was able to continue changes in mint output in Tudor and The fourth way in which of bullion which totally outstripped debasement long after the attainment early Stuart England resulted from government affected mint supply was production over the previous three- of the level of depreciation to which actions directly attributable to through the policy of debasement quarters of a century and, in so doing, market forces dictated sterling should government. which it inflicted on England between occupied at its height the attention not fall, partly because it was able through In the first place, on a considerable 1542 and 1551. As Figure 3 shows, this only of the existing Tower mint but its huge military expenditure to force number of occasions the need for was a period of marked depreciation, also of seven additional mints silver into circulation; partly because ready money meant that government especially for silver, and since part of 1 1 10 silver predominated in the English silver continued to flow into the when gold was finally eclipsed at the fixed first at two-thirds and circulating medium and most of its country, nourishing a substantial plate mint, in 1632/3, it was once again from subsequently at one-third, of the users had no accurate means of testing industry. The source of this supply was, that the bullion flowed. The bullion to be transhipped at Dover, coin for weight and fineness; and partly as in the later years of Elizabeth I, trigger was an agreement between coined at the mint, and then used to because government devised, albeit primarily Spain which, as one England and Spain whereby the latter, buy bills on Flanders. For a decade or with difficulty, effective short-term commentator of 1622 quite so this trade underarched a vaulting measures to keep up the flow of silver which stood in need of a well-armed unequivocally put it, was 'the fountain neutral carrier to take her bullion from and impressive silver output at the to the mint. First, in 1548 it was from whose mines all our silver and Spain to Flanders, would allow in mint, before falling away in the later decided to demonetise and recoin the silver of all Europe flows'. And 1640s and ceasing in 1651.8 testoons, debased coins of a return for this service a proportion, originally issued at 9, 6, or 4 ox. fine; secondly, a bi-metallic flow was engineered in which English gold was sacrificed in order to drive silver to the mint, especially in 1550; and, finally, bullion was brought in through special contracts struck with both foreigners and Englishmen. It was in the contract with the English mint official, Sir John York, that the highest mint price of the whole debasement, .£6 per lb., was paid.'1

In the early seventeenth century 1'ignre 4. Tudor and Stuart Gold and there were two important and quite Silver Coins distinct mechanisms employed by government to supply the mint, of I- Heiiiy VII. Silrer Penny 2. Ik-iuy VIII. which the first was the manipulation of Gold croicn 15s. (hi.) .'•>. Man: Gold the bi-metallic ratio under James I to sorert'ift/i t.SOs. Oil I 4. l-.lizcilK'ib I bring in gold. At James I's accession Sili'er 5. Cbaiiix I Sihvr half- silver predominated at the mint and crown Us. hit. I 6. Commorwealtb Gold continued to do so until 1608/9 when douhk- crown (l()s. Oil.) gold came to the fore, where it was to remain until 1631/2 (Figure 2). Since this turnabout involved a marked rise in gold, from £33 10s. per Ib. in 1604 to £41 per Ib. in 1619, without there being at the same time any movement in silver which remained fixed at 62s. per Ib., there was simultaneously a significant alteration in the bi-metallic ratio, which moved from a little over 11 to 1 at James I's accession to 13.5 to 1 in 1619. After the first two stages of this swing — 1604 and 1611, — there was a particularly marked upward movement in gold output.7

At the same time as gold dominated mint output in the second and third decades of the seventeenth century

13 L Table 2. Thirty-year Totals of Output at the Tower Mint (£) If the thirty-year totals are indeed a public outcry which it engendered is true guide, already by the time he was understandable. Nevertheless, it was writing gold had come to equal silver nothing like the total disaster which Gold Silver Total in what was by then a fairly balanced some comment at first sight seems to circulating medium in precious metals; imply and, in any case, it was of 1599 475,734 2,869,689 3,345,423 relatively brief duration; within a 1609 1,265,380 3,710,529 4,975,909 then it went on in the next twenty decade it had been reversed and 1619 2,741,907 2,823,315 5,565,222 years to outstrip silver and, even within two forgotten, as Spanish silver 1629 5,844,799 2,007,631 7,852,430 though this position was altered pushed up mint output. Because it is 1639 6,346,063 2,568,616 8,914,679 relatively towards the end of Charles 1649 5,016,286 8,879,655 13,895,941 I's reign, the actual quantity of gold in clear that 'in the long run and without the circulating medium remained high. a change in the balance of payments' This gold may have had a lower this new source of supply could not in Source: Challis, A New History of the Royal Mint, Chapter 3. velocity of circulation than silver and it practice 'augment the effective supplies may well have been hoarded up in of silver coin in England' it could be The Circulating Medium thirty years, and making adjustments to larger quantities than silver, but the argued that a thirty-year average based allow for output at the ecclesiastical likelihood that in the 1620s and 1630s on mint output figures after 1632 is What were the consequences of the mints, I calculated on an earlier there was twice as much of it in terms widely distorted. In practice, however, changing composition and volume of occasion that England's circulating of value as there was of silver must such a view must be tempered by the mint output for the circulating medium medium may have totalled £1.67 have been some compensation, and knowledge, first, that a good deal of as a whole? To begin with, because the million in 1526.9 By comparison, a must have increased the work that the heaviest silver output occurred in story of the circulating medium was, as simple thirty-year total would suggest gold did both in terms of actual the years after the outbreak of the civil we have seen, inextricably tied to the approximately twice that figure in monetary transactions and in war when quantities of plate as well as history of output at the royal mint it 1599, and four times the 1599 figure buttressing the credit pyramid which of Spanish silver were being coined, follows that, as the balance shifted in 1649 (Table 2). the money supply as a whole sustained. and, secondly, that numismatic between the minting of gold coins and research on coin hoards is beginning the minting of silver coins, so the Broad sweeps of the brush though The cautionary note which the totals to suggest that there are grounds for circulating medium as a whole became these estimates may entail, they are in Table 2 raise in respect of gold find believing that a high proportion of dominated by one metal or the other. instructive enough. To begin with, the an echo to some extent in respect of Charles I's silver coin may indeed have This, in turn, implies an economy rise in the gold component from silver, for they give definition to stayed in England." which could operate effectively when possibly as little as half a million at the contemporary comment concerning the circulating medium was full of end of the sixteenth century to the shortage of silver. At the end of the Tentative though the figures relatively high denominations in gold between five and six millions in the first decade of the century, before the suggested here for the size of the or, conversely, was dominated by second quarter of the seventeenth alterations in the mint ratio fuelled a circulating medium necessarily are, an relatively low denominations in silver. warns us to interpret with great care bi-metallic flow, the silver stock stood eight-fold overall increase between the How could this be? What were the contemporary comment extolling the high, unusually so, with the result that early sixteenth century and the middle facilitating mechanisms which made importance of silver. When, in 1623, a decade later — the debilitating effect of the seventeenth is in fact broadly in possible, for example, the payment of Malynes wrote that 'the silver coins do of the silver drain notwithstanding — line with what one might have small sums at a time like the reign of rule the market in all places, because there may still have been the same expected, if the early Stuart economy Henry VII when gold predominated of the abundance thereof, being 500 to quantity of silver in circulation as there was to have been as well stored with and yet the smallest gold coin struck one of gold',10 one may readily had been about the turn of the minted coin as had that of a century or was the quarter-ryal valued at 2s.6d., concede that he tells us something century. The haemorrhage was serious, so earlier. As we shall see, it is usually the equivalent of seven and a half days' about the number of silver coins. But though far from fatal. It was for this said that during this period commodity pay for a labourer employed in the since twenty silver shillings or sixty reason that, in December 1618, the prices rose six-fold and wages by building industry in southern England? silver groats, for example, have always merchants could say that there was no roughly half that amount, which means equalled one gold pound of 20s. he lack of money at present while at the that the price of goods and services as When we turn to consider the does in practice tell us only what we same time warning that 'if there come a whole should have risen by a factor implications of the changing volume of might expect, namely, that in sheer no more silver to the Mint ... the somewhere in between.12 If we guess output for the overall size of the numbers silver coins must always have kingdom will in time be drained '. In that this general rise was in reality no circulating medium equally interesting predominated in the contemporary the 1620s drainage did in fact more than the mean of the increases in questions arise. Assuming that the circulating medium. We cannot ignore continue, pulling down the silver total commodity prices and wages, say four- circulating medium at any given time the fact that he does not attempt an to only a little over half of what it had and-a-half, and then recall that was the equivalent, at least, of mint estimate of the relative importance of been twenty years before. This contemporaneous with this increase output in the immediately preceding gold and silver in value terms. represented an acute crisis and the went a doubling of population, a nine-

I i fold increase in the circulating medium them had ceased in the mint contracts would have been necessary, all other from 1553. A of silver which Figure 5. Tudor ami Early Stuart things being equal, to have kept the would weigh scarcely two grains was a Tokens ratio between the value of output and manifest absurdity which, as one early- the stock of circulating minted coin seventeenth-century projector put it, reasonably constant. Obviously, if the would 'be blown away with the breath rate of increase in the population of a man's mouth'. Some palliative was and/or prices was larger than has just offered in 1561 by the decision to been supposed and, as seems likely, strike coins of Y-td. and 1 Vzd., the idea there was also an increase both in being, for example, that '/id. worth of output per head and in the something might be bought by offering monetization of the economy, an even Id. and receiving back Yid. But these greater compensatory rise in the new coins were discontinued in 1583; circulating medium would have been although the and penny necessary to maintain the status quo; in were re-introduced at that stage each 1. Early sixteenth-century token 2. City of . Copper farthing token this event the estimates in Table 2 was struck in very small quantities. By would indicate that, even after a the end of Elizabeth's reign small century and more of apparently change in silver was in very short impressive growth, the circulating supply and the upshot was the issuing medium by the middle of the of local tokens, the most important and seventeenth century was relatively well known example being at Bristol, smaller, thus making coin more scarce, where from 1578 the Corporation than it had been in the immediately began a copper issue which was to preceding period. Given this latter case continue, intermittently, until once again we should be left searching Elizabeth's death. These Bristol tokens for an explanation. were for a farthing but both farthing and halfpenny tokens were made at At the same time as England's stock and much smaller ones, in which is certainly more heroic than of precious metal coinage was either copper or lead, were reported likely, it remains true that the farthing increased by the activities of the royal by a Swiss traveller, Thomas Platter, in can never have performed the function mint there emerged for the first time 1599 as being issued by private of small change in the late medieval within the circulating medium, and concerns in London at four or six to period as the farthing and other tokens from alternative sources, a significant the halfpenny. These tokens, he wrote, were to do in the seventeenth century. quantity of small change. The issues of 'are given to the apprentices; when private tokens in the reign of Elizabeth they have a halfpenny worth or more, Between the 1450s and the 1590s I, the Haringtons and other official they exchange and reckon up together the price of arable crops rose five-fold, tokens which replaced them from so that nobody loses'." so that what a farthing would buy in 1613, and the proliferation of 1450 needed 1 '/id. to pay for it in tradesmens' tokens following the Compelling though the argument 1600. Other commodity prices and demise of royal government in 1649 may be that it was the inadequacy of wages, it is true, rose less rapidly than .1. James I. llarington copper farthing are all proof of this phenomenon, yet the supply of small change in silver cereals but the conclusion to which token why did it occur precisely at this time? which brought the token coinage in they point is exactly the same: the base metal into being in the farthing in real terms was a very much Traditionally, the answer has been seventeenth century, it will not, I larger denomination in the fifteenth that men and women need to make believe, stand as the sole, or not even century than it was in the early small purchases or buy small services as the most important part of the seventeenth. for which small change is necessary, explanation of that phenomenon. and that by the early seventeenth Throughout the late medieval period If this proposition be accepted, century such small change simply did the farthing had always been the namely, that though official fractional not exist. The historical case for such smallest denomination in the English money existed in greater quantity in an argument seems obvious. Very few circulating medium and even if we the later fifteenth century than it did in farthings had been struck in the early assume that it was struck in fairly the early seventeenth individual coins sixteenth century and all reference to substantial quantities, an assumption were worth much more in real terms 16 17 and therefore less useful for effecting practice. To begin with, covenanted possibly by helping out with fourteen and eighteen hired by the small transactions, it might reasonably servants could not be dismissed out of harvesting, fruitpicking, or other year might have 20s. or, if meat, drink be asked how did society in the earlier hand simply because they cost more to seasonal work. Wherever men, women and cloth were provided, simply 6d. period carry out the small transactions keep or trade dried up; on the and children did labour in their own per quarter. But there must have been which were undoubtedly necessary? In contrary, they were hired for a year at right it is clear that the wages earned many also like Ellin Edmonds who in formulating an answer to this, and a time and penalties were incurred for were not necessarily or even usually 1641 had 4s. for a hat, ls.8d. towards indeed to the other questions raised dismissals or departures wantonly paid wholly in money. According to 6 her shoes, 3s.4d. for her waistcoat and earlier in this section, let us glance done. As inflation made the board and Hen.VIII c.3 (1515), a statute which 7d. for lace paid for by her master who briefly at how wages were paid, at the lodging they received more valuable, reflected the practice of wage docked her wages of 16s. per annum mechanisms of domestic exchange and there may well have been many who assessments both in the fifteenth accordingly. Indeed, some servants at the size and distribution of England's followed Robert Loder, a Berkshire century and in the later Tudor period appear never to have been paid their population; all three factors are crucial farmer who, early in James 1's reign, when the more famous Statute of annual wages until they actually left to our understanding of the demand tried to economise by putting his Artificers was in operation, the their master's employment, as was the for money. carter on money wages alone; but principal servants in husbandry who case of a young female who there is no warrant for believing that were hired by the year received successfully sued at law in 1649 for such a practice was ever widespread. clothing and food in' addition to their the £5 5s. owing to her for five and a Offsetting, Barter, and None of this is to suggest that wages. Other agricultural servants and quarter years' service.17 covenanted servants were completely artisans who performed daywork might Payments in Kind protected from the difficulties which expect food as well as wages or, if they This exchanging of labour for goods, According to the indices published in short-term slumps and longer-term fed themselves, a higher wage. or a roof over one's head, or food in the 1950s by Professor E.H. Pheips price rises brought. Rather, it is to Sometimes these day workers were one's stomach was part of a much Brown and Miss Sheila V. Hopkins, point up the likelihood that it was not also housed, as for example the wider offsetting system which was wage earners in Tudor and early Stuart they but the journeymen and small cobblers who went to the Yorkshire born of the widespread acceptance England suffered a marked masters (that is to say, only part of the farm of Henry Best during the early that goods might be used to effect deterioration in their standard of living working population) who may have seventeenth century for two days at a payment in a whole variety of for, between the late fifteenth century been heavily at risk when adversity time, or the men from the moors who circumstances. Many of these arose and the middle of the seventeenth, the struck; the former because they might served the same man at harvest. But naturally and easily in the agrarian wages of the agricultural labourer and quickly be laid off, and the latter this was not always the case, for day framework which bound most people the artisan trebled while at the same because when orders dried up they workers were in fact often together. In Henry VII's reign a £20 time prices rose by twice that amount; may well have had nothing else on smallholders or cottagers who had bond was redeemed with £4 in money which meant, in effect, that real wages which to rely. Even in these cases, their own homes, their own stock, and and twenty quarters of barley. Under had been halved.14 In so far as the bulk however, it would be prudent to stress their own pasture. This was why a Henry VIII an £11 entrance fine in of the price series now known are for the possibility rather than the certainty wage-earner might take part of his Somerset was paid by delivering primary products, which would of worsening conditions. Many small wages in winter pasture for his sheep, twenty-one steers; 3s.4d. worth of rent necessarily have risen more sharply businessmen, such as building or actually had livestock and feed of in Lancashire was equated with four than manufactured goods (themselves craftsmen, farriers, wheelwrights and his own to sell. Workmen or artisans capons, two hens, five days' work in heavily influenced by the more the like, are known to have might also, if not always, live in, as did harvest, two days' work with a plough sluggish movement of wages), the supplemented their money income apprentices, and their remuneration in winter and two days' work with a figures for price movements at our from their principal occupation by reflected this.16 harrow; and a Lincolnshire yeoman disposal must be exaggerated. And in some agricultural by-employment, such agreed to settle debts of 53s.4d. with any case, the impact of the rise, as cattle rearing, which was pursued What all this means for the use of twenty quarters of peas. Late in whatever its precise size, must have on a scale sufficient to enable them to money is obvious enough. If an Elizabeth's reign an Essex yeoman let been muted so far as the total supply the market and not simply to employee lived in and had his food and his land and a barn for £5 per annum economy was concerned by the simple prop up the family diet.15 clothes provided, he needed little in cash and all the straw which the fact that a large proportion of the money. In 1613, Robert Loder paid his land produced so that he might care goods produced in early modern We should also remember that in man, his boy, his shepherd and his two properly for his animals in winter.18 England was kept back for subsistence many households the male head cannot maids in wages at Faith Tide (6 purposes and did not therefore enter have been the only breadwinner: October) a total of £9 13s., which was Evidence of similar offsetting the pricing system of the market women and children also had their less than the £10 5s. per annum it cost arrangements, similarly spread economy. part to play, possibly as wage-earners him for their 'meat and drink'. The throughout the country, exists for all in their own right, possibly by most striking illustration comes sorts of other occupations and The stark implications of the wage undertaking some by-employment, perhaps in the assessments of situations. A clothman from Maidstone series must also have been modified in such as spinning, in the home, and Elizabeth 1 where boys between paid off £13 of his £22 18s. debt to a 18 19 Smith introduced payment of food cheeses, valued together at 66s.8d., in outcome of a wholly inadequate supply London draper by delivering two broad rents for Eton College in the 1550s of coins and credit facilities. The cloths. One of the proctors of the return for wood which he might fell and in 1576 a parliamentary Act on the abbey's lands. A decade or so timing of some of the complaints Court of Arches in London was repaid allowed one-third of all the rents to and/or prohibitions is certainly for services rendered to a London later a widow bought £.8 18s. worth of Eton, Winchester and the university cloth against her late husband's funeral suggestive of this being the case and skinner in furs. A draper colleges to be paid in corn and malt. In Clement Armstrong, writing in the contracted for the pasture on which by proffering a Worcester draper two the see of Canterbury, where there was silver bowls. And in July 1548 a grocer reign of Henry VIII, made the his mares grazed by promising the a long history of exacting payments in connection explicit in respect of owner of the fields every third colt. A sold spices to an apothecary at St food and stock .he practice was James's Fair, Bristol, and took in return clothworkers who, he said, were paid London fishmonger sought to discharge extended during Elizabeth I's reign, partly in goods because 'little money is his obligation to a foreign merchant, 4 Ibs. of rhubarb at what today would first by Parker and then by Whitgift, so to be found in the whole realm'.22 incurred through the purchase of salt, be regarded as the rather pricey rate of that in the 158()s the archbishop's by proffering the use of his ship. A £.2 10s. per Ib. In each of these household was in receipt annually of Norwich mercer paid off £6 of his ±25 instances it seems clear that the goods some 204 sheep, 194 quarters of wheat Petty Credit and Tokens debt with a velvet gown and other bartered also had a clearly assigned and twenty loads of hay. Deliveries in In attempting to gauge the overall goods. In an Edwardian marriage value in money of account, so that the kind well beyond the confines of the importance of the economy which agreement it was proposed that £.5 only thing which differentiated each colleges and sees remained common offsetting, barter and payments in kind 6s.8d. in money and two bushels of sale from a normal one was the until the middle of the seventeenth effected in the use of money we must wheat and two of malt should change- absence of money changing hands.20 century when payment wholly in bear in mind, on the one hand, that hands at the time the young woman these practices may never have been Produce rents in such items as wax, money became normal. The possibility was wed. A London shearman sold applicable to certain areas of activity, salt and, much more importantly, corn, of paying some taxes in kind, notably woad to a fuller who was to pay for it for example, the payment of court continued into the sixteenth century. tithes to the local parson and, more by the labour of fulling cloths. And a fines, while on the other, that they Sometimes such items were combined occasionally, lay subsidies to the local official in Jersey became surety Crown, was also a feature of the Tudor must have been substantially increased for a sale by agreeing to pay in the with money payments, as was the case in a twenty-one year lease sealed in period and there are instances too of by the subsistence nature of a good event of a default either the cash price deal of the economic activity in early 1537 between the Priory of whole salaries being paid in kind; a of the goods or twenty-five quarters of modern England. When people grew Wallingwells (Nottinghamshire) and a case in point being those of the two wheat.19 their own vegetables, reared their own Yorkshire gentleman, Richard grammar school masters in Jersey who from the reign of Henry VII shared chickens, and, without resort to the What these and other similar Oglethorp, in which the latter agreed annually sixty-seven quarters of marketplace for raw materials, made a examples show is that offsetting to pay all rents and taxes due from the wheat.21 good many of the small items essential required a framework of obligation priory to the Crown, find four milk cows and a song priest for the priory to everyday life, such as wooden cups, clearly expressed in money of account. Of the frequency of salaries paid in bowls and plates for the kitchen, at his own costs, pay the prioress £,3 Whether payment was then made in kind little is known and the same is furniture for the home, and personal 6s.8d. per annum, each sister 6s.8d., goods and services, either in full or in true of the related problem of truck clothing, money did not change hands. part, depended purely on the the prioress's maid 1 Is., the convent's payments to wage earners, though we maid 6s.8d. and the cook and the Of course, not all items of circumstances of the particular do know from the complaints made consumption could be provided in this situation. .butler £.1 6s.8d. Additionally, he was to against the latter and the attempts deliver to the priory, weekly, sufficient way, for the normal family did not made to put the problem clown that it possess the wherewithal to produce all The implications which offsetting wheat and rye for bread corn, and ran through from the fifteenth to the sufficient malt for drink corn; and, its own grain for food and drink, and had for the use of money were seventeenth century. If truck payments was dependent for these upon weekly extended and reinforced by the related annually, six fat kine, four fat pigs, six were a deliberate attempt, as was markets and to a lesser extent upon and probably much older system of calves, twenty sheep, six stones of indeed alleged in a bill of 1621 relating cheese, a quarter and a half of salt, a fairs, just as it was for salt for cooking barter, whose existence may be to those employed in the Midlands and preserving, iron for nails and quarter of oatmeal, 40s. in cash to illustrated by examples from the retail, metalworking trade, to force down real cutting tools, and small luxuries. For permit the purchase of fish, thirteen wholesale and international trades. In wages by compelling employees to transactions of this kind, as in those 1480/1 a Bristol merchant bartered loads of coals and thirty of wood, and accept overpriced wares or food in twenty-four pounds of candles. Here which occurred between itinerant twenty-two cloths for thiry-one tuns lieu of all or part of their money pedlars and their customers or in the and odd gallons of wine in Spain. In the main emphasis was clearly on wages, their relevance to this present produce and as the sixteenth century shops of apothecaries, mercers, and the 1514 a London ironmonger bargained discussion would be comparatively like, it may well have been normal for with two merchants to supply progressed and the value of produce as limited. On the other hand, the a hedge against inflation became more money to be used but even here there iron and bay salt for Cornish tin. In opposite would be the case if it could is no warrant for believing that every and more apparent, so the use of 1521 a Shropshire yeoman sold to the be shown that truck was an inevitable transaction was dealt with separately. abbot of Buildwas eight cows and forty produce rents spread. Sir Thomas When trust existed between vendor system of the 'slate' variety.24 and purchaser it would have been of money and prices. Having estimated Customarily, the appearance of token perfectly natural for commodities, This kind of petty credit was but one that the quantity of South American coinages has been seen as having a especially those sold in very small manifestation of a structure which bullion reaching Europe in the long ancestry, for not only is there a quantities of low value, to be bought Tawney believed to have been sixteenth and early seventeenth parliamentary petition of 1404 which 'on the slate' until a sum convenient to ubiquitous. "The farmer (he claimed) centuries was not more than one half seeks a remedy for the want of small be paid had been reached; only at that must borrow money when the season of Europe's existing stock of precious change and therefore an end to the point would a penny, a groat, a shilling, is bad, or when his beasts die on him, metals, it became clear to Professors necessity of using foreign coin and lead or some other coin actually need to or merely to finance the interval Braudel and Spooner that the very tokens, but also Erasmus is often said change hands. Such a system would between sowing and harvest. The much larger increase in prices had to to have witnessed the use of lead not have been difficult to administer craftsman must buy raw materials on be explained by a radical increase in tokens in the reign of Henry VII. What and would certainly have been credit and get advances before his velocity. When Professor Miskimin is more, numismatists have identified preferable to, and more plausible than, wares are sold. The young tradesman observed that England's bullion stock an impressive body of tokens, that which a parliamentary' bill of 1444 must scrape together a little capital and bullion price level were roughly stretching back to the early thirteenth ostensibly described; namely, that for before he can set up shop. Even the the same in Elizabethan England as century, the purpose of which is often want of small change on the part of cottager who buys grain at the local they had been in the early fourteenth assumed to have been monetary. If either the seller or the customer market must constantly ask the seller century, he concluded that the greatly these lead pieces were in fact retailing of food and other necessities to "give day" '. With the woollen enhanced level of T in the later period monetary objects and were issued, as was actually ceasing to occur.23 industry firmly in mind, he went on to had to be accommodated by an Williamson once claimed they were, 'in assert that this kind of credit normally upward movement in V. And, finally, as great abundance', one could readily Just as the lord mayor and aldermen took the form 'not of a direct loan at a result of his discussion of the ratio of concede that lead tokens were a of late-fourteenth-century London had interest, but of book-credit granted by money to credit as revealed in probate substitute for the small money which sought to facilitate small transactions the seller to the buyer'. Like inventories and the rise of the inland the royal mint did not issue and, as a by ordering that bakers bake farthing promissory notes which are not fully bill of exchange Professor Kerridge result, that they were capable of loaves and brewers sell ale by farthing negotiable, book credit of the kind was left in no doubt that the price facilitating all the small payments measures, so in the early Tudor period commonly recorded in probate rises of the late sixteenth and early which the contemporary economy were some commodities grouped inventories was not part of the money seventeenth centuries 'coincided with demanded.28 Though such an together for convenient sale in round supply. On the other hand, like a great upsurge of credit'.26 interpretation is obvious and tempting, numbers of pennies, as in 1544 when promissory notes, book-credit must in reality it may hardly be embraced sparrows and larks sold at 3d. the obviously have affected the amount of Together with credit as a means of with confidence. In the first place, it is dozen and eggs at I6d. or 20d. the work done by the money supply, V in alleviating England's lack of money in clear that apart from the references hundred. Even so, the need for the equation of exchange, where prices the Tudor period must be considered cited above, literary evidence for the fractional money remained and, not (P), the exchanges of goods and the introduction by private enterprise use of tokens in the fifteenth and early infrequently, for fractional money services (T), the money supply (M), of token coinages in base metal. Since sixteenth centuries is in practice as which the royal mint could not supply. and the velocity of circulation (V), tokens are precisely what they say they scarce as hens' teeth, which has led According to parliamentary statute in stand in the relationship PT=MV. are, signs or symbols of the real thing, scholars in recent times more 1533, the price of mutton and veal was Indeed, if the increasing part which theoretically it could be argued that realistically to suppose that 'the not to exceed. Vsd. per lb., a level credit played in the lives of those token coinages were never money at medieval token should not really be which was also set in 1544 as the farmers in the late sixteenth and early all and, consequently, that such conceived as a straight monetary summer price of beef, and in 1551 for seventeenth centuries studied by influence as they had on the equation substitute; at least not until after the 'great, thick Essex cheese'. The winter Professor Everitt was at all typical, it of exchange came through the effect Reformation ...The medieval token is price of veal in 1544 was not supposed follows that V was becoming more they had on V rather than on M. better thought of as being a "chit-for- to exceed 7/sd. per lb., while in 1551 active at this time and in so doing However, if we define money in service" ', as when tokens were the comparable price for raw beef and could have substantially expanded the Professor Galbraith's commonsense distributed to clergy for attendance at pork was 1 '/sd. Unless these monetary side of the equation of way, as being nothing more or less liturgical offices and then redeemed commodities never hit their maximum exchange even though, as has already than 'what is commonly offered or later on for money. And, secondly, with prices or were habitually bought in been suggested, money itself may have received for the purchase or sale of the exception of the St Nicholas tokens even multiples of , thus remained constant relative to demand, goods, services or other things', and found in East Anglia which were used avoiding the use of the half-farthing for or even have gone down.25 remind ourselves that tokens were in connection with alms-giving at the which no official coin existed, the indeed offered and received in the Boy Bishop Festival, the lead tokens of simplest way out of the dilemma which This emphasis on the role of velocity localities precisely in this way during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries their prices posed would also have- has been one of the more interesting the early modern period, tokens might have been found almost exclusively in been the adoption of a simple credit departures in the post-war discussion also be regarded for most people's London, and even then hardly in great practical purposes as de facto money.27 quantity. At the Billingsgate site they 23 Figure 6. Mid-Seventeenth-Century Tokens

1.I-mncis Calven, Bomugbbridge (/4d.) 4. John llnwin, Leytonstotie C/iclj K• B

and did not move far; it is particularly simply, on an increased number of were found in the ratio of one lead they had fully sufficient of their own noticeable, for example, that tokens people living in towns. London grew token to each ten silver coins of local issues not to want tokens from from the North are seldom found in fastest — 55,000 in 1520, 200,000 in Elizabeth I and twenty-five jettons of London, or that their local economies the South.30 1600, 475,000 in 1670 — and as it did Nuremberg.29 had no use for tokens. If the latter, the situation gradually changed, for fresh so its share of the national total In seeking to explain the birth of quadrupled from a little over two per Thus, the emergence of lead tokens issues of tokens were made under small change we need in the first place cent in the early sixteenth century to in a monetary sense was a relatively James I and Charles I — Lennox to consider what was happening to around ten per cent in the later late development and appears to have 'rounds', Richmond 'ovals', rose population. Not only was it growing in seventeenth. Although both the rate of farthings, and so on — and when these been fairly small scale, principally the later sixteenth and early this increase and the absolute size ceased, probably towards the end of affecting in the first instance only the seventeenth centuries and thereby reached were quite out of step with metropolis. Small wonder, then, that in 1644, their place was filled by an raising the number of potential coin the normal experience elsewhere in the later fifteenth and early sixteenth astonishing array of private tokens. At users, but it was also becoming England, substantial urbanisation did centuries people made do at the very first the flow was gradual, which is increasingly urbanised and thereby take place outside the metropolis. In lowest level of the circulating medium probably to be explained by a large helping both to increase the number of 1520 there were nine provincial towns with clipped or counterfeit official coin quantity of official tokens remaining in workers who were dependent entirely with upwards of 5000 inhabitants, in — the 'hill' money, 'evil' money, and circulation even after the king's death, on money wages and to destroy the 1600 nineteen, and in 1670 twenty- 'refuse' pence referred to in accounts but it gathered momentum in the close social connections which had five. Over the same period urbanised at both local and national level — and 1650s and reached full force in the underpinned the simple credit population as a whole may have risen inferior foreign coin such as Venetian first decade of the Restoration. In all, arrangements already discussed. from 5.25 per cent to 13.5 per cent of soldini, colloquially known as galley between 1649 and 1672, there were Overall numbers grew faster in the the total.51 halfpence. In the later sixteenth and approximately 12,000 issues in sixteenth century, when there was an early seventeenth centuries the England. The lion's share came from increase of some 70 per cent from 2.4 Since towns were such insanitary demand grew, as evidenced partly by London and Southwark which between millions in 1520 to 4.11 millions in and unhealthy places which stifled in the striking of tokens outside London them accounted for roughly one-third, 1600, and appreciably more slowly in but the rest were spread throughout immoderate degree their own natural and partly by the fact that when the the seventeenth, when the rate of increases, they depended for growth the country and serviced every government authorised the issuing of increase dropped below 25 per cent to on immigration. Most of this involved imaginable trade. Professor Willan Harington's farthing tokens in 1613 a give a total of 4.98 millions in 1670. short-distance migration, a few miles at estimated that, in all, 1534 places distribution network was set up for the The urbanisation which accompanied a time, and was accompanied by rural issued tokens in provincial England, country as a whole. In the event, some this growth appears not to have migration from one village to the next, 'which is nearly twice as many places areas returned their tokens to London depended on an increased number of with the result that the population as a as there were market towns in 1640'. — Cheshire, Flintshire, Denbighshire, towns — on the contrary there was whole became more mobile. When With the exception of those from Staffordshire, Shropshire, Yorkshire, probably a contraction between 1500 coupled with international migration, Gloucestershire, Devon and Surrey which have been found all over and 1700 — but rather, and more as when Englishmen emigrated or — which may have meant either that England these tokens were very local 24 European refugees, Scots, Welsh and hand to mouth to maintain themselves, the former, especially in the early In so far as the circulating medium Irish came into England, this internal their wives, and children'. But such seventeenth century. migration must inevitably have resulted abject conditions can never have may not, despite radically increased in communities which were less stable characterised the whole: without the mint output, have matched this This shift was accompanied by an demand, additional expansion on the and knowable than had formerly been ability to buy some goods other than increased demand for money as a the case. The emergence in the later items of bare subsistence the rise monetary side of the equation of whole. When the Tudor dynasty began, exchange must have come through sixteenth and early seventeenth which undoubtedly occurred in the the 'retreat from a money economy', centuries of a substantial population of late sixteenth and early seventeenth alterations in velocity. Because inflation which had resulted from the great caused the precious metals to fall in migrant agricultural workers, who centuries of a mass consumer market, bullion famine and the wider economic spent the winter months at home and fuelled by England's own industrial value relative to goods and services crisis of the late fourteenth and early such an alteration may have been the then at seed-or harvest-time sought development and facilitated by an ever- fifteenth centuries, was still in the work on the arable farms of fielden widening pattern of retail outlets, consequence of a diminished incentive process of being reversed.34 In the could not have taken place. It was in to hold coined money; though in view villages, can only have served to have reign of Elizabeth I a new advance was emphasised this trend.52 fact from wage-earning itself that of the modest overall rate of inflation sufficiently obvious for William in the Tudor and early Stuart period it industrial activity — to produce Harrison in the 1570s to be able to Although many scholars would not stockings, buttons, soap, knives, and so hardly seems justifiable to put too contrast the relative abundance of much emphasis on this factor. Of go as far as Professor Hoskins in on — was spawned. 'By the end of the money in his own day with the believing that already under Henry VIII sixteenth century', Dr Thirsk has greater significance must have been scarcity of earlier times. •" And by the the expansion of credit which, it may two out of every three people were written, 'goods that had been deemed death of Charles I a further significant wage-earners and their dependants, few rich men's luxuries in 1540 were being be supposed, significantly shift had occurred by reason of the supplemented the increased yet still would deny that in the course of the made in so many different qualities and larger, more urbanised and more wage- sixteenth and early seventeenth at such varied prices that they came inadequate output of the royal mint, earning population, dependent more and by so doing enabled the demand centuries wage labour did increase and within the reach of everyman. In the on commercial agriculture and an that this too had far-reaching course of the seventeenth century ... for money, increased by rising output, industrial commodity market and less higher prices, and the more extensive consequences. Broadly speaking, wage- demand for cheap goods was as on subsistence and traditional earners formed part of three categories stimulating and expansive as the monetization of the economy, to be offsetting arrangements. fully met. of population — urban population, demand for expensive quality wares, rural population engaged in probably even more so.' At the point agriculture, and rural population not where these demands were satisfied, engaged in agriculture. As the hard currency or tokens increasingly proportion in the second category changed hands.33 declined, as Professor Wrigley has argued it did in the Tudor and Stuart period, so did the proportion of wage- Conclusion earners solely dependent on money The emergence of a token currency, wages rise. This tendency was widely spread throughout England, was reinforced by the changed position of not, then, just a simple response to the the agricultural labourer who shortage of small change in sterling increasingly found himself without silver; it was also, and probably largely, stock or arable husbandry to born of a changed set of circumstances supplement his pay. For many wage- in which a very much larger earners life must have been especially population, increasingly urbanised, wretched, as indeed was claimed in increasingly rootless, and increasingly 1629 in A Brief Declaration reliant on wage labour simply had to concerning the State of the have physical units of currency to Manufacture of Wools in the County make day-to-day life possible. This of Essex, in which it was said that conclusion does not demand either there were 'few or none that can that the traditional petty credit system subsist unless they be paid their wages disappeared overnight or that such a once a week, and many of them that system could not operate in an urban cannot live unless they be paid every context; only that the balance between night, many hundreds of them having small change and alternative forms of no beds to lie in nor food, but from payment shifted decisively in favour of Early Modem England Ruddock, Camden Miscellany, XXIII Notes (Manchester, 1985), pp.204-7; D. (1969), 22-3; PRO. Cl/323/45, Cl/654/31, Woodward, 'Wage Rates and Living Cl/604/14, Cl/1253/57-9, C33/7 fo.140, Standards in Pre-Industrial England', C78/6/60. Past and Present, 91(1981), 28-45. 2IPRO. Cl/717/1, Cl/1311/31-2, Cl/1250/ "'Ellen A. McArthur, A Fifteenth- 85-91, Cl/1268/53-5; Victoria County 1 The process whereby our first paper European Economic History, IV(1975), Century Assessment of Wages', English Histor)1, Nottinghamshire, II. 90; money, bills of exchange and summarised in The Tudor Coinage, Historical Rei >«> XIII( 18981,299-302; Palliser, The Age of Elizabeth, p. 154; promissory notes became fully Chapter 3.4; G. Goodman, The Court of Statutes of the Realm (Record Felicity Fleal, Of Prelates and Princes negotiable is discussed by W. King James the First, edited byj. S. Commission,1810-24 ),III,124-6; IV,414- (Cambridge, 1980), pp.293-4; C. G. A. Holdsworth in A History of English Brewer (1839),II,244-6, and HI.'. 22; The Fanning and Memorandum Clay, Economic Expansion and Social Law (London, 1925), VIII, 140-76. See Additional MS 10,113 fos.207-8; J. S. Books of Henry Best of Elmswell, 1642, Change: England, 1500-1700 also the conclusions of R. de Roover, in Kepler, The Exchange of Christendom. edited by D. Woodward (1984), (Cambridge, 1984), 1, 86; PRO. Cl/835/ Involution de la Lettre de Change The International Entrepot at Dover, pp.50,139-40,149; D. M. Palliser, The 46. XIVc — XVIIIe Siecles (Paris,1953), 1622-1651 (Leicester University Press, Age of Elizabeth (1983), p. 158; The 22 Seventeenth Century Economic p.99. 1976). Account Book of a Kentish Estate, Documents, edited by Joan Thirsk and - Detailed production figures for the l) The Tudor Coinage, p.236. 1616-1704, edited by Eleanor C. Lodge J. P. Cooper (, 1972), pp.208-10; royal mint are given for the Tudor 1(1 Qtiotecl in B. E. Supple, Commercial (1927), p.xxxix; Kussmaul, Servants in G. W. Hilton, The Truck System period in C. E. Challis, The Tudor Crisis and Change in England, 1600- Husbandry, p.39; A. Everitt, 'Farm (Cambridge,1960), pp.64-71. Coinage (Manchester, 1978) and for the 1642 (Cambridge, 1959), p.173. labourers', The Agrarian History of •^ Rotuli Parliamentorum, V,108. early Stuart period by J. D. Gould in 1' Supple, Commercial Crisis and England and , IV, 1500-1640, 2"*J. P. C. Kent, An Issue of Farthings of The Royal Mint in the Early Change, pp.184,164 note 1; N. Mayhew edited by Joan Thirsk Richard II', BNJ 57 (1987), 118; Statutes Seventeenth Century', Economic and D. Viner, 'The Weston-sub-Edge (Cambridge, 1967), pp.437-8. of the Realm, III, 420 (24 Henry VIII History Review, 2ncl.ser.V( 1952-3),240- Coin I loard, Transactions of the r Robert Loder's Farm Accounts, c.3); Tudor Royal Proclamations, 8. These are extended back to 1460 and Bristol and Gloucestershire 1610-1620, edited by G. E. Fussell, edited by P. L. Hughes and J. F. Larkin on to 1660 by C. E. Challis in Chapter 3 Archaeological Society, 105 (1987); E. Camden Society, 3rd.ser.53(1936), 72; C. (New Haven and London,1964-9), I, nos of A New History of the Royal Mint, Besly, Coin Hoards, Eveleigh Woodruff, 'Wages Paid at 231,380. edited by C. E. Challis for Cambridge British Museum Occasional Paper No.51 Maiclstone in Queen Elizabeth's Reign', 25 T. Wilson, A Discourse Upon Usury, University Press (forthcoming). (1987), pp.55, 69 note 11. Archaeologia Cantiana, XXI1(1897), edited by R. H. Tawney (1925), pp.25, •' The Tudor Coinage, Chapter 3; A New 12 Population is estimated at 2.77 316-7; Woodward, The Farming and 46; A. Everitt, The Marketing of History of the Royal Mint, Chapter 3. millions in 1541, 4.1 millions in 1601, Memorandum Books of Henry Best, Agricultural Produce', The Agrarian H The Tudor Coinage, pp. 119-27,218. and 5.28 millions in 1656, in E. A. p. 193; Kussmaul, Servants in Histor)' of England and Wales, IV, s British Library, London (hereafter BL) Wrigley and R. S. Schofield, The Husbandry, p.39. 1500-1640, edited by Joan Thirsk Additional MS 18,758 fo.33. Population History of England, 1541- 18 Public Record Office, London, (Cambridge,1967), p.557. " The Tudor Coinage, Chapter 33. 1871 (1981), Table 7.8. For prices see (hereafter PRO) Cl/308/48, Cl/510/15, 26 F. Braudel and F. C. Spooner, 'Prices Professor Gould's attempt either to re- E. H, Phelps Brown and Sheila V. Cl/466/39, Req.2/131/26, Cl/845/30. in Europe from 1450 to 1750', interpret the conversion of testoons Hopkins, 'Seven Centuries of the Prices Although it is true that for the majority Cambridge Economic History of operation or to draw conclusions about of Consumables, compared with of bills in the courts of Chancery and Europe, IV, edited by E. E. Rich and C. the 'geographical inertia in the Builders' Wage-Rates', Economica Requests cited here and subsequently H. Wilson (Cambridge,1967); H. A. circulation of coins' cannot be (1956), reprinted in Essays in neither answers nor final judgements Miskimin, 'The Impact of Credit on sustained. J. D. Gould, The Great Economic History, edited by E. M. are known, it is not the details of the Sixteenth Century English Industry, The Debasement (Oxford,1970), Appendix Carus-Wilson, Vol.11 (London, 1962). obligations in dispute which are Dawn of Modem Banking, Center for E; C. E. Challis, 'The Conversion of "BL Additional MS 10,113 fo.31; The important to the present argument, Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Testoons: a Restatement', British Tudor Coinage, pp.202-10; Thomas rather the methods of payment, and for University of California, Los Angeles Numismatic Journal (hereafter BNJ),L Platter's Travels in England, 1599, this the pattern from the bills alone is (New Haven and London, 1979); E. (1980),67-80. edited by Clare Williams (1937), p.190. sufficiently consistent to justify their use Kerridge, Trade and Banking in Early " Gould, 'The Royal Mint'. 14 Phelps Brown and Hopkins, "Seven as evidence. Modem England (Manchester, 1988), 8 For a rejection of the view that Centuries of the Prices of Consumables 19 PRO. Cl/457/3, Cl/658/59, Cl/1251/48, p.99. Spanish silver did not penetrate the compared with Builders' Wage-Rates'. Cl/853/22, Cl/723/26, Cl/1282/55, Cl/ 2"J. K. Galbraith, Money. Whence it late-sixteenth-century English economy, lsAnn Kussmaul, Servants in 455/11, Cl/856/11-12. came, where it went (1975), p.5. see C. E. Challis, 'Spanish Bullion and Husbandry in Early Modem England 2(1 The Accounts of John Balsall, Purser 28 G. C. Williamson, Trade Tokens Monetary Inflation in England in the (Cambridge,!981), p. 103 and Chapter 3; of the Trinity of Bristol, 1480-1', edited Issued in the Seventeenth Century biter Sixteenth Century',/r>Mra«/ of E. Kerritlge, Textile Manufactures in by T. F. Reddaway and Alwyn A. (reprinted,1967), I, xviii; Professor 28 29 Grierson has argued that Erasmus's in Transition, 1500-1700 (1976), statement represents a recollection of pp.8-12; E. A. 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