Nietzsche (Reference Nietzsche1980 [1874]) famously distinguished three types of history: antiquarian, monumental, and critical. Martin Allen's recently published Mints and Money in Medieval England accomplishes two of three. The book is antiquarian in Nietzsche's honorific sense of scholarship which carefully preserves the past. The meticulousness with which Allen goes about this task makes his book a monumental historical achievement, one from which numismatists in particular will draw inspiration and citations for years to come. However, general readers of financial history may be frustrated by the lack of critical explanation and broader context for many of the events Allen so patiently details.
Even so, the book's failings are outweighed by appreciation of the difficult task Allen successfully executes. His stated aim is to provide a ‘comprehensive account’ (p. xv) of the minting of metallic monies in medieval England (c.973–1544) and he delivers on this ambition. The breadth and depth of the data Allen marshals is impressive, especially considering the historical period he addresses. Nearly every argument Allen puts forward is referenced back to the available empirical evidence, ranging from primary documents to chemical analyses of surviving coins. The book's appendices extend to nearly 150 pages, and include estimates of mint outputs and profits, as well as descriptions of all discovered English coin hoards dating from this period. The bibliography is exhaustive and should be the first port of call for scholars conducting research on this topic.
The main body of the book consists of eleven chapters plus a short preface and conclusion. Chapter 1 begins with King Edgar's re-minting of metallic monies in the 970s. This event is significant for initiating the first of several full-scale recoinages that regularly occurred in England until the reign of Henry II (1154–1189). However, with respect to the origins of mints and metallic money in medieval England, Allen's chosen point of departure starts the story too late. Already by the time of Edgar, the English crown distinguished itself from other European sovereigns in legally enforcing a single domestic metallic currency (the penny). This achievement is all the more remarkable considering that, following the fall of the Roman Empire, England uniquely reverted to barter; metal in England was de-monetised between the fifth and seventh centuries (Davies Reference Davies2002). However, by beginning his book in the tenth century, when metallic money and mints in England had already been established, Allen's book takes for granted institutions whose genesis he ideally should explain.
Nevertheless, the topics which Allen does discuss are done so in-depth. Chapter 2, for instance, describes the consequences of currency reforms carried out during the reign of Henry II in 1158 and 1180. The cumulative impact of these reforms was to strengthen sovereign control over metal money, especially at the expense of ecclesiastical authorities. In particular, the chapter charts the displacement of hundreds of local moneyers’ workshops by a handful of mints casting coin on a much larger scale, of which the London mint was to become singularly prominent. The long-term impact of this concentration of capital in England is evident in regional imbalances which persist to this day.
Chapter 3 develops the theme of centralisation further by examining how reforms during the reign of Edward I transformed the internal organisation of royal mints and exchanges through dies centrally supplied by the crown. In particular, the introduction of multiple coin denominations in 1279 coincided with the placing of mints under the management of wardens, who were often members of the royal household. This nepotism reaches its crescendo at the conclusion of chapter 3 with the decision by Henry VIII to exclusively appropriate all mint profits for the royal purse. This violation of public trust paved the way for the acceptability of private banknotes as money in the seventeenth century.
Whereas the first three chapters of the book progress chronologically, later chapters are arranged thematically. These chapters address a variety of topics including working life within mints (chapter 4); the standards of weight and fineness for coins (chapter 5); mint profits and their relation to royal exchanges (chapters 6 and 7); the bullion sources of metallic money (chapter 8); mint output (chapter 9); and the amount of coin in circulation (chapters 10 and 11). The chapter on mint profits is especially insightful because of its findings. On the basis of a plethora of evidence including a complete time series of royal mint profits from 1220 to 1544, Allen concludes seignorage was never a substantial source of royal revenue, at least until the debasement of the coinage by Henry VIII.
The thematic mode of presentation adopted by Allen in the latter part of the book has its advantages and disadvantages. The upshot of this approach is that it makes the book quickly searchable for research reference. But this is balanced by the fact that the self-contained nature of the chapters means the book as a whole lacks an overarching argument to link them together. Note that the issue here is not simply stylistic, that is, how the text reads. Rather, it is analytical – whether the book can explain how the different facets of mints and metallic money it discusses are related to each other and to broader historical patterns.
These analytical limitations are most apparent in the treatment of international influences on the domestic development of England's monetary system. Although Allen makes plain that most of the metal used by medieval English mints came from abroad, as plunder from war or profits from trade, the connections could be drawn more tightly. For example, Allen observes that although gold was not coined in England until 1343, ‘gold constitutes more than 90 percent of the total value of the London mint's output in every period from 1361 onwards’ (pp. 266). However, this stark change in the metallic composition of the currency is understandable only by reference to the sudden exploitation of gold mines in Hungary, which Allen does not discuss in depth, but which facilitated a massive historical transformation, with gold replacing silver as the key currency in European trade during the first half of the fourteenth century (Spufford Reference Spufford1988).
It is perhaps unfair to criticise Allen for having failed to address aspects of monetary history he never specifies are within the book's scope. But it is also testament to the erudition of his book that it stimulates thought about topics beyond those directly addressed by the text. For instance, although Allen goes to great lengths to quantify the money supply, he gives short shrift to explaining changes in its demand. This is significant because the money supply was partly endogenous, i.e., determined by public demand for coin (Rolnick et al. Reference Rolnick, Velde and Weber1996). In medieval England, precious metal was used not only as coin in commerce, but also as legal compensation (gelds), political payments, and in religious ceremonies. So, more evidence than Allen provides is required to explain the reasons for variations over time in the public use of precious metals.
But on balance this book is a remarkable achievement. In the preface, Allen writes that when he embarked on his PhD thesis in 1993, Christopher Challis’ A New History of the Royal Mint was his ‘indispensible Bible’ (p. xv). No doubt students of this generation will feel the same about Allen's own book.
