Remember the problem the Romans had with debasing their gold and silver coins with cheaper metals? Well, Britain started to have the same troubles! They thought that they could make their silver go further by adding other metals like nickel and even tin, until inflation started to rear its scary head again. It got so bad that in one province of England, the leaders of the mints where the coins were made had their right hands cut off by the government! The mint masters were keeping some of the extra silver for themselves! The quality of the silver content of british coinage went way up after this, as you can imagine!

     Some local noblemen had become fed up with the poor state of english coinage and started to issue their own currencies. This became a very big problem, as people became really confused as to which coin went with what place and which area would accept what money and just which coin in my pocket was any good in these woods I was travelling in and ... whew! Imagine if each state had their own dollar bills and coins! Actually they used to, but that's in another century.

     Around this time too, China was still busy printing paper money, which was a big step forward. It required everone to really trust the government who printed it because, unlike coins, paper REALLY had no value at all by itself, it was 100% a representation of the gold or silver or whatever the government based money on. Paper money has a BIG weakness though: it can be counterfeited! This started happening, and soon China was knee-deep in inflation as well!

     Britain started a cool little way of record-keeping, which involved a piece of wood! This is what would happen: a person taking out a loan and the bank issuing the loan would agree on the loan amount, which would be cut as funky notches across a stick of wood. Then, the stick was split in half down the center, giving buyer and seller a fool-proof copy of the deal. These were known as tallies. This is kind of the same idea as those yellow receipts that pile up on your parents' dresser!

     In Italy, several areas started to issue gold coins, which was a brave thing to do at the time. With war going on all around, having such an costly piece of money in circulation meant that someone who wanted to rob you could really get away with a lot of dough!

Did You Know?

The word "soldier" comes from the solidus, or the King's shilling that was paid out to the men who were in the armies of England!