Coins were being minted again in Britain, after a long gap of about 150 years while they were being pounded by armies from the european mainland. Silver and gold coins were common early on, but as time went on the coins became just a small amount of silver with other metals thrown in.

     During this period, a lot of wars and battles were going on, and kings would coin more and more money in order to finance the fighting. This started that nasty inflation thing again.

     In China, a copper shortage caused the government to start issuing paper money, the first time ever. This money was used by chinese leaders to buy off invaders, which caused another shortage of the paper money. They decided to print more money, and inflation started there too.

     Meanwhile, back in England, the government was so stable and the english money so trusted that the value of the coins were actually higher than the content of the silver in the coin itself, a great example of how a nation's status can be quickly estimated by the value of their currency.

     A good example of inflation was with the denarius, a Roman coin. Early on, one pound of gold was worth just a few thousand denarii. But, as inflation started to take its toll, the value of the denarius slid and slid, until a pound of gold was worth 100,000 denarii. It got worse. A few years later, you'd need 300,000 denarii to buy that same pound of gold.

Did You Know?

The word "money" comes from the Roman Goddess of Warning, Moneta!