The connection between war and cash payments (gold/silver) has long been a staple of military history: a largely self-contained field that has stood apart from monetary history. The present essay examines the use of alternate currencies to compensate soldiers for war in trecento Italy during the era of costly mercenaries (“the age of the companies of adventures”) and the so-called bullion crisis. The paper investigates the recourse to in kind payments (horses, grain, utensils, ceremonial armor, cloth, land) and to bills of exchange, letters of payment and paper instruments. The use of paper is noteworthy, counterintuitive and the worthy of further research that includes consideration of the use of notarial documents, apodisse and bollette, in payments to soldiers. The broad aim of the paper is to bring together more closely study of the economy of war with monetary history and economic history more generally.
Vanderbilt University, United States - ORCID: 0009-0002-1847-8806
Titolo del capitolo
Alternate currencies, bills of exchange and warfare in Trecento Italy
Autori
William Caferro
Lingua
English
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0347-0.23
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Anno di pubblicazione
2024
Copyright
© 2024 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Titolo del libro
Mezzi di scambio non monetari. Merci e servizi come monete alternative nelle economie dei secoli XIII-XVIII / Alternative currencies. Commodities and services as exchange currencies in the monetarized economies of the 13th to 18th centuries
Curatori
Angela Orlandi
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Numero di pagine
592
Anno di pubblicazione
2024
Copyright
© 2024 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Editore
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0347-0
ISBN Print
979-12-215-0346-3
eISBN (pdf)
979-12-215-0347-0
eISBN (xml)
979-12-215-0348-7
Collana
Datini Studies in Economic History
ISSN della collana
2975-1241
e-ISSN della collana
2975-1195