Book Chapter

Alternate currencies, bills of exchange and warfare in Trecento Italy

  • William Caferro

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.

  • Keywords:
  • Money Supply,
  • Bill of Exchange,
  • In Kind Payments,
  • Paper Instruments,
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William Caferro

Vanderbilt University, United States - ORCID: 0009-0002-1847-8806

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Chapter Information

Chapter Title

Alternate currencies, bills of exchange and warfare in Trecento Italy

Authors

William Caferro

Language

English

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0347-0.23

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2024

Copyright Information

© 2024 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Bibliographic Information

Book Title

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

Editors

Angela Orlandi

Peer Reviewed

Number of Pages

592

Publication Year

2024

Copyright Information

© 2024 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Publisher Name

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

Series Title

Datini Studies in Economic History

Series ISSN

2975-1241

Series E-ISSN

2975-1195

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