«Alternatives to money» have a long history in Western extractive industry, extending to the 20th century. Before cash wages became a requirement of law, miners received their earnings in varieties of commodity and fiat moneys, combinations of scrip, cash and kind. This paper examines the use of Pfennwert, pennyworths of various goods, as a form of remuneration at the mines of the Holy Roman Empire with particular attention to the mercury mines in Idrija, Slovenia from the 15th to the 17th century. It demonstrates that this practice was a rational response to the «ecology of work»—that it, the combination of physical environment, regulatory systems, market forces, social relations and economic institutions—specific to Idrija. This approach to alternatives exposes their role not only in remuneration but in all aspects of premodern production as well as their persistence in the modern, supposedly monetary, economy.
University of Pennsylvania, United States
Chapter Title
Money and its alternatives in Early Modern extractive industry: The many media of exchange in mercury mining
Authors
Thomas Max Safley
Language
English
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0347-0.05
Peer Reviewed
Publication Year
2024
Copyright Information
© 2024 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
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
Metadata License
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