The Morality of Money in Late Medieval England

Abstract

It is well known that late medieval England was a society that was increasingly market-oriented, particularly from the twelfth century onwards, and that its peasantry and townspeople were well acquainted with coinage and credit (Mayhew, 2004; Briggs, 2009). The peasantry clearly understood market mechanisms and the volume of currency per capita was increasing rapidly, probably allowing the majority of transactions to be conducted in money rather than in kind (Mayhew, 1987, pp. 125–6; M. Allen, 2001). Indeed, it is a commonplace of the scholarship on the medieval English economy that the thirteenth century saw peasants increasingly use the burgeoning market network not only to acquire goods or to feed themselves, particularly if landless or smallholders, but also to obtain cash in order to meet their fiscal obligations (Britnell, 1996). Value was increasingly determined in monetary terms by the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, as is evident if one looks at any manorial documentation. Although Marc Bloch rightly provided a note of caution as to whether all the mentions of monetary value in the documents necessarily meant that the price or due was paid in a form of specie (Bloch, 1967, pp. 236–7; Briggs, this volume), money was nevertheless probably used for convenience in a great many local, petty market transactions, particularly between strangers or if your ‘credit’ was poor.