declined, however, and soon there were many different coinages from the mints of kings,
lords, and bishops. While all used the same accounting system, the value and silver
content of the denier might vary considerably from one minting authority to another.
Since money of account was based on the local denier, the amount of silver represented
by a pound also varied from place to place. Coins received in any transaction had to be
converted to local money of account for record-keeping purposes. Four pounds of Paris,
livres parisis (l.p.), for instance, corresponded in value to five pounds of Tours, livres
tournois (l.t.). As the volume and geographical scope of commerce began expanding in
the 11th century, the moneychanger became an important figure.
This commercial revival also created demand for a stable currency. In various parts of
France, especially Normandy, the inhabitants paid a “money tax” to the territorial lord in
return for his promise not to alter the silver content of the coinage. Fearful that a new
coinage might cheat them, people in some regions demanded that the design as well as
the alloy be conserved, or even that no new coins be issued.
By the 13th century, the royal currency was far more important than others in France,
and Louis IX was able to insist that royal coins circulate everywhere in the realm while
others were valid only in the territory subject to the jurisdiction of the particular minting
authority. Some nonroyal currencies survived in the 14th century, and Philip V was
unsuccessful when in 1321 he asked for a tax to pay for buying these out. Even the crown
could not establish a single money of account. The livre tournois, not the pound of Paris,
was preferred in most of the realm.
For centuries the silver denier was the largest circulating coin, although its actual
silver content varied widely by the 13th century. The increased range and volume of trade
finally made it desirable again to have coins of greater value. After a brief experiment in
the 1260s, the French crown resumed minting gold in the 1290s. Its most successful new
coin, however, was the gros tournois issued by Louis IX in 1266. It represented twelve
deniers in money of account and contained 4.2 grams of silver (the denier now having
only 26 percent of the silver contained in its Carolingian predecessor).
The silver content and official valuation of a particular coinage in money of account
became a matter of such contention that some technical discussion is necessary here. In
France, the standard for measuring the intrinsic value of silver coins was the mark of
Troyes, containing 4,608 grains of pure silver. The mints used argent-le-roi, which had a
fineness of .958 (23/24), but if alloyed with other metals its silver content would be
reduced. A coinage had three important characteristics. The prix was the official
valuation of the coin in money of account. The taille was the number of coins minted
(literally, “cut”) from a mark of silver. The titre was the alloy or silver content of the coin
expressed in units of twenty-four grains called deniers (the word also used for penny).
The 14th-century monarchy incorporated these three characteristics into a formula that
yielded an ordinal numeral called the pied de monnaie. The pied divided by four equaled
the minted value of a silver mark, in livres tournois. If, for example, the royal mints
issued gros tournois on the twelfth pied, a mark of silver would produce three l.t. in
coins, or sixty gros valued at one sol each.
The government could alter the pied by changing one of its components. Lowering the
titre (debasement) or rais ing the prix (overvaluing) would each raise the pied and
“weaken” the coinage by producing a greater amount of currency, in money of account,
from the same quantity of silver. The coinage of Louis IX on the twelfth pied (to use the
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