The denier, the coin of Charlemagne's monetary reform
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| denier of Charlemagne | |
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| Austrian groschen | |
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The denier was the silver coin widespread in Europe in the early Middle Ages. The insecurity of communication routes at the end of the Roman Empire and the serious economic crisis in which all of Europe found itself caused a drastic reduction in trade and monetary exchanges in the West. In a period in which coins had an intrinsic value dependent almost exclusively on the quantity of precious metal contained, the gold and silver necessary for minting were increasingly rare.
In this context we witnessed first of all a growing devaluation caused by the progressive impoverishment of the quality of the alloys used by the mints. Furthermore, with the disappearance of a central power, the economy and the consequent monetary circulation were confined to an increasingly local sphere; the result was the proliferation of coins with different characteristics and values. However, the setting of the monetary systems remained that of Constantine, based on the gold soldo, the silver denier and the copper follis. Given the shortage of gold, instead of soldo the tremissis was used more frequently, with a value equal to a third of the soldo itself and with a weight of approximately 1 gram; the value of the silver denier remained fixed as one twelfth of the soldo.
The proliferation of local coinage was stopped with the consolidation of the Frankish empire in Europe under the Carolingian dynasty. With Pepin the Short, the first Carolingian king, the royal monopoly in the minting of coins was restored. This system, established in 754-755 with the Edict of Ver, was still based on the gold soldo of the Romans.
Only during the reign of Charlemagne, in 793-794, did the monetary reform from which most of the modern European systems derive. The monetary system was based on silver due to the limited availability of gold, now used only in trade with the East. The coin used by Charlemagne was the denier; its value was set starting from that of the Carolingian silver pound, from which 240 deniers were minted. As a result, the denier had a theoretical weight of approximately 1.7 grams. The pound represented the basis of the Carolingian monetary system and, together with the soldo, remained above all a money of account, while the denier was the real currency actually in circulation.
The ratio of 1 pound = 20 soldi = 240 deniers was also adopted in the Kingdom of Mercia by the Saxon king Offa. As a basis, however, it was not the pound that was taken, but the direct equivalent of the denier, which became the English penny or the Germanic pfennig. Thanks to the expansion of the Holy Roman Empire, the structure of the Carolingian monetary system spread throughout much of Europe, influencing both the franc and the lira monetary families in the long term.