Money changer

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The money changer and his wife (picture by Marinus van Reymerswaele , before 1533?)

Money changer is a commercial profession that has long been known with the advent of coins . As the name suggests, the provider to exchange payment foreign cash in mic or national standard money order. In the industrialized countries, exchange offices and money changing machines are now doing this kind of business with customers. The development of the money changer is closely linked to the history of coins and money. A heyday is known in the Middle Ages. The origins of modern credit institutions lie in the money changer, which expanded its field of activity to include credit transactions .

Business transaction

In the past, as now, doing business required the availability of various common types of coins for customers as well as bars in gold or silver . The main business of the money changer consisted and still consists in the conversion of exchange rates, combined with the subsequent counting of money for acceptance into his or the delivery from his inventory.

Knowledge and skills

The money changer in historical times required excellent knowledge of the fineness of gold and silver coins and the authenticity of the pieces. Several years of experience were required in order to be able to make an immediate decision on the transaction. Ideally, his visual appearance was sufficient in the past, but he might have to use a scale to help. Mental arithmetic was needed when he had to convert one currency into the pieces of another, since many currencies did not yet have a decimal system.

A money changer also had to be familiar with simple bookkeeping . A key task at trade fairs was to receive deposits from traveling merchants for the duration of the stay. The deposit was recorded in the money changer's books and diminished by purchases of goods which the seller made as deposits. In the end, the depositor only received the balance from the entries made for him in currency.

The keeping of business books expanded as money changers both started granting loans and wrote "bills of exchange" to business friends in other regions.

Furnishing

Originally, a table on which the merchant placed his types of coin was sufficient for a simple business operation. Business was conducted outdoors. Later, with the emergence of guilds, permanent locations were created where several money changers could be found, and finally the exchange office as a separate business premises. Their furnishings were initially sparse, as a report on Jakob Meyer zum Hasen's exchange office in 1503 shows: a changing table, writing utensils and another table. The room eventually became the epitome of the currency exchange industry. In the merchant's buildings, fire-proof and burglar-proof vaults offered protection from danger.

Money changers who were no longer able to make payments were smashed the table in Italy ("banca rotta"), which is reminiscent of the Germanized word bankruptcy .

Dubious business conduct

The methods of black sheep among the money changers are reported in Libellus Sancti Jacobi , a publication from the 12th century. For example, dishonest activities are described

  • the use of two scales for buying and selling
  • expensive sale of own coins, cheaper purchase of money from customers
  • Denying the authenticity of gold or silver coins offered to him
  • Trimming larger pieces of money
  • sell heavier coins to the customer as more valuable.

history

Antiquity

Greece

In Hellenism, money exchange, like banking as a whole, was in the hands of the state. In ancient Greece, banks were used not only to exchange money, but also for the temporary safe storage of cash and for the convenient and free transfer of coins to foreign places. The names and the business operations of the Athenian banking institutions are passed down through various judicial speeches by Isocrates and Demosthenes .

Travelers or merchants who wanted to pay for goods or services purchased abroad were faced with the situation of exchanging their own money for a locally recognized means of payment. Money changers met this need. They assessed every coin offered according to type, wear and tear, damage and authenticity and in return gave local money for it.

Many Greek cities produced their own money and used different images for the coins, for example the owl was emblazoned on their coins as a feature of Athenian origin. All ancient coins are minted by hand and are not completely identical to one another. In Athens, with its trade relations with all parts of Greece, Asia Minor and the Orient , money changers dealt with coins from different countries and cities. Money was exchanged in the port of Piraeus . Derived from the shape of their money tables, the changers were called Trapezitae .

Already in the 4th century BC According to scientific opinion, there was a transition from the money changer, who concentrated on checking coins and exchanging money, to the banker - who, of course, is not yet comparable to today's one. The latter now also accepted deposits. In the 2nd century BC There were already loans against interest and cash advances from bankers to customers at auctions.

Roman Empire

As nummularius coin validator were called, but the term was also used for money-changers. In the first century they were street vendors with a vendor's tray with coins rattling on it to attract customers. They exchanged older coins at the material value for new money. In the 2nd century AD, traders began to issue loans and take deposits. Money changers and moneylenders had business premises in the Roman Forum in Rome. The money changer checked whether the coin was actually made of gold or silver, carried the image of a ruler who was allowed to maintain a mint, checked the mint mark and checked its size and weight. The money changers' business conduct was monitored by the praefectus urbi . At the forum argentarii was also used as the job title of the changer .

The money changers' business seems to have been profitable, as they and ox dealers donated an arch in honor of Emperor Septimius Severus and his family in 204, the Arco degli Argentari, which can be seen today at the church of San Giorgio in Velabro .

In the year 260, money changers in Egypt in the Oxyrhynchos Gau refused to accept Roman coins of reduced fineness and weight and closed their exchange desks. The threat of punishment forced them to offer their services again and in future to change all coins, with the exception of incorrectly minted or forgeries, for other types of money.

Sarcophagus inscriptions from Korykos in Cilicia prove that there were money changers there. In late antiquity they played an important role in the economic life of a city.

Jerusalem

Jesus Christ drives the changers out of the temple (picture by Rembrandt van Rijn , 1626)

Money changers are mentioned in a biblical narrative of all four Christian evangelists . According to tradition in the New Testament, Jesus of Nazareth overturned the exchange tables while cleaning the temple in Jerusalem and, together with the dealers of sacrificial animals, drove the money changers out of the sacred building with a scourge .

Money changers were to be found in the temple precinct because pilgrims from different countries or parts of the country arrived there with their local currency. Your money now had to be changed into the "shekel of the sanctuary", the only permitted currency in the Jerusalem temple with which sacrificial animals could be purchased. In addition, the Jews were able to pay the temple tax to the money changers , which could also only be paid for with this temple currency, a silver tetradrachm minted in Tire . Other currencies, such as Roman copper coins, were considered impure and were not accepted. The money changers were staff of the temple.

middle Ages

The need to exchange coins has continued throughout the centuries. For example, money changers were active in the Volga Bulgarians in 922, according to a travel report. Money changers can be found in Palermo in the 10th century. It is known from the history of Bremen that Archbishop Adaldag set up an exchange office in 966 .

Northern Italy and France

The money exchange was in the Middle Ages in the West, first in Italy to new heights where the enormous number of individual Münzherrschaften, the imperfect expression of coins, frequent changes in the monetary standard and counterfeit coins kept him great feed. In the northern Italian metropolises of Genoa, Milan or Venice and elsewhere, money changers sat down at exchange tables and offered to exchange coins. It was Italians, in large numbers Lombards , who, in addition to Jews, introduced the branch of business to most of the other European countries and maintained it there in the 12th century . From the 12th century, money changers began to offer loans, which were initially aimed primarily at overseas traders.

In Perugia the “Collegio del Cambio” reminds of the former residence of the money changers. Over time, money banks became common in linguistic usage instead of money tables .

The town of Cahors was the headquarters of the money changers in the south of France at this time. On the one hand, this was due to its location as a trading town on the Way of St. James , where pilgrims exchanged money in order to be able to provide for themselves. On the other hand, the bishop had to go into debt because of the Albigensian Crusade , and his creditors from Piedmont and Lombardy had settled there. The merchants then made further connections to other trading centers. In Paris, in 1411, on an order from King Louis VII , the money changers took their seat on a bridge that made a name for itself as the Pont au Change .

Money changers appear under different names in the Middle Ages. Some call them "campsores" (from whose "banks" the name banker is derived, while others trace it back to "banco", heap, an older Italian expression for a forced loan). Others used the term "banchieri" for these professional traders. In Western Europe, the name "Lombards", originally derived from their country of origin, became commonplace for money changers, even if they no longer had any reference to Lombardy . This origin characterization rubbed off on the term "Lamparter". The names “Cahorsiner”, “Kavariner”, “Kawersiner” or “Kawerschen” go back to the city of Cahors, from which the money changers left for German towns.

They did their business mainly at trading venues, which mostly also held regular trade fairs . The money changers spread different types of coins on a larger table, and when they agreed with their customer, the desired currency changed hands. Instead of lots of coins, merchants sometimes brought a gold or silver bar to the money changer to exchange for local currency. This brought about entry into the precious metal trade, because a mint could produce coins from it again after melting. Occasionally, gold and silversmiths were also part-time money changers who offered melted money to the mint or, if necessary, could even make jewelry.

The money changer (picture by Rembrandt van Rijn , 1627)

The money changers often had well-secured premises to protect their assets from burglary and robbery. Other townspeople therefore gradually entrusted their money to a trustworthy fellow citizen from the guild of money changers for safekeeping and received a receipt from him for the amount. Receipts issued by money changers were of no value to robbers who lurked on medieval roads and relieved travelers of their cash. Therefore, in the 13th century, such "bills of exchange" called instructions to befriended or related money changers at home or abroad to hand over a certain amount of money to the named recipient. The money changers themselves then settled their mutual claims and liabilities with cash on occasion. In the Middle Ages women were able to do business as money changers, according to regional documents.

In the late Middle Ages , specialized markets and trade fairs were of great importance in economic life, based on fairs in Champagne . The remuneration for the merchants' transactions was regulated by cashless offsetting in the books of local money changers, where cash or the value in a bill of exchange had been deposited by the merchant at the purchase rate of the foreign currency. The bill of exchange initially contained the author's declaration of intent to pay out the money received elsewhere in a currency customary there. But this "bill of exchange" changed over time to a payment order to a corresponding money changer, to hand over the specified amount to the presenter of the paper on the account of the issuer.

Money changers were widely believed to be usury and their fortunes grew envy. As a result, there were occasional persecutions. In France, due to the efforts of the church, expulsions occurred in 1269, 1274 and 1285. In 1306 King Philip the Fair had the Jews expelled from his country, and from 1309 to 1311 Lombard money changers were hit. Their assets were sold in favor of the crown, but the financial hardship in the state budget was only reduced with the measure.

Holy Roman Empire

The money changer and his wife (picture by Marinus van Reymerswaele , 1539)

While the coin rack was originally reserved for the emperor, over the course of time - also due to financial difficulties of the regent - more and more of the coinage rights were ceded to the sovereigns or to the free and imperial cities of the Holy Roman Empire . In the middle of the 13th century there were over 500 mints that issued their own coins of different weights and values ​​as regionally valid means of payment. Money changers became such a necessity and earned just as much money from the different exchange rates of the coins as did the minters . Since, for example, the city of Metz participated with two percent of the turnover of a money changer within its walls, a higher profit margin in the profession is obvious. There are descriptions that money changers were among the wealthy people in a city, for example in Prague in 1090. Many made a large fortune in this trade, partly through the "shaping" of the exchange rate when buying and selling coins through high interest rates when lending money . The Zürcher Richtebrief from 1304 gives the interest rate for a weekly loan with a maximum of 43 percent. In Zurich, Lombard money changers and moneylenders were based in the Kawertschen Tower from 1357 to 1429 . In the city of Basel was Jakob Meyer zum Hasen in 1516 a money changer mayor.

There were changers who, as mint masters, produced regionally valid currency in their mint on behalf of the sovereign. Money changers could also be members of a so-called house cooperative that produced coins.

Originally only foreigners and Jews appeared as money changers and / or money lenders, this changed in the late Middle Ages . Initially secretly, later increasingly officially, Christians , including citizens and high clergy , were also tolerated in this trade after the interest ban was relaxed by the Catholic Church . Examples of this are the Fuggers in southern Germany and the knighthood in the Mark Brandenburg . They endeavored to take the profitable business of their Jewish competition. But not only financial, but also political and religious causes weakened the position of the Jews as protected by the sovereigns. They were expelled from almost all imperial cities and many sovereign territories and cities of the Holy Roman Empire. In Mecklenburg and Brandenburg the expulsion was preceded by pogroms of the Jews . Also in the Duchy of Austria there were violent expulsions of Jews in 1421 (“ Wiener Gesera ”), in 1496 Maximilian I agreed to their expulsion from Styria in exchange for a sum of money from the estates . The same happened to Jewish residents in Carinthia, Carniola and Salzburg until the emperor changed his mind in 1518.

See also: Money Jews

Church influences and flows of money

The emergence of money changers in the Middle Ages was not only promoted by the need for trade in goods, but also indirectly by popes. Her two measures to condemn usury and calls for crusades to the Holy Land had an impact here, as well as an increasing need for money from the Holy See .

The Roman Catholic Church, citing the Bible, prohibited its believers from charging interest on capital. This should prevent usurious deals . This interest prohibition now meant that certain financial transactions could only be made with strangers or the Jews who were not affected by the threats of punishment by the church.

The initially tough stance of the church was gradually relaxed. For the flow of ecclesiastical money to the Pope in Rome and Avignon, she also had to use the existing money changer network. The separate collectors commissioned by the Curia and the connections of the Knights Templar were only of limited use to cope with the increased papal capital movements.

In Rome, concerns brought to the Pope, such as confirmations of possessions, honors or rights and also arbitration awards in disputes, were associated with costs that inquirers paid in their national currency. The papal chancellery is likely to have had an exchange office for converting payment claims as early as the middle of the 12th century.

Another element that highlighted the need for money changers was the Crusades. The armies, which had to provide for themselves from the country, not only captured food by force, but also bought goods in the countries they crossed with their own money or money plundered from the defeated. It is known, for example, that after the Battle of Iconium , crusaders bought the items they needed from a market on May 23, 1190. The spoils of war brought with them in tinkling coins could be exchanged for familiar local currency by those returning from the crusade at the money changer.

The pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela procured not only the local guild of money changers a bubbling source of income, but also their counterparts in places to there and back leading pilgrimage route .

Gresham's law

Naturally, their expertise also enabled the money changers to hoard more valuable coins in the precious metal content and to circulate the "inferior" ones in the exchange business. They sold coins with a higher precious metal content to another country when the expected profit covered or exceeded the costs of transportation, smelting, sale and risk. The mechanism by which poor quality money drives good money out of circulation has come to be known as Gresham's law .

Modern times

Money changers and exchange offices were still places where information about the absolute and relative value of various coins could be obtained for a fee or where coins could be exchanged. Some money changers, however, did not take it seriously with their trustworthiness. They found it difficult because there were so many different coins whose real value could only be determined after closer examination. In the days of the Kipper and Wipper , in particular, coins of inferior quality came into circulation, the amount indicated on them differing greatly from the actual value of the precious metal from which they were made.

The establishment of the Amsterdam currency exchange bank in 1609 marked a turning point in the money changer business, as it offered a bank guilder as a fixed value for deposits of coins from all over the world and opened up the possibility of cashless payment. In modern times, on the other hand, money changers could develop into bankers. You can see this in examples like

  • the house of Rothschild . The progenitor of a large banking dynasty was Mayer Amschel Rothschild , who achieved sales with a small textile trade in Frankfurt's Judengasse and at the same time worked as a money changer. At the age of 22, he founded the Rothschild banking house in 1766.
  • the Warburg banking house . Since 1863, the family business no longer used the name “money changer”, but “bankers”.

Money changers ensured that payment transactions flourished well into the 19th century. In the trading city of Cologne, mainly French money was in circulation in the 1820s. In 1822 the city therefore had 14 money changers and only two bankers, Messrs. Herstatt and Schaaffhausen .

Special situations can force your own solutions when exchanging money. In the Second World War, for example, Pierre Seel worked as a money changer for the German Reichsbank on trains running between Belgrade and Saloniki .

In countries with non-freely convertible currencies ( domestic currency ), as was often the case in the former Eastern Bloc, private illegal currency exchange transactions were carried out as black market transactions. The benefit for the money changers was the access to foreign currency, for the customer the cheaper purchase of the local currency.

present

Money changers in Somaliland, East Africa on March 2nd, 2005. The metal containers are full of money. It looks like a lot of money, but at the time it was £ 1 10,000 Somaliland shillings . The largest banknote is 500 shillings, so there is no more than £ 100 there. Despite absolute poverty, street crime and violence are rare.

In the western industrialized countries and in tourist centers, exchange offices have now replaced the businesses of individual money changers. However, there were and are isolated areas in which this profession can still be found today. The illustration on the right provides an example.

In some cities in India, money changers offer their barter deals on the streets.

literature

  • Helmut Kahnt: The large lexicon of coins from A to Z. Gietl u. a., Regenstauf u. a. 2005, ISBN 3-924861-84-6 .
  • Elisabeth Nau: Epochs of Monetary History. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart a. a. 1972, ISBN 3-17-210101-0 .
  • Wolfram Weimer: History of Money. A chronicle with pictures. License issue. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-518-38807-X ( Suhrkamp-Taschenbuch 2307).
  • Peter Spufford: Handbook of Medieval Exchange. Boydell & Brewer et al. a., London 1986, ISBN 0-86193-105-X ( Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks 13; English).

Web links

Commons : Money changer  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

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