Tipper and luffing time

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The onomatopoeic double term "tipper and rocker" is based on the "rocking" of the balance beam and the sorting out ("tilting") of the better coins, which were then withdrawn from circulation.

As large Kipper and Wipper period is defined as a large part of Central Europe sensing debasement , culminating 1620-1622 during the Thirty Years' War had. From around 1675 to 1690 there was still a "little tipper era" in Germany. The name is derived from the practice of fraudulent coin valuation, namely rocking the balance beam when weighing the coins on a high-speed scale and then tilting ( Low German for "sorting out") the heavier pieces, from which copper , tin or lead are then added inferior new coins were produced.

Causes and practice of inflation

The incentive for systematic coin valuation was the shortage of curant money in the area of ​​the empire that had occurred since the middle of the 16th century . The reasons for this shortage of money were, on the one hand, a decline in German silver production , the accumulation of treasure money to finance mercenary armies and the increase in the need for luxury at the German royal courts. On the other hand, modern methods of creating money using coins and other forms of credit money were only just emerging. Even the quantities of precious metals imported from the New World via Spain and Portugal from around 1560 onwards could not compensate for this shortage of money, despite the temporary excess of precious metals. Nevertheless, in addition to the reduction in fineness due to the deterioration in coins described below, there was also a general decline in the price of precious metals compared to basic foodstuffs. A general increase in population with simultaneous immigration to the cities can be seen as the cause in Germany. This process, which started a little earlier, intensified especially after the Peasant Wars of 1525 from the neighboring feudal territories according to the motto “ city ​​air makes free ”, and at the same time agricultural productivity and production stagnated. At the end of the 16th century, a number of price-driving factors were superimposed, which reached their peak in the turmoil of the Thirty Years' War in the days of the Kipper and Wipper around 1621-1623.

In this situation, the sovereigns also took advantage of a structural error in the imperial coinage system of 1559, which enabled them, as territorial minters, to issue smaller provincial coins with a lower silver content compared to imperial currency coins. Affected by this deterioration in money were such smaller types of coins as pfennigs , cruisers , groschen and half- lunches . A few large silver coins from the southern German-Bohemian region, called Kippertaler or Kippertaler , were also affected by this coin deterioration. The small coins mentioned were then produced as imitations of common coins with a silver content below the face value and brought into circulation in the largest possible quantities in other regions of the empire.

For example, the fineness of the imitations of the Schreckenberger, which was previously valued because of its relatively high silver content, were minted in the Ardennes principality of Château-Regnault and other mints. Another method was the (temporary) toleration and even promotion of the blanket covering of the feudal territories by the sovereigns with so-called hedge coins that were not authorized by the empire ; Large quantities of inferior coins were minted, which then contributed significantly to the rise in inflation through their additional money in circulation . A competition, enforced by Gresham's law , began in the deterioration of small coins between the coin stands, which only came to an end with the introduction of the official inferior divorced or land coin at the end of the 17th century.

See also: Prague coin consortium by Hans de Witte , Paul Michna von Vacínov , Karl von Liechtenstein , Wallenstein and Jacob Bassevi (1622/23).

Consequences and termination

Those mainly affected by the devaluation were permanent wage earners, who received their income in the types of coins that the princes and cities had deteriorated, while the producers of agricultural and industrial products could demand payment in hard currency. The rising prices led to hardship, impoverishment and hunger, whereupon the urban people in particular protested against the deterioration in coins in the form of numerous leaflets and unrest. When the sovereigns and cities finally realized that the profits made were only apparent because they were getting the bad money back in the form of taxes and duties, they began to collect the dump money again and to mint new ones according to “old grist and grain ”. Another important reason for a coin reform may have been the recruitment of mercenaries who only wanted to fight for “good money”. In the period after 1623, the kipper coins were exchanged for the new money, if at all, in some cases far below their intrinsic metal value. The under-valued princely pennies were minted as good pennies , increased in value , after the tipper and wipper era .

In some European financial centers, the devaluation of the currency at the time led to the establishment of the first giro banks . Banco Publico was founded in Nuremberg in 1621 .

In connection with other periods of currency manipulation, one speaks of a "second tipper and wipper period" in the sixties to the nineties of the 17th century and of a "third tipper and wipper period" from 1757 (see Ephraimiten and Mint Leipzig , section Unter Prussian occupation ).

Course history

The following table shows the course between a full-value Reichstaler and an inferior cruiser:

Period Reichstaler cruiser course
1566 0068
1590 0070
1600 0072
1610 0084
1616/17 0090
Late 1619 0124
Late 1620 0140
Late 1621 <390
1622/23 > 600
regional> 1000
from 1623 0090

The development of the Groschen to be paid in the Weimar area for a Reichstaler minted according to the Reichsmünzfuß in the period from 1609 to 1623 is reproduced in the article Mint Neustadt an der Orla .

See also

literature

  • Gustav Freytag : The dump trucks and luffers and public opinion. In: Gustav Freytag: Pictures from the German past . Volume 2: Reformation and Thirty Years' War . Bertelsmann Lexikon Verlag, Gütersloh et al. 1998, ISBN 3-577-10472-4 , pp. 299-318.
  • Gabriele Hooffacker : Avaritia radix omnium malorum. Baroque imagery about money and self-interest in pamphlets, leaflets and neighboring literature from the Kipper and Wipper times (1620–1625) . (= Microcosm. Contributions to literary studies and research on meaning. 19). Lang, Frankfurt am Main et al. 1988, ISBN 3-8204-8832-4 . (At the same time: Munich, Univ., Diss., 1986).
  • Helmut Kahnt, Bernd Knorr: Old measures, coins and weights. A lexicon. Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig 1986, licensed edition Mannheim / Vienna / Zurich 1987, ISBN 3-411-02148-9 , p. 385 f. ( Tipper and luffing time ).
  • Niklot Klüßendorf : The Herborn Coin Treasure. At the time of the tipper in the county of Nassau-Dillenburg . (= Studies and materials on constitutional and national history. 12). Elwert, Marburg 1989, ISBN 3-7708-0925-4 .
  • Niklot Klüßendorf: The time of the tippers and luffers (1618–1623). Real value and nominal value in conflict. In: Lectures on the history of money in the Money Museum 2007. Deutsche Bundesbank, Frankfurt am Main 2009, ISBN 978-3-86558-538-7 , pp. 5–38.
  • Steffen Leins: Prague Coin Consortium 1622/23. A capital business in the Thirty Years' War on the verge of catastrophe . Aschendorff, Münster 2012, ISBN 978-3-402-12951-7 .
  • Franz Mathis: The economy in the 16th century . (= Encyclopedia of German History. 11). R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-486-55798-X , p. 98ff.
  • Fritz Redlich: The German Inflation of the Early Seventeenth Century in Contemporary Literature. The tippers and luffers . (= Research on international social and economic history. 6). Böhlau, Cologne et al. 1972, ISBN 3-412-92872-0 .
  • Ulrich Rosseaux: The Kipper and Wipper as a journalistic event (1620–1626). A study of the structures of public communication in the age of the Thirty Years War . (= Writings on economic and social history. 67). Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-428-10362-9 . (Silvia Serena Tschopp: Review . In: sehepunkte. 2, 2002, 3, (acc. June 21, 2010)).
  • Konrad Schneider: Hamburg during the tipper and luffing time. In: Journal of the Association for Hamburg History. 67, 1981, ISSN  0083-5587 , pp. 47-74.
  • Konrad Schneider: On the coin, wage and price policy of the Nassau counts of the Ottonian line during the Kipper and Wipper period 1619-1624. In: Nassau Annals. 95 1984, pp. 119-133.
  • Konrad Schneider: Frankfurt and the dump truck and luffing truck inflation of the years 1619–1623 . (= Messages from the Frankfurt city archive. 11). Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 1990, ISBN 3-7829-0395-1 .
  • Konrad Schneider: Tipper and Wipper time and coin scales and Schreckenberger. In: Michael North (Ed.): From shares to customs. A historical lexicon of money . Beck, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-406-38544-3 .
  • Bernd Sprenger: The Germans' money. Monetary history of Germany from the beginning to the present . 3rd, updated and expanded edition. Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2002, ISBN 3-506-78623-7 , p. 107.
  • Karl Weisenstein: The tipper and luffing time in the Electorate of Trier . (= Publications of the Society for Historical Auxiliary Sciences. 1). Numismatischer Verlag Forneck, Koblenz 1991, ISBN 3-923708-06-8 .

Web links

Commons : Tipper and Wipper time  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Commons : Kipper coins of the electoral duchy of Saxony under Johann Georg I.  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Tipper and Wipperzeit  - Sources and full texts