Rhenish guilder

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Gold gulden: Mainz, Archbishop Johann II of Nassau (1397–1419), minted between 1399 and 1402 in Frankfurt-Höchst
Obverse: John the Baptist with cross scepter, the right raised to a blessing; between the feet of a St. John Cross . Transcription: IOH (ann) IS AR (chi) EP (iscop) VSMAGV (n) T (inus) Reverse
: Vierpass ; in the middle the Nassau coat of arms, in the arches the shields of Kurmainz , Kurköln , Kurtrier , and of Bavaria for Kurpfalz . Inscription: MONETA OP (p) IDI IN HOIESTEN

In the late Middle Ages, the Rhenish guilder (Latin: florenus Rheni) was the regional gold currency within the scope of the Rhenish Mint Association . The only Münznominal that currency was the Rheinische Gulden , abbreviation: Rfl. , also fl. (rh.).

Emergence

On June 8, 1386, the four Rhenish princes Kuno von Trier , Friedrich von Köln , Adolf von Mainz and Ruprecht von der Pfalz founded the first Rhenish mint, which was followed by others until the first half of the 16th century. The Rhenish Mint Association had the Rhenish guilder minted as a common gold coin and put it into circulation in its area of ​​application. The currency area of the Rheinischer Münzverein extended down the Rhine to Neuss , up the Moselle to Cochem , up the Rhine and down the Main to Worms and Höchst .

The archbishops of Trier and Cologne had formed a mint association as early as 1372 to standardize coinage and guarantee the quality of coins, and had gold and silver coins minted with a fixed fineness . As a gold coin they let one guilder to the St. Peter on the front and a common silver coin to Weißpfennig shape. They had their help in the election of Charles IV (1346-1378) as German king rewarded with the gold coin privilege. Trier received the privilege on November 25, 1346, Cologne on November 26, 1346 and Mainz on January 22, 1354.

Originally, the stands only had the right to mint pennies , but not larger silver coins or gold coins. The issue of gold coins had been the sole right of the Roman emperor since ancient times, whose coin rack remained with the Roman-German emperors . Only from these could the gold coin privilege be granted. As the first Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Emperor Ludwig had granted a gold coin privilege. According to the provisions of the Golden Bull , however, from 1356 onwards, all electors of the Holy Roman Empire had the unrestricted right to mint and thus the privilege of having gold coins minted - the gold coin privilege.

The Count Palatine of the Rhine was one of the first electors to exercise this right and founded the Rhenish Mint Association with the three archbishops in 1386, the main coin of which was the Rhenish guilder . The individual mintings of the four electors, which began in 1354 at the latest, may be considered the forerunners of this Rhenish guilder. In terms of weight and character, these were still real floras: 66 of them were sold for the Cologne mark of 233.856 g, the rough weight was 3.543 g, the fineness of 23½ carats meant a fine weight of 3.469 g. a But when the Münzverein was founded, the fineness was reduced to 23 carats (= 3.396 g gold); The rough weight remained constant until 1417, but the gold content was reduced to over 22½ carats 1399 (= 3.322 g), 22 carats 1409 (= 3.248 g) to 20 carats (= 2.952 g). The design of the coin also changed: the lily was replaced by a three-pass b , each with the coat of arms of the issuing mint owner in the middle and the coats of arms of the other three in the corners; in place of St. John joined Peter in 1419, who in turn was later replaced by Christ.

The German kings and emperors tried to counter this Rhenish gulden with their own gulden, in order to regain the privilege of gold coin minting, which their predecessors had carelessly granted. After 1400, King Ruprecht of the Palatinate (1400–1410) began minting floras in the Imperial Mint in Frankfurt. Was really set in motion the imperial coinage of his second successor, King Sigismund (1411-1437), who by the Reichserbkämmerer Konrad von Weinberg from 1418 onwards, the output of gold florins in the royal mints Frankfurt , Nördlingen , Dortmund (since 1419) and Basel (since 1429). The reverse shows an imperial orb, which is why the imperial gold gulden were also called apple gulden . There were considerable numbers of issues, in Frankfurt alone a quarter of a million are said to have been issued in 1418. Nevertheless, the imperial government did not succeed in enforcing an imperial gold coin. On the one hand, this was due to their own fault, as the emperors pawned the imperial mints early on due to their ongoing shortage of money and thus lost control of the minting of their own coins. In addition, they contributed to the fact that the minting of gold coins was further fragmented - and was therefore even more difficult to control - because they quickly returned to lending the privilege of minting gold coins - of course against payment - (e.g. to Saxony, Hamburg and Cologne city). On the other hand, it was due to the resistance of the four electors, who have regularly forbidden the circulation of apple guilder in their territories since 1420 because of the allegedly too low gold content - while they themselves repeatedly lowered the fine weight of their own guilder. They did not shrink from lies and deceit. When they informed the emperor in 1417 that they wanted to pay their 22 carat gulden, they had long since reached an additional secret agreement on 20 carats.

As a result, the history of the gold guilder in the west of the empire is characterized by the fact that the minters and tenants constantly succumbed to the temptation to secretly lower the gold content. In particular, the trade concentrated in the cities constantly led to complaints about the inferior guilders. The emperors tried again to at least contain the lowering of the coin rate, if they could not prevent it.

Theoretically, based on resolutions of the Reichstag and coinage treaties, this happened in rough steps as follows: From 1420 to 1490 the fineness was supposed to be 19 carats, but the rough weight was gradually reduced, from 66 pieces per weight mark to 68, which at the end of this period was a total weight of 3.439 g and a fine weight of 2.723 g meant. At the Reichstag in Worms in 1495, the values ​​set by the Rhenish electors in 1490 were adopted: number 71⅓ on the rough mark (= 3.278 g) and fineness 18½ carats (= 2.527 g). The attempt of the 1st Reich Coin Order of Esslingen in 1524 to raise the fineness back to 22 carats failed. Finally, in 1559, the coin base was reduced to a value of 72 to the rough mark (= 3.248 g total weight), which resulted in a gold content of only 2.504 g with the same 18½ carats. In practice, however, a valvation day held in Nuremberg in 1551 brought completely different results to light: the worst German guilders were only 15 carats fine, the worst Dutch guilders only 8 carats.

aAll of these and the following weight specifications are ideal values, which result purely arithmetically from the information in The key to the German Reich's coin archive . In reality, the scales and coin weights were not accurate enough to prevent discrepancies.
b Later also four-pass or six-pass, depending on how many territories belonged to the mint.

meaning

The Rheinischer Münzverein was of great importance for the coinage of the Rhineland and for the entire Holy Roman Empire. The gold guilders of the Rhenish Mint Association were accepted everywhere as trading coins and were used as bill coins until the 17th century . The Rhenish Gulden was the basis for many regional currencies throughout the Holy Roman Empire and, on a financial level, the “unifying bond” of the empire. Not only gold, but also silver coins were valued according to Rhenish guilders and thus their exchange rate was set; in the Mark Brandenburg z. B. 1426 “three good Rhenish guilders for a shock penny”.

The currency adjustment of the Meissen groschen to the Rhenish guilders as the basis for the regional groschen currency of the margraviate of Meissen took place from 1368 to 1369. During this time, groschen of the wide groschen type were minted in the state main mint Freiberg and the Zwickau mint . A fixed exchange rate between Meissen groschen and Rhenish guilder has been established since the middle of the 15th century . Initially minted in a ratio of 1/20 or 1/21 to the Rhenish gold gulden, this groschen, known as " Oberwähr ", had to be accepted for all payments in the Margraviate of Meissen. Later, the Meissner Groschen was minted in the ratio 1/26 to the gold gulden and referred to as " Beiwähr ".

According to the Saxon coinage system of August 18, 1498 with a fineness of 861/1000, seven were counted on the Rhenish gold florins, which had been extracted from the silver of the Schreckenberg pits since 1498 and initially minted in the Frohnau coin .

Exchange rate

Detachment

The Rhenish Gulden was minted by the Rhenish Mint Association until the end of the first quarter of the 17th century and was the main coin in the Holy Roman Empire as a recognized measure of value until the beginning of modern times. It also developed into a widespread trade coin in Central and Western Europe.

With the appearance of the large silver coins around 1500, the importance of the Rhenish guilder began to wane, and the number of mints fell noticeably. In the imperial pass for the 3rd imperial coinage order of 1559, the reliable ducat was recognized for the first time as imperial gold coin at a rate of 102-104 kreuzers and 23 ⅔ carats, while at the same time the particularly low-value guilders were banned. The ducat subsequently became the main gold coin in the empire, the minting of gold gulden noticeably decreased in the 17th century. In the 18th century they were only rarely issued, mostly as commemorative coins, most recently as New Year's gifts from the city of Würzburg for the Prince-Bishop in 1798.

In the Augsburg Imperial Coin Regulations, the silver equivalent of the gold guilder was therefore determined as the nominal coin . However, two more attempts were made to reintroduce the gold gulden as Kurantmünze c , both times without great success, as the value from gold to silver was constantly changing: from 1749 to 1757, Kurhannover minted five denominations in Leipzig's 18 gulden foot. These indicated details in gold guilders and thalers: ¼ GOLD G. // ½ THAL, ½ GOLD GULDEN // 1 THAL, I GOLD GULDEN // 2 THAL, II GOLD GULDEN // 4 THALER, IIII GOLD GULDEN // 8 THALER. Later, Baden and Württemberg issued multiples of silver gulden in gold in 24½ gulden feet: Their 5 and 10 gulden pieces were produced in Baden from 1819–1828 with a fineness of 21⅔ carats (3.105 g and 6.209 g), in Württemberg 1824-1825 with a fineness of 21½ carats (2.99 g and 5.98 g).

At present, the annual (cold) rent for an apartment in the Fuggerei is still the nominal, inflation-disregarded value of a Rhenish guilder: € 0.88.

c Kurant coin means that these gold guilders were fitted into the coin base based on the silver currency, while otherwise the value of the gold coins depended on the material value of the gold compared to that of the silver and fluctuated accordingly.

literature

  • Erik Eybl: From the owl to the euro. Not just an Austrian monetary story. Hermagoras Verlag, Klagenfurt 2005, ISBN 3-7086-0166-1 .
  • Wolfgang Hess: The Rhenish coinage in the 14th century and the emergence of the Kurrheinischer Münzverein , in: Hans Patze (Hrsg.): The German territorial state in the 14th century, Sigmaringen 1971, pp. 257–323.
  • Henrik Mäkeler: Coin Policy of the Electors. Der Rheinische Münzverein , in: Ders .: Reichsmünzwesen im late Mittelalter, Vol. 1: The 14th Century, Stuttgart 2010, pp. 246-258.
  • Michael North: A Little History of Money. From the Middle Ages to today. Beck, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-58451-0 .
  • Konrad Schneider: Rhenish currency in upheaval in the 16th century and the end of the Rheinischer Münzverein , in: Yearbook for West German State History 39 (2013), pp. 213–244.
  • Arthur Suhle: Groschen and gold coinage in the 14th and 15th centuries . In: German coin and money history from the beginning to the 15th century. Berlin 1974.
  • Karl Weisenstein: The Electoral Trier coinage and monetary system from the beginning of the 14th to the end of the 16th century. Also a contribution to the history of the Rheinischer Münzverein , (publications of the society for historical auxiliary sciences, vol. 3), Koblenz 1995, ISBN 3-923708-08-4 .

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Coin abbreviations (found in GenWiki on November 28, 2012); see. Markus Wenninger: You don't need Jews anymore. 1981, ISBN 3205071522 , list of abbreviations: "fl (rh) = (florenus) = Gulden (rheinisch)".
  2. ^ A b Heinz Fengler, Gerhard Gierow, Willy Unger: Transpress Lexikon Numismatics. Berlin 1976, p. 408.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g Arthur Suhle: Groschen and gold coinage in the 14th and 15th centuries in: “German coin and money history from the beginnings to the 15th century.” Berlin 1974, p. 175f.
  4. ↑ Arthur Suhle: German monetary history from the beginnings to the 15th century. P. 174.
  5. ↑ Heinz Fengler, Gerhard Gierow, Willy Unger: Transpress lexicon numismatics. Berlin 1976, p. 316.
  6. ↑ Arthur Suhle: German monetary history from the beginnings to the 15th century. P. 167.
  7. ↑ a b c d Arthur Suhle: German monetary history from the beginnings to the 15th century. P. 166.
  8. ↑ Heinz Fengler: "Introduction" In: 700 years of coinage in Berlin. , Berlin 1976, p. 20. cf. New High German translation of the Golden Bull from 1713, Chapter X - "Von der Müntz." Digital full-text edition in Wikisource , full text and commentary by Karl Zeumer : The Golden Bull of Emperor Charles IV (Part 1). Weimar: Hermann Böhlaus successor, 1908, page 51 f. Digital full-text edition in Wikisource , full-text (version from May 5, 2011)
  9. ↑ As of now, the granting of the privilege was usually linked to the condition that the reverse showed the imperial orb, which is why a large part of these gulden can also be designated as apple gulden ; see. Schneider, pp. 4-24.
  10. ↑ See Rittmann, Geldgeschichte, p. 74.
  11. ↑ The more honest of the coin stands had no choice but to take part in the deterioration if they wanted to prevent their better guilders from being bought up by the fraudsters and converted into worse ones; or to paraphrase Gresham's Law : "Bad money drives out good."
  12. ↑ See on this whole complex: Schneider, investigations. Overall, the concentrated power of the Rhenish electors was such that since then the terms Rhenish , imperial and imperial denominations have generally been used synonymously in terms of coins; see. Schön, pp. 19-22.
  13. ↑ See the key to the German Empire's coin archive under 1551 .
  14. ↑ a b c Rheinischer Gulden - A gold coin of the Rhenish electors (found in: http://www.muenzwissen.com/ on November 29, 2012)
  15. ↑ Gerhard Krug: Die Meißnisch Saxon Groschen 1338-1500 , Berlin 1974, p. 114
  16. ^ A b c Heinz Fengler, Gerhard Gierow, Willy Unger: Transpress Lexicon Numismatics. Berlin 1976, p. 281.
  17. ↑ Walter Haupt: Saxon coinage. German Verl. D. Wiss., Berlin 1974, p. 90. ( Work and research reports on the preservation of monuments in Saxony. 10)
  18. ^ A b Heinz Fengler, Gerhard Gierow, Willy Unger: Transpress Lexikon Numismatics. Berlin 1976, p. 408.
  19. ↑ Heinz Fengler, Gerhard Gierow, Willy Unger: Transpress lexicon numismatics. Berlin 1976, p. 268.
  20. ^ Lienhard Buck: The coins of the Electorate of Saxony 1763 to 1806 , Berlin 1981, p. 38
  21. ↑ See Rothmann, p. 251.
  22. ^ Schön: German coin catalog 18th century: 1700–1806. 2008, pp. 283-291, all with the inscription NDR FUS, d. H. "After the imperial foot" from 1738.
  23. ↑ Arnold et al. a .: Large German coin catalog from 1800 to today. 2010/11, Baden pp. 44–48 and Württemberg pp. 58, 61, 121.