Life in nineteenth-century Canada was nothing short of brutal for a poor girl from abroad, a series of debasements and scullery work.
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It was the time of year for planning new debasements to perform on the pledges during Hell Week, the final test before their initiation.
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In a letter to Queen Elizabeth on the occasion of her accession in 1558, Gresham wrote "that good and bad coin cannot circulate together," as a way of explaining the "unexampled state of badness" England's coinage had been left in after the "Great Debasements" of Henry VIII and Edward VI, which reduced the metallic value of English silver coins to a small fraction of what it had been at the time of Henry VII.
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While iron coins were being minted the quality of copper coins would decrease due to frequent debasements.
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The rise of poverty rates during the Tudor period can be attributed to a confluence of factors. Rebellions in 1549 hampered harvest efforts and crop shortages in the following years contributed to price inflation. A series of coin debasements between 1544-1551 undermined economic confidence.; ; Jordan 1970, p.
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Coins would also be melted down and exported. To anticipate these illegal debasements and preserve the quality and quantity of coins, the king would either debase or cry up the coinage (i.e., raise the face value of coins). Thus, debasement had its legitimate purposes and was welcome by the population if done to preserve the stability of the coinage.
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This, and perennial problems in royal finance, led to several debasements of the coinage, with the amount of silver in a penny being cut to almost a fifth between the late 14th century and the late 15th century. The heavily debased "black money" introduced in 1480 had to be withdrawn two years later and may have helped fuel a financial and political crisis.
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Billon coins are perhaps best known from the Roman Empire, where progressive debasements of the Roman denarius and the Roman provincial tetradrachm in the second century CE led to declining silver and increasing bronze content in these denominations of coins. Eventually, by the third quarter of the second century CE, these coins were almost entirely bronze, with only a thin coating or even a wash of silver.
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Money in the Pre- Industrial World: Bullion, Debasements and Coin Substitutes. Routledge. p. 176. . In 1338, Ibn Battuta noticed that people in Bengal called their currency taka instead of dinar as was done in other Muslim kingdoms. In 1415, Admiral Zheng He's fleet also saw the use of the silver taka in Bengal, according to the travelogue of Ma Huan. The tanka spread to Odisha on the west coast of the Bay of Bengal.
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Mary's government took a number of steps towards reversing the inflation, budgetary deficits, poverty, and trade crisis of her kingdom. She explored the commercial potential of Russian, African, and Baltic markets, revised the customs system, worked to counter the currency debasements of her predecessors, amalgamated several revenue courts, and strengthened the governing authority of the middling and larger towns.Kinney p. 471 Mary also welcomed the first Russian ambassador to England, creating relations between England and Russia for the first time.
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Money in the Pre-Industrial World: Bullion, Debasements and Coin Substitutes. Routledge. p. 176. . The apparent vibrancy of the Bengal economy in the beginning of the 15th-century is attributed to the end of tribute payments to Delhi, which ceased after Bengali independence and stopped the outflow of wealth. Ma Huan's testimony of a flourishing shipbuilding industry was part of the evidence that Bengal enjoyed significant seaborne trade. The expansion of muslin production, sericulture and the emergence of several other crafts were indicated in Ma Huan's list of items exported from Bengal to China.
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The great import of this episode is that it shows that by this time the capital market had become truly international, not only for long-term bonds but now also for short-term capital. Financial crises easily propagated because of this. Examples are the Amsterdam banking crisis of 1763, after the end of the Seven Years' War in which the Netherlands had remained neutral, occasioned a collapse of commodity prices, and debasements of the currency in Middle and Eastern Europe disrupted the bullion trade. Some Amsterdam accepting houses, as the Neufville Bros.
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Unlike in England, this did not prompt the Scots to turn to large scale cloth production and only poor quality rough cloths seem to have been significant. There was an increased demand in Scotland for luxury goods, that largely had to be imported, leading to a chronic shortage of bullion. This, and perennial problems in royal finance, led to several debasements of the coinage. The heavily debased "black money", introduced in 1480, had to be withdrawn two years later and may have helped fuel a financial and political crisis.
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In the 13th century, the Venetians imported goods from the East and sold them at a profit north of the Alps.Coins In History, John Porteous, page 86. They paid for these goods with Byzantine gold coins but when the Byzantine emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos backed a rebellion called the Sicilian Vespers in 1282, he debased the hyperpyron.Coins of Medieval Europe, Philip Grierson, page 110 This was just one more in a series of debasements of the hyperpyron and the Great Council of Venice responded with its own coin of pure gold in 1284.
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Money in the Pre-Industrial World: Bullion, Debasements and Coin Substitutes. Routledge. p. 176. . The apparent vibrancy of the Bengal economy in the beginning of the 15th-century is attributed to the end of tribute payments to Delhi, which ceased after Bengali independence and stopped the outflow of wealth. Ma Huan's testimony of a flourishing shipbuilding industry was part of the evidence that Bengal enjoyed significant seaborne trade. The expansion of muslin production, sericulture and the emergence of several other crafts were indicated in Ma Huan's list of items exported from Bengal to China.
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It began to be imported in large quantities, particularly from the Baltic ports, through Berwick and Ayr. There was a growing desire among the court, lords, upper clergy and wealthier merchants for luxury goods, that largely had to be imported, including fine cloth from Flanders and Italy, wine, pottery, armour and military equipment. This led to a chronic shortage of bullion. This, and perennial problems in royal finance, led to several debasements of the coinage, with the amount of silver in a penny being cut to almost a fifth between the late fourteenth century and the late fifteenth century.
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The concomitant effects of the war, debasements and dearness, had already caused an inflation also in the region. The population suffered from billeting and alimenting Baden-Durlachian, Danish, Halberstadtian, Leaguist, and Palatine troops, whose marching through the John Frederick had to tolerate in order to prevent entering into armed conflict. In 1623 the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, diplomatically supported by James I, King of England, the brother-in-law of Christian IV of Denmark, started a new anti- Habsburg campaign. Thus the troops of the Catholic League were bound and the Prince-Archbishopric seemed relieved.
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The concomitant effects of the war, debasements and dearness, had already caused an inflation also in the region. The population suffered from billeting and alimenting Baden-Durlachian, Danish, Halberstadtian, Leaguist, and Palatine troops, whose marching through the Prince-Archbishopric had to tolerate in order to prevent entering into armed conflict. In 1623 the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, diplomatically supported by James I, King of England and of Ireland and as James IV King of Scotland, the brother-in-law of Christian IV of Denmark, started a new anti-Habsburg campaign. Thus the troops of the Catholic League were bound and the Prince-Archbishopric seemed relieved.
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Goods were moved around and exchanged through the medium of coin on a large scale and, in the towns and the larger villages, a high level of industrial and commercial activity developed in close conjunction with the exploitation of the predominant agricultural base. The volume of trade, both internal and external, reached its peak in the 1st and 2nd centuries. By the end of the 3rd century, major problems were evident. A series of debasements of the imperial currency had undermined confidence in the coinage, and even the government itself was contributing to this by demanding more and more irregular tax payments in kind, which it channeled directly to the main consumers, the army personnel.
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It is the informal name of the cent unit of account in Canada, although one cent coins are no longer minted there.. The name is also used in reference to various historical currencies also derived from the Carolingian system, such as the French denier and the German pfennig. It may also be informally used to refer to any similar smallest-denomination coin, such as the euro cent or Chinese fen. The Carolingian penny was originally a 0.940-fine silver coin weighing pound. It was adopted by Offa of Mercia and other English kings and remained the principal currency in Europe over the next few centuries until repeated debasements necessitated the development of more valuable coins.
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During the early Middle Ages, only the denarius was minted and circulated as an actual silver coin, while the libra and solidus remained merely units of account. So long as the silver content of the denarius was maintained, any quantity of money could then be determined by counting (telling) coins rather than by weighing silver or gold. But the gradual exhaustion of silver mines in Europe in the 11th century led to a scarcity of silver and difficulties in maintaining coinage. Repeated debasements of the denarius coin by Medieval monarchs prompted eventually to minting of larger coins starting in the 13th century, such as the groat (from Italian "grosso" or "fat one") representing larger denominations of 3 or 4 denari.
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Exports of hides averaged 56,400 a year from 1380 to 1384, but fell to an average of 48,000 over the next five years and to 34,200 by the end of the century. In the late Middle Ages, the growing desire among the court, lords, upper clergy and wealthier merchants for luxury goods, that largely had to be imported (including fine cloth from Flanders and Italy), led to a chronic shortage of bullion. This, and perennial problems in royal finance, led to several debasements of the coinage, with the amount of silver in a penny being cut to almost a fifth between the late fourteenth century and the late fifteenth century. The heavily debased "black money", introduced in 1480, had to be withdrawn two years later and may have helped fuel a financial and political crisis.
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Exports of hides and particularly salmon, where the Scots held a decisive advantage in quality over their rivals, appear to have held up much better than wool, despite the general economic downturn in Europe in the aftermath of the plague. The growing desire among the court, lords, upper clergy and wealthier merchants for luxury goods that largely had to be imported led to a chronic shortage of bullion. This, and perennial problems in royal finance, led to several debasements of the coinage, with the amount of silver in a penny being cut to almost a fifth between the late 14th century and the late 15th century. The heavily debased "black money" introduced in 1480 had to be withdrawn two years later and may have helped fuel a financial and political crisis.
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One of these was the use of just the inscription "King Aphilas" as the reverse of a coin, the only purely epigraphical side ever used on an Aksumite coin. The other was his use of a single ear of barley or wheat as a reverse, though his use of two ears circling around the king's image continued. Aphilas introduced a number of different standards for all three metals, some of which lasted through to the 7th century, while the use of others ended with his reign. His new gold coins (issued in conjunction with the older) of a quarter aureus and eighth aureus were soon abandoned (each are known from only one specimen), and 1/16 aureus coins have been found, though these are more likely to be deliberate debasements to increase profit (Aksumite gold was generally very pure, however).
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Regardless, Malestroit did put forth several valid claims about the price revolution that continue to hold up today, particularly his argument explaining the different price indexes and why the Spanish prices rose the least and the Brabantine the most. Spain, unlike most other European countries of this era, underwent no debasements of the gold and silver coinages during most of the period, but that all changed in 1599, when the new Spanish king Philip III (1598–1621) introduced the purely copper "vellon" coinage. Following Henry VIII of England and his infamous "Great Debasement" programme that began 1526, the Spanish King Philip III tried to cement his Spanish legacy through changes in coinage strategy. Previously, Spanish Kings (at least from 1471) issued a largely copper fractional coinage called blancas, with a nominal money-of-account value of 0.5 maravedí, but with a very small amount of silver to convince the public that it was indeed precious-metal "money". The blanca issued in 1471 had a silver fineness of 10 grains or 3.47% (weighing 1.107 g).
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