Notes on dates, money, and terminology

DatesDates

Florence followed the so-called Stile dell’incarnazione al modo fiorentino, or the ‘Style of the Incarnation in the Florentine way’. In this dating system, the new year began not on 1 January but on 25 March, the feast of the Annunciation. This meant that New Year’s Day was delayed by two months and twenty-three days compared to the modern celebration. For this reason, we must add one year to the dates of Florentine documents redacted between 1 January and 24 March to convert them to the modern Gregorian calendar. Pisa also had its own Stile dell’incarnazione al modo pisano, or the ‘Style of the Incarnation in the Pisan way’. The new year also began with the Annunciation on 25 March, but was nine months and seven days ahead of the modern celebration. Therefore, we must subtract one year from the dates of documents written in Pisa between 25 March and 31 December to translate them to the Gregorian calendar. I have used the modern Gregorian calendar in the text but have left the dates of documents in the notes and Figure 2.1 as they are written in the originals.

MoneyMoney

I discuss two distinct medieval accounting systems in this book. The first is the system of librae, solidi, and denarii (£.s.d.), which was introduced by Charlemagne in the late eighth century and gradually became the most widespread monetary system in western Europe. According to this system, 1 libra = 20 solidi = 240 denarii, and 1 solidus = 12 denarii. The second is the system of gold ounces, taris, and grains (o.t.gr.) in use in Sicily and southern Italy. Specifically, 1 ounce = 30 taris = 600 grains, and 1 tari = 20 grains. Although some of these denominations eventually manifested as actual coins during the Middle Ages, their primary role within these two accounting systems was as ‘money’ or units of account – standards of value for reckoning with and evaluating the many different coins involved in financial transactions.

Terminology

Carat: In antiquity, a carat was a very small unit of weight based on the seed of the carob tree (ceratonia siliquia) and used widely in the Near East and the Mediterranean to weigh gold. It was standardised differently from region to region, with weights ranging between 0.18 g and 0.21 g. With the introduction of the gold solidus of Emperor Constantine the Great (303–7), which weighed 24 carats (4.55 g), this term acquired a secondary meaning of 1/24th as a measure for the fineness of gold, divided into four fractions or grains (c. 0.05 g). In the modern metric system, the carat is retained by jewellers but rounded to 0.2 g.

Fineness: This is the proportion of precious metal used in an alloy in relation to its total weight. Today, it is expressed in percentages or in thousands. In the Middle Ages, it was expressed in carats (1/24ths) and fractions of carats or grains (usually 1/4th carats) for gold. Consequently, pure gold was described as 24 carats fine. For silver, ounces (1/12ths of the Roman pound) and denarii (1/24ths) were usually used. In the book, I have retained this medieval custom.

Weight: In medieval documents, weight was normally expressed in terms of the number of coins struck from a standard weight, usually a pound/libra (12 ounces) or a mark (8 ounces or 2/3 of a pound), but sometimes also from smaller units such as an ounce (24 denarii). These weights varied from time to time and place to place (in antiquity, they included carats and grains, as noted). Some of them, such as the marks of Cologne or Troyes, had a long and widespread use in the Middle Ages. The weights in the book are expressed in grams (g), according to the modern International System of Units (SI).