The round-shaped image that opens this chapter is not that of a coin, not even one of those gold dinars known as morabetini or massamutini, despite the Arabic inscriptions. It instead depicts ‘The Circle of the Sphere’ in the Pseudo-Aristotelian treatise known as the Secretum Secretorum, or The Book of the Secret of Secrets (see Figure 3.1).¹ Likely composed in Arabic in the tenth century and translated into Latin in the twelfth so it could circulate in Europe, this work enjoyed extraordinary success and diffusion from about the 1140s through to the end of the Middle Ages and was copied far more than any of the writings of the real Aristotle.² It belongs to the literary genre of ‘mirrors for princes’ (or specula principum) – manuals intended to instruct medieval rulers about their duties, virtues, and conduct as political leaders and moral exemplars and about the philosophical and theological meaning of their office.³ The Secretum Secretorum consists of a long letter allegedly from Aristotle to his pupil, Alexander the Great, covering an encyclopaedic range of topics, including statecraft, politics, and moral advice, serving as a guide for practical government. The circle in the figure here appears in a fourteenth-century Arabic version of the Secretum and was intended to summarise the main gist of the treatise.⁴ Its eight segments refer to the core elements forming the structure of a centralised political authority, linked together by a causal relationship, i.e., ‘there is no king without an army’ and so on. Two in particular concern money, which, like food, was accumulated by the people and used to feed the armies, thus becoming an essential component to secure the government of a medieval ruler and on the availability of which his activities would depend.

Figure 3.1The ‘Circle of the Sphere’ in the Secretum secretorum.

The interdependence between money, rulers, and armies was also emphasised around the same time in the Dialogus de Scaccario (or Dialogue of the Exchequer), written in 1177–79 by Richard Fitz Nigel, treasurer of King Henry II of England. This is what the author says in its preface:

These two examples introduce the general topics of this chapter: the role of the gold florin of Florence in what we might call, slightly anachronistically, ‘public finance’, especially the financing of war in thirteenth-century kingdoms, and the contribution of medieval rulers to the early diffusion of the coin. As previously seen, many developments took place within the so-called ‘Commercial Revolution’, but not all of them were directly related to the methods of doing business or to the increasing scale of long-distance trade. The transition to an economy in which money became the measure of all things generated a ‘revolution in attitudes towards money’ at every level of medieval society.⁶ For governments, this monetary invasion led to a significant transformation of the ways in which they conducted their politics. In times of peace, for example, the greater availability of money among farmers and urban dwellers enabled rulers to impose direct taxation, thus creating new systems of public finance based on money that were crucial for the maintenance of their kingdoms. In times of war, money allowed them to engage in protracted military campaigns, recruit mercenary troops, pay for more sophisticated equipment, build fortresses, and so on.⁷ Money became such a fundamental medium of power projection for late medieval governments that ‘monetization and bureaucratisation grew up together’.⁸

Nevertheless, given the crucial role of money in the world of public finance, the extent to which this milieu and its agents, including kings, princes, etc., contributed to the diffusion of the Florentine gold florin in the early decades after its minting remains unclear. In a study on the monetary circulation of Sicily and southern Italy between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries, for instance, Lucia Travaini found written evidence of gold florins collected through taxes in the Kingdom of Sicily in 1280.⁹ Yet, a systematic analysis of the role that a ‘foreign’ gold coin like the florin, i.e., one not minted in the local mints, would have had in the public finances of the kingdom is still lacking in today’s scholarship.

Such an omission is surprising for two reasons: first, monetary historians have repeatedly stressed that gold coins were primarily used not only in long-distance trade but also in governmental dealings.¹⁰ However, they do not clarify in which specific types of transactions those coins were employed, how their supply and demand worked, or how their circulation operated in that milieu. Second, as has been noted, gold florins appeared in the public finances of the Florentine commune quite early, around the years 1258–59.

On this premise, this chapter analyses the role played by the Florentine florin in the milieu of public finances in the first decades of its minting. Specifically, I argue that a major stimulus for the florin’s early spread came from its involvement in the financial system and military spending of medieval rulers. The case study here, therefore, is not the Florentine commune and its public finances but the Kingdom of Sicily in the reign of King Charles I. This choice is due to the exceptional number of fiscal documents that survive for that kingdom, as well as to the historical importance of Sicily and southern Italy for the political and economic growth of Florence in the second half of the thirteenth century.¹¹ Further, it allows us to shed light on one of the main topics of a relatively recent debate among medieval monetary historians, namely the role of foreign currencies in the monetary circulation of foreign kingdoms.¹² Although this was a common phenomenon in the Middle Ages, the case of the Kingdom of Sicily is particularly interesting, as the kingdom already had a full set of domestic gold coins, including gold taris, augustales, reali, and later carlini, together with their fractions.¹³

The study of the circulation of the florin in those territories and the use that the Angevin ruler made of it reveals that by the late 1270s, Florentine florins were broadly circulating in all the dominions of the Angevin Kingdom, being not only collected through direct/indirect taxation (i.e., subventio generalis/tax on export of grain) on par with local gold currencies but also paid by order of the king to those mercenaries or royal officials active both within the kingdom and in the Mediterranean dominions of the Angevin Crown. Gold florins were also used to cover the expenditure of the royal court. This additional but complementary facet of the multiform circulation of the florin in the second half of the thirteenth century provides new insights into the early life of this currency. As will be illustrated, the important role of the Florentine coin in the military spending of the kingdom, which had its roots in the military expedition of Charles of Anjou in the early 1260s, was the effect of the demand for florins coming directly from mercenary troops.¹⁴ In this context, the florin will be reconsidered both as an economic tool and a political instrument that contributed to the achievement of the king’s political plans by securing the necessary military support of the mercenaries. The analysis will also show how the florin opened up new opportunities for the merchants of Florence in the political arena of the time and how they became an asset for foreign rulers and their ‘public finances’.

The Sicilian affair

Following the death of Emperor Frederick II in 1250, the Kingdom of Sicily was in turmoil.¹⁵ The crown of Sicily was inherited first by his son Conrad (1250–54) and later by Conradin (1254–68). In 1252, Pope Innocent IV (1243–54) seized the opportunity to engage in negotiations with foreign rulers to garner their support for the conquest of the kingdom and assert papal authority. He sent his emissary, the apostolic notary Alberto da Parma, to seek alliances both with Richard, earl of Cornwall and brother of Henry III, king of England, and Charles of Anjou, brother of Louis IX, king of France. The new ally would receive the kingdom as a fief from the pope, who would exercise direct control of the religious sphere. Negotiations continued until June 1253, when both princes declined the offer. Compelled to seek an alternative, Innocent identified Edmund, son of King Henry III, as a new candidate to enact his plan. These negotiations also ended in failure.

In August 1258, Manfred, the illegitimate son of Frederick II, proclaimed himself the new king of Sicily, becoming a serious threat to the papacy due to his support of the Ghibelline faction in northern and central Italy. In 1259, Siena broke with Rome and swore allegiance to Manfred.¹⁶ This was regarded as a rebellion by the Holy See since the city and its merchant bankers had been providing financial services to the papal Curia from at least the 1220s. On 18 November 1260, Pope Alexander IV excommunicated Siena and all the supporters of Manfred in Tuscany, but without any real effect.¹⁷

The situation began to change with his successor, the French Pope Urban IV (1261–64), who organised a proper counteroffensive. In January 1262, he reiterated Alexander IV’s excommunication of Siena and ordered the debtors of the Sienese merchant bankers not to pay their debts. This disposition generated a huge loss for many Sienese companies active in England, Germany, and France.¹⁸ In order to salvage their affairs, a small group of merchant bankers, mainly members of the Bonsignori, Tolomei, and Salimbene families, left the city in December 1262 and sought refuge in the fortress of Radicofani (southeast of Siena), where they remained on good terms with the papacy.¹⁹ In 1263, it was the turn of the merchants of Florence, now ruled by the Ghibelline faction: they were ordered to stop trading in the Kingdom of Sicily and to leave the territory under threat of confiscation of all their goods. Acceptance of this papal order was widespread among the Florentines.²⁰

In the same year, the pope made an initial agreement with Louis IX of France for a military campaign that would place the crown of the kingdom on the head of Charles of Anjou.²¹ The final compromise, however, was made only under the pontificate of Clement IV (1265–68). As a ‘champion of the Church’, Charles would protect the papacy from any abuse, promising not to lay any claim to any territory in northern and central Italy and to respect the jurisdiction of the pope in ecclesiastical matters within the kingdom. Further, he would not claim imperial rights, he would provide the papal territories with 300 knights and a certain number of ships, and he would make a one-off payment of 50,000 marks sterling, plus the annual census of 8,000 gold ounces, to the Apostolic Chamber.

However, money represented ‘a source of conflict’ between the popes and the French prince from the very beginning.²² The papacy wrongly believed that Charles would rely on his resources in Provence and on the financial sources of the French monarchy to sustain the costs of his military campaign. Yet, the Angevin ruler was short of troops and cash when he embarked on the initiative. Pope Urban IV was forced to proclaim a new crusade in 1264 and establish a special three-year tithe on the French clergy in Provence and France to cover the costs of Charles’ expedition. The Holy See relied heavily on the Sienese company of the Bonsignori for the collection of the sums. However, due to the high costs of the French army, the slowness in the money transfers, and the excommunications imposed on Siena, Pope Clement IV asked King Louis IX to cover part of the costs with funds from the French Crown. On his refusal, the pope had to turn to the Guelph merchant bankers of Tuscany, and especially of Florence, who had recently sworn loyalty to Rome.²³ It was therefore in the name of a Guelph system of alliances, also known as ‘Guelphism’, that the Florentines could establish a direct link with the papacy and the Angevin dynasty, winning for themselves those positions which hitherto had been prerogatives, among the Tuscans, of the merchant bankers of Siena.²⁴ Overall, it has been estimated that the Angevin prince received more than 350,000 livres tournois from the Tuscan companies, although the high costs of the venture forced the pope to mortgage several Roman churches and pawn part of the goods of his chapel to raise even more funds.²⁵ All those efforts were rewarded first on 26 February 1266 when Charles of Anjou killed Manfred in the battle of Benevento and became King of Sicily (1265–85), and then again on 23 August 1268, with the defeat of Conradin in the battle of Tagliacozzo (see Map 2).

Map 2The Kingdom of Sicily under King Charles of Anjou (1266–85) – including the main localities mentioned in the chapter.

The victory of Charles of Anjou constituted a watershed moment for the economic development of Florence in the second half of the thirteenth century. In recognition of the several war-loans granted to the ruler, the Florentines obtained direct access to the kingdom, safe-conducts, and fiscal benefits. This enhanced their commercial presence in the Angevin territories and laid the foundation for their dominance in the trade and politics of southern Italy by the turn of the century.²⁶ At this early stage, however, the merchant bankers of Florence were far from a dominant market position that would, for instance, allow them to explicitly demand the use of gold florins in their business. They still had to overcome competition from other more established Tuscan companies, in particular those of Siena, Lucca, and Pistoia, as long as these remained loyal Guelphs.²⁷ The implications of the Angevin conquest of the Kingdom of Sicily for the early diffusion of the florin therefore remain unclear, especially considering that those war-loans were usually recorded in livres tournois, a French money of account.²⁸ Other documentary evidence from the period, however, suggests that Florentine gold florins were indeed part of the vast transfer of funds from France to Italy to finance the Angevin venture.

In a letter of 29 November 1265, the Sienese merchant banker Andrea de Tolomei informed the members of his company in Siena that, at the Cold Fair of Troyes (starting on 2 November), Florentine florins were being exchanged for s. 7 d. 9 of deniers provinois each, and no longer for s. 8 d. 1 as at the previous fair of St. Ayoul of Provins (starting on 14 September).²⁹ He specified that this was an old exchange rate in use at the time of the ‘crocieria’, meaning ‘crusade’ in the Italian vernacular, namely the one launched by Pope Urban IV in 1264.³⁰ On this basis, one might expect that the conquest of the kingdom coincided with the creation of a new market for the florin in Sicily and southern Italy, which would also have benefited from the particular – but not exclusive – treatment that Florentine merchants received from the Angevin Crown. The appearance of exchange rates for florins immediately after the Angevin conquest points in that direction.³¹ In any case, by the end of the 1270s, thousands of gold florins were flowing in and out of Naples, as is also documented by one of the oldest Tuscan books of account in our possession today, namely the cash register of a Sienese merchant company that was particularly active in the cloth market in the years 1277–82.³²

Before analysing the circulation of the florin in the Kingdom of Sicily, its pattern, and dynamics, it is worth illustrating the primary sources of this study: the registers of the Angevin chancery in the reign of King Charles I.

The first mention of the existence of royal archives of the Kingdom of Sicily under Charles dates to 1269, specifically 9 September, when the king sent his officials to Melfi, Canosa, and Lucera to collect certain registers or quaterni kept there.³³ Under Charles II (1285–1309), all the documentation produced in the years of the Angevin domination was gathered first in Naples, but part of this material was subsequently moved to other places. Over the centuries, the original archives of the Angevin Kingdom suffered several losses due to natural disasters or the outbreak of wars. In September 1943, the German army set fire to the building hosting the Angevin archives, causing their near total destruction. Under the direction of Riccardo Filangieri, Neapolitan archivists managed to reconstruct part of the lost records. Since 1950, when the first volume was printed, to the present time, fifty volumes have been published under the title I Registri della Cancelleria Angioina, and of these, the first twenty-seven deal with the reign of Charles of Anjou.³⁴

Written evidence for the first years of Charles’s reign is quite sparse, with only thirty-nine records for the period from 16 July 1265 to 1 April 1266. This might reflect the instability and political turmoil of the time, with the chancery still in the process of creation and the Angevin Crown engaged in several military campaigns, including the war against Conradin and the Siege of Lucera (1268–69).³⁵ Following the appointment of Geoffroy de Beaumont as royal chancellor in 1268, the chancery received greater discipline and new regulations: for example, acts began to be recorded in proper volumes or quaterni, indicating whether they were produced by the chancery or by the royal Camera, which dealt with the wealth and finance of the Crown. The period from 1274 to 1280 is well documented by a whole range of acts concerning the political, administrative, military, and financial business of the Kingdom of Sicily. The complete series of records related to the activity of the royal treasury for the years 1277–78 is crucial for the following analysis. Although relatively late in Charles’s reign, they provide clear evidence of the involvement of the Florentine gold florin in those territories, and its use appears to be multiform.

The gold florin in the tax system of the Kingdom of Sicily as seen from the apodixe (detailed receipts), late 1260s–85

An interesting type of documentation that demonstrates the extent to which Florentine gold florins were well-established within the kingdom is the one appearing in the registers under the name of apodixa (pl. apodixe). The exact nature of this source is illustrated in the Statutum Thesauriorum Castri Salvatoris ad Mare, the charter of the royal treasuries introduced in 1277 for the opening of the new royal treasury at Castel dell’Ovo in Naples.³⁶ Among the dispositions regulating the office, it is clarified that treasuries had to release a sort of receipt or ‘apodixa’ for any deposit of money they received. The apodixa had to be written according to specific guidelines: it had to indicate which currencies were actually paid, whether Sicilian taris, augustales, florins, or any other denomination, their quantity, and the reasons for that income.³⁷ Then, the apodixa had to be signed and sealed by all three officiating treasurers, who gave a copy of this text or antapoca to the depositor, which confirmed they had received the exact quantity as it appeared in the apodixa. Each payment to the treasury and the related apodixa, together with a detailed account of the expenditure of the treasury, had to be recorded in two different volumes or quaterni, one in Latin and one in French, and sent to the Crown at the end of each month for auditing.³⁸ Regulations or capitula issued by the king in 1272 and sent to his justiciars, i.e., the representatives of the Crown within the provinces or justiciarates, show that the apodixe were also used by these royal officials to note any transfer of money that occurred throughout their time in office.³⁹

All these elements leave no doubt about the importance of this documentation for the purposes of our enquiry. As seen in previous sections, currency in medieval documents is very often used only as money of account. Yet, in the apodixe, actual coins were recorded. This is fundamental evidence to understand the currencies used in payments within the royal administration of the Kingdom of Sicily under the Angevins. The bulk of apodixe belongs to the period 1277–78, for which there is a whole series of fiscal sources from September 1277 to August 1278.⁴⁰ Nevertheless, fragments of apodixe dating back to the late 1260s confirm that Florentine florins were already being collected by the officials of the kingdom through local taxation and deposited in the royal Camera. On 10 July and 3 August 1269, respectively, the officers of Bartolomeo of Sorrento, the administrator for the province of Abruzzo, paid 100 gold florins to Nicola Buccelli and another undefined quantity of florins but worth 11 ounces of gold – likely 55 gold florins given the exchange rate of five florins to the ounce – to Pietro Farinelli, both representing the royal Camera.⁴¹ An additional deposit of 100 gold florins from the same province occurred in February 1270.⁴²

Unfortunately, in these specific cases, it is not possible to know what generated the collection and the deposit of those florins in the coffers of the Angevin treasury. It is interesting to note, however, that Florentine florins were already being recorded alongside other local gold coins, which normally exceeded the number of florins paid at this early stage of the coin’s life. In the case of Nicola Buccelli, for instance, the 100 gold florins he received were worth only 20 gold ounces out of a total of 198; the remaining 178 ounces were paid in gold augustales. As appears in the written sources of this period, the name augustalis was the expression most commonly used for the new gold coin introduced by King Charles I in November 1266, officially called a ‘regalis’ or ‘reale’, according to the minting ordinance. This was produced at Messina, Barletta, and later Brindisi, with the same weight (5.31 g), fineness (20½ carats), and nominal value (worth 7½ taris, i.e., one-quarter of an ounce) as the Hohenstaufen gold coin, which was subsequently banned from circulation.⁴³ The decision to keep the same features was mainly dictated by Charles’ monetary policy of retaining the existing monetary system, with his new gold coin intended to fit perfectly within it without introducing major structural changes.⁴⁴ A similar attitude characterised Charles’ political approach to the existing kingdom, as he innovated as little as possible at first, maintaining the previous political structure and building upon the Hohenstaufen legacy.⁴⁵

The same feature, with florins in smaller quantities compared to other local gold coins, especially reali/augustales, can also be detected in other early apodixe, and it could be suggested that the florin had not yet won the competition in the monetary market in the early period of its spread. Nevertheless, new elements come to light when considering Table 3.1 that lists the apodixe for the period September 1276–February 1277, which concern payments made by royal officials to the Angevin Camera.

The first striking element is the number of gold florins recorded, which far outweighs the quantities in the earlier examples. This is even more interesting because these sources are all concentrated in only six months. Given the exchange rate of five gold florins to the gold ounce, thousands of gold florins were filling the coffers of the Regno in a very short period of time, and this suggests an enhanced presence of the Florentine gold coin in Sicily and southern Italy by that date. The second important aspect is related to the nature of this income. It is expressly reported that many of these gold florins had been collected by the subventio generalis or general subvention. Under the Angevins, this was a direct tax collected on an annual basis and related to the movable goods and revenues of all laymen, excluding the clergy and the very poor.⁴⁶ The total amount of the general subvention to be exacted from the kingdom was usually fixed by the Crown, while the Camera assigned to each justiciar the amount to be paid by his province. Local taxatores would apportion it among the many fiscal subdivisions of each justiciarate, while the so-called collectores would proceed with the collection. All the money was finally transferred to a local executor, who would send the collected amount to the royal Camera. Owing to the lack of documentation for the actual collection of this tax, there is no way of knowing whether gold florins were actually paid at the local level or whether they were obtained through exchange transactions once the sum was gathered. However, these apodixe at least show that gold florins were actually deposited in the royal Camera. And this abundance of florins collected through the subvention acquires even more importance when we consider that, taking all the sources of income of the kingdom (i.e., indirect taxes, Adoa, ship money, road guard money, etc.) together, the subventio generalis provided c. 40 per cent of the total income every year.⁴⁷

Nevertheless, Florentine gold florins were also being collected through indirect taxation, such as the export tax on cereals known as ‘ius exiture’. In an apodixa of 21 June 1277, Nicola Frezza of Ravello and Sergio Pinto of Naples, both magistri procuratores et portulani of Apulia and Abruzzo, paid a lump sum of 5,000 gold florins to the royal Camera.⁴⁸ This was a down payment for all the latter’s claims on grain customs due in those ports (‘de pecunia exitatione seu exhoneratione frumenti’) and other fees related to their office.⁴⁹ According to William A. Percy Jr., between January and August 1277, the ius exiture on wheat within the kingdom ranged between 25 and 30 gold ounces per 100 salmae of grain.⁵⁰ If these calculations are correct, and recalling that five florins were worth one gold ounce, that payment would potentially correspond to the revenues for a maximum of 4,000 to 3,333 salmae of grain.⁵¹ This is just a small quota compared, for example, to the 40,000 salmae from Sicily that the Crown authorised for export on 16 January 1277, an amount which was later raised to 60,000 on 12 August.⁵² However, we are not dealing with Sicily here, but with exports from some unspecified ports in Apulia and Abruzzo over an unclear period. The fact that this transaction seems to relate to tax farming suggests that the actual revenues would be substantially higher, and so would the number of florins collected.

Unfortunately, the lack of further documentation does not allow for a clearer assessment of the volume of Florentine florins involved in the contemporary grain trade of the kingdom. Given the several wheat export contracts between the Angevin Crown and the commune of Florence in 1276, however, large numbers of florins may have circulated from the north to the south of the Italian peninsula as a result of this commerce.⁵³ On 2 August, for example, 800 salmae worth 240 gold ounces (at a rate of 30 ounces per 100 salmae) were paid by the Florentine podestà and the city council, and imported via Pisa by certain merchants of Florence operating as nuntii or representatives of the commune for the sustenance of the urban population.⁵⁴ The same operation occurred on 21 September for 300, 600, and another 600 salmae of grain worth 450 gold ounces in total.⁵⁵ Since two of the leading institutions of the Florentine government were directly involved in these purchases, and considering that gold florins were being spent to buy grain for the Angevin royal household, as illustrated below, florins could have been paid on these occasions too. Furthermore, since the years 1275–77 coincided with a period of significant grain shortages in Tuscany, part of northern Italy, and Provence, one can expect that Florence and its merchants would have made grain purchases involving gold florins at that time.⁵⁶ Nevertheless, in contrast with what argued by Robert Davidsohn, the generic term ‘gold ounces’ denoting the sums of money paid in those sources, with no reference to gold florins, prevents a clear evaluation of the effective contribution of the grain trade to the early diffusion of the Florentine coin.

Overall, the documentation analysed so far clearly illustrates that florins were deeply embedded in the finances of the reign of Charles I, and specifically, the higher volume recorded in the second half of the 1270s suggests an entirely new role of the coin in the Angevin territory, being employed on the same scale as the local gold currencies. This begs the crucial question as to how all those gold florins were being spent. A first answer lies in the words of King Charles himself: with regard to the subventio generalis, he claimed that its collection was vital ‘for the defence of the Kingdom against possible invaders’, and more specifically, ‘to pay the wages of our mercenary soldiers’.⁵⁷ With this in mind, the following section analyses royal expenditures carried out in gold florins by the Angevin Crown, with a particular focus on military spending.

Florentine gold florins for military personnel and court expenses

The earliest evidence of gold florins paid to mercenary soldiers fighting for the Angevin Crown dates to 13 July 1273. On that occasion, Charles I sent an amount of 4,000 gold florins to the commune of Piacenza to be distributed among the Angevin troops in the defence of the city.⁵⁸ However, the wording of this document raises doubts about the nature of these florins, namely whether they were actual coins or rather money of account. Later records show nonetheless that Florentine gold florins were often paid by the Angevin Crown to the military personnel of the kingdom.

On 6 March 1278, the troops serving Pierre d’Angicourt and Jean de Toul at the fortress of Lucera (Foggia) complained about the delay in payments for their military services. Charles ordered the justiciar of the province of Capitanata to cover all the costs and pay their salaries expressly in gold florins.⁵⁹ Similarly, on 3 April 1278, Guglielmo de Malassisia and his twenty mercenaries claimed a salary for three months of service defending the northern borders of the province of Terra di Lavoro. On this occasion, too, gold florins were disbursed on the direct order of the king.⁶⁰ This preference for gold florins also characterised the payments for troops fighting in regions outside the territories of Sicily and southern Italy but still under Angevin dominion.

Within the Italian peninsula, for example, 600 gold ounces of Florentine florins were given to mercenary soldiers stationed in Rome on 2 April 1278.⁶¹ A few weeks later, on 25 June, Charles decided to repay the Sienese merchant bankers Bernardino Bonaventura, Giacomo Ranieri, and their partners for a loan of 100 gold ounces, which was also designed to pay mercenary troops in Rome. Charles expressly ordered his camerarii or treasurers to use gold florins first, then reali/augustales, and finally ‘or menu’, literally ‘small gold’, perhaps uncoined gold in little pieces, in case florins and reali/augustales were not enough.⁶² The same number of ounces, but entirely in gold florins, was also paid to Teodisco di Cuneo for his army in Siena on 3 June 1282.⁶³

Outside Italy, florins were sent to troops in defence of Charles’ Mediterranean dominions.⁶⁴ After the defeat of Manfred in 1266, the northern coastline of Albania and the island of Corfu fell under Angevin rule. Between 1279 and 1283, Charles managed to gain control over the entire Albanian shoreline.⁶⁵ On 1 July 1280, the justiciar of the Terra d’Otranto was ordered to collect o. 300 t. 6 of gold florins and send them to Drivo de Vallibus, who was responsible for the Castle of Valona, for the payment of the mercenaries and the repair of a pit there. Four trusted men carried this and other sums on a ship from Brindisi, who delivered the money to Hugh ‘the Red’ of Sully, vicar-general of the Kingdom of Albania, before being redistributed.⁶⁶

In an account register of 1278, it appears that from March to May, the Angevin Crown paid the sum of o. 2,542 t. 12 of gold florins, o. 895 t. 7 gr. 10 of gold reali/augustales, o. 723 t. 12 of Sicilian taris, and a few other silver coins for the services of certain troops, including those in the Principality of Achaia.⁶⁷ This was one of the vassal states of the Latin Empire formed in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade (1204), which became a formal Angevin possession with the Treaty of Viterbo of 1267.⁶⁸

Further documentary evidence related to another Mediterranean domain of the Angevin Crown, namely the Kingdom of Jerusalem, shows that florins were also in use there in the late 1270s.⁶⁹ On 29 January 1278, for example, Charles ordered his treasuries in Naples to pay Guillaume de la Mestrie, a delegate of the Master of the Hospital of the Order of Saint John in Acre, the sum of 450 ounces of gold florins that were borrowed by Roger of San Severino and Eudes Poilechien, respectively bailo (bailiff) and siniscalco (seneschal) of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, from the Master of that order in Acre.⁷⁰

Overall, these sources leave no doubt about the role of the Florentine coin in payments for the wages of mercenary troops. The fact that gold florins were expressly used at the king’s request is probably the most crucial element to take into consideration. By that time, the Kingdom of Sicily had its own gold coins, as noted. Also, minting coins in the medieval period involved a variety of costs for the royal mint, ranging from the wages of the workers to the price of the materials and equipment.⁷¹ Yet, Charles explicitly opted for a foreign gold coin like the Florentine florin as a means of payment for military spending instead of any of the domestic gold coins at his disposal, and this applied in all his dominions. The cases of Valona, Achaia, and Acre, in particular, provide crucial details about the contemporary diffusion of the Florentine currency: they show that gold florins were circulating widely in the Mediterranean basin, not just via the long-distance trade of the time but rather as a result of the military and foreign policy of the Angevin king, who provided an additional and important stimulus for the spread of the florin. Before discussing the reasons behind this choice, it is worth pointing out that Florentine florins were also being used for other expenses within the kingdom involving the Angevin Crown and its court.

On 10 March 1278, Charles ordered his treasurers to pay 5,000 gold florins to his chamberlains, Jean de Torchevache and Martin de Dourdan, to cover the costs of the royal household and purchase grain for his entourage.⁷² This document, which further corroborates the link between the florin and the grain trade, as already noted, is only one of several such cases documented in the registers. Another sum of gold florins was granted, for example, just a few weeks later on 20 April. On this occasion, the chamberlains received o. 790 t. 14 of florins in exchange for an equal amount of Sicilian gold taris, the metal from which was to be used for the minting of a new coin known as the carlino. In this case, too, Charles specified that those florins had to be used for the wages of knights, valets, and servants at his court.⁷³

Further evidence appears in the previously discussed account register of 1278.⁷⁴ From March to May, the services of various household officials, including the baker (panectarie), the librarian (stacionarie), the master cook (coquina), the clerk of the stable (marestalle), the fruiterer (fructuarie), and the clerk for the ovens (fornarie), were reckoned at c. 1,365 ounces (o. 1,364 t. 4 gr. 19). Almost half of that amount was paid in gold florins (o. 672 t. 24) and the remainder in gold reali/augustales (o. 571 t. 7 gr. 10), Sicilian taris (o. 41 t. 13), silver gros tournois (o. 73 t. 7 gr. 16), and a few petty coins. Florentine florins also played a significant role in the payment of the salaries and grain for other members of the royal entourage, such as clerics, doctors, and valets: out of c. 585 ounces (o. 584 t. 22 gr. 19), o. 395 t. 6 were gold florins, and the remaining payments were split between gold reali/augustales, silver gros tournois, and grossi of Venice. Gold florins were also a common means of payment for the salaries of the staff of the Angevin chancery, such as scribes, notaries, and judges.⁷⁵

By the end of the 1270s, therefore, the florin had such a strong presence in the economy of the Angevin Crown that not only did it act as a common means of payment for military expenditure and for the financing of the royal court, but it also trickled down into the local economy of the kingdom through the channel of royal expenditure. This is what the episode of the construction of the abbey of Santa Maria della Vittoria in Scurcola Marsicana (Abruzzo) between 1274 and 1284 seems to suggest. This abbey was built to celebrate the victory of Charles against Conradin, the last hope of the Hohenstaufen dynasty in southern Italy, in the battle of Tagliacozzo. It was the Crown that covered all the building costs and entrusted royal officials or expensores to administer the sums of money provided by the royal Camera.⁷⁶ On that occasion, it seems that it was mainly gold florins and gold carlini that the royal treasurers sent on behalf of the Angevin Crown to cover any expenses.⁷⁷ In November 1278, for example, Charles asked the royal treasurers to send the abbot Bartolomeo o. 24 t. 12 explicitly in gold florins for the rent and clothes of twenty workers.⁷⁸ Indeed, due to their high price compared to the requirements of the local market, gold florins would have had little practical use in such a restricted and local context. A possible explanation for such a use could be found in the direct involvement of the Angevin monarchy, which might have been so well accustomed to the presence of the florin by then that turned it into a habitual means of payment, present in all the stages of the monetary circulation of the kingdom.

Pull or push?

The previous analysis has clearly proved that not only did the florin succeed in establishing itself as a foreign currency used domestically within the kingdom of Charles of Anjou, but also that it was often preferred to the local gold coins, especially in military and royal expenditure. This begs a series of important questions: how can one explain this prominent role of the florin? Why did the Angevin monarchy rely so heavily on this coin? What were the mutual benefits for the monarchy and the florin? And was the Crown ‘pushing’ the florin or ‘being pulled’ by its contemporary success?

It is hard to prove whether the significant role of the Florentine gold coin depended on the contemporary scarcity of gold coins produced by the local mints. On 4 June 1278, Charles sent new instructions to the minters in Naples for an accurate design of the images on the two sides of his new gold carlino. He ordered them to speed up production and strike the new money in a ‘convenient and abundant’ quantity to cover imminent costs for his troops, military outposts, and other expenditures.⁷⁹ Charles’ eagerness to have a decent quantity of the new gold coin at his disposal in a short period of time might hint at the contemporary inadequacy of the existing stock of local gold currencies. Unfortunately, in the absence of mint accounts, which would make it possible to evaluate the levels of the mint’s production, the suggested scarcity remains mere speculation. However, if we turn our attention away from the monetary production of the Angevin Kingdom and investigate the contemporary demand for florins, a possible answer to our questions comes once again from the military context of the time.

On 30 March 1278, Charles asked his French treasurer Guillaume Boucel to take 6,500 ounces of gold florins out of the treasury in Naples and escort the money to his royal residence in Capua to pay the wages of his mercenaries for three months’ service.⁸⁰ On 3 April, after discovering that only 2,800 gold ounces of florins were actually stored at the royal treasury, the king instructed his treasurers to find a moneychanger in Naples to collect the missing amount. They were ordered to exchange all domestic currencies at their disposal for gold florins of Florence and at the best price available. For that to happen, they did not have to inform the moneychangers that the Crown or the court would be the beneficiaries of the money. Only in the event that gold florins were not enough were the treasurers to also accept the local gold augustales, i.e., Charles’s reali.⁸¹

This source corroborates the notion that war and military expenditure promoted the diffusion of the florin, mainly as a means of payment for the services of mercenaries, as noted above. Yet, it also appears to indicate that the need or demand for florins might have originated with the mercenaries themselves. Specifically, the fact that, upon discovering the temporary lack of florins in his treasury, Charles neither abandoned his request nor turned to other gold coins but instead expressly sent his officials to Naples to exchange his domestic money for a foreign currency suggests there was a strong pressure from the soldiers to be paid specifically in Florentine florins, which would have prevailed over the other gold coins then in circulation. This is probably why Charles seems unwilling to ask his officials to use domestic gold coins to remedy the issue; he was afraid of the rejection by his mercenary troops. Moreover, Charles’ concern about possible exploitation by the merchants in Naples, who might raise interest rates or drive up costs if they knew the Crown was involved in the affair, indicates that the king had a certain degree of familiarity with this sort of transaction. This becomes even clearer on 12 April 1282, when Charles ordered his treasurers to pay o. 564 for the wages of certain mercenaries in Rome and invited them to borrow the necessary gold florins from certain merchant bankers or ‘some of our friends’ (ab aliquibus nostris amicis), as they were expressly called.⁸²

Both the evident need for florins by the Angevin Crown and the fact that Charles ordered his treasurers to turn to merchants to satisfy his request provide clear examples of the role of the florin as a pivot point between economic and political spheres. The florin represented the instrument that allowed the merchants, and especially the Florentines as makers of the coin, to project political power through financial power onto the Angevin ruler. And it is also likely that the same ruler had to resort to the merchants’ financial operations on several other occasions in the same years, especially considering that by 1278, the payment of royal mercenaries in Florentine gold florins had become ‘customary’, as emphasised by this further evidence.⁸³

On that same day (30 March 1278), Charles instructed the justiciar of Capitanata on the payment of the salary of certain squires. He ordered the justiciar to give them the monthly amount of two ounces of gold so that they would be properly equipped and protected. With regard to the money, he specified that the salaries had to be paid in gold florins, as usual, but the way the order was formulated is the most interesting aspect here. Charles stressed that those squires had to be paid ‘in the custom of the royal mercenaries (more Regiorum Stipendiariorum), that is, in gold florins, five to an ounce’.⁸⁴ In other words, paying mercenary troops in gold florins represented a standard practice for the Angevin Crown at that time. The fact that the king referred to this act as a long-established habit suggests that its origins date back in time, and possibly to the days of the ‘crocieria’ mentioned above, i.e., the military expedition of Charles in southern Italy, when the Florentines were already lending money to the king.⁸⁵ Over the years, more and more florins were paid by the Angevin Crown to meet the growing demand coming from the troops to the point that this act became common practice by the late 1270s.

It is hard to establish how much a florin was worth in the soldiers’ hands. For example, archers and crossbowmen could afford to buy one of those long shields or pavisia used to cover their entire body on the battlefield for less than a florin, worth t. 6 in the local monetary system. Their prices ranged between t. 2 gr. 10 for small pavisia used in hand-to-hand combat and t. 5 for the largest ones.⁸⁶ It has also been estimated that the average individual consumption of grain per year corresponded to one salma (c. 275 litres.)⁸⁷ Based on the figures previously provided – i.e., 25–30 gold ounces per 100 salmae – a single soldier would have needed between t. 7 gr. 10 and t. 9 to afford such a quantity of grain, thus slightly more than a florin per year. Unfortunately, the lack of a consistent series of prices covering several years and relating to other goods and basic necessities does not allow for a clearer picture. Nor can we be certain that the few prices at our disposal were not affected and altered by additional charges, such as customs duties or other fees. They could also vary widely from place to place and from one year to the next, owing to speculation or contemporary economic conditions.

However, new details come to light if we look at the salaries of different occupations in Table 3.2. Although speculative, as it is based on fragmentary evidence, the table informs us of the costs of living in the Kingdom of Sicily at the time of King Charles I. It shows how significant the purchasing power of one single florin was in the local market, especially considering that its value in the domestic monetary system (gr. 120) far exceeded the smallest wage per day recorded in the table, namely gr. 6 for unskilled workers over the summer period (1 April–30 September).⁸⁸

Yet, how can we explain such an interest in florins among mercenaries? For soldiers, being paid in florins would have had a twofold advantage. On the one hand, the Florentine florin was the most valuable gold coin among the several denominations in circulation – the only one made of pure gold (24 carats). Since money was an important part of their reimbursement, mercenaries must have been well aware of the distinctiveness of that currency.⁸⁹ Thus, due to their gold content, it is not surprising that florins were the most requested coins among the troops, who preferred them over other baser gold coins. This preference even became a condition in mercenary recruitment contracts of the late thirteenth century, as also attested by a condotta agreement stipulated on 13 May 1294 between the commune of Bologna and the four commanders of a mercenary band of 100 cavalrymen hired by the city for twelve months.⁹⁰ On the other hand, mercenaries also demanded florins because of the high mobility of their military activity. Since they had to travel and fight in many different territories, each with its own monetary system, those troops might have wanted to be paid with a currency that was highly fungible, broadly accepted, and thus easy to exchange for any other local coin. The florin, as it was also in circulation along the routes of long-distance trade and exchanged for local currencies throughout Italy, northwards to France, and in the Mediterranean region, was exactly what they needed.⁹¹ Hence, it was probably also due to convenience that florins were in high demand among soldiers. Yet, they also represented a convenient means of payment for the Angevin Crown.

Since gold florins granted him the military services of mercenary troops, Charles would have had no reason to turn down the Florentine coin. In his eyes, the florin was a trusted and secure means of payment, allowing him to be competitive in the market for mobile military assets and build his army, especially considering the documented demand for florins among the soldiers. This, in turn, would help him maintain control, authority, and power over his domains while pursuing his political plans. Under these circumstances, the florin’s role in Angevin military spending ultimately benefitted the currency itself. It gave the Florentine gold coin a new and previously overlooked dimension, which complemented its role as a means of payment and economic tool in the world of long-distance trade. In this context, the florin also acted as a political instrument at the disposal of the Angevin king, crucial for the implementation of his politics. One could even argue that the success of Charles’s kingdom eventually depended on the availability of florins. Thus, while the demand for florins originated with the mercenary troops, as this case suggests, there is little doubt that the king endorsed this demand precisely for all the benefits outlined above. Still, was the Crown ‘pushing’ the florin or ‘being pulled’ by its success?

There is no straightforward answer to this question. The latter case, and the fact that florins were being paid by order of the king, who also adopted the Florentine coin in his foreign politics, as noted, seem to indicate that Charles was ‘pushing’ the florin and thus fostering its diffusion in other territories including the Mediterranean region. However, if the king had to sideline his domestic gold coins and exchange them for a foreign gold currency to assert his authority, this means that the Angevin Crown was also ‘being pulled’ by the florin and its contemporary success. Interestingly, Charles only expressly ordered the use of gold coins other than the florin on one occasion. This was for the payment of the annual census of 8,000 gold ounces that the king was expected to make to the Holy See as a result of the agreement for the conquest of the Kingdom of Sicily described above. On 6 April 1278, Charles instructed his treasurers to collect the given amount only in old reali/augustales (‘vieux augustales’) or gold in small pieces (‘or menu’) to pay the papacy.⁹² Considering the contemporary importance of the florin in Angevin military and royal expenditures, on this occasion, Charles likely chose to employ old coins and un-minted gold to save Florentine florins for his own business. This episode begs one final and legitimate question: if the florin was so important for the finances of the kingdom, and considering that Charles was striking gold too, why did he not produce his own florin?

This happened in 1278, when Charles organised a new mint at Castel Capuano in Naples to produce his new gold and silver carlini. The king expressly ordered that the gold carlino have the same fineness as the florin but be valued as a reale, containing less gold than the Florentine coin. To that end, he appointed Francesco Formica, an experienced merchant and moneyer from Florence – probably not incidentally – as the new mint-master in charge of the entire operation.⁹³ It is hard to say why Charles did not make such a decision earlier in his reign. From a monetary perspective, for example, this could be dependent on several factors ranging from the availability of gold or the costs of its minting to the revenues from coining or the opportunity to acquire florins from outside the kingdom. The case study discussed above, for example, suggests that, at that time, it was more convenient for Charles to send his officials to Naples and buy gold florins from merchant bankers to meet the demand coming from the war market.⁹⁴ Yet, political and circumstantial reasons may also explain why Charles introduced his new gold carlino only later. The year 1278 coincided with a period of political change for the kingdom, with the transfer of the administrative centre of the Angevin monarchy from the island of Sicily to the mainland and the creation of the major royal mint in Naples. According to Arthur Sambon, this was also a measure to prevent fraud committed by merchant bankers in the exchange of domestic and foreign gold coins.⁹⁵ A complete study of all the possible economic, political, and circumstantial aspects that led to the minting of the carlino is, however, beyond the scope of this chapter. What is important to stress here is that Charles’ 1278 reform of the kingdom’s gold coinage was ultimately triggered by the contemporary success of the Florentine florin, which was taken as a benchmark for the minting of his new gold carlino. In doing so, Charles also hoped to counteract the excessive power of the florin in his territories. To promote the spread of the new coinage, on 25 January 1279, the king wrote to his officials to ban from circulation all foreign coins such as gold florins, gold doblas, silver gros tournois, sterling, Venetian grossi, miliarenses, and deniers tournois, which could now only be accepted in payment of taxes, including the subventio generalis, but at a fixed rate or by weight. Florentine florins, in particular, had to be paid ‘pro auro rupto’, literally ‘as broken gold’, thus at a rate of t. 5 gr. 14 and not t. 6 as before.⁹⁶ The only gold coins permitted to circulate would have been the gold taris, the reali, and, obviously, the new carlini.⁹⁷

Nevertheless, this order had little effect since gold florins continued to function in the finances of the kingdom and continued to appear in the Registri as they had before. On 14 April 1283, for example, Charles, Prince of Salerno, ordered the royal treasurers to pay the total amount of 244 gold ounces to a group of French mercenary knights who had lost their horses while fighting in the Angevin army. The payment had to be in gold carlini, reali/augustales, or florins in this specific order.⁹⁸ Thus, despite the king’s initial dispositions, gold florins continued to be employed in the royal military expenditure. It seems probable that the creation of a kingdom-specific gold ‘florin’ went somewhat against the mercenaries’ desire to have access to a ‘universal’ coin that could cross all boundaries.

Conclusions

A full understanding of the early success of the gold florin of Florence must take into consideration its circulation in the world of ‘public finances’ rather than simply analysing its role in the long-distance trade of the time. This chapter has demonstrated that the involvement of the florin in the military expenditures of medieval kingdoms was essential for its early diffusion. In particular, the relationship that the Florentine currency established with the Angevin Crown, which began at the time of the crusade of Charles of Anjou in southern Italy, represented a crucial event in the florin’s conquest of new markets.

Evidence from the surviving registers of the Angevin chancery for the period 1266 to 1285 has shown that florins circulated widely in the Kingdom of Sicily and were employed in three main areas: local taxation, as a means of payment for the wages of the military personnel, and in local affairs involving the Crown once they had trickled down into the economy. Florins also spread to other territories under Angevin rule, such as the cities of central and northern Italy (Rome, Siena, and Piacenza) and among the royal officials of the Crown’s Mediterranean domains, including the Kingdom of Albania, the Principality of Achaia, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem. For the most part, florins were accepted and paid by the royal Camera and were often used at the direct request of the Crown, including for the expenses of the Angevin court.

Conversely, almost nothing is known about the dynamics that underpinned the spread of the florin in Piedmont, whose cities were among the first in Italy to submit to the Angevins. Beginning in 1259, and thus in the same years when Charles took possession of the kingdom that had belonged to the Hohenstaufen, more and more Piedmontese communes placed themselves more or less voluntarily under his political protection.⁹⁹ Yet, the economic and financial agreements in the surviving pacts concluded between these centres and the ruler do not mention Florentine florins either as actual coins or money of account.¹⁰⁰ And even if today, we have a clearer and more defined picture of the instruments and methods used by the Angevins to collect money and manage finances in the northern Italian domains, the lack of local tax registers and fiscal records makes it virtually impossible to observe whether and to what extent the diffusion of the florin in Piedmont was linked to and accompanied by the spread of Angevin power and its Guelph alliance.¹⁰¹

Nevertheless, contemporary documentation from the Kingdom of Sicily has revealed the existence of an ongoing demand for florins, especially among the mercenaries fighting for the ruler, which explains the importance held by the Florentine coin in all the dominions of the Angevin monarchy. Specifically, it was through the florin that the merchants of Florence could interact with the Angevin ruler, who in turn needed florins to finance his political and military projects. In these circumstances, the florin acted both as an economic tool and a political instrument, granting power to the king while funding his politics. By 1278, the gold florin was being employed as a local currency, despite its original ‘foreign’ nature. In that year, Charles reformed the whole monetary system of his kingdom, and the florin was taken as a monetary reference for the minting of his new gold carlino. Although the latter was expressly produced with the same fineness as the Florentine currency, it could do nothing to curb the dominance of the florin in the monetary circulation of the Angevin territories. When Sicily and southern Italy ceased to mint domestic gold coins and entered a silver phase in the early years of the fourteenth century, therefore, it is little wonder that the only gold coins that continued to circulate and be used in those territories up to the mid-fifteenth century were imported foreign currencies, notably Florentine gold florins and Venetian gold ducats.¹⁰²