Why didn't the medieval Europe use bronze and chunky silver coins?

The problem with expanding the term ‘middle ages’ beyond the 1500s is that the people who coined the term were living in the renaissance. The reason it is the “Middle Ages” is because it came between them and the classical culture of Ancient Rome they were claiming to be recapturing.

 

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Correct, the lack of silver is the reason the "plåtmynt" as we call them in Sweden was so freakishly big. They had to contain the nominal weight in copper for what the stamps where indicating. Not only were they impractical for being big and heavy but with a fluctuating copper prize the copper content was worth more at times than the nominal values of the stamps. It's known that people spitted coins in half or chipped of the corners to get smaller change. Around 1660 an inventive swede re-discovered the paper money (China had already long before). You could now simply hand over a receipt for the copper coin while it stayed in the vault of the banks.

About 16'000 plåtmynt is known to have been minted. 5'000 of those sunk as @scottishmoney wrote with Nicobar but around 3'000 could later be retrieved when the shipwreck was found. In Sweden it's not that hard to get your hands on a plåtmynt but they are quite expensive to acquire.

A bit of topic but to get back, in Scandinavia the Middle Ages ended around 100 years later compared to the rest of Europe with the end of the Kalmar Union at 1523.

 

As @FitzNigel explained above, the end of the Middle Ages is usually dated to the period roughly between 1450 (invention of the printing press) and 1517 (Luther's 95 theses). This periodization is not due to a single defining event but rather to a series of changes in the cultural, religious, political and technological landscape of Europe, caused for example by the Fall of Constantinople (1453), the War of the Roses in England (c. 1455–1487), the end of the Reconquista or Columbus voyage to the Americas (1492).

Coinage also starts to quickly change in the early modern period, in part due to new minting technologies, and in part to new mining efforts and an enormous influx of silver from the New World. In early 16th century central Europe, for example, the Reichsmünzordnung ("imperial minting ordinance") more or less unified an enormously complex system of different regional coinages and based the new currency on the thaler, a very large and chunky coin whose predecessor had only been introduced in 1486. Spain started to mint pieces of eight, the Netherlands later produced the daalder, and other countries followed the trend towards large silver coins.

 

You are right svessien, the late medieval is at its end around 1500 (Columbus found America and Gutenberg invented the letterpress printing)

 

I think the literary, scientific, and intellectual class in France prior to the beginning of the Revolution in 1789 -- the proud exponents of the Enlightenment -- would have been both shocked and extremely surprised to be told that someone considers them to have lived in the Middle Ages! I really think you should adjust your thinking about the end of the European Middle Ages about three centuries backward.

 

Since I was a business major a college, my history studies were limited to 1600 and up. I probably should have said 1500 in my post since I view that modern British coinage started with this view of King Henry VII in the early 1500s.



Which was a big improvement over this view of King Henry VII.

 

I think it is interesting that the fall of Constantinople (twice) corresponded to the beginning of the high middle ages (1204 sack by Latins) and the end of the middle ages (1453 by the Ottomans) as well. Between 600 and 1200 the "Greeks" kept Roman civilization alive, as well as Hellenism, until it could be be "re-discovered" by the west during the Renaissance.

Also, keep in mind that the tribes and kingdoms of the early middle ages in the west for the most maintained that the real Imperial authority was in Constantinople, a point not often made in how history is taught in the schools. Charlemagne only made himself holy roman emperor after Irene had been in power for a few years and had rebuffed his marriage overtures.

 

When I was actively collecting British coins, I wanted a profile coin of Henry VII to go with my similar Henry VIII groat. It was always too expensive for me.

 

Yes, that Henry VII coin was a bit expensive. I probably over paid for it, which I have done consistently in recent years although the coin makes me happy.

Here are a couple of views of Henry VIII.

Young on a two pence. This coin is a full AU, American grading, and really nice.



Old on a groat.



I had a hard time finding one these coins that I liked. Once more it was probably too much money, but I looked for a couple of years.

 

Very eloquently put, @DonnaML. To @johnmilton's point, history generally is woefully underserved in the American educational system, at all but graduate levels. "Nuances" (snort) like the early phases of the Modern era get thrown under the bus.
...This just occurred to me. Relative to 16th and 17th centurie coins, you could look at the persistence of motifs like (increasingly elaborate) heraldry and (largely ceremonial) armored portraits as invoking the medieval past, much as the medievals were keen to do with the Classical legacy. Since most of the issuers were monarchies, they had a vested political interest in doing so.

 

The one notable exception to the plate money in Sweden was during the Northern War betwixt Sweden and Russia when the finance minister, Görtz initiated a token coinage that came to be referred to as Goertz dalers. As unpopular as the plate money was because of it's size - at least it reflected the metal value of the piece. The small Görtz tokens did not and they were one of the factors in his downfall and eventual execution in 1719.

That era of Swedish history is absolutely fascinating - imagine a small Scandinavian country with a largely rural population taking on Russia, Denmark and the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth. And Charles XII was a brilliant military commander for most of the time until his demise in Norway in 1718. Even Tsar Petr of Russia was deeply moved when Charles XII was killed in battle.

Edited to add - Swedish meatballs as we know them probably originated in the Ottoman Empire - after Charles XII's defeat at Poltava he travelled to the Ottoman Porte where the Swedish army encamped for quite some time. A lasting legacy of Charles XII and his time in the Ottoman Empire.

 

There’s another fun series to collect; some of them with Roman deities on them like this one with Mars: https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces38092.html

But they’re not medieval.

 

I have a few of the Görtz dalers myself, but none imaged. I really enjoy the coins of Sweden - particularly Queen Kristina and King Karl XII. The öre coins of Queen Kristina are very large and clunky, like almost dollar sized - I have some imaged but cannot find images.

 

@scottishmoney, regarding the absence of images, I feel your pain! I have .jpgs of a fraction of the collection, mostly cribbed from the dealers.

 

Hehe same situation here as my small childhood collection of Swedish coins still are with my parents. Might be able to post some of them at a later opportunity I specialized in the Swedish Empire era and Karl XII was also my favourite.

 

It was good thing I didn't stay in Stockholm longer, or I would have spent lots of money on coins. But the Royal Coin Cabinet was an amazing visit, and a nice unexpected surprise when the whole reason I went to Stockholm on a whim just to see the Vasa Museet. I sure wish I could purchase one of the 10 daler coins that weighs 19kg.

 

The Middle Ages continued through to the 15th century. In the 15th century Sweden minted extremely large copper coins termed as "plate money". One of these weighed nearly 20kgs.

 

No offense but you need to add a couple of centuries, the plate money (plåtmynt) where first minted 1644 under Christina, queen of Sweden.

 

A good book on the subject is " Money and its use in Medieval Europe." by Peter Spufford. He has a whole chapter based on New Silver c. 1160-1330 .

 

@BenSi, was it you who turned me on to that book? It's really terrific --a lot of solid information and analysis, well written enough not to be remotely as dry as one might suspect.