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- Title
Devaluation and the balance of payments in eleventh-century England: an exercise in dark age economics.
- Authors
Jones, S. R. H.
- Abstract
This article presents information related to devaluation and the balance of payments in eleventh-century England. The spread of the market economy from the time of Alfred the Great onwards meant that by the early eleventh century the economy of Anglo-Saxon England had become one of the wealthiest in Europe. This did not pass unnoticed overseas, especially in Scandinavia. Consequently in 980 the Vikings, after an absence of some years, returned again to English shores to harry and plunder. Sporadic raids and demands for tribute gradually gave way to organized conquest until finally, in 1016, Cnut of Denmark seized the throne. Although few historians would deny that England at this time was relatively wealthy, there is far less agreement as to the sources of silver bullion used to pay the geld. The view that the late tenth and early eleventh centuries were an age of burgeoning trade is not accepted by all. The lack of quantitative data relating to the changes in the stock of money, prices of traded goods, or the extent of foreign trade necessarily precludes a detailed formal analysis.
- Subjects
BALANCE of payments; INTERNATIONAL trade; PRICES of securities; COUNTERTRADE; BALANCE of payments deficit; FOREIGN exchange
- Publication
Economic History Review, 1991, Vol 44, Issue 4, p594
- ISSN
0013-0117
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2307/2597803