History of Monetary Systems
History of Monetary Systems by Alexander Del Mar examines the evolution of money through the lens of law, metallurgy, and power. Published in 1895, it remains one of the most exhaustive accounts of how states, empires, and civilizations have defined and controlled the creation and circulation of money. Del Mar constructs his argument from statutes, coins, mining records, treaties, and jurisprudence, establishing that money is an instrument of governance. He frames currency as a legal measure rather than a commodity, emphasizing how the State, through law and limitation, determines value. His work covers ancient Rome, the Byzantine and Moslem empires, the Merovingians, Carolingians, and the early English kings, tracing the transition from public mints to private coinage and finally to modern banking.
The Foundation of Monetary Law
Del Mar begins with a principle that grounds the book: money originates in law. He rejects the concept of intrinsic metallic value and defines currency as a set of numbered symbols sanctioned by authority. The Roman term nomisma—from nomos, meaning law—illustrates his thesis that money functions as a legal measure of value. The author establishes a precise sequence of experiments that reveal how societies discovered this truth through failure and correction. He draws from early Greek and Roman systems, where the state determined the limit and circulation of coins, creating stability through legal definition rather than material worth. From these systems emerged the principle that limitation, not substance, maintains value.
Rome and the Architecture of Control
Del Mar reconstructs the monetary system of Rome from its earliest copper aes grave bars to the later gold and silver coinage. He details the nummulary system established around 369 A.U.C., when bronze and silver coins became formal instruments of state finance. The scrupulum of gold, the denarius of silver, and the bronze as together created a system of relational values governed by statute. Del Mar measures each by weight and relation, tracing the precise ratios that linked them—nine parts silver to one of gold, ten bronze units to a silver denarius. The system functioned as a matrix of control, binding taxation, pay, and tribute to a common standard.
He describes how the Senate’s mark, ex senatus consulto, confirmed each emission. No coin left the mint without the authority of the Republic. This legal and moral architecture defined Roman finance for centuries. The state monopolized the copper mines, limited coinage, and preserved overvaluation by law. Such control created a durable national currency, insulated from speculation. When civil wars and private interests eroded this system, debasement followed, leading to the collapse of the Republic’s fiscal integrity.
The Sacred Character of Gold
Gold occupied a privileged role in Roman and religious thought. Del Mar traces its sanctity to early priestly functions and to the Egyptian and Assyrian use of the metal in temples. He describes gold as a “sacred metal,” issued only by the authority of pontiffs or consuls. The aureus and its fractions—the scrupulum and semis—served ceremonial and diplomatic functions as much as economic ones. The emperor’s image on gold was not decoration but declaration: a symbol of divine legitimacy. Del Mar’s analysis of weights, such as the 17.5-grain scrupulum, and of the evolution of the aureus from forty to thirty-three coins per pound, maps the legal ratio between precious metals and power. He shows that the empire’s monetary shifts mirrored political consolidation, each reform translating sovereignty into coin.
From Republic to Empire: The Transformation of Value
The book traces the gradual transfer of monetary prerogative from the Senate to the emperors. Augustus centralized the mint, replacing republican inscriptions with imperial portraits. Del Mar reads this as an assertion of divine economy—the emperor as arbiter of measure and value. When private coinage arose under feudalism centuries later, he calls it the reversal of this Roman principle. In Rome, money represented the unity of the state; in the Middle Ages, it fragmented into thousands of baronial and ecclesiastical mints, each a rival sovereignty. He recounts how the Plantagenet kings destroyed over two thousand unauthorized mints, restoring monetary unity through royal authority.
The Moslem Systems: Law as Value
Del Mar dedicates extensive study to the monetary laws of the Caliphate. The Moslem reform under Abdul Malik in the late seventh century created a coinage of legal purity—the gold dinar and the silver dirhem—struck under religious law and inscribed with verses of the Koran. He interprets this as a revival of the ancient idea of state control through divine sanction. The prohibition against usury and private coinage reinforced the principle that money, as measure, could not serve speculation. Islamic systems preserved this integrity for centuries, stabilizing trade from Spain to Persia. Del Mar cites Arabic sources such as Al-Makrizi and Al-Maqqari, and European scholars like de Gayangos, to document these transitions.
Early English Systems: From Pound Sterling to Shilling
The book proceeds to the moneys of the Heptarchy and the Anglo-Norman states. Del Mar reconstructs the English pound from the Carolingian model of 240 pennies to its later silver shillings and gold nobles. He examines the monetary reforms of Offa, Alfred, and Edward III, detailing how the weight of the penny served as the foundation for English legal accounts. Each reform reflects shifts in sovereignty—the Church’s influence on coin imagery, the Crown’s assertion of mint rights, and Parliament’s eventual role in defining legal tender. Del Mar’s precision with weights and values—the 240-penny pound, the twelve-penny shilling, the twenty-shilling pound—anchors his narrative in the mathematics of law.
The Evolution of the Coinage Prerogative
Del Mar identifies the coinage prerogative as the most revealing indicator of political structure. He traces its journey from divine kingship in ancient states to feudal appropriation and eventual reassertion by modern governments. The procureur-général under Philip IV of France prosecuted nobles who melted royal coins, defining the act as treason against the king’s prerogative. Sir Matthew Hale, in the seventeenth century, codified this principle in the famous “Mixed Moneys Case,” declaring coinage a sovereign right inseparable from the safety of the realm. Del Mar argues that England’s later surrender of this right under the Stuarts, when private banks began issuing credit instruments, weakened the constitutional link between money and law.
The Statistical Ratio of Gold and Silver
Del Mar supports his theory with detailed tables of ratios between gold and silver from ancient to modern times. He calculates how the ratio shifted from nine to one in early Rome to sixteen to one in medieval Europe, documenting each change with numismatic evidence. The data refutes the idea of a natural metal value. Legal decree, not geology, determined ratios. Each alteration corresponded with political decisions—wars, reforms, or royal necessities. By tracing these movements, Del Mar transforms monetary history into a chronicle of governance.
Private Coinage and Its Consequences
Private coinage, in Del Mar’s view, represents the collapse of state authority. He recounts how after the fall of the Roman Empire, bishops, barons, and city guilds issued their own coins, often debased and false. He describes the medieval “robbers’ dens,” unofficial mints that preyed upon the public. Their suppression by kings like Edward I and Philip the Fair marked the reemergence of lawful currency. The author portrays private coinage as a social calamity, producing endless recoinages, taxation crises, and monetary confusion. His condemnation extends to the nineteenth-century practice of private banknote issuance, which he views as a modern form of the same disorder.
The Science of Money and Modern Banking
Del Mar’s earlier book, The Science of Money, underpins this analysis. In History of Monetary Systems, he expands it through historical proof. He asserts that both coins and notes are symbolic measures, their value residing in limitation and legal authority. Banks, by issuing notes beyond the control of the state, usurp the monetary function. He cites the suspensions of banks since the era of private coinage as evidence of recurrent instability. Monetary science, in his definition, depends on disciplined issuance and clear legal authority. He connects the “demonetization of silver” in the nineteenth century to the same materialist misconception that once led to Rome’s monetary decline.
The Byzantine and Carolingian Continuities
Del Mar devotes entire chapters to the Byzantine emperors, tracing the solidus from Constantine to the fall of Constantinople in 1204. The Byzantine gold system, based on the nomisma, preserved Roman principles for nearly a millennium. Under Charlemagne, the Carolingian empire revived them in Western Europe through the silver denier and the pound of account. These systems stabilized taxation, trade, and feudal dues for centuries. The author links their longevity to strict legal definition and limited emission. He treats Charlemagne’s monetary reform as one of the central acts of European civilization—a reassertion of the ancient idea that money is an instrument of order.
Monetary Experiments of Modern States
In later chapters, Del Mar examines the Netherlands, Germany, and the Argentine Republic, analyzing their transitions to paper money and state banks. He interprets these experiments as continuations of the ancient struggle between public authority and private interest. The Dutch “bank money,” the Prussian silver standard, and Argentina’s paper systems illustrate varied attempts to balance law, value, and commerce. His statistical appendices record ratios, weights, and exchange tables, transforming narrative into empirical structure. Through them, he demonstrates that every stable system arose from the assertion of state control and the rejection of unlimited private issue.
Law, Limitation, and the Measure of Value
The final chapters converge on a philosophical synthesis. Value, Del Mar writes, exists as a numerical relation. It cannot reside in metal or paper but only in a lawful ratio among things. Money embodies that ratio through state-defined symbols. The measure depends on numbers, not material. When the total of symbols changes, prices change. When symbols multiply without authority, the measure collapses. He argues that political peace and social equity depend on this principle. Money, as a creation of law, distributes power across society. Its distortion enslaves labor and destabilizes nations.
The Enduring Relevance of Del Mar’s System
Del Mar closes by connecting the lessons of history to the monetary debates of his time. The conflict between gold and silver interests, the rise of central banks, and the subordination of monetary authority to market forces all mirror past errors. He sees in the late nineteenth century the same confusion that once destroyed Rome: the belief that metal defines value. Against this, he places his doctrine of limitation. The state must issue, measure, and regulate money according to justice and necessity. Without that authority, economic life fragments into anarchy disguised as freedom.
A Record of Experiments and their Consequences
History of Monetary Systems functions as both chronicle and warning. It documents experiments from the copper bars of archaic Rome to the complex credit instruments of modern Europe. It traces the continuity of monetary law through empires, religions, and revolutions. Each system that recognized money as a legal measure produced order and endurance. Each that surrendered this function to private hands decayed. Del Mar’s synthesis transforms monetary history into a study of civilization’s architecture. The measure of value becomes the measure of the State itself.
