Abstract
A version of Georg Knapp’s state theory of money has represented the mainstream view of money applied in the civil law and common law traditions of Western Europe since medieval times. Following the understanding of Roman law, money was identified with the payment media issued by the sovereign body in the state. Legal doctrine recognized that the right to strike coin and to give it a value in payments belonged distinctively to the sovereign. The sovereign was entitled to change the monetary standard by altering the metallic content of the coinage or by raising or lowering its valuation in monetary units. Private law doctrines on the tender of money translated the monetary valuations made by the sovereign into practical results when the courts enforced actions for the payment of debts.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Bibliography
Blackstone W (1765) Commentaries on the laws of England, vol 1. Facsimile ed 1979. University of Chicago Press, Chicago/London
Bracton H, Thorne SE (1968) Bracton on the laws and customs of England. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Challis CE (1978) The Tudor coinage. Manchester University Press, Manchester
Cochrane-Patrick RW (1876) Records of the coinage of Scotland from the earliest period to the union, vol 2. Edmonston and Douglas, Edinburgh
Craig T (2017) In: Dodds L (ed) Jus Feudale Tribus Libris Comprehensum book I. 64. Stair Society annual volumes. Stair Society, Edinburgh
De Roover R (1948) Money, banking and credit in mediaeval Bruges: Italian merchant bankers, Lombards and money-changers; a study in the origins of banking. Medieval Academy of America, Cambridge, MA
Desan C (2014) Making money. Coin, currency, and the coming of capitalism. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Dondorp H (2016) The effect of debasements on pre-existing debts in early modern jurisprudence (chapter 13). In: Fox D, Ernst W (eds) Money in the western legal tradition: Middle Ages to Bretton Woods. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Ernst W (2016) The legists’ doctrines on money and the law from the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries (chapter 7). In: Fox D, Ernst W (eds) Money in the western legal tradition: Middle Ages to Bretton Woods. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Fox D (1996) Bona fide purchase and the currency of money. Cambridge Law Journal 55(3):547–564
Fox D (2011) The structures of monetary nominalism in the pre-modern common law. J Leg Hist 34(2):139–169
Fox D, Velde F, Ernst W (2016) Monetary history between law and economics (chapter 1). In: Fox D, Ernst W (eds) Money in the western legal tradition: Middle Ages to Bretton Woods. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Geva B (2011) The payment order of antiquity and the Middle Ages: a legal history. Hart Publishing, Oxford/Portland
Hale M (1736, 1847) History of the pleas of the crown., 1st American edition. RH Small, Philadephia
Justinian, Frier BW (eds) (2016) The codex of Justinian, vol 3. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Justinian, Watson A (eds) (1985) The digest of Justinian, vol 1. Pennsylvania University Press, Philadelphia
Knapp, G (1905, 1924), Staatliche Theorie des Geldes, published as The state theory of money. London: Macmillan and Company
Larkin JF, Hughes PL (1973) Stuart royal proclamations, vol 1. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Li M-H (1963) The Great Recoinage of 1696–1699. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London
Menger K (1892) On the origin of money. Econ J 2(6):239–255
Murray A (1997) Sir Isaac Newton and the Scottish recoinage 1707–10. Proc Soc Antiq Scot 127:921–944
Pothier RJ (1773) Traité de droit civil. Deeure, J/Rouzeau-Montant, Paris/Orléans
Powell JM (1971) The Constitutions of Melfi or the Liber Augustalis promulgated by the Emperor Frederick II for the Kingdom of Sicily in 1231. Syracuse University Press, Syracuse
Proctor C (2012) Mann on the legal aspect of money, 7th ed. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Redish A (2000) Bimetallism: an economic and historical analysis. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Reid KGC (2016) Banknotes and their vindication in eighteenth-century Scotland (chapter 25). In: Fox D, Ernst W (eds) Money in the western legal tradition: Middle Ages to Bretton Woods. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Rüfner T (2016) Money in the Roman law texts (chapter 6). In: Fox D, Ernst W (eds) Money in the western legal tradition: Middle Ages to Bretton Woods. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Stair, Viscount, Dalrymple, J; Walker, D (ed) (1681, 1981) The institutions of the law of Scotland. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press/Yale University Press
Thomas PJ, Boraine A (1994) Ownership of money and the actio Pauliana. Tydskrif vir hedendaagse Romeins-Hollandse Reg 57:678
Voet J, Gane P (ed) (1955–1958) The selective Voet: being the commentary on the pandects. Butterworths, Durban
Zimmermann CD (2013) A contemporary concept of monetary sovereignty. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this entry
Cite this entry
Fox, D. (2018). Money, Law, and Institutions. In: Battilossi, S., Cassis, Y., Yago, K. (eds) Handbook of the History of Money and Currency. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-0622-7_52-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-0622-7_52-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-10-0622-7
Online ISBN: 978-981-10-0622-7
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Economics and FinanceReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences