The Fire in the Flint (44 page)

Research into the coinage issue uncovered some interesting facts. For example, gold coins were not minted in England until the fourteenth century, when prices rose high enough that silver coins were impractical for some transactions. Also, coins were required to be a certain weight and certain
fineness (content), so frequently the total weight of coins rather than the number was specified in transactions. Clipping coins and normal wear with use led to their debasement, and eventually required recoinage, when the people who held the money were ordered to return certain coins to the government and were reissued new coins – with a percentage skimmed off the original value kept for the government. Edward proceeds to do this in the late 1290s.

But back to Scotland. If you have been to Perth lately, a lovely river town easily walkable in an afternoon, you might be surprised to know that it was far larger and more economically significant than Edinburgh in the late thirteenth century. The River Tay linked Perth to its trading partners across the North Sea. Indeed, Perth was quite a cosmopolitan city. Excavations have revealed wares from all over Europe. It was also just downriver from Scone, the ancient seat of the realm of Scotland, and surrounded by a fertile valley. Sudden thaws in the highlands have caused flooding in the area over the centuries, and this phenomenon has preserved layers of the past beneath the modern town. Fortunately for those curious about the history of this historic burgh, modern-day developers cooperate with the Scottish Urban Archaeological Trust allowing digs that have materially added to our knowledge of the town’s past.

Elizabeth Ewan,
Townlife in Fourteenth-Century Scotland
(Edinburgh University Press 1990)

N. J. Mayhew, ‘Crockards and Pollards: Imitation and the Problem of Fineness in a Silver Coinage’ in
Edwardian Monetary Affairs, 1279–1344
, N. J. Mayhew, ed., British Archaeological Reports 36, 1977, pp. 125–146

‘From Regional to Central Minting 1158–1464’ in
A New History of the Royal Mint
, ed. C.E. Challis (Cambridge University Press 1992)

Perthshire Society of Natural Science,
Pitmiddle Village & Elcho Nunnery: Research and Excavation on Tayside
, undated.

Michael Prestwich,
Edward I
, Yale English Monarchs (Yale University Press 1997, pp. 376–435)

Scottish Urban Archaeological Trust Ltd,
Perth:
The Archaeology of the Medieval Town
(SUAT 1984)

Peter Spufford,
Money And Its Use In Medieval Europe
(Cambridge University Press 1988)

An expanded list for the Margaret Kerr and Owen Archer mysteries is available on my website:
www.candacerobb.com