Monday, August 15, 2016

How did the logistics of money work back when money only existed tangibly?

I watched a few episodes of Game of Thrones recently (don't think I'm going to continue - the gory parts visit me in my dreams - so you don't have to worry about spoiling me), and I found myself wondering how the logistics of money worked in that era.

(I know Game of Thrones isn't actually a historical era, but there would have been a period of time when money worked similarly in real-life history.)

At various points in the story, wealthy characters go on extremely long journeys. Sometimes during these journeys they need to spend money on things, and sometimes not all these expenses are anticipated. For example, at one point, a character invites another character to travel with him and offers to pay his way.  At another point, a character who has temporarily relocated to the king's castle while leaving most of his household at home in his own castle hires a swordfighting instructor for his daughter, even though, when he left home, he didn't know this would be a necessity.

Since they didn't have bank accounts or the ability to wire money, their money was actual coins, or perhaps jewels and other valuables.  So if they're away from home (where, presumably, their actual tangible money lives), they have to take some coins with them to cover their expenses during the journey.

But what if they misestimate their expenses and run out of the coins that they brought with them, but still have plenty of money at home in their keep or vault or Scrooge McDuck-style money room or wherever it was they'd keep their wealth?  Was there some for them to get more money other than sending a runner for it?  (If so, were there occasionally fraudulent runners coming to castles where the lord was away and saying they'd been sent by the lord to bring him 1000 gold coins?) Or did nobility occasionally get stranded on their journeys because they didn't bring enough coins with them?

2 comments:

laura k said...

In some places and times, it would have been the obligation of the peasants to scrape together what the nobleman needed! Then freeloading noble was supposed to later bestow gifts on peasantry. I don't know how common or rare this was, or what nobility did if this wasn't part of the social norms.

impudent strumpet said...

I'm surprised that would work given the enormous gaps between nobility and peasants! Like, I wouldn't have thought the peasants have enough between them to feed the noble and their entourage in the style to which they're accustomed for even a day.