The custom of paying in money

From 2014, I found this just now in my test & development area. It's not a final draft, but it's time to blog it!

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 Adam Smith, at EconLib:

The revenues of the ancient Saxon kings of England are said to have been paid, not in money but in kind, that is, in victuals and provisions of all sorts. William the Conqueror introduced the custom of paying them in money.⁷² This money, however, was, for a long time, received at the exchequer, by weight and not by tale.⁷³

That quote struck me when I read the paperback Wealth of Nations years back. At Econlib, however, footnote 72 disputes Smith's claim that William the Conqueror started paying the help in cash:

['King William the First, for the better pay of his warriors caused the firmes which till his time had for the most part been answered in victuals, to be converted in pecuniam numeratam.'—Lowndes, Report containing an Essay for the Amendment of the Silver Coins, 1695, p. 4. Hume, whom Adam Smith often follows, makes no such absurd statement, History, ed. of 1773, vol. i., pp. 225, 226.]

Absurd, then. I was a little disappointed to read that, as I've held on to that quote since the 1980s (or since whenever I first read The Wealth of Nations). But I went looking for Hume, History, volume i, pages 225-226, and I made out pretty well.

At Liberty Fund, volume 1 of David Hume's The History of England, [1778]. Nothing to quote, really, for Hume does not say "William did not pay his people in money" and Hume does not say "Smith is a jerk for saying such things". Nothing specific that's relevant. I would point out, though, that The Wealth of Nations was published two years before Hume's 1778 volume, so maybe Smith was unlikely to "follow Hume" in this particular case.

At the Liberty Fund link, the page numbers are embedded in the text!! (In case you were wondering how I found pages 225 and 6.) Just search for the page number in square brackets: [225] for example, or [226]. I don't know for a fact that Liberty Fund and the EconLib footnote refer to the same edition of Hume's work with the same page numbering, but in this case it seems a fair guess.

http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/hume-the-history-of-england-vol-1

So, okay, well... What does Hume have to say on the subject? I searched for coin. I found coincide a couple times, and coined. The fifth hit was a relevant one. Page [278]:

It is said, i that this prince, from indulgence to his tenants, changed the rents of his demesnes, which were formerly paid in kind, into money, which was more easily remitted to the Exchequer. But the great scarcity of coin would render that commutation difficult to be executed, while at the same time provisions could not be sent to a distant quarter of the kingdom. This affords a probable reason, why the ancient kings of England so frequently changed their place of abode: They carried their court from one palace to another, that they might consume upon the spot the revenue of their several demesnes.

Which prince?... Henry... in the early 1100s... King Henry

In other respects, he executed justice, and that with rigour; the best maxim which a prince in that age could follow. Stealing was first made capital in this reign:c False coining, which was then a very common crime, and by which the money had been extremely debased, was severely punished by Henry.d Near fifty criminals of this kind were at one time hanged or mutilated; and though these punishments seem to have been[278] exercised in a manner somewhat arbitrary, they were grateful to the people, more attentive to present advantages, than jealous of general laws.

//I have some other note that says HENRY started paying in money
//find that old note for this post Art

This is from my son's high school history book (Welty and Greenblatt pp.587-589):

The first nation-state to develop in Western Europe was England. The story begins with the conquest of Anglo-Saxon England by William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, in 1066.

William imposed his own type of feudal system on England. He took away much of the land that had belonged to Anglo-Saxon nobles and gave it to his personal followers. However, he did not completely trust these nobles so the manors he gave them were widely scattered.

At the time the nobles (like the kings, I presume) had to travel from one manor to another and consume their 'taxes' in kind.

William also required that the nobles take an oath of allegiance to him. Decentralization of authority was basic to the feudal system, but the new Norman ruler wanted as much power as possible in his own hands.

William's successors continued to try to lessen the power of the nobles. Henry I (1100-1135) began to pay his officials salaries, making them more dependent upon him. He also established a royal court and a treasury that audited the accounts of the kingdom. Henry established one system of law for all his subjects. It incorporated much from both Anglo-Saxon and feudal customs and practices.

Okay. The part about William the Conqueror is for context. Henry I came later. Henry I (1100-1135) began to pay his officials salaries...

Forget the part about "making them more dependent on him". Maybe that follows, maybe it doesn't. But if it wasn't William the Conqueror -- or "William the Bastard" as he is sometimes called -- who started paying his people in coin, then it was Henry not long after William. 1100 is not that long after 1066.

So: After the Dark Age, in Charlemagne's time, 800AD, coin started coming back. And then, some 300 years later, governments started paying people in coin.

Things moved slowly in those days.