55 - Concerning the coins which King Fernando changed, and of the different values which he placed on each

Summary

Portugal suffered two great setbacks from the war which King Fernando had started to wage against King Enrique, setbacks which his people felt very deeply. The first was the waste of vast quantities of gold and silver formerly stored up by previous monarchs and from which treasure, because of the war, a very considerable quantity of gold was taken to Aragon, as you have already heard. The second setback, similarly, was the waste of huge amounts of silver caused by the change in the coinage which the king brought about in order to defray the immense expenditure involved in paying the troops and in other disbursements on things which were needed for the war. Consequently, prices rose afterwards to such a high and unreasonable level as to require, indeed force, the king to fix the prices of everything and to alter the value which he had originally allotted to such coins.

Accordingly, it is important that you should know that in the time of King Dinis, the great-grandfather of King Fernando, coins circulated in general in Portugal which were known as ‘old dinheiros’, a dozen of which made one soldo, and 20 soldos 1 libra, while 27 soldos made 1 ‘old maravedí’, which was current north of the Douro. Fifteen of these soldos were the equivalent of a different maravedí, which was used in Estremadura and the other parts of the kingdom.

100 maravedís of the variety equivalent to 15 soldos constituted the life income of any squire who was the vassal of the king. These 100 maravedís were worth 75 libras, which were approximately equivalent to five and a half silver marks. That was because for 14 libras of these ‘old dinheiros’ one could obtain in legal tender one silver mark of 11 dinheiros, and that was the rate at which it was purchased. In that coinage, one French gold écu was worth 3 libras, yet that écu is worth less than a crossed dobra but more than a crown. Moreover, one French gold franc was worth 2 ½ libras, for at that time in France neither crowns nor dobras existed.