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Debasements, Royal Revenues, and Inflation in France During the Hundred Years' War, 1415–1422

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Nathan Sussman
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario N6A 5C2, Canada.

Abstract

Historians of the period have generally played down the debasement of France's coinage to increase crown revenues during the Hundred Years' War or treated it as a last resort and an inept one. Based on archival data and an analytical framework drawn from the modern literature on inflation tax, this article supports challengers of that view, showing that debasement was an effective instrument of public finance.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1993

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