I always knew there’s nothing new under the sun, but I hadn’t really expected to find out that there was a true medieval credit crunch. But according to News for Medievalists there were indeed problems with the banking system at the time of Edward I in the 1290s. There is indeed nothing new!
One thought on “Medieval Credit Crunch”
Comments are closed.
I bet the Romans and Greeks had them too and what about Stone Age or Anglo Saxons? Actually probably not unless they also had a banking system. It seems as though this sort of thing is connected to the banking system. If you have a purely agrarian society then its prosperity stands or falls on an annual basis on the quality and quantity of the harvest. In the case of the Ancient Egyptians by whether the Nile flooded or not. Interesting – history of credit crunches anyone?