Silver Production in Central Europe, 1450-1618

Abstract

t X zHE history of silver is one of the few topics treated by economic historians which has caught the attention of civil servants, of A other administrators, and of students of economics. Any general interest in economic history is welcome, for the development of this subject in its broader aspects, in its relations to other branches of history, can help pave the way for a fresh understanding of the history of civilization. The public interest in the history of silver can be explained to a considerable degree by its relation to the history of money and prices. Its importance for the recent history of civilization is small. But in the Middle Ages and at the beginning of the modern age, when credit was relatively little developed, the supplies of silver played a greater part than they do today in determining the wealth and political power of sovereign states. During the Middle Ages and until the thirties of the sixteenth century most of the supplies for all the European countries had come from Germany and from other parts of the disintegrating Holy Roman Empire to the south and east. With the discovery of rich mines in South and Central America, the chief source of supplies shifted abruptly from central Europe to the New World, at a time when months were usually required to make the hazardous journey from Germany across the Atlantic. Adolf Soetbeer's enterprising work on the output of precious metal since the discovery of America,2 has been the accepted source for figures concerning the production of silver in central Europe for some