At the beginning of February, Marcus Meer’s project ‘Money, History, and Moral Economies: Communicative Functions of Monetary Information in the Institutional Historiography of the Later Middle Ages (1250–1530)’ welcomed Gabriele Passabì to the team. Together, Dr Meer and Dr Passabì will look at why medieval chronicles abound in specific numeric references to sums of money (such as prices, taxes, debts, exchange rates) and broader discussions of monetary topics (about the debasement of currency, or problems with inflation or deflation, for example). Monetary rhetoric, the project argues, was a versatile communicative tool used in medieval chronicles to serve institutional strategies of remembering the past for the needs of the (medieval) present and to frame aspirations for the future. By investigating the monetary rhetoric of chronicles produced by and for cities, monasteries (both men’s and women’s), and courts in England, the Low Countries, and northern Germany between the thirteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the project will trace different manifestations of expanding monetary consciousness(es) and the economic thought and practice that accompanied them. In this post, they give a glimpse of their current work.
Continue reading Measures of Success and Failure: Remembering Money in Medieval History WritingAuthor: Gabriele Passabì
Gabriele Passabì is a historian of medieval Europe in the High Middle Ages (c.1000-1300) with special expertise on England and Normandy. He specializes in the study of medieval historiography and its relationships with historical thought, political culture, social identity, and temporality. In 2026 he joined the German Historical Institute London as a Research Associate in Medieval History.