Which Ancient World civilisation(s) could realistically have developed bank notes?
The second criteria is a sophisticated bureaucracy to issue and keep track of fiat money.
Beyond the issue of trust there must be a demand for fiat money. Why add this complexity to a primitive financial system?
Anytime when the ruler is considered divine would be a boost to the credibility of money.
Um, why? The whole concept of cash is truly undemanding in terms of organization.
As to the making of money and verification of authenticity, embossed gold is also quite complicated.
And watch inflation soar so high it destroys the credibility of paper* money for goodness knows how long as its associated with that act. You won't be creating more money, you'll be debasing the currency only without the short term advantages.As said, a broke Emperor (or military) will soon learn how nice it is to create more money when it comes in handy.
China in the Middle Ages (don't want to look through my books for the exact date) had paper money that was fairly widely used. Then 1 or 2 of the stupider Emperors decided to do just this. Within 10 or 20 years people were refusing to accept the money and the whole idea collapsed.As said, a broke Emperor (or military) will soon learn how nice it is to create more money when it comes in handy.
And watch inflation soar so high it destroys the credibility of paper* money for goodness knows how long as its associated with that act. You won't be creating more money, you'll be debasing the currency only without the short term advantages.
And watch inflation soar so high it destroys the credibility of paper* money for goodness knows how long as its associated with that act. You won't be creating more money, you'll be debasing the currency only without the short term advantages.
England in the 10-12 century was particularly notorious for this practice. It was one of the many reasons it was a backwater, as no one wanted to trade with them.Didn't they do that anyway with metal coinage by debasing the currency in the literal sense of the word, mixing more and more base metal in until towards the end there was so little gold left in the coins that they were barely yellow in colour?
Didn't they do that anyway with metal coinage by debasing the currency in the literal sense of the word, mixing more and more base metal in until towards the end there was so little gold left in the coins that they were barely yellow in colour?
Personally, I would have though large scale adoption of paper currency would have to wait until the invention of the printing press, forging would be too easy before then.
Yes. This is exactly what I would expect Roman emperors to incur if they had had the opportunity.
Didn't they do that anyway with metal coinage by debasing the currency in the literal sense of the word, mixing more and more base metal in until towards the end there was so little gold left in the coins that they were barely yellow in colour?
Personally, I would have though large scale adoption of paper currency would have to wait until the invention of the printing press, forging would be too easy before then.
But that doesn't mean that gold coins are rejected entirely, just the debased ones. On the other hand, worthless paper will be seen as not even nominally currency - it'll just be paper with a doodle.
But then the gold's just based on it's perceived value, it could be argued that the bible was just doodles on paper but it can't be denied that it has value. Point is it can go either way, while gold is still a pure and malleable metal it doesn't have to be valuable. It could go the way of Persia and India where it was extremely valuable , or Songhai where salt was more valuable. Plus gold can be inflated too like when the Spanish brought back gold from the new world.
Didn't they do that anyway with metal coinage by debasing the currency in the literal sense of the word, mixing more and more base metal in until towards the end there was so little gold left in the coins that they were barely yellow in colour?
Personally, I would have though large scale adoption of paper currency would have to wait until the invention of the printing press, forging would be too easy before then.