Nicolaus Oresme, the De Moneta

Johnson, Charles, trans. The De Moneta of Nicolaus Oresme and The English Mint Documents. Auburn, Alabama: The Ludwig Von Mises Institute, 2009. Print.

Generally speaking, Oresme’s short treatise is concerned with the printing and maintenance of coin currency (De Moneta translates to The Mint after all). Oresme spends a great deal of time ranting about the practice of Seigniorage, or at least the misuse of that practice. As Woods discussed, Seigniorage could be used by governments to generate revenue by forcing subjects to exchange their current currency for new that has a lower percentage of precious metal. Oresme argues that this is particularly unjust in that it disgraces the memories of the monarch’s forebears, by replacing their visages on the coinage, leads to greed by generating wealth at the cost of the citizenry, and that this practice ultimately leads the monarch to act as a tyrant. For Oresme, the misuse of seigniorage is more vile than usury, as it does not simply ask for more than what was borrowed but actually returns less wealth to the citizenry in question. This issue was likely of particular interest to Oresme due to the continual misuse of seigniorage by French monarchs in the 13^th and 14^th centuries.

·         Oresme indicates that currency, in the end, should belong to the common people as it is intended for their use to facilitate exchange. As the ultimate representation of the people, the governmental leader of a country should thus be in charge of minting and maintaining currency.

o   There are certain instances in which Oresme believes that seigniorage is necessary, such as replacing worn currency or combating against counterfeiting, but Oresme sees all too often this practice is used to either generate profit or to feed the pride of a governing figure.

o   Oresme acknowledges that the monarchy/government should be able to recoup costs incurred through minting, but goes through a large logical exercise to in the end argue that this cost should be separate from the actual act of seigniorage as the temptation to turn that practice to injustice is to great.

·         Oresme also has a lot to say about foreign powers minting counterfeit, and containing less precious metal, coinage that in the end lowers the value of the domestic currency. While this is in itself a vile act, Oresme sees the misuse of seigniorage by monarchs as equally bad as this crime is committed against one’s own subjects.