In old poems, the value of weapons or people was measured in cattle.
Trust the words, but question the numbers.
Money as Depicted in Literature
We will examine life in past eras by reading about payments, poverty, and wealth as they appear in the works of Homer and in Japanese classics.
Time to read the text: about 6 min
The review questions are optional and not included in this time.
What you can read: the course opening and contents are free; the full text is for those who have purchased
After purchase, you can read the full text once your access starts.
Money in Literature in 3 Minutes
1See it
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1181–82
An essay by a single hermit recorded what Kyoto was like during a famine.
Account books record prices, but not the people on the street who couldn't pay.
An autobiography written by the accuser. It's detailed, but the other side of the story is missing.
Use the details, but verify the claims with other sources.
A man who seized the throne engraved a line from a famous poem on his coins.
A declaration: 'I am part of the legitimate story of Rome.'
Anecdotes from war chronicles can't be taken as historical fact.
Even so, the fact that the story was told that way is, itself, a fact.
Yuan Datou, Blondie, Greenback. These are all nicknames people gave to money.
Money gets a nickname when it becomes part of everyday life.
From epic poems to nicknames, all words related to money can be historical sources.
You need to know how to question things, and also how to gather information.
2What would you do?
A later war chronicle says, 'A certain warlord wanted a single tea utensil more than a whole province, and was disappointed when he didn't get it.' How would you use this story?
Pick one
Use it as historical fact, just as it is.
The course's verdict is 'You can't take it as historical fact as is.' That's because this story appears in later tea ceremony books and war chronicles.
Question if it happened, but use the fact that the story was told.
This is the two-layered way of reading. Even if we don't know if it's true, we can see that for the storytellers, the idea of 'a tea utensil over a province' was a natural way to think about value.
A literary perspective means questioning, but not discarding.
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What you will understand after this course
- Can cite actual examples of literature recording "things that ledgers do not write".
- Can situate the "Hojoki" and "Oritaku Shiba no Ki" as historical sources for monetary history.
- Can practice the method of using war tales, anecdotes, and later narratives with reservations.
More about this course
Course number: F3
Supervised by: Mitsuru Hayama
Beyond the text: 6 exercises · 1 coins · 5 readings How reading times are calculated
You will also understand
- Can read the nicknames and pet names of currency as historical sources for the language of daily life.
You can start this course without reading any other course.
If you want to know more about checking sources (optional)
- Is It Really True? Checking History
We re-examine the origins of money and famous anecdotes, comparing them with historical records and actual artifacts.
Assessment
6 exercises in this course (4 check, 1 compare, 1 written). Progress is recorded by self-assessment.
The 6 chapters of this course
- Worth So Many Cattle — A Measure of Value in Epic PoetryHomer described the value of armour and people in terms of cattle. Literature preserves the language of value from before the advent of money.
- The person who wrote of the capital in famine — Prices in the 『Hōjōki』'For two years, the world suffered from starvation and thirst'—a single line from an essay became a primary source for the economics of a famine.
- The Man Who Wrote the Impeachment — *Oritaku Shiba no Ki*Hakuseki's autobiography is a first-rate primary source from a participant. It is also a source that must be read with an awareness of the author's inherent bias.
- Poetry on Coins — The Inscriptions of VirgilA usurper quoted poetry on his coins. The authority of literature became a cloak for the legitimacy of the coinage.
- How to Handle War Chronicles and Anecdotes — The Spoken GoldAnecdotes from military chronicles cannot be taken as direct historical fact. Nevertheless, what was told is itself an undeniable historical fact.
- Coin Nicknames — Literature in Everyday LanguageYuan's Big Head, the blonde girl, the green back. Nicknames are the smallest literature written by the populace on their currency.
Readings (5)
- The Jishō–Juei War Japan 1181–1182 The banks of the Kamo River, Kyoto
Section 2. Witnessing a line from the "Hōjōki" become a historical source on the economics of famine. - The century of recoinage Japan 1714 Edo
Section 3. "Oritaku Shiba no Ki" — An autobiography as a double-edged historical source. - The usurper's mint Britain 296 Londinium retaken
Section 4. The usurper who quoted Virgil. The politics of quotation. - Nobunaga Japan the 1570s–1582 Azuchi and Kyoto
Section 5. The verdict "cannot be taken as historical fact" and the value of the second layer. - The civil war Spain 1937 A town on the republican side
Section 6. The everyday language of giving nicknames, which did not disappear even in wartime.
Read next
Dollar, Yen, Bank—The Origin of Words →What you learn next: Can explain currency names derived from units of weight (Peso, Pound, Mark, Monme), including their lineage.
Time to read the text: about 6 min ／ What you can read: the course opening and contents are free; the full text is for those who have purchased
Price
After purchase, the full courses, the illustrated books, every country’s story and the numismatics examination are open to you.
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