ABSTRACT
In the movement of precious metals between the medieval Islamic world and Christendom, a crucial role was played by the silver-gold ratio, the figure which expresses the number of units of silver required to buy a unit of gold. Whenever this ratio was not the same in the two regions—and it almost never was—the difference in ratios signified that gold was valued more highly, and silver less highly, in one region than in the other. Gold and silver tend to shift away from areas where they are undervalued and to go where they are more highly valued. Some gold was minted in Europe between 1000 and 1250, mostly, however, in peripheral regions. The very large output of silver coins in the Latin kingdoms in the thirteenth century seems to have displaced somewhat the European coins which, it has been suggested, circulated widely in the East during the previous century.
