ABSTRACT
Over the course of several centuries, the emergence of money and the market reshaped knowledge, the state, institutions, and the production of space. Coinage emerged before the Christian era. The phenomenon of coinage, rather than direct exchange of ingots or bullion, indicates a symbolic function. The political strategy of nation-states was influenced by the role of coin and bullion. In the medieval and early modern period, the corporate form was important for innovations in governance, which included the church, commune, guild, company, and bank, as well as the liberal state based on mobile financial property. One form of public debt was the dowry fund. The role of trade extended horizontal connections, and the hierarchy of finance changed relationships within the firm and the city, as well as among cities. There was a tipping point of succession of forms of the state, from religious, then secular self-governing communes, to hereditary monarch, to the mercantile and liberal state.
