Irish Coinage and Italian Merchants in the Reign of Edward I.

King Edward I needed money to finance his wars in Wales, France, and Scotland. He raised loans from Italian firms, to whom he entrusted the administration of customs, the mints, and the exchanges in England and Ireland. In Ireland, the Italians played a particularly important role during a recoinage in 1281, which introduced a new design for the silver penny. The silver for this coinage came from outside Ireland, showing that there was a positive balance of trade, with increasing monetization. Unpublished records from the Dublin exchange illustrate the process of the recoinage, and the dubious practices of the administration. They also show the major customers of the exchange, the people with large sums to exchange, presumably derived from exporting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]