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Denzel, Markus A. (Göttingen RWG) [German version] A. Introduction (CT) A lively discussion, initiated by Dopsch in 1918-20 and taken up by Pirenne in 1922, has developed and continues to this day concerning the question of the continuity of trade, especially in the Mediterranean, from Antiquity into post-Antiquity. It must be said, however, that the gap between the supporters of unimpeded continuity and those who suggest a profound, long-lasting break in development has in the meantime greatly narrowed. …

Denzel, Markus A. (Göttingen RWG) [German version] A. Introduction (CT) A. Introduction The monetary forms that have developed from pieces of precious metals since the 7th cent. BC, whose value was guaranteed by the ruler or the community, and their increasingly dominant role in the economy of the Mediterranean region gradually displaced the much older way of payment in kind in all its forms (stone, ring and tooth, jewelry, clothing, money tokens as well as formed and unformed metal money). In Alexander the Great’s empire (and later in the Roman Empire), there was a uniform (long distance trade) currency that permitted handling the exchange of goods in terms of payment even over long distances in a relatively problem-free manner. No later than during the flowering of the Roman Principate (1st/2nd cent.), the money economy became a common property of all inhabitants of the Empire. Therefore, the continued effect of the ancient monetary economy and its media was varied but since Late Antiquity also differential…