Kreditgeld in der römischen Antike

This study deals with the significance of credit money for the Roman economy, because an important sector of Roman financial economy has hitherto been ignored by focussing on coins. By doing so, it became possible for the first time to prove the existence of an original creation of credit money. A theoretical appraisal of credit money and a model for its creation are followed by a consideration of different types of credit money and their legal and economic classification. The negotiability of credit money, i. e. of debt claims for money, is being described by means of social networks and its creation within them is documented for Rome and Roman Egypt. Having proven the existence and creation of credit money, its importance for economy is investigated next. By doing so it turns out how great a role credit money played and how much it had been underestimated before. Certain problems of ancient economic history such as monetisation or financial crises only become understandable when credit money is included. Thus the origins of the modern monetary system, namely the creation and use of credit money, do not lie in 13th century Northern Italy, but are one and a half millennia older.