This issue is the proceedings of the 59th annual conference of the Socio-Economic History Society which was held at Matsuyama University from September 22 to, 24, 1990. The common theme for this conference was "Economic History of Money in Tokugawa Japan, with special reference to Small Money". Professors T. HARADA (Tezukayama University) and T. HAMASHITA (Tokyo University) chaired the symposium. I gave an introductory paper entitled "Small Money and Economic Development", then five papers followed. Studies of Tokugawa monetary history have been focussed on gold and silver money, but I would like to stress that the small money circulated had relevance to economic development in later Tokugawa Japan. In this case the concept of small money is defined as what consisted of not only copper coins and hansatsu (a kind of paper money issued by local lords), but also small gold and silver coins which were necessary for common people's living. To give a piece of evidence, the small money share to the total amount of money circulation increased gradually through the Tokugawa period, that is, it was barely 15 % till the middle of 18th century, but increased to 37 % at the beginning of 19th century, then to 52 % in 1832, to 69 % in 1858, and finally to 92 % in 1869, while, as is well-known, local economy was developping remarkably during the same period. In short, I think it should be asked how the small money contributed to economic growth in not only early modern Japan but also in medieval Japan, western Europe, and Ch'ing China. The five articles are as follows: Y. MORIMOTO introduces the recent European argument about denarius, a small silver coin, that emerged in place of gold coins in early medieval western Europe. T. KAMIKI shows how the role of copper coins changed in the monetary system from the medieval ages through the 16th century when it was the only money. There are two papers on the small money in the Tokugawa period. T. FUJIMOTO makes a survey of copper coins and hansatsu, and R. MIKAMI examines small gold and silver coins. Finally, A. KURODA introduces the case of Ch'ng China where both silver and copper coins were in circulation.

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This paper, written by a specialist of the economic history of the Western Middle Ages, aims to give an illustration of the positive roll which small value money could play in economic growth, the case being taken from the silver monometalism from the end of the 7th until the middle of the 13th century. The denarius (penny), only type of money coined by Western mints during this period, was well adaptive to the needs of the time, because of its small value compared to that of the gold coins prevailing in the preceding age or in the contemporary Islamic and Byzantine worlds. As to the Western countries of this age, there are various evidences of social and economic development at local or regional levels, which stimulated the use of money even among peasants and artisans. Having traced the historiography of European countries towards this positive appreciation of the medieval silver monometallism, the author approaches some problems, particularly related to the function of denorius in favour of economic growth, around its birth in the Merovingian period, its institutional consolidation under Carolingian kings and its regional adaptation in the 10th and 11th centuries.

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The purpose of this paper is to trace the change of the monetary system from the medieval ages to the early modern ages and to clarify the characteristics of the newly established monetary system. I. The monetary system of medieval Japan 1) There was no power who possessed the monetary vereignty (the monopolistic right of coinage), and therefore, 2) demand for money was met by importing copper coins from China and making domestic use of them, and in relation to non-monopoly of the monetary sovereignty, 3) gold and silver were not minted until Sengoku period, the latter half of the fifteenth century. As mentioned above, a great many copper coins had been imported from china and used as domestic currency in medieval Japan. Seventy or eighty percent of them consisted of those which were minted in Northern Sung China (960-1127), the rest containing coins minted in Korea, Annam (Vietnam) and other Asian countries. In China they suffered from continual shortage of money in spite of increase in number of coinage. One of the reasons of coin shortage is that there was a rise in demand for coins in the country, but the other, major and more important, is that coins minted in China were widely used as domestic currency in many Asian countries, not to speak of Japan. In other words, Chinese copper coin was a kind of "international currency", or common currency in Asian economic world. Both Kamakura and Muromachi Shogunate have not issued their own currency, but admitted to use Chinese coins as means of payment. It is not said that they could not get copper as material of coin, nor that they had no technique to mint coin. It was more advantageous for them to import coins from China and to admit to use them than to mint their own coins, because the Chinese coins had already circulated in Asian countries and established the position of "international currency". II. Establishment of the early modern monetary system In 1601, prior to establishment of the Shogunte (1603), Tokugawa Ieyasu put the gold and silver mine in Sado under his direct rule, succeeding in monopolizing the monetary sovereignty. Tokugawa Shogunate issued several kinds of gold coins in tail and silver coins in weight. The aim of its policy was to establish the monetary system based on gold coin. With the issue of gold and silver coins, the Shogunate determined the exchange rate between three kinds of metals including copper, that is ; 1 ryo of gold=4,000 mon of copper coin=50 monme of silver. We must point out that the exchange rate between gold and copper coin was set favorably to gold, since in actual transaction at that time 1 ryo of gold was roughly equivalent to 1,500mon of copper coins. The Shogunate intended to consolidate its financial position by raising the relative value of gold it succeeded to monopolize. In medieval Japan only copper coins were exclusively used for payment. In this sense we might call the medieval monetary system "single copper coin system". In contrast to this, Tokugawa Shogunate got the monopolistic right of coinage and established the early modern monetary system based on gold.

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This paper is concerned with two sides of problem of the monetary system in the Tokugawa period: zeni (銭) and hansatsu (domain notes 藩札) It is well known that three different kinds of coin-gold, silver and zeni-were used in the Tokugawa, period. While gold coins were circulated in the eastern part of Japan, silver coins were used mainly in the western part. In spite of its small value, only zeni found a extensive use all over the country. It is true that zeni played a part as subsidiary money in the course of the development of commodity production. But we don't lose sight of the fact that zeni also penetrated into the daily life of larger parts of tradesmen and peasants. We can easily demonstrate it, by thinking of its use as price indicator of rice and wheat as well as transation in land. It was against such a background that a special system of calculating money, so called monme-sen (匁銭), developed in the western part, especially in a great number of han in Kyushu, although its circulation was confined to the territory of each han. We turn then to the hansatsu. It was issued at first as means of circulation for a substitute of metallic money. But later on, especially as the importance of money as means of payment increased, it began to take the function of credit money which followed the same economic role as a bill. In other words, hansatsu changed its character gradually from "domain notes" to credit money during the late Tokugawa period. We can regard this change as a symptom of domain's trying to get cut of the economic regulations from the Tokugawa-bakufu. In this perspective, it should be tinderstood, why the Meiji Restration had such a difficult delivery that was represented in a civil war carried by the alliance of great han.

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It is the purpose of this paper to focus on gold and silver coins, not on the standard coins but especially on fractional ones in the latter part of the Tokugawa period, and to show how they were introduced, and hence their significance in the Tokugawa monetary system. It is usually understood that the gold coin was koban and the silver chogin. Chogin was a currency by weight. In the late eighteenth century, for the purpose of rebuilding national economy and supplying more currency in circulation, the bakufu minted "Meiwa nanryo 2-shu ban". Despite the fact that it was a silver coin, it was currency not by weight but by tale equal to the gold coin. With this Meiwa nanryo, moreover, the de facts gold standard was established in Japan because it was the subsidiary coin to the gold coin-koban. The year was 1772. As the bakufu was troubled continuously by financial straits, it applied the idea of Meiwa nanryo to the gold coin. The bakufu minted many more fractional gold coins as subsidiary to koban in order to get an extra (deme) revenue. But by dint of the contradiction between the standard and subsidiary in the gold coin system, Gresham's law went into action. Society in the eighteenth century was throwe into confusion by these gractional gold and silver coins. One ryo was 4.1 momme, which was equal to 15.37 grain gold in weight at the start of the Tokugawa monetary system in the Keicho period, but the ratio went down to 1.5 grams at the final stage of the Tokugawa period. This decrctase in fineness of the gold coins was caused in large part by the fractional coins. This gold parity of one ryo was succeeded as the gold parity of the yen by the Meiji government.

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Agricultural societies always have large seasonal fluctuation of money demand. Harvest seasons need large amount of small value currencies which are handed to scattered peasants, while much of these currencies are hoaded within regions during the farmers' slack seasons. So that, currencies had two inconsistent functions before managed monetary system appeared. One is as local currency which circulates and stagnates in corresponding with local money demand fluctuation. The other is as interregional currency which persistently guarantees universal value. Monetary system of the Qing dynasty splited two functions into silver bullion as inter-regional currency and copper cash as local currency. They dindn't set up any fixed exchange ratio between two currencies. This swaying system played a role in preventing emergence of autonomous local mints. Moreover, considerable supply of official copper cash under the divided system in the 18th century guided Chinese society to overvalue local products and local currency against silver. Undervalue of silver purchasing power, led local economy to refrain from forming trade surplus oriented structure. Continuous silver influx following the 16th century incured pro-trade bias over China. Then Chinese empire selected a way of stabilizing local economy by disuniting internal and external liquidity. But world-wide appreciation of raw material after 1890's provoked exessive demand of peasant products and local currency to an unknown extent, so that gradually transformed the divorced monetary system into united one which consisted of silver dollar and bank note.

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