Anyone who literally "hits money on the head" today intends to spend a lot of it lavishly.

The sentence actually had a different meaning.

Because in the Middle Ages it was customary to place coins on the counter when paying in a pub so that the number could be seen at the top - the top side was accordingly at the bottom.

In view of the large number of noble, ecclesiastical and urban minters, confusion quickly reigned at that time, and so for the people only the value of the coin, i.e. the number, played a role.

Daniel Schleidt

Deputy coordinator of the business editorial department in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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The rulers probably didn't like that.

After all, sovereigns wanted to express their special social position as “money makers” by issuing money.

Under this title, a special exhibition of the Deutsche Bundesbank in its money museum deals with a question that many people may not have asked themselves, but which is of great importance for the stability of states: Who actually determines what money is?

Johannes Beermann provides an answer: "Anyone who makes money has power," says the Bundesbank executive.

For this reason alone, the issue of money has always been in the hands of the state.

Beermann reminds us that money has changed again and again in its appearance - and with it the people and institutions that made money.

However, one conviction has run through the history of the moneymakers as a common thread: "In order to survive as an issuer of money, above all it needs the trust of the population, that is, of those who should use the money every day."

To be able to trust the value of money

For the owner of a coin in the Middle Ages, it was more important - be it in the tavern or on the market square - whether he could trust the value of the money than which sovereign had immortalized himself on the head. In this function, the logic of a functioning monetary system manifests itself: The complexity of the question of why one can buy valuable things with one bills, while others are completely worthless, no longer plays a role in the daily use of money if the people trust in the state and central bank is large. Or, as Johannes Beermann puts it: "The aim of a central bank must be that money becomes a matter of course as a store of value and means of payment." The form in which money was then actually used varied widely over the course of history and in different regions.as shown by the exhibition, which runs until May 2022. The huge iron spade, for example, that can be seen there and does not look like money at all according to today's ideas, was once a means of payment in Nigeria.