Tally Money the history27 Nov 2018 04:37
Tally Money
Discussion
1. Ellen Brown:
(from chapter 5 of the book, Web of Debt:
"According to Stephen Zarlenga, who has traced the origins and history of money in his revealing compendium The Lost Science of Money, the use of coins as money did not originate with merchants trading in the marketplace. The first known coins were issued by governments; and their value was the value stamped on them, not the price at which the metal traded.
Zarlenga quotes Aristotle, who said:
- Money exists not by nature but by law. [It acts] as a measure [that] makes goods commensurate and equates them. . . . There must then be a unit, and that fixed by agreement.
Money was a mere fiat of the law. Fiat means “let it be done” in Latin. “Fiat money” is money that is legal tender by government decree. It is simply a “tally,” something representing units of value that can be traded in the market, a receipt for goods or services that can legally be tendered for other goods or services. In Mandarin China, where paper money was invented in the ninth century, this sort of fiat currency funded a long and prosperous empire. Fiat money was also used successfully in medieval England, but in England it was made of wood.
The English tally system originated with King Henry I, son of William the Conqueror, who took the throne in 1100 A.D. The printing press had not yet been invented, and taxes were paid directly with goods produced by the land. Under King Henry’s innovative system, payment was recorded with a piece of wood that had been notched and split in half. One half was kept by the government and the other by the recipient. To confirm payment, the two halves were matched to make sure they “tallied.” Since no stick splits in an even manner, and since the notches tallying the sums were cut right through both pieces of wood, the method was virtually foolproof against forgery. The tally system has been called the earliest form of bookkeeping.
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