[202] The coinage of the Crown of Castile, unlike that of most of western Europe in the Middle Ages, was not based on the Carolingian currency but on that of the western Muslims. Thus the earliest known gold coins in Castile, minted in Toledo for Alfonso VIII in the late twelfth century, had the same value as the dinars which had been minted by the earlier, Almoravid dynasty. They were called morabetinos (from Ar. murabiti, 'a relative to the Almoravids'), which developed into maravedís. Alfonso's son, Henry I, continued to mint gold maravedís during his short reign, but his sister Berenguela and his nephew Ferdinand III made a coin which was equivalent to the Muslim half-dinar, or masmudina. This was also called a maravedí, although its value was only three-fifths of that of the maravedí of Alfonso VIII. After this new, lower-value coin appeared, the Muslim dinar became known among the Castilians as the 'double' maravedí, or dobla. The Christians' version of the dobla survived in Castile until it was replaced by a copy of the Venetian ducat, the ducado, in 1497. The Muslim rulers in North Africa and Granada meanwhile continued to mint masmudinas up to the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella.

The ancient measure of Mecca, ordained by Muhammad for the use of the faithful and known in Castilian as the mitcal de la ley, continued to be the basis for measuring the metal content of the Castilian coinage in the late Middle Ages. The Castilian mark was thus smaller than that used in the rest of western Europe, so as to correspond with the mitcal. The dobla survived in this form until the reign of the Catholic Monarchs, but there were many vicissitudes in the history of Castilian coins in the intervening years, not least in the reigns of John II and Henry IV. One complication was the minting by John II of some doblas which were made out of the metal of coins from Muslim Málaga. These were called doblas de la banda and were current for many years, although they were not of such fine metal as the doblas of the traditional type, which in that reign were called doblas cruzadas, after the cross which was included in their design.

At the Cortes of Segovia in 1471, Henry IV attempted to put an end to the monetary anarchy then prevailing in his realm. He revalued the gold currency by restoring the old dobla to replace the doblade la banda, calling it the enrique, castellano or dobla castellana. He also confirmed the real as the standard silver coin and the blanca and media (half-) blanca as low-value, silver alloy currency (vellón). The hundred or more legal mints and many illegal ones were reduced to six, in Burgos, La Coruña, Cuenca, Segovia, Seville and Toledo. The problem with so many of Henry IV's laws was that he lacked the means to enforce them, and Ferdinand and Isabella soon found it necessary to confirm the 1471 monetary ordinances. In their pragmatic, issued at Segovia on 20 February 1475, they took over Henry's coinage and fixed the values of the doblas and reales in terms of the [203] maravedí, which by the fifteenth century had degenerated into a vellón currency. Under the 1471 ordinances, only half- maravedís, or blancas, were minted. The 1475 pragmatic fixed the real at thirty maravedís. The standard gold coin, the dobla castellana, was entitled the excelente and valued at 870 mrs, while the enrique and castellano continued at 435 mrs. The dobla de la banda, which was still in circulation although no longer minted, was valued at 335 mrs.

The ordinary people of Castile were more concerned with the low-value, vellón coins than with gold and silver, and petitions in the Cortes tended to concentrate on the elimination of false blancas and the valuation of true coins. At Toledo in 1480, the procuradores to the Cortes complained of a shortage of vellón, which was making life difficult for the poor. In one of the ordinances of Toledo, in January 1480, the real had been valued at thirty-one maravedís of three blancas each. As a result, the quarter-real was worth 241 blancas, a fact which shows the need for smaller coins. In practice, the gap was filled by the use of foreign coins, such as tarjas (écus) from Béarn, France and Brittany and placas from Flanders. These supplemented Henry IV's blancas, which were gradually being used up, as the 1475 pragmatic had not ordered the minting of any more.

The most important document of Ferdinand and Isabella's reign concerning monetary matters was the pragmatic of Medina del Campo, dated 13 June 1497. Its main feature was a change from the excelente to the ducado as the main gold coin, 'because it was found that ducat coins are more common in all Christian kingdoms and provinces'. The Venetian ducat had been imitated earlier in the century by John II of Aragon, but its general adoption in Spain dates from 1497. The minting of ducats, double-ducats and half-ducats was ordered, but in fact most of the coins produced were double-ducats. The silver coinage was unchanged, apart from its design, but on this occasion blancas were ordered and a new valuation of coins was established. The value of a real was increased to thirtyfour maravedís and henceforth there were two blancas in a maravedí instead of three. The new gold ducat (ducado de oro), which was also known as the excelente de Granada, was valued at 375 mrs.

Although the 1497 coinage quickly became established and lasted until 1566 without significant alteration, the attempt in the Medina del Campo pragmatic to end the use of illegal or foreign vellón was unsuccessful. The intention was to call in all Castilian and foreign blancas then in circulation and melt them down to make the new vellón, but the shortage of Castilian blancas continued and tarjas and placas are referred to in Spain as late as 1566. During Ferdinand and Isabella's reign, the maravedí remained the standard money of account, although a coin of this value was no longer minted, and the dobla de la banda was still current, although it had in theory been replaced by Henry IV's dobla and the Catholic Monarchs' ducado. In the early sixteenth century, there was a growing tendency to reckon in reales or ducados, rather than maravedís, but an equivalent in terms of the latter can always be found by using the values in the 1497 pragmatic.

Where different tax-yields are compared in this work, they are given both in maravedís and in a gold equivalent. The coin selected for this purpose is the Aragonese form, which was minted in the Crown of Aragon in imitation of the Florentine original. This Aragonese coin had no part in the Castilian monetary reforms of 1497, but it has the advantage over the Castilian candidates for this purpose, the dobla de la banda and the ducado, that it was in circulation throughout the period. Ladero has supplied figures for the value of the Aragonese form in maravedís as follows:
 

1400	44
1430	52
1450	100
1465	150
1474	240
1480+	265

[204] In the conversion of totals from maravedís to forms, the nearest recorded value for the florin has been used. As each new ordinance probably acknowledged a revaluation of the form which had already taken place, such a practice inevitably involves some inaccuracy, but it is not possible to speculate on the value of coins in a given year, so that this risk must be run.

It is certainly arguable that precious metals are not an ideal indicator of the real value of money, because they are, in the medieval economy, poor guides to purchasing power. Most people made most of their purchases by means of Castilian or foreign, legal or illegal, vellón coins. This means that the prices of food and other basic commodities would give a better indication of the real value of the ordinary Castilian's money than the ever-increasing equivalent in maravedís of doblas, ducados and forms, which resulted from the bullion shortage which preceded the massive influx of precious metals from the New World.

Unfortunately there are serious difficulties in the use of commodity prices in fifteenth-century Castile. The main problem is that the available figures are irregular and unreliable. The adequate supply of grain was fundamental to the living standards of the population, but its price varied from day to day and, in times of scarcity, from hour to hour. It is possible to gain a fair impression of the prices of meat, olive oil and soap in Córdoba over the period 1493-1514, thanks to the actas capitulares, but this information unfortunately covers the least interesting period for prices, which followed Ferdindand and Isabella's efforts to stabilise the coinage. While the prices of these three commodities in Córdoba rose in that period by an average of forty-six per cent, such figures are no substitute for coin values, as they cover such a short period. In general, it appears that over a longer period the trend in prices was steadily upwards, but with marked reversals from time to time. It may well be that if fuller information on prices were available, the picture of the value of the maravedí which would emerge would not greatly differ from that obtained by the use of gold coins. This choice is not now open, however, though in the context of public and seignorial finance it is in any case more appropriate to quote values in terms of the gold currency.