This book examines the monetary and financial structures of pre–industrial capitalism from the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries. The coverage ranges widely across the whole of Europe with particular attention to the role of the money supply in long term economic movements. The author also discusses the question of business cycles and financial crises as dealt with by historians of the French Annales school, notably by Marc Bloch and Fernand Braudel. Themes addressed include the diverse economies operating in Europe during this time contrasting, for example, the advanced exchange economy of Renaissance Venice with the economic dependency of Sardinia. The perennial 'problem of the standard', a key to our understanding of monetary mechanisms in any age, is treated on a country by country basis covering the entire five centuries of merchant capitalism.