The main cause for the bullion famine was outflow of silver to the East unequaled by European mining output. The historian John Day supports this theory, stating the loss of gold and silver was due to large-scale trading with the
Levant, which provided Europe spices, silks, rare dyestuffs, pearls, and precious gems. The primary markets for these goods were found in Egypt, Syria and Cyprus. Fifteenth-century contemporaries believed the bullion famine to be caused by hoarding.
Şevket Pamuk, professor of economics and economic history, states the bullion famine was exacerbated by the increase in the hoarding of coin. However, the historian Diana Wood states that the silver shortage exacerbated economic problems already caused by war, famine, and plague. During the first half of the 14th century, European mining more than compensated the bullion loss from trade with the
Middle East. Prior to the
Black Death, the loss of silver in England was caused by "accident and export". Yet by 1348, the
Black Death had slowed silver mining. The mint at Bordeaux suffered a drop in production by fifty percent during the 1380s, and by 1392 French mints were suffering an accelerated decline in silver coining. By contrast, from 1346 to 1384, Flemish mints continued to produce silver groats, yet by 1392 the mint at Ghent had stopped coining and the Bruges mint fell idle in 1402. In the 1390s, the silver mints in
Kutná Hora declined and the following
Hussite Wars and the
Sardinian–Aragonese war put a further strain on the European precious metal supply.
France By 1405 French gold crowns were hardly issued at all, and in 1409 Parisian money-changers declared they could not sell bullion to the mint at any price. Even the ducal mints of
John, Duke of Burgundy, stopped minting coins by 1432–1434. From 1400 to 1420, gold coins were no longer circulated in Toulouse. In 1414–1415, the Bordelais' Three Estates, faced with reports of a failure of circulating silver, appealed for action to be taken.
England The English mint in Durham suffered a decline in output until its closure from 1394 to 1412. By 1411, the English sterling had been devalued to prevent silver loss in trade with Flanders. The London mint's bullion famine was partially mitigated by the reminting of old heavy coins to the new lighter standards which took effect in 1412. While the lightening of the gold English
noble occurred from 1421 to 1524. The fine weight of a pound under the reign of
Edward IV decreased by 35% compared to its value under
Edward III.
Italy During the 1370s, the mines in Serbia and Bosnia allowed Venice to avoid the worst of the silver shortage, but the bullion loss drained silver mines in Bohemia and Sardinia as quickly as it was mined. By 1420, gold was sent to the
Fondaco dei Tedeschi in Venice, thence to the mint and then used in trade with the
Mamluk Sultanate. The expansion of the Ottoman Empire into the Balkans had worsened the supply of bullion from mines to the rest of Europe, and this expansion exposed Venice to the silver famine until the discovery of new silver mines in northern Europe in the 1450s and 1460s. By 1495, Venice merchants were using copper coinage to conduct trade for spices with the Mamluk Sultanate. Prior to
Vasco de Gama's voyage in 1497, Venetian trade exported 300,000 ducats in bullion to
Alexandria every year.
Holy Roman Empire (1460) Throughout the
Late Middle Ages, there had been an inflation of different German coins. This led to the rise of new
jetons like the pounds and . The fineness of
Vienna pfennige fell from 9⅓
Lot silver during the reign of
Rudolf IV (1358–1365) to mere 5 Lot in 1453–1457 under
Ladislaus the Posthumous. The exchange course for a
Hungarian forint to a Vienna pfennige rose from 150 pfennige to in 1400 to 240 in 1455. Even in the 16th century,
Hamburg and
Lübeck struggled to finance the trade with
Livonia and Russia. Unlike other regions, the inflation in Southern Germany during the mid-15th century was not triggered by a combination of different causes but rather the privatization of the
minting rights for short-termed financials profits. To finance his conflict with his brother
Albert VI,
Frederick III issued the black pfennig in 1457 and the minting rights became more widespread to increase revenue which became example for other South German states. Just in 1459, the fineness fell from 2½ Lot to ½ Lot. The exchange course of the so-called
Schinderlinge to Hungarian forint surged from 222 pfennige per forint in early 1458 to 3,686 pfennige in 1460. In 1460, the original situation was restored.
Spain Spain suffered an economic crisis due to the bullion famine, and yet the famine, and with it the search for gold, drove the exploration and conquest of the
New World. The exchange rate of
Maravedí to a
Cologne mark rose from 500 in 1390 to 1,000 in 1406 and eventually to 2,250 in 1454.
Egypt By 1397–1398, the silver famine had spread to the
Mamluk Sultanate which terminated the minting of silver dirhams. Consequently, importing slaves from the Black Sea region was an immense drain on Mamluk coin supply.
Ottoman Empire In the Ottoman Empire, despite the capture of Serbian and Bosnian silver mines,
Mehmed II imposed strict laws to limit silver circulation. Any bullion produced or imported to the Ottoman Empire was to be submitted to the mint and coined. Included in this law was the employment of
yasakci kuls (silver seekers) who were authorized to search any and all persons and places and confiscate silver. Despite these measures the Ottoman Empire also suffered from the silver famine. ==Famine==