Monetae cudendae ratio

Memoranda on the coinage were written by Nicolaus Copernicus first in Latin and then in his native German, advising the Prussian Landtag, the Hanseatic cities and the Polish king.

Copernicus lived as a canon in the Prince-Bishopric of Warmia, which was ruled by a prince-bishop, an office which his uncle had held Watzenrode Lucas ( 1447-1512 ). His successor as ermländischer Prince Bishop was Fabian of Lossainen (1470-1523); the Prince-Bishop was also President of the Prussian Landtag top of Prussia royal share. Hanseatic cities like Danzig, Elbing and his hometown Thorn coined its own money. Through trade with the Hanseatic League, the deterioration of the coins in the last years of the reign of the Teutonic Order in the Order of German state of Prussia, which was secularized in 1525, and strong trade with the Vistula upstream Poland saw itself against foreign exchange problems. The horseman War ( 1519-1521 ) aggravated the situation of the Prussian coinage. As the son of a merchant who traded copper with large quantities, Copernicus was aware of the problems.

Already in 1519, the year of the birth of Sir Thomas Gresham, recognized the as canon, mathematician, and later known as an astronomer Copernicus later known as Gresham's law rule that " bad money " repressed under certain conditions " good money " with high precious metal content, since the latter is then sealed. He made during his service in Olsztyn in Warmia notes ( Tractatus de Nicolai Monetis Copernici ) and reported it in 1522 before the Prussian Landtag in Graudenz in the then usual there Frühneuhochdeutsch. This has been logged, the lecture was reflected in Caspar contactor Historia Rerum Prussicarum and in Gdansk City Archives.

For the state legislature in 1528 which is now formulated in Latin works was (also monetary cudendæ ratio) announced as Monetae cudendae ratio, and served the fiscal decision-making, especially at the Polish-Lithuanian court. Copernicus argued for a stable monetary union, which was hardly compatible with the autonomy of the cities. After he had supported at the meeting in October 1530, the position of the royal Münzverwesers Jost Ludwig Dietz, the now 57 -year-old withdrew from the fiscal policy decision-making.

This Latin was published in Warsaw in 1816 as Dissertatio de optima monetae cudendae ratione, of which only a few copies are available. Leopold Prowe has published the German and the Latin version of the memorandum in 1875 in the second volume of his two-part biography " Nicolaus Copernicus ."