Currency exchange is a significant kind of interregional activity in Europe. It can serve not only as evidence of expanding economics and trade, but also as a signifier of a growing social and cultural interconnectedness between European regions. One expects to find such evidence existing, for example, between regions like England and France or between the Italian cities and the Levant from the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. Traditionally these early corridors of urban and commercial expansion identified by historians (one could also mention other centers of activity like Champagne and the Low Countries) have generally not included a highly developed economic nexus between Germany and England before the Hanseatic era. Yet there was such a vital corridor of activity, which emerged quickly after the deleterious effects of the Viking invasions were shaken off. The central role in the growth of this Anglo-German commercial exchange was played by the city of Cologne and its inhabitants. As early as the late tenth century there is evidence that Cologne and England were becoming tied to a growing commercial nexus. They would thereby be directly and equally affected by the ebb and flow of currency within northern Europe as a whole.

Let us establish the backdrop for our study by briefly reviewing the gradual interpenetration of the English and Cologne currencies during the eleventh and twelfth centuries.