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Message: <blockquote data-quote="loseth" data-source="post: 3882356" data-attributes="member: 54535">I know it sounds implausible, but believe it or not, the idea that the 'dark ages' or 'feudal age' was a time when barter reigned supreme and coins were meaningless is actually a popular myth rather than a historical reality. After Rome ceased to control its territory in the West directly (i.e. the 'fall' of the Roman Empire), the new Germanic rulers of the Roman West largely continued business as usual, minting and spending coins just as the Romans had (see a couple of examples <a href="http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/archive/exhibits/prittlewell/pages/object_coins.htm" target="_blank">here</a>). Even in Britain, where things really were fairly 'dark,' there was plenty of coinage about. Barter will be more important in a PoL setting than in a non-PoL one, but a barter economy and a coin economy are not mutually exclusive.Check out the example I gave earlier of the Medieval Baltic. It really was as PoL as I claim, and a coin economy operated just fine. As long as you're strong enough to protect your points of light and the trade routes that connect them (as the monks militant and warlike pagan nations who ruled the Baltic were), then coins will equate to spending power even in a bandit-ridden war-torn land of mostly untamed wilderness.</blockquote>