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Soon certain energetic merchants discovered that the goods which they had always imported from afar could be made at home. They turned part of their homes into a workshop. They ceased to be merchants and became manufacturers. They sold their products not only to the lord of the castle and to the abbot in his monastery, but they exported them to nearby towns. The lord and the abbot paid them with products of their farms, eggs and wines, and with honey, which in those early days was used as sugar. But the citizens of distant towns were obliged to pay in cash and the manufacturer and the merchant began to own little pieces of gold, which entirely changed their position in the society of the early Middle Ages.
不久，某些精明能干的商人開始意識到，那些一直從遠方采購來的商品其實也可以就近生產的。他們于是騰出家里的一塊地方，將它設為生產作坊。這樣，他們終止了長年的行商生涯，搖身一變就成了生產產品的制造商。他們出產的商品不僅賣給城堡里的領主和修道院院長享有，并且還能供應給附近的城鎮。領主和院長大人們用自己農莊的產品，雞蛋，葡萄酒，還有在那個時代用作糖的蜂蜜來支付商人的商品?？蓪b遠市鎮的居民來說，這種以物易物的方式就行不通了，他們必須支付現金。這樣，制造商和行商手里便慢慢地積蓄起少量的金塊，此舉完全改變了他們在中世紀社會的地位。
It is difficult for you to imagine a world without money. In a modern city one cannot possible live without money. All day long you carry a pocket full of small discs of metal to "pay your way." You need a nickel for the street-car, a dollar for a dinner, three cents for an evening paper. But many people of the early Middle Ages never saw a piece of coined money from the time they were born to the day of their death. The gold and silver of Greece and Rome lay buried beneath the ruins of their cities. The world of the migrations, which had succeeded the Empire, was an agricultural world. Every farmer raised enough grain and enough sheep and enough cows for his own use.
你們可能很難想象一個沒有錢幣的世界。在一個現代城市里，沒有錢你是寸步難行的。從早到晚，你都不得不帶著一個裝滿小金屬圓片的錢包，以便隨時付錢。你需要1便士來乘公共汽車，上館子吃一頓晚餐要花你1美元，吃飽喝足后你想看看晚報，又得交給報販3分錢。不過在中世紀初期，許多人從出生到死去，一輩子都沒看見過哪怕一塊鑄造的錢幣。希臘和羅馬的金銀都深埋在城市的廢墟下面。繼羅馬帝國之后的大遷移的世界完全是一個農業社會。每個農民都種足夠的糧食、飼養足夠的綿羊和奶牛，完全自給自足，不必仰賴他人。
