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开始意识到，那些一直从远方采购来的商品其实也可以就近生产的。他们于是腾出家里的一块地方，将它设为生产作坊。这样，他们终止了长年的行商生涯，摇身一变就成了生产产品的制造商。他们出产的商品不仅卖给城堡里的领主和修道院院长享有，并且还能供应给附近的城镇。领主和院长大人们用自己农庄的产品，鸡蛋，葡萄酒，还有在那个时代用作糖的蜂蜜来支付商人的商品。可对遥远市镇的居民来说，这种以物易物的方式就行不通了，他们必须支付现金。这样，制造商和行商手里便慢慢地积蓄起少量的金块，此举完全改变了他们在中世纪社会的地位。
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.
你们可能很难想象一个没有钱币的世界。在一个现代城市里，没有钱你是寸步难行的。从早到晚，你都不得不带着一个装满小金属圆片的钱包，以便随时付钱。你需要1便士来乘公共汽车，上馆子吃一顿晚餐要花你1美元，吃饱喝足后你想看看晚报，又得交给报贩3分钱。不过在中世纪初期，许多人从出生到死去，一辈子都没看见过哪怕一块铸造的钱币。希腊和罗马的金银都深埋在城市的废墟下面。继罗马帝国之后的大迁移的世界完全是一个农业社会。每个农民都种足够的粮食、饲养足够的绵羊和奶牛，完全自给自足，不必仰赖他人。