Presenting at WFEClear 2026 in Toronto on April 22 with @buchmanster.bsky.social — the WFE's annual conference on clearing and derivatives. wfeclear2026.wfe-events.com

This is probably true everywhere

Liv Mariah Yarrow (pronounced "leave")@profyarrow.bsky.social · last yr.

10. Monetary systems of credit and banking predate coinage at Rome. You can fight me on this if you like.

If you're into 15th century Florentine bankers, pivot to 13th century Sienese

24. I feel modern scholars discount the importance of the stars in ancient lives because we cannot see them through our own light pollution.

There was plenty of innovation in the Middle Ages, we just don’t notice many of it and a lot of it was societal and economic and not purely technological.

Were the Knights Templar responsible for the international growth of the Champagne Fairs? They seem to have been involved in Champagne and to have played some key roles before the fairs grew to intl importance and the Italians started coming in the late 12th c 👇

Chasing a lead that 15th c Italian bankers quoted rates to englishmen differently from everyone else Possibly relevant to rise of London as financial centre and sterling as a dominant money

Join us this Sunday at 1pm ET to discuss Dollinger's The German Hansa Subscribe to @themimbresschool.bsky.social to attend or watch the recording after

Ethan Buchman@buchmanster.bsky.social · 2y ago

Map of Hansa geography. Hansa regions in red, neighbours in green, rivers in blue, mountains in brown. Hansa territory basically defined by the rivers Rhine, Weser, Elbe, Oder, Vistula and southern Baltic coast. Bordered in south by the Main and the Ore/Giant/Carpathian mountains #medievalsky

And thou mayest aske thyself, 'How do Ich werke thys?' And thou mayest aske thyself, 'Wher ys that large destrier?' And thou mayest telle thyself, 'Thys nys not my beautiful castle!' And thou mayest telle thyself, 'Thys nys not my swift goshawk!'

lol obviously the one englishman to have ever been pope issues a bull granting Ireland to the English en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laudabi...

Laudabiliter - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

So the English stole a bunch of Irish land and gave it to English landowners. Plan was for them to recruit English tenants to farm. But the new owners realized they could charge much higher rents to the Irish who wanted to stay on their land than to new English recruits. King James was pissed.

tfw you're trying to understand the origin of british capitalism and so now you're reading a book about oats

For the #IdesofMarch, here's one of the most famous coins to ever be minted: the silver denarius of M. Junius Brutus commemorating the assassination of Julius Caesar. It depicts two daggers, a slave's cap of freedom (pileus), and the inscription EID MAR. 🏺 #ancientbluesky 43-42 CE. #MetMuseum 📸 me

Working on a theory that the origin of British capitalism simply boils down to the propensity for growing oats. > The Irish grew lots of oats > The British colonized the Irish > The oats fed the horses > The horses plowed the fields > Boom: Agricultural Capitalism

Map of Hansa geography. Hansa regions in red, neighbours in green, rivers in blue, mountains in brown. Hansa territory basically defined by the rivers Rhine, Weser, Elbe, Oder, Vistula and southern Baltic coast. Bordered in south by the Main and the Ore/Giant/Carpathian mountains #medievalsky

Why yes, I would like to see a calculation of how much more credit there is than coin in early modern England based on analysis of probate inventories

> be me > oh its 10pm I'll go to bed early > proceed to read for 4 hrs about oat production, horse markets, and land markets in medieval england 🫠

This book is 100 years old. First edition Gustav Cassel

Just learned about the Bazacle Milling Company. First recorded European joint stock company, from 12th c. Shares traded freely. Lasted until it was nationalized in the 20th c! Water mills were very profitable and serious business in medieval times

So is Bill Withers just the greatest song writer of all time or what

So I re-read most of the Cycles white paper again from @buchmanster.bsky.social @t-fleischman.bsky.social and team. If nothing else, anyone even remotely involved in payments, monetary theory, Econ, Fintech should at least read pages 3 to 5 and the Abstract. total tour deforce! cycles.money

Cycles: Respect the Graph

The Open Clearing Protocol.

cycles.money

I got a 100 tweet long thread going on the other site about the German Hansa, an informal club of formal clubs that dominated north euro trade for 300 years No king, no army, no treasury, just cooperative decentralized network of merchants & towns w/ common interest in trade x.com/buchmanster/...

Sometime back I made a (wildly incomplete) map of economists and their influence (green), mentorship (blue), and disputes (red). Focus is on the heterodox schools and the relations between them. Impact of the Austrian line is astounding.

What is the best reference for understanding the geography of european rivers while reading medieval history? somewhat frustrated by not being able to easily keep track of where the elbe/trave/oder/etc. are and their relation to the cities

Applying to join the Society of Merchants Who Frequently Travel to Gotland. Wish me luck!

cycles.money/blog/cycles-... After digging into the fantastic Cycles white paper by @buchmanster.bsky.social @t-fleischman.bsky.social and the crew I want to start sharing the first of many reflections. First, I consider this paper a spiritual successor to the legendary EF Schumacher paper on

I can't recommend Mimbres School enough to avoid this mentality. Come read some actual books! I'm teaching a course about animal domestication there next summer.

Grateful for open social networking protocols

This little manuscript is a king’s order from the year 1272 to pay his court jester. King James I of Aragon paid around 100 pieces of silver to Martynus, labeled in the document as a “joculator”—literally, “a person who jokes.” The king’s royal seal is affixed to the back. #medievalsky