Talk:Copernicus and coin reform

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See for older talk: Talk:Copernicus as Ermland Administrator and the Prussian Coin Reform

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Is there a link for Gresham's Law

• (put it here)

When was this coinage thing going on?

• (put years here)

Ed, please don't base anything on me. I have no idea what I am talking about and the quote was lifted straight out of a website. Danny

Copernicus developed an economic theory that presaged the later Gresham's Law: "Bad money drives out good money." In other words, an overvalued legal currency will replace an undervalued legal currency."

Copernicus explained this theory in a book called De Monetae Cudendae and proposed means of alleviating the situation. At the time, there were several different currencies circulating simultaneously as a result of rival governments, and Copernicus attempted to create a single currency that would maintain its real value. He wrote:

"It is impossible for good-weighted coin and base and degraded coin to circulate together, That all the good coin is hoarded, melted down or exported; and the degraded coin alone remains in circulation."

This may explain why the different parties were so interested in controlling the minting of this new currency. These were factions feuding over who would have control over the single currency that would be minted. In other words, the debate was over economic control of the region.

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Ed, at the time I write, this is not fair use, because the quotation makes up the bulk of our article. This would only be fair use in a much longer article. IANAL, but I'm 87% certain about this. — Toby 18:11 Aug 5, 2002 (PDT)

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Someone (Helga?) wrote:

Ed Poor, your summary is fine, I am only adding the different parties of the negotiations

But I must point out that I got all that information from the cited source. I merely condensed the quote. BTW, Toby, have I crossed the line back into "fair use"?

IASNAL (I am still not a lawyer), but it's my understanding that it's difficult to be fair use if the quotation makes up the entirety of the article. As a quotation, it's uncredited (since merely listing the URL doesn't say that it's a quote), so the overall position may be worse than before. To be sure, the words have changed, but that just makes this a derivative work, still covered. How much do the words have to change? I don't know; this is reminiscent of the paradox of Theseus' ship (no article on that, what a shame). The solution is to delete the old paragraph and rewrite a new one with the same information; I'll do that now. — Toby 00:21 Aug 7, 2002 (PDT)

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I have added a couple of sentences about Copernicus and Gresham's Law into the Copernicus article. I have looked at this one, and it now makes no sense, because, once again, Helga has provided us with a non-sequiter. Where did Copernicus return from? For whom did he work? etc. I strongly suggest we delete both of these pages, although if Helga or anyone else is willing to do some homework and answer the questions I left on Copernicus and Ermland...talk, I'll be happy to turn the whole thing into a few paragraphs that make sense and fit either into Copernicus or, more likely, Sigismund or Albert of Brandenburg before any deletion occurs. Please let me know what you think below. Thanks! (And please note that I am offering to undertake a great deal of work here, so I would appreciate a minimum of snideness). Thanks again JHK

Actually, Helga didn't give us that phrase, it came from the professor that we're quoting without explicit citation (follow the external link). It's still out of context, however. I'm about to rewrite it entirely, for copyright reasons, but tell me what you think about the new paragraph and where it can go. — Toby 00:21 Aug 7, 2002 (PDT)

I cut this:

There he held the office of canon and participated in diplomacy between Poland (then to the east), the independent region of Ermland, and the Teutonic Knights, (who controlled much of the western part of Prussia).

Ermland was not independent. It was part of Poland. It had similar authonomy as region of Siewierz etc. I also added (royal - polish Prussia), since wording in previous version noted that Prussia in that time was not part of Poland. Note that Frauenburg was called Frombork by Poles in XV century already. Szopen

Warmia/Ermland was not part of the polish kingdom

Warmia asked the polish king for support against the Teutonic order and accepted his protection but was not a part of polish kingdom during the lifetime of Copernicus. For example, the bishop of Warmia renounced participation in the meetings of polish princes with the polish king. He insisted in extra meetings with the polish crown. Acctually the politics of the bishop tried to install a princedom with highest possible autonomy from both the teutonic order and the polish kingdom.

Again, Warmia WAS part of Polish kingdom. Kopernik DID put oath of loyalty to POlish king, and I soon should have the photocopies of few original documents, in which the Kapitula (sorry, don't know how it is in English) is writing to Polish king, describing themselves as "most loyal subjects of the king".

Second, what the bishop tried, and what were the realities, is quite different thing

Third, What participation of meetings with Polish princes?!?

Stop to pretend that Ermeland was not considered part of Polish kingdom. It was. It tried to keep as much authonomy as it could, but it was part of Polish kingdom.

Szopen 12:16, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

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I keep getting into edit conflicts with Ed, so I'm just going to put my version here. Szopen and Julie, please check this for accuracy. Or ignore it and keep Ed's version.

In 1505, Nicolaus Copernicus moved to Frauenburg (or Frombork), a city in Ermland, a region in East Prussia, then (as now) part of Poland. There he held the office of canon and participated in diplomacy between Poland (as a federal entity), the autonomous region of Ermland, and the Teutonic Knights (who controlled much of West Prussia). One issue of concern to these powers was who had the right to mint coins. Copernicus contributed the idea that the presence of undervalued currency would drive overvalued currency from the market. This is now known as Gresham's Law.

External links:

• article by Prof. Fred L. Wilson of the Rochester Institute of Technology

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Toby and Ed -- thanks for all your effort, but I really believe that this just needs to die. I've added something about this to the Copernicus article. I've left a list of questions for Helga (or anyone) to answer so that the subject can be re-written in an accurate (historically and gramatically) manner. I cannot say any more strongly how much I object to having an article that provides so little useful information. As it is, the only bits that make sense and are clear are "C returned to Frauenburg" and "C worked on coin reform". From everything that Helga wrote before, I haven't seen anything to imply that Copernicus was directly involved in minting issues or minting rights -- just that he was concerned about debasement! I will leave my questions up for a week or two, and then, unless someone offers some compelling reason to have either version of this minor article left intact (rather than incorporating the important bits into Copernicus, Albert of Brandenburg, or Sigismund I -- whichever makes sense), I'm putting it in the queue for deletion. JHK

I would feel sad if my work were deleted, but I wouldn't mind if this page redirected to Nicolaus Copernicus, hiding it all in the history. Then I could look at it, from time to time, when I needed cheering up. Meanwhile, 20 years from now, when Wikipedia is so big that it's appropriate to have an article on this, then the writers can unearth these remains and incorporate them, or ignore them, at their choosing. — Toby 02:47 Aug 9, 2002 (PDT)

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What is this page for? Nicolaus Copernicus doesn't even link here. All the information that is here could be moved to Nicolaus Copernicus. --Kpalion 23:31, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)