1100

King Henry I succeeds King William II to the throne of England. During his reign he decided to take the power the money changers had over the people, and he did this by creating a completely new form of money that took the form of a stick! This stick was called, a "talley stick," and ended up being the longest lasting form of currency, lasting 726 years until 1826 (even though other currencies came and went in that same period and ran alongside the talley sticks).

The talley stick was a stick of polished wood into which notches were cut along one side, to indicate the denomination of money the stick represented. The stick was then split lengthwise through the notches, so that both pieces had a record of the notches. The King kept one half to protect against counterfeiting and the other half was spent into the economy and circulated as money.

It was also one of the most successful money systems in history, as the King demanded that all the King's taxes had to be paid in, "talley sticks," so this increased their circulation and acceptance as a legitimate form of money. This system would work well in keeping the power away from the money changers in England.