Editing 1340s (section)

====Economic collapse and crisis====
To finance the continuing wars of the 1340s, Edward III of England granted to a small group of merchants a [[monopoly]] on the export of wool.<ref name="Rothbard221">Rothbard, p 221</ref> In return, they agreed to collect the "[[poundage]]", or wool tax, on his behalf.<ref name="Rothbard221"/> This included a [[tariff]] on the import of woolen cloth, which put out of business the Italian and foreign merchants that had dominated the wool export trade.<ref name="Rothbard221"/> The monopoly merchants went bankrupt in the following decade.<ref name="Rothbard221"/>

Edward also introduced three new gold coins in 1344: the [[English coin Florin or Double Leopard|florin]], [[English coin Half Florin or Leopard|leopard]], and [[English coin Quarter Florin or Helm|helm]]. However, the gold content of these coins did not match their respective value of 6 shillings, 3 shillings, and 1 shilling and sixpence, so they had to be withdrawn and mostly melted down by August of that year.<!--Copied from [[1344]] article-->{{citation needed|date=June 2013}}

In France, the king's personal expenditure on dowries, gratuities, the upkeep of the palace, his travels and his wardrobe, consumed the entirety of the royal income.<ref>Fossier, p 113</ref> Therefore, a monopoly on [[salt]], an essential commodity, was established in 1341; monopolies in salt had already been established in [[Kingdom of Castile]] and [[Venice]] in the [[1330s]].<ref name="Fossier34">Fossier, p 34</ref> The French salt tax or ''[[gabelle]]'' itself never amounted to more than 2%.<ref name="Fossier34"/> ''[[Fouage]]s'' were also levied in 1342 and 1349.<ref>Fossier, p 115</ref>

The Italian city states were booming at the start of the decade. In 1340, [[Francesco Balducci Pegolotti]] wrote his ''[[Practica della mercatura]]''.<ref>Fossier, p 99</ref> Meanwhile, rulers such as the Neapolitan princes had begun withdrawing massive funds from [[Florence|Florentine]] banks.<ref name="Soto"/> England found itself unable to repay its debts, and both factors resulted in a [[bank run|crisis of confidence]] in the Florentine banks<ref name="Soto"/> The family-based banks and mercantile associations of Florence and Genoa generally kept only 25–30% of their [[capital (economics)|capital]] in [[liquid asset]]s,<ref name="Fossier100">Fossier, p 100</ref> and between 1341 and 1346, many of the most important of the Florentine banks collapsed.<ref name="Soto"/> — an "avalanche of bankruptcies", in the words of Robert Fossier.<ref name="Fossier100"/> These were owned by the following banking families: the [[Acciaiuoli]]s, the [[Bonaccorsi family|Bonaccorsi]]s, the [[Cocchi family|Cocchi]]s, the [[Antellesi]]s, the [[Corsini]]s, the [[Uzzano family|Uzzanos]], the [[Perendoli]]s, the [[Peruzzi]]s and the [[Bardi family|Bardis]].<ref name="Soto"/>