Monetary reforms in the nineteenth century (1830-1868) in the documents of Pòlit Farm (Vilamaniscle)

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, monetary transactions were not easy. The monetary system was a chaos. Successive attempts at reform tried to improve the situation, but not only did they not succeed, but, to some extent, made it even worse by adding new coins and denominations to the Spanish monetary system, thus increasing the confusion and making exchanges and equivalencies more difficult, since at no time existing coins were removed from circulation. In this paper we study how people managed, in everyday life, to cash, pay and spend money during the monetary reforms that were carried out between 1830 and 1868, thanks to the entries in the account books of the Heras family, owners of the farm Polit in Vilamaniscle.