Coins can be the most vivid, as well as the most accessible, illustrations of the history of medieval Europe. ... This tangible contact with past events has exercised an extraordinary fascination on many people over a long period of time. The collection and study of classical coinage, along with classical sculpture, began among the princely and patrician products of humanist education in the early Renaissance as ancillaries to their collection and study of classical texts.
—peter spufford, money and its use in medieval europe