Maravedí
The maravedí was both a coin and an accounting unit used in Iberia from the 11th to the 19th century. Its name comes from the Almoravid dinar, a gold coin first struck in al-Andalus. The maravedí started as a gold coin, but over time its value and metal content changed.
In the 11th–12th centuries, Christian rulers copied the gold dinar, and the coin was known in different forms. In Castile the maravedí de oro began to be used more as an accounting unit as other coins and values were used for money. The gold version gradually lost its gold content, and by the 13th century the maravedí was mainly a silver coin in practice.
Alfonso X the Wise issued a silver maravedí coin, which weighed about 6 grams and held fine silver. It was worth 30 dineros and helped set a system of money of account, where one maravedí equaled six silver maravedí coins. Over the later 13th century, the value of the maravedí as a unit of account fluctuated, and the gold maravedí disappeared as money of account by around 1300. From then on, the term maravedí increasingly referred to a unit of account rather than a specific coin. By 1537 it had become the smallest Spanish unit of account (1/34 of a real).
When the Spanish explored and settled the Americas, copper maravedís and silver reales were minted for use there. The first royal strikes for the New World began in Seville in 1505 for Hispaniola, with further production in Mexico and Santo Domingo as minting expanded. These coins served as everyday change in the colonies.
The maravedí remained a money-of-account unit in Spain until 1847.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 18:19 (CET).