At the beginning of this millennium, as Europe emerged from the Dark Ages, gold was in short supply; annual output available in Europe and the Middle East, originating primarily from Africa and Central Asia, was less than in the Roman era a thousand years earlier, when it was 150,000 to 300,000 ounces. Consequently gold had little role as money in Europe (unlike under the Romans) and from 800 to 1200 AD the only widely circulating coin was the silver denarius (penny) minted in many forms in many countries. Goldsmiths served mainly church or state, making religious artefacts or symbols of office and power. Constantinople (Istanbul) as the hub of the Byzantine empire was the centre of the gold trade. The most important gold coin was the solidus or nomisma, first minted in 309 AD by Constantine and thereafter by successive Byzantine emperors for 700 years. The solidus weighed 4.4 grams and originally was as 'pure' as possible. By 1000 AD it was increasingly debased. In 1034 Byzantine emperor Michael IV issued a solidus of 19½ carats (812 fine); by 1081 the gold content was only six carats (250 fine). Emperor Alexius I Comnenus restored credibility in 1092 with a solidus renamed nomisma or hyperpyron (Venetians christened the coins perpero, while elsewhere in Europe they were often called bezants) at 0.14 oz (4.4 grams) containing 20.5 carats (854 fine) gold, with 2.5 carats silver. Gold crossing the Sahara from West Africa was also minted into dinars in Sidjimasa, Fez and Marrakesh in Morocco, at Granada, Seville and Barcelona in Spain, and Palermo in Sicily. Although Europe favoured silver coinage and the eastern Mediterranean gold, the two regions were inextricably bound together by trade. The story of both metals for the next five hundred years is closely entwined with the commerce between Europe, Constantinople and the Black Sea, the Middle East and thence to India and China and North Africa. The Mediterranean world was the hub.

The gold/silver ratio ranged between 1.9 and 1.11 in Europe with local variations according to the availability of gold or silver; in Venice, for coins, it was 1:10.7 (one ounce of gold bought 10.7 ounces of silver). This was close to its ancient pattern. As early as 1600 BC it was 1:13 in the city states of the Middle East, narrowing to 1:12 in Greece and Rome after 400 BC, and 1:8 by 100 BC as the Romans tapped new gold mines in Spain. By 100 AD, however, it had reverted towards 1.9 or 1.11 and remained in that range over the next 1,500 years, with regional differences. However, not only were there often significant regional differences within Europe itself, but the local ratios in Constantinople, the Middle East and North Africa were reflected by the changing flows of metal. From the 7th to the 11th century, for instance, the Middle East ratio was around 1:14 and in Constantinople as wide as 1:18, leading to a dramatic shift of silver out of those areas into Europe, while gold moved into Constantinople in particular, hence the continuing gold coinage there while Europe coined only silver. By the 12th century, the pattern reversed, with silver once again highly valued in the east and flowing that way, ending what one historian called 'the European gold famine and the Muslim silver famine'.