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Melaka calain–cash accounting

At Melaka, the price unit and the material handed over could differ.1

Years
Under research
Where
Melaka, Malay Peninsula
Family
Other origins
Status
Under research

At Melaka, the price unit and the material handed over could differ. Pires describes merchandise priced in calains, with payment in tin or gold. A calain was reckoned as one hundred cash.1

The same unit also appears in the port’s revenue. Pires records a levy on the weighing of merchandise, charged as one calain per hundred of its value. Calains served both commercial prices and a fiscal obligation.1

Several kinds of coins circulated in the port. Their quoted values helped merchants settle payments without making each coin a separate account system. The evidence does not yet establish how this reckoning connected to later Malay currencies.1

A fuller story is under research.

Timeline

  1. Prices and a port levy in calains

    Pires records the unit in trade and fiscal reckoning.1

Coins and notes

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How do we know?

Earlier stages not yet researched.

Complete evidence record →
Legal history and sources
Written account
Pires, 1512–1515
Reckoning
100 cash = 1 calain
Fiscal use
A weighing levy reckoned in calains

Pires’s Suma Oriental, written in 1512–1515, directly describes merchandise priced in calains, with payment in tin or gold and 100 cash to a calain. The preceding page reckons a levy on weighing merchandise as one calain per hundred of its value. Both commercial and fiscal accounting are therefore documented; no particular settlement material is made the currency’s ancestor.1

Source notes

  1. Tomé Pires; edited and translated by Armando Cortesão · The Suma Oriental, vol. II (Hakluyt Society, 1944; later facsimile reprint)

    Printed pp. 274–275; PDF pp. 59–60: merchandise prices, weighing levy and calain/cash reckoning; narrative written 1512–1515

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Cite this currency

“Melaka calain–cash accounting.” The Family Tree of Money. Field Technologies, Inc. Data v52; accessed 15 October 2026.

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