Is it morally wrong to accumulate money? If you asked most westerners that question today, the answer would be “no”. The expansion of wealth is, after all, the raison d’être of modern finance, be that via hedge funds, pension plans or other investments.

But seven centuries ago in Europe, the reply would have been different — as a new exhibition at New York’s Morgan Library lays out, by looking at what happened when money first entered widespread circulation in the west (first with coins, and then via the paper money concept, imported from China.) This technological leap triggered an “unprecedented” surge in trade and economic growth, “transform[ing] every aspect of medieval society”, says Deirdre Jackson, assistant curator of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts at the library. It was the 15th-century equivalent of the introduction of the internet.

But this financialisation also sparked a “crisis of values”, Jackson adds, since money was considered intrinsically sinful by the Christian church. Thus artworks from that period, such as Hieronymus Bosch’s “Death and the Miser”, contained elaborate depictions of avarice.