Museum of the National Bank of Belgium

One may wonder why the Museum of the National Bank of Belgium placed a wooden table right in the centre of the main exhibition hall where the history of money is told. The answer is quite simple, the bench belonged to a money changer. The owner of the bench did not only change money, as his profession might suggest, he also acted as a banker. Money changers found their way to the cities of the Low Countries in the Late Middle Ages. If you only think about the enormous variety of coins in circulation, it becomes quite obvious money changers played an important role in the economic life of a medieval citizen.