'HISTORY MONETARY SYSTEiMS- A RECORD OP ACTUAL EXPERIMENTS IN MONET MADE BY VARIOUS STATES OF THE ANCIENT AND MODERN WORLD, AS DRAWN FROM THEIR STATUTES, CUSTOMS, TREATIES, MINING REGULATIONS, JURISPRUDENCE, HISTORY, ARCHEOLOGY, COINS, NUMMULARY SYSTEMS, AND OTHER SOURCES OF INFORMATION. BY ALEXANDER DEL MAR, M.E., Author of "A History of the Precious Metals," " A History of Money in Ancient States," " Money and Civilisation," " The Science of Money," " The Politics of Money," " Sophisms of Money," ^c LONDON: EFFINGHAM WILSON, ROYAL EXCHANGE. 1895. All rights reserved. PREFACE. npHB author concluded a former work on Money in J- these words : — ''That which has engag-ed the atten- tion without harmonising the convictions of such master minds as Aristotle, Plato, Tycho Brahe, Copernicus, Locke, Newton, Smith, Bastiat, and Mill, is surely a study which none can afford to approach with rashness, nor to leave with coaiplacency. When the principles which underlie it are thoroughly understood, money is pei'haps the mightiest engine to which man can lend an intelligent guidance. Unheard, unfelt, unseen, it has the power to so distribute the burdens, gratifications, and opportunities of life that each individual shall enjoy that share of them to which his merits or good fortune may fairly entitle him, or, con- trariwise, to dispense them with so partial a hand as to violate every principle of justice, and perpetuate a suc- cession of social slaveries to the end of time.'^ I begin the present work in the same spirit with which I closed the former one, that is to say, without bias concerning any system of money, and only anxious to examine and profit by the experience of the past. The scope of the work includes a recension of my former chapters on India, Greece, and Rome, a continua- tion of the Roman history from the monetary system of Augustus to the downfall of the Empire, and an examina- tion of the Merovingian and Carlovingian systems, the Moslem systems, the systems of Britain from the earliest times to the reign of Edward III, and the systems of Saxony, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Germany, and the Argentine Republic. As the monetary conflicts of to-day turn mostly upon questions concerning the relative value of gold and silver. li_ViOoO VI . PREFACE. the origin, nature, tendency, and influences of this Ratio and its amenability to legal control, I have taken especial pains to trace its historical development in all ages of which any coinage or other numismatic remains exist. In carrying out this design a mass of information has been brought together which can scarcely fail to be of service in future monetary discussions. The origin and progress of Private Coinage has also been an object of attention. Private coinage, or, as it is now euphemised, " free " coinage, namely, the license granted to private individuals to coin the precious metals without limit, or to compel the State to make coins for them and to confer upon such coins the legal functions of money, coupled with license to export and melt down the coins, was unknown to the ancient world. In the great states of antiquity money was a pillar of the constitution. In the republics of Greece and Rome it was a social in- strument, designed, limited, stamped, issued, and made current by the State, — in short, invented, owned, and regu- lated by the State. It is now generally admitted that the so-called gentes coins of Rome were not of private fabrication, but issued by the State,, and stamped with the gens mark of the State moneyers. There appears to have been no private coinage m Europe before the issuance of Mahomet's Koran and its scornful repudiation of the Roman religion and political system. The baronial and ecclesiastical mints of the middle ages, when not authorised by the German Empire, or by the princes of the Western States, were baronial or ecclesiastical only in name; they were really '^robbers' dens,'' and were so termed in the official proclamations of the time. Their trade of private coinage was both surreptitious and un- lawful, and was often expiated with the lives of the proprietors. The Plantagenet kings broke up some thousands of them. After the fall of the Roman Empire in 1204 the prerogative of the coinage was exercised for a brief period PREFACE. VU by the emperors of Germany, but soon afterwards fell to tlie various independent states that rose upon the ruins of the old Empire. In a process commenced by the procureur-general under Philip IV., against the Comte de Nevers, for melting down the coins of the realm, it was held that this was a royal prerogative which belonged to the king alone, and which in case of necessity he might employ, not indeed for his private advantage, but in defence of the State. The prerogative was, however, much more fully and completely laid down by Sir Mat- thew Hale in the celebrated case of the Mixed Moneys. Its unwilling surrender by the Crown took place under the Stuarts. Events have demonstrated that the Act is wholly inconsistent with the safety of the State, and that it demands revision. 1 If in view of the existing monetary conflict, the reader should be led to inquire whether this is a " monometallic" or " bimetallic '' work, the answer is, It is neither. These terms, and many others employed in the monetary literature of to-day, the author regards as misleading. They involve doctrines which are fallacious, and defeat a correct comprehension of this difficult subject, by pro- moting the discussion of false issues, or the adoption of make-shift or mischievous measures. Monometallism and! bimetallism both imply that money consists of a metal orj metals, and that this is what measui'es value. The im- plication is erroneous ; the theory is physically impossible. (Value is not a thing, nor an attribute of things; it is a' relation, a numerical relation, which appears in exchange.) Such a relation cannot be accurately measured without the use of numbers, limited by law, and embodied in a set of concrete symbols, suitable for transference from hand to hand. It is this set of symbols which, by metonym, is called money. In the Greek and Roman republics it was called (with a far more correct appre- hension of its character) nomisma and nummus, because the law (nomos) was alone competent to create it. The viii PREFACE. number of the symbols may be limited, but rudely ; the limit may even — though equitably it should uot — be left to the chances of conquest or mining discoveries, still, repeated experiments prove that it is the number of the symbols that definitively measures value, not the quantity or quality or merit of the materials of which they may be composed, A ready pi'oof that it is the numbers and not material of money which measures value is this : If the sum or integer of the symbols is altered, so will be the expression of value (the price) of all thiugs ; whereas the material may be altered, e. g. from gold to silver, or from one to both, or from both to inconvertible paper, without at all affecting the expression of value — provided that the combined denominations or sum and legal function of the symbols remain unchanged. These principles of money — namely, that Money is a Measure, and must be of necessity an Institute of Law, that the Unit of money is All Money within a given legal jurisdiction, that the practical Essence of money is. Limitation, and that coins and notes alike are Symbols of money — are fully disdussed. and illustrated in my " Science of Money." It is true that at the present time their operation is greatly obscured by the license and abuse of Private Coinage, but even through this bewildering medium they can still be discerned. It is out of the confusion created by this practice, it is from the fallacy of mistaking metal (which, apart from numbers, cannot measure value any more accurately than barter can) for money (which, apart from metal, can and does accurately measure value) that all contentions on the subject have arisen ; nay, more, ■ this confusion is to-day imperilling the peace of the world, CThe wheels of Industry are at this moment clogged, and what clogs them chiefly is that gross, that sensual, that materialistic conception which mistakes a piece of metal for the measure of an ideal relation, a measure that resides not at all in the metal, but in the numerical relation of the piece to the set of PREFACE. IX pieces to which it is legally related, whether of metal, or paper, or both combined./ In short, it is this "misconception which is responsible for the Demonetisation of Silver in the Western world, and the consequences traceable to that event. While such are the views of the authoi-, he must do himself the justice to say that he has not laid his historical works under contribution to support them, nor has he any currency scheme to propose. To entertain, rightly or wrongly, a distinct conception of money, and the manner in which its function is mechanically fulfilled, is one thing ; to apply such conception to a given condition of affairs is another. This may only be done by the statesman, who is not satisfied to inquire what is correct, but must also know what is practicable and what is prudent. The political circumstances of each state have usually moulded, and must continue to mould, its monetary system ; and rash are those teachers who have sought or who yet seek to change it for any other reason or upon any other grounds. These views indicate in another Way the scope of the present work : it is not confined to gold money, nor silver money, nor paper money ," it embraces all money, and it seeks, by analysing the various experiments that have been made with this subtle instrument, to derive from them whatever light they may be able to throw upon the questions that vex us to-day. BIBLIOGRAPHY. The foUoicing list of hooks is to he read in connection icith the I iutt published in the author's previous ivorks on the Precious Metals and Money. The numbers at foot of each title are the press-marks of the British Museum Library. Abhaxdlungen des Arcliiieolojjisch-Epiirraphisclien Semiiuires der Univer- sitiit W'ien. Heft 2. Julius Duerr, on the Travels of Hiulriiiii. Vienna, 1883. Svo. Ac. 803/2, AcADEMiE der Wissenscliaften, Wien : (itaniennes. Extrait de la Kevue Nuniisuiatique, Nouvelle Serie, tome x, 1865, by Edwardo Augusto Alien and Henrique Nunes Texeira. Pamphlet. Oporto, 1865. Svo. 7755, bb. Al-Makkahi (Ahmed, ibn Mohammed) : Selections from his History of the JMohametan dynasties. Translated from Arabic to English by Pascual de Gayangos. London, 1840-43 2 vols., 4to. 752, m, 1-2. Anderson (James) : History of Commerce. Loudon, 1787. 4 vols., 4to, Aerian (Flavins) : The Anabasis of Alexander, literally translated by E. J. Chinuock. London, 1884. Svo. 9026,' ff, 18, Voyage rouud the Euxine Sea. Translated by W. Falconer. Oxford, 1805. 4to. Voyage of Nearchus and Periplus of the Erythrean Sea. Greek and English, translated by W. Vincent. Oxford, 1»09. 4to. 570, g, L Avila (Gil Gousalez de) : Spanish Numismatic Work. Babelon (Ernest): Desci'iption historique et chronologique des monnaies de la Repuldique llomaiue, vulgairement appelees monnaies consulaires. Paris, 1885. 2 tom. Svo. 2032, a. Baillt (M. a.) : Histoire Financiere de la France, depuis I'origine de la Monarchic jusq'a la fin de 1786, par M. A. Bailly, Inspecteur generale des Finances. Paris, 1830. Svo. Les Finances de France, par M. A. Bailly. Paris. Svo. Written on the plan of Sinclair's History of the British Revenue, and possiblv its model. 2083, a. Bazinghen : Traite des Moiinoies et de la jurisdiction de la Cour des Mon- noies, en forme de Dictionnaire, par Frtin(^ois, Abot de Bazinghen. Paris, 1764. 2 vols., 4to. A dictionary of money. Under " Livre " he follows Denis Godefroy in a table showing the supposed weight of the livre during each reign since the year 768, the first year of Charlemagne. This is constructed on the pound-for-pound theory, and may luive been the original used by 'I'ooke and others. Bazinghen's Eiiglisli tables, are from Lowndes and Fleetwood. As a c-ambist the work is almost as complete as Kelly's. Foreign nionevs are arranced under ajipropritite heads, etc. 603, g, 1, 2. xii BIBLIOGRAPHY. Beccaeia : Del disordine e de remedii delle Monete nello Stato de Milano uel 1762, by the Marquis Cesare Bouesaiia Beccaria, of Milan. Lucca, 1762. 8vo., pp. 50. A short treatise ou the disordered coinage of Milan, 140, a, 26. Political Economy, by same author, published in the Scrittori Classici Italiani, wherein Beccaria is ranked as one of the three ablest economists of his age. ( See Italiani Sckittoei.) Beegmann (Dr. E. von) : Die Nominate der Miinzreform des chalifen Abdul- melik. Ak. der Wissenschaf teu v. Wien, May, 1870. Sitzungs berichte. Pliilosoph. liistor. classe. Ac. 810, 6. Bl^US (Jacobus) : La France Metallique. Paris, 1636. Fol. Numisniata Imperatorum Romauorum. BiE (Jacques de) : See Bl^us. BiBCHEEOD (Thomas Broderus) : Specimen Antique Rei Monetarise Danarum, etc. Hafnise, 1701. 4to. 603, d, 20 (2). Blacas (Louis C. P. Casimir, due de) : Histoire de la Monnaie Romaine, par Th. Mommsen, traduit. Paris, 1865. 8vo. 2031, c BiANCius (Franciscus): See Le Blanc. BoDEN (otherwise Bodiu and Bodinus) : The Republic, by John Bodeu. First published in Frencli, 1577, and afterwards in Latin, 1586. Translated into English by Knolles. Boden opposes all changes in the value of money as affectiug contracts. BoiSAED (Jean) : Traite des Monuoyes. Paris, 1714. 2 vols., 12mo. An u^eful aud excellent work with a good index. Beandis (Johanus) : Das Miinz Mass und Gewichtswesen in Vorderasien, bis aut Alexander den grossen. Berlin, 1866. 8vo. 7756, dd. Beebeu'ood (Edward) : De Ponderibus et Preiiis Veterum Xummorum. London, 1614. 4to, An useful little tract, with a chapter on the Ratio. Beoggia (Antonio) : Trattato delle Monete. Florence, 1751. Another edition, 1803, 8vo. An useful work, in which the author discusses the influence of money on prices and considers whence the precious metals are to be got. He contradicts the theories of Melon. Betjgsch (Heinrich) : On the relative value of gold and silver in ancient times; an article in the Deutsche Rundschau, a periodical published at Berlin, 1874, etc. 8vo, PP. 4478, 1, d. Bttesian (Conrad) : Jaliresbericht uber die Fortschritte de classischen Alter- thumswis-enschaf't. 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London, 1833. 12mo. 15IBLI0GRAPHY. xiii CoCHETArx : The Connection of Monetary Systems. Pamplilet. Brussels, 1884. Svo. CoHEX (Henri): Description historique des Monnaies frappees sous I'empire Komaiue. Paris, 1880. 8 vols., Svo. 2032, b. CoiGKAED : Essai snr les Monnois, ou Reflexions sur le Ilapport entre I'argent et le denrees. Paris, 1746. CoLQUHOUN (Patrick) : Roman Law. 4 vols., Svo. London, 1849-60. 5207, c. Comixes, or Commixes (Philip de) : Meinoires. (On the leathern coins of John, see vol. i, p. 507.) CoPEEXicrs : Treatise on Money. Translated bv Wolowski. Paris, brochure, 1868. CusT0Di(P.): (5ee Italiani Schittoei.) D'AvAXT (Poey) : Monnaie Feodale. Paris, 1875. 4to. De Rochas (.NI.A.): Alclieniists' Gold, by M. A. De Rochas, in the Popular Science Monthly for April, 1890. An account of the alchemists' feats in pretending to transmute base metals into grold. De Viexxe : Origines de la livre d' Argent, by Colonel ^Maurice de Yienne. Paris, 1887. 8vo. Brochure. DoUBLEDAT (Thomas) : Financial, Monetary, and Statistical History of Enghind, from the Uestor.ition of 1688. London, 1847. 8vo. It is the author's opinion that money measures the value of other things by being in itself of one unvarying value. This unvarying value arises from Providence having so distributed the precious metals, of which money can alone be made, that their quantity, upon the whole, cannot be sud- denly either much increased or diminished. They are obtained only with difficulty, and as the expense of mining or gathering them from the bowels of the earth becomes equal to the value they bear, the work of mining stops. The quantity of money is much the same at wW times. As an offset to these romantic notions, the book contains some useful tables. Daties (C. M.): History of Holland. London, 1842. 3 vols. Svo. (For pasteboard dalers of Leyden.) 2084, e. De Luzac (Jeiin) : La Richessede la Hollande. London, 1778. 2 vols., Svo. DuERE (Julius) : Die Reisen des Kaisers Hadrian. 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FiXLAT (George, LL.D.): Roman and Byzantine Money, in his Hist, of Greece, etc. London, 1877. 7 vols., Svo. 2067, h. XIV BIBLIOGRAPHY. FiNLAT (George, LL.D.): Greece under the Romans. Edinburgh, 2ud edit., 1857. 8vo. 1306, k, 9. Fleetwood (Bishop William): Chrouicon Preciosum. Loudon, 1707. 8vo. FOXSECA (15. A. R.): El Dii^esto del emperador Justiniano. TrHUslated into Spani>h, with both the Latin and Spanish texts, by Don B. A. Rodriquez de Fonseca. Revised from an old edition of 1772. Madrid, 1872-5. 3 vols., 4to. 5383, g. FfiEHEKi (Marquardi) : De Re Monetaria Veterum Romanorum. Lubduni, 1605, 4to. 812, e, 6. De Constantiui Impenitoris Byzantini Numismate, etc. Paris, 1604. 4to. A reply to Sealiger. ' 602, c, 14 (4). Gabcia (Jose C'avallero) : Breve cotejo y valance de las Pesas y Medidas de varios naciones, couiparadns y reducidas a las que coireu en estos reynos de Castilla. Madrid, 1731. '4to. Gent.'s Magazine, 1756, p. 465, and 1812, p. 331. 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Included in " Memoires de I'lnstitut Imperial de France " (Academic des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres). Tome xxi., part 2, pp. 114-419. Paris, 4to., 1857- Drawn chiefly from the " Traite des Monnais de France," by Le Blanc. Walteeus de Heminbxtegh : See Preface to his work, p. xlv., re base coins. 7707, e, 50. Weedenhagen (Johann Angelius von) : De Rebus publicis Hauseaticis. Tractatus generalis. Frankfort, 1641. Fol. 172, k, 3. BIBLIOGEAPHY. XIX Wex (Joseph) ; iletrologie grecque et romaiue. Traduite de I'allemand par P. Mouet. Paris, 1886. 12mo. Whitelaw : Just Money, by T. N. A\Tiitela\v. Glasgow, 1886. Svo, One of the few works which notices the influence of a monetary system upon the equity of exchange. It is marred by the advocacy of an impracticable paper scheme. Whitwoeth (Sir Charles) : Inquiry into Prices. 1768. Williams (Sir M.) : Modern India and the Indians. 3rd. ed. Loudon, 1878. Svo. 2318, g. 3. AViLSON (H. H.) : Ancient Indian Coins. London, 1836. Svo. 14058, b, 18 (2). WisSEXSCHAFTEX (Kaiserliche Akademie der). Wien. See Bergmaun. Ac, 810, 6. Yor>"& (Arthur) : The Progressive Value ef Money in England, with Obser- vations on Sir George Shuckburg's Table of Appreciation. Contained in vol. xlv. of the Annals of Agriculture, London, 1808, Svo. This volume also has articles on " Wheat from India," " American Premiums offered by the Agric. Soc. of Phila.," " Agric. Statistics of New South Wales, 1792-1801," &c. 988, h, i, Adams (Alex., Eevd.) : Roman Antiquities. 18th edition. Edinburgh, 1854. Svo. Balletti (A) : La Questioue Monetaria nel seclo xvi. 1882. Svo. 8229, h, 31. Bastiat (Frederic) : Harmonies of Political Economy. London, 1860. Svo. Beal (Samuel, Revd.) : Budhist Travels in the West. London, 1869. 2 vols., • Svo. Bliss (W. H.) : Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland. Vol. I., a.d. 1198—1304. London, 1893. 4to, 2078, c. BrLsr (D. T.) : Descriptive Coinage of Great Britain and the Colonies. London, 1894. 2 vols., Svo. Caxcott (Lady Maria) : History of Spain. London, 1840. 2 vols., Svo. Cahr (Thomas Swinburne) : Roman Antiquities. London, 1836. Svo. Chalmees (Robert) : A History of Currency in the British Colonies. London, 1893. Svo. Chijs : See Van dee Chijs. CrNyiXGUAM (Maj.-Gen. Sir A.) : Coins of Ancient India, from the Earliest times down to the Seventh Century. London, 1891. Svo, pp. 118. Coins of Mediffival India, from the Seventh Century down to the Mahommedan Conquest. London, 1891. Svo, pp. 108. Dozy (Reinhart, Pieter, Anne) : Histoire des Musulmans d'Espagne, jusqu'a la conquete de I'Audalousie, par les Almoravides, a.d. 711 — 1110. Leyde, 1861. 4 vols., Svo. Troisieme ed. 9180, c,c,c. La Calendrier de Cordoue. Texte arabe. Leyde, 1873. Svo. 14544, d, 20. Eckhel (Joseph H. von) : Doctrina Numorum Veterum. Vindobon®. 1792-8. 4to. 674, g, 11. Gaeniee (le Comte German de) : Monnaies de Compte chez les Peuples de I'Antiquite. Paris, 1S17. 4to.' Haerisox (F. C.) : Early Annals of the Indian Mints. Calcutta Review, July, 1892. Hoffman (H.) : Monnaies Royale. Paris. Svo. HuTTEN-CzAPSKi (le Comte Emeric) : Catalogue de la Collection des Medailles et Monnaies Polonaises du Comte Emeric Hutten-Czapski. St. Petersbourg, 1871. 3 vols., 4to. Kenton (Robert L.) : Gold Coins of England. London, 1884. Svo. 2032, c. XX BIBLIOGEAPHT. Leteonne (M.) : Monnaies Grecques et Romanies. Paris, 1817. 4to. Liverpool (Charles, Earl of) : Coins of the Realm. London, 1880. Svo. Madden (F. W.) : Reply to Cohen's explanation of the letters " Conob," etc. Num. Chron., 1862. • History of Jewish Coinage. London, 1864. 4to. Christian Emblems on Roman Coins. London, 1877. 8vo. Jewish Numismatics. London, 1874-6. Svo. Coins of the Jews. London, 1881. Svo. 7755, g. Madox (Thomas) : History and Antiquities of the Exchequer of the Kings of England. Taken from the Records. London, 1769. 2 vols., 4to. Malcolm (Sir John) : Memoir of Central India. London, 1823. 2 vols., Svo. Maesden (William) : Numismata Orientalia, or the Oriental Coins of Marsden's collection described and historically'illustrated. London, 1825. 2 vols., Svo. Millies (H. C.) : Recherches sur les Monnaies des Lidigenes de I'Archipel Indien et de la Peninsula Malaie. La Haye, 1871. 4to. MiNTON (Thomas W.) : Bibliography of Numismatics. London, 1895. Svo. Pausanitts : Description of Greece. Translated by Thos. Taylor (the Pla- tonist). London, 1794. 3 vols., Svo. Queipo (V. Vazquez) : Systemes metriques et monetaires des Ancien Peuples. Paris, 1S59. 2 vols., Svo. Sabatiee (J.) : Monnaies Byzantines. Paris, 1862. 12 vols., Svo. Saez (Padre Liciiniano) : Monedas del Senor don Enrique IIL Madrid, 1796. Fol. 12, 1. 32. Monedas del Senor Enrique IV. Madrid, 1805. 4to. 812, k. 26. ScAETJFFi (Gasparo) : L'Alitiuonfo per fare ragione e concordanza d'oro e d'argento. Reggio, 1582. Folio. 713, i, 18. Another edition is included in the Scrittori Classici Italiani, parte antica, torn. 2. 1803. Svo. 1140, e. Thomas (Edward): Chronicles of the Pathan Kings of Delhi. London, 1871. Svo. Thurston (Edgar) : History of the Coinage of the Territories of the East India Company. Madras, 1890. Svo. Van der Chijs ( J. A.) : De Munten van Nederlandsch Indie, beschreven en afgebeeld door E. Netscher en Mr. J. A. Van der Chijs. Batavia, 1863. 4to. ' Num. Soc. Velasquez de Leon (Joachim) : On the Management of the Royal Mines in Mexico, and Petition for the Abolition of the Royal Dues. London, 1774. Fol. 9771, h, 2,(18). CHAPTERS. Peeface BiBLIOGEAPHY .... IXTEODUCTIOX . . . • Chap. I. Ixdia . . . • II. AxciEXT Peesiax Moxeys III. Ancient Hebeew Moneys IV. Ancient Gbeek Moneys V. Rome . . . • VI. The Saceed Chaeactee of Gold VII. Pounds, Shillings, and Pence . VIII. Gothic Moneys .... IX. Moslem Moneys .... X. Eaely English Moneys XI. Moneys of the Heptaechy XII. Anglo-Xoeman Moneys XIII. Eaely Plantagenet Moneys XIV. Latee Plantagenet Moneys XV. EvoLrTioN of the Coinage Peeeogative XVI. Saxony and Scandinavia . -^ XVn. The Xetheelands XVIII. Geemany .... XIX. The Aegentine Confedeeation XX. Peitate Coinage App. a. Statistics of the Ratio B. Bank Suspensions since the eea of Pbivate C. The Gold Movement of 1865-73, and existin TABY Systems Index Coinage G MONE- PAGE V si sxxi 1 23 30 35 60 107 133 151 163 185 200 221 232 255 275 284 335 367 408 463 471 479 485 497 CONTENTS. CH.iPTEE I. "TXDIA. Antiquity of money in India — Moneys of the Yedas — -*- Braminical ramtenkis — Moneys in the Mahabarata — Money in Panini's sutras — Budhic coins — Moneys in the Code of Mann — The daries of Pei-sia coined from Indian spoil and tributes — Indian expeditions of Alexander and Seleucus — Great antiquity of Indian civilisation attested by Megasthenes — Bacchic or Budhic eras in Pliny and Arrian — Pre-Grecian moneys of India mentioned by the Greek writers — The monetary experience of ancient India lost through the perversion of its history — Scarcity of the precious metals after the Greek expeditions — Revival of gold and silver mining — Budhic interdict of mining — Shipments of silver from Rome mentioned by Pliny — Indian imitations of Roman gold coins — Coins of Julius Csesar, Marc Antony, Augustus, and Claudius found in the topes — Epoch of copper and other base moneys — Cowries — Mahometan raids in India — The Quinto and other spoils sent westward — Continuation of copper and base metal epoch — Private coinage — Forbidden by Akbar — His attempt to establish silver money superseded by the East India Company — Moneys and revenues of the Grand Moguls — The Company's monetary system of 1766 — System of 1769 — Drain of precious metals from Europe — Suspension of the Bank of England — Monetary system of 1793 — Sir James Steuart — System of ISO) — System of 1835 — Silver system of 1852 — Issue of paper money, 1863 — Suspension of individual coinage, 1893 — The ratio between gold and silver — Volume of money in India .... Chapter II. Ancient Pehsian Moneys. The gold daric of Cyrus and Darius — Imitated in the Greek, Roman, and Sassanian coinages The £ s. d. system also originated in Persia, and was copied by Rome — Coinage in Persia a sacerdotal prerogative — Etymology of the daric probably astrological — The siccal, or shekel — The money talent — Allied to the tael and the silver thaler or dollar — Con- PAGB XXIV CONTEXTS. PAGE fusion of the money and weight talent by modern writers — Monetary systems of Cyrus and Darius — Gold coins only struck by independent princes — The Persian ratio of value between the precious metals .......... 23 Chapter III. Ancient Hebrew Moneys. Bang moneys of the Gets — Casef used both for silver money and metal — Various kinds of shekels — Indian origin of the term — Dinara — Daric, or Darken — Gera — Hebrew monetary system in the time of Ezra — Iron coins — Coinages of the Asmoneans — Silver and copper shekels — Extant specimens 30 Chapter IV. Ancient Greek Moneys. Earliest moneys of Greece — Gold and silver bangs — Leather moneys — Iron money of Lycurgus — Pheidon of Argos — Staters of Miletus — Examination of the passages in Herodotus and other writers concerning the antiquity of coinage in Greece — The Parian marbles — Knife-coins found by Schliemann at Troy — Coins of the Troezenii — The "bulls" of Theseus — Statement of Sophocles — Drachmas of Solon — Ratio of 10 for 1 — Mines of Laurium — Staters of Cyzicus- -The first gold coins struck at Athens from the statue of Victory — Plato's mone- tary system — Pre-Solonic scale of equivalents — Solonic scale — Decadence system — Coins give rise to weights, and not weights to coins — Confusion of the money and the weight talent — The obelos, or handful, and the obolos weight 35 Chapter V. RoiiE. Supposed silver coins of Servius Tullius — " Romano " coins — ^A.u. 369, the Nummulary system — A.r. 437, Scrupulum system of gold and silver " Roma " coins — a.u. 485, Centralisation of silver coinage and change of ratio — A.r. 537-47, System of the Lex Flaminia — a.xj. 663, The Social War; coins of the Italiotes; concession of citizenship ; centralisation of money at Rome — A.u. 675, System of Sylla — Systems of Julius Caesar — Augustus — Caligula — Attempted revival of the Republic — Galba— Otho — Caracalla — Aurelian —Diocletian — Constantine — Arcadius and Honorius— The Byzantine systems down to the Fall of Con- stantinople in A.D, 1204 — The Westem system.s — Clovis — Pepin — Charlemagne . 60 CONTENTS. XXV Chaptee VI. PAGE The Sacred Chaeactee of Gold. Coinacje the surest mark •of sovereignty — Abstention of the Christian princes from mining and coining gold, from Pepin to Frederick II. — Dates of the earliest Christian coinages of gold in the West — Inadequate reasons hitherto given to explain this singular circumstance — Opinions of •Camden — Ruding— Father Joubeii — The true reason given by Procopius — The coinage of gold was a Sacred Myth and a preroga- tive of the Roman emperor — Its origin and history — Braminical Code — The Myth during the Roman Republic — During the Civil Wars — Conquest of Egypt by Julius Csesar — Seizure of the Oriental trade — The Sacred Myth embodied in the Julian Con- stitution — Popularity and longevity of the Myth — It was trans- mitted by the pagan to the Christian Church of Rome, and adopted by the latter — Its importance in throwing light upon the relations of the Western kingdoms to the Roman Empire .... 107 Chapter VII. PouxDS, Shillings, and Pence. This system appears in the Theodosian Code — Is probably older — Its essential characteristic is valuation by moneys of account — Advantages — Previous diversity of coins — Danger of the loss of numismatic monuments — Expoiiation of silver to India — Difficulty of enforcing contracts in coins of a given metal — £. s. d. as an instrument of taxation — As an historical clue — It always followed Christianity — Sidelights to history afforded by the three denominations — £. s. d. and the Feudal system — It saved the most precious monuments of antiquity from destruction — Artificial character of the system — Its earliest establishment in the provinces — In Britain — Interrupted in some provinces by barbarian systems — Its restoration proves the re- sumption of Roman government — This rule applied to Britain . 133 Chapter VIII. Gothic Moneys. Proofs that the earliest sagas were altered in the mediaeval ages — Among these is their frequent mention of baug-money, an institution which did not survive the contact of ^Norsemen and Romans — Progressive order of !Norse moneys — Fish, vadmal and bang moneys — The bang traced from Tartary to Gotland, Saxony, and Britain — Gold bangs acquired a sacerdotal character — This was probably immediately after Norse and Roman contact — Subsequent relinquishment of baug-money and the XXVI CONTENTS. adoption of coins — Proof that Caesar encountered Xorse tribes in Britain, derived from his mention of bangs — This view corroborated by archseologv and philology — Subsequent Norse coinage system of stycas, scats, and oras — Importaut historical conclusions derived from its study .......... 151 Chaptee IX. Moslem Moneys. The empire of Islam — Conquest of the Roman provinces in Asia, Africa, and Spain — Administrative policy of the moslem — Monetary regulations — Numismatic de- claration of Independence— Origin of the dinar and dirhem — Singular ratio of value between silver and gold — Probable reasons for its adoption — Its worth as an historical guide — As a monetary example — Permanence of the tale ratio between dinar and dirhem — ^loslem remains in the Western and Xortheni States of Europe : Spain, France, Burgiindy, Flanders, Britain, and Scandinavia — Coinage system of Abd-el-Melik — Prerogative of coinage vested in the caliphate — Individual coinage unknown — Emir coinages — These substantially ceased with the reform of Abd-el-Melik — Legal tender in Egypt, Spain, and India — Weights and fineness of the dinar in various reigns — Same of the dirhem — Frontier ratios between gold and silver ....... 163 Chapter X. Eably Exglish Moxets. Sterling standard — Type of the penny — Arabian coins in Gotland — Offa's dinar — The mark — The mancus — Arabian moneyers in England — Arabian ratio — Arabian metallurgists — The Gothic- Arabian monetary system . . . 185 Chapter XI. Moneys of the Heptarchy. Summary of historical evidences furnished by the materials of this chapter — No coins of the Anglo- Saxons exist earlier than Ethelbert — Pagan gold coins — Gothic coins of Ethelred — Interpolations in ancient texts — Moslem coins of Offa the Goth — Eome-scat, or Peter's-pence — Egbert adopts the Roman system of £. s. d. — Danish invasions — Burgred is defeated and interned in a monastery — Guthrum is baptised and reigns as Athelstan II — Alfred of AVessex — Mingling of Gothic and Christian coins and denominations — Changes of ratio — Edward the Elder — Athelstan — Edmund I — Eadred — Leather moneys — Ethelred II — Danegeld — Canute the Dane — Harold the Dane — Edward Confessor — Harold II — Evidences derived from these researches .......... 200 CONTENTS. xxvii Chapter XII. PAGE Systems of Axglo-Noksiax Moxeys. Xormau, Anglo-Saxon, early Gothic, Moslem, Byzantine, and other coins circulating in England — Difference in the silver value of heretical and orthodox gold coins — Scats, sterlings, and pennies — Efforts of the Norman princes to escape the monetary supervision of Eome — Receipts and payments made ia different moneys — Counterfeiting — Barter^ ^Permutation— Faii-s — Taxes and rents in kind — Bills of Ex- change — The monetary systems of the Xorman princes exhibit a strange condition of political affairs 221 Chaptee XIII. Eaelt Plaxtagenet Moneys. Purity of the coinage before the fall of Constantinople — Cornipt state afterwards — The change was due to the destruction of the sacerdotal authority, the dis- appearance of the sacred besant, and the assumption of certain regalian rights by the kings of England — Whilst contracts could be made in gold besants, there was no profit in tampering with the silver coinage — Afterwards it became one of the commonest resources of royal finance — Coinage systems of Henry II — Eichard I — John — Henry III — Edward I 232^ Chapter XIV. Later Plaxtagenet Moneys. Xo mint indentures prior to Edward I — No statutes of any kind previous to Magna Charta— Sudden beginning of frequent monetary changes in the reign of Edward II — Significance of this movement — Progressive assump- tion of regalian rights — Lowering of pollards and crockards — Interdiction of commerce in coins and bullion — Lowerings of sterlings — Establishment of a maximum — Coinage of base money by the king — His death — Accession of Edward III — New mone- tary ordinances — Black money — Mercantile system — Tin money — Review of the gold question — The maravedi of Henry III — Pre- paration of Edward III, to issue gold coins — Permission from the emperor — Convention with Flanders — Authority of parliament — ■ Issue of the double-florin — Its immediate retirement — Fresh preparations — Issue of the gold noble or half-mark — Its great significance 255- _A^ 7 S XXVIU CONTENTS. Chapter XV. FAGE Evolution of the Coinage Peerogative. Impetus afFovded to the development of British national independence — The Great Interregnum — Assertions of English sovereign authority — As- sumption of royal or national control over the precious metals and money — Assumption of Mines Royal — Assumption of treasure- trove — Royal coinage of gold — Interdict of the besant — Trial of the pix — Royal monetary commissions — Suppression of episcopal and baronial mints — Export of precious metals prohibited — First complete national sovereignty of money — Prohibition of tribute to Rome 275 Chapter XVI. History of the Money in Saxony and Scandinavia. Pish, vadmal, bangs, and coins — Ratio — The mark — Imitations of Roman coins — The pagan Hansa — Charlemagne — The Christian Hansa — Great fair of Novgorod — Ruric — Harold Hardrade — Christian II — The tyrant's " klippings " — Massacre of Protestants — Mons — Gustavus Vasa — " Klippings " of freedom — Marks, talents, and dalers — Private coinage — Rundstyks — Copper plates — Assignats — Transport notes — Bank of Stockholm — Goertzdalers, or mynt-saicen — State notes — Banks of Copenhagen — Incon- vertible notes — Silver dalers — Demonetisation of silver — Gold " standard " of 1872 284 Chapter XVII. The Netherlands. Ancient Saxony — Origin of the Dutch — Their maritime character — Early moneys — The pagan lesterling, Engel, and Guilder — Trade with Saracenic Spain — Moslem and Esterling ratios — Pepin, the Short — The Christian ratio — Com- promise ratio of the Baltic — The Saiga — Fall of the Eastern Empire — Coinages of the Renaissance — The Ducat, or Florin — Proposed Anglo-Flemish Convention — Florins and Nobles of Edward III — Disagreement respecting the ratio — Burgundian ratios — The Ducaton, or Thaler — the Stiver — Causes of the Dutch revolution — Religion and Money — The right of coinage — Cor- ruptions of money during the Renaissance — Sudden enhancement of gold by Charles V — Revolt of the Netherlands — Demonetisation of gold — Paper money of Leyden — the Wissel Bank — The Bank of Amsterdam — Sols banco — Burgher coinage — It destroys money and substitutes metal — Selfish policy of Spain — The Buccaneers — Plunder of the Spanish galleons — Opening of the sea route to the CONTENTS. xxix Orient — The Duteli colony of New Amsterdam (Xew York) — Tlie Encjlish follow the Dutch in all these measures — Sir Thomas Gresham — Dutch coinage ratios from the earliest times to the present — The Mark — Hanseatic money — Successive monetary systems of the Burghei-s from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century — Gold and silver alternately demonetised — Bank issues and insolvency — Recent demonetisation of silver — Present cur- rency of the Xetherlands — Importance of the ratio as a guide to history— Urgent necessity for reform of the Dutch monetary system — The Futare ......... 335 Chaptee XVIII. Gebmaxt. Until a.d. 1204 the nght to coin gold in Germany was a pontifico-imperial prerogative — It then practically became a regalian right, which in great measure was absorbed by the two principal German states — Legalised as a regalian right by the Golden Bull — Exercised as such by numerous princes and by the burghei-s until 1871, when it was acquired for North Germany hy the New Empire — Thereupon it was almost immediately abandoned to the burghers — Monetary systems of Germany during the regal period — French forgers of the sixteenth century — Earliest monetary conventions — Sudden enhancement of gold by Charles V — The German states and burghers demonetise gold — Silver becomes the sole material of legal-tender money — Monetary systems of North Germany — Conventions of sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries — The ratio — The banks — Paper money — Plunder of Napoleon — His downfall — Confederation of the Ehine — New system — Weights — Origin of the ducat, skilling, and thaler— Constitution, convention, and currency thalers — Later monetaiy conventions — Quantity of money circulating in Ger- many — History of the ratio — Burgher or "free" coinage — The California scare — Treaty of 1857 tabooing gold coins — The Nevada scare — Legislation of 1871-3, demonetising silver coins — French War Indemnity — Great increase of paper money — Efflux of gold in 1873-4 — Operation of the new mint laws — Gold and silver production of Germany — Dr. Soetbeer, the evil genius of German monetary policy — The future B6T Chaptee XIX. The Abgextixe Coxfedeeatiox. The swash-bucklers or con- quistadores of La Plata — Plunder and oppression of the natives — Mining — Lethargic condition of La Plata as an appanage of Peru XXX CONTENTS. — The vicerojalty — Eneomienda and slave systems — Jesuit mis- sions — Opposition of the colonists to them — Exactions of the Crown of Spain — Scandalous sale of papal indulgences — Ruinous results — Revolutions and civil wars — Subversion of the monarchy — Retention of papal domination — Boom of 1825 — Relapse into anarchy — Further wars and revolutions — Paraguayan war — Dreadful cruelties — Feeble progress of the republic^Territory — • Population— Agriculture — Sheep-farming— Commerce — Dishonest representations — Gross exaggeration of national wealth and re- sources — Boom of 1874-5 — The revulsion — Its causes — Supersti- tion, poverty, and false pretences — Monetary systems — The Quinto —Seigniorage — Private coinage — Base coins — Mint law of 1772 — Good money lowers the value of bad, but is not driven out — Illimitable p^per issues — Their attempted retirement at 25 paper for 1 coin — Law demonetising silver and establishing gold money — ■ Its farcical character — The so-called " resumption " suspended — Further paper issues — Retirement of the old paper at 25 for 1 of new paper — The new paper falls to 40 per cent, of its face value in coins — Entire disappearance of gold and silver coins — Abject posi- tion of a great country brought about by bad administration . 408 Chapter XX. Private Coinage. Five great eras in the history of money — Pontifico-royal period — Republican period — Pontifico-imperial period — Royal period — Private Coinage period — Moslem origin of private coinage — Omission of the coinage prerogative from the Koran — Its assumption by the Moslem conquerors of India — - Private coinage practised by their permission — Consequent degra- dation of the India monetary systems — Arrival of the Portuguese in India — Private coinages of Albuquerque at Goa — Private coinages of the Dutch in India — Private coinages of the British East India Company — Idolatrov;s effigies on their coins — Private coinage enunciated in the Star Chamber of England — Private coinage sanctioned by Charles II, who concedes or bargains away the royal prerogative — Disastrous consequences to the commercial world — Frequent failures of banks of issue — Incompetency of the banking class to regulate either national or international Measures of Value — Demand for the resumption of the State prerogative — Progress of this movement to the present time .... 463 Appendices 471 Corrigenda 495 Index 497 IXTRODUCTIOX. The genesis and evolution of money — Exchanges — Barter — Device of a valuing commodity — Its inconvenience — Bangs — Coins — Their defects — Xomisma — Its downfall — Coins subjected to further legal regulation — Money an institution of law — Its grammar — The use of this grammar as an historical guide. ^ I "^HE custom of calling money ai-gentum and calling -*- argentum money (a custom still retained in France^ Spain^ Germany^ and otlier former provinces of the Roman empire) originated in Greece, and was fixed in the Roman language by a series of monetary laws ■which extended over some fifteen centuries of time. The numismatic proofs of these laws are still extant in the great cabinets of Europe. To appreciate their importance and value it is necessary at the outset to rapidly sketch the genesis and evolution of money. , The earliest form of exchange, that which is peculiar to rudimentary or savage communities, was barter. To remedy those inconveniences of barter which were disclosed by a progressive civilisation, some given commodity of common necessity and production was selected in each community as a rude measure of the value of other commodities. Such measure, whether it consisted of a number of beans, cloths, shells, or lumps of metal, enabled any given ex- change to be effected upon a more equitable basis than before, simply by its operation in holding a vast number of parities in view at once. With the growth of intelli- gence, this measure was also found to be defective ; it lacked precision. The beans, shells, gold, silver, etc., XXXll INTRODUCTIOX. being useful for otlier purposes besides a measure of value, tlie slightest difference in the size or qualitj' of beans, etc., became matters of consideration during- the act of effect- ing exchanges ; and thus their effectiveness as such measure of value was impaired. A further improveujent was thereupon devised by reducing the fractions of the measure of value to like sizes and weights and to a like quality or fineness. This could best be done with the precious metals ; and thus a number of metallic pellets, sometimes rings (bangs), came to compose a measure of value. But man can make nothing perfect. Xo sooner does he find a remedy for one ill than the remedy itself breeds other ills, till then unknown. The use of pellets and bangs promoted commerce, whilst increased commerce exposed the defectiveness of bangs. It was discovered that no matter what amount of labour was involved in the pro- duction of the precious metals, or of bangs, and no matter how carefully the latter were weighed or refined, their value or power to purchase other commodities was liable to enormous variation. The arrival or departure ot a few loads of metal, the discovery or exhaustion of a mine, and many other circumstances, had the effect to rapidly alter the local value of bangs and upset all commercial calculations. The remedy adopted for this defect was to localise the emissions and currency, or legal course, of baugs. Each city, colony, and trading community made its own pellets or bangs, and stamped its seal or private symbol on the emissions. This last act converted the pellets, or baugs, into coins. To render this device of home-made coins effective, it was necessary to forbid the use of all other coins. Here is where the law first came to the rescue of the local measure of value ; and here is where nummu- lary history begins. The device of localised moneys exposed other ills and gave rise to other remedies, all tending toward the INTRODUCTION. XXXili solution of what seemed to be merely a mechanical problem. The ill that next developed itself was that one mint melted down and re-coined the issues of another ; and thus resuscitated that defect of the measure of value which arose from suddenly increased or diminished supplies of the valuing commodity. To discourage such re-coinages, seigniorage was introduced ; and this gave rise to numerous other legal regulations, the character and intricacy of which can best be appreciated by attempt- ing to master any of the extant mint codes, ancient or modern. After many experiments — we are now alluding to the era of Lycurgus — it began to be suspected that the mone- tary problem was not a mechanical one at all ; that, unlike length, weight, capacity, etc., value was not an intrinsic or inalienable attribute of matter, and therefore that it could not be equitably measured by means of any com- modity, as a commodity. What, then, was value ? From that time to the present — that is to say, for nearly thirty centuries — the vaults of the earth have echoed this question, but vouchsafed no reply. The priests of Egypt, if they knew the answer, preserved it among their numerous mysteries of statecraft, to be sold to tyrants, or employed in the service of the gods. The seers of Chaldea and Greece, who disclosed to the Western world the majestic movements of the heavenly bodies, failed to recognise the nature of value ; or else kept it an unwritten secret, that it might not be employed in the subversion of civil liberty.^ " The function of money is to measure value,^' declared the school of Lycurgus ; but neither the Spartan sages nor the great Stagyrite, who in a later age voiced their philosophical maxims, ever registered a definition of value. However, not to register a definition of value is not necessarily to be ignorant of its function. Though it has 1 " Eveiy truth or error which the word value introduces into men's minds is a social one" (Bastiat, " Harmonies of Polit. Econ."). c XXXVl INTRODUCTION. that of tlie commodities of which they were composed, and to a certain extent this effort succeeded. In spite of these and other improvements, the Measure of Value (when it came to consist of coins, whose total number was irregularly lessened by loss, wear and tear, or melting, or increased by secret issues, or counter- feiting) could not be definitively and permanently fixed ; hence it consisted essentially and teleologically of a commodity. From this fact arose the custom of calling money argentum. Again it went its round of experiment. Again was it noticed that, as a commodity, it was but ill-fitted to measure the intricate and involved series of exchanges which are implied in the financial relations, contracts, speculations, inheritances, and property arrangements of commercial communities. It was also observed that coins, though made of but a single metal, failed to retain a more permanent value than that of the metal of which they were composed ; and that this value rose and fell with every vicissitude of war, mining, mintage, commerce, and even fashion. Such a means of valuation might have answered well enough for simple and imme- diate exchanges^ but it was clearly unsuited for the determination of future and involved ones, as the sale of growing crops, the rental of houses or farms, the repay- ment of loans, or the disposal of incomes by grant or testament. Consequently it was deemed necessary to subject the valuing commodity to further restraints of law.^ The type, design, inscriptions, metal, alloy, weight, size, and tale-relations of coins, the charges for coinage, the tax of seigniorage, and the degree, kind, and territorial extent of the legal tender function of coins had all been 1 The discerning reader will at once detect that this rapid sketch of the evolution of money is drawn from its history in the Western world. Nevertheless money is vei'y much moi'e ancient than the Greek writei"s pretended, or some modern ones suppose. INTRODUCTION. xxxvii regulated by law. Mining for the money raetals was now added to these regulations ; taxation, State monopoli- sation, etc., being the means employed. The number of slaves permitted to work the mines was regulated. The importation and exportation of the money metals was regulated. The right to strike coins was limited to sacer- dotal authority, and confined to the temples. The highest resources of art were bestowed upon the designs. Foreign coins were sometimes monetised, at others decried. The individual fabrication, counterfeiting, defacement, melting down, or hoarding of coins was prohibited. The use of the money metals in the arts was restricted or forbidden. Because gold and silver are twin metals, which in varying proportions are nearly always found together in the same matrix, and because their production cannot be regulated at man^s will, but is subject to great vicissitudes from chance discoveries, military conquest, and other causes, their relative value, or ratio, cannot be determined like that of other commodities, but must be regulated em- pirically. To secure permanency in this ratio it was subjected to sacerdotal authority ; and we shall find that, as the result of this regulation, it remained fixed for centuries ; so that among the numei'ous guides to his- torical research afforded by the attributes of money, this is one of the most conspicuous and reliable. Notwithstanding these various regulations, the stability of coins, as a measure of value, was still exposed to so much disturbance that further legal measures, of greater and greater complexity, were adopted to secure this important object. The principal disturbance was now created by the wear and tear and subterranean conceal- ment or burial of coins, and the failure of slave-mining or foreign conquest to make good the continued loss of gold and silver metal. New and higher denominations of value were given by law to the same coins, and frequent re- coinages had to be made, at great expense to the State and great risk of public disorder. The evil and expense XXXVlll INTRODUCTION. o£ re-coinage was attempted to be avoided by still further legislation. The weight and standard of the new issues of coins were lowered, as the denarii of Livius Drusus. Emissions were made of still more highly overvalued coins, like the bronze " sesterces " of the Roman Com- monwealth and the plated coins of Claudius, Trajan, and Hadrian. Finally, as related elsewhere, moneys of ac- count were created by law, called libras, sicilici, and denarii (£. s. d.). This was essentially merely an arith- metical scale of proportions that could be applied, without the necessity of re-coinage, to the perplexing variety of existing coins which had now obtained currency ; and which, as a matter of fact, were applied not only to these, but also to measurements of land, of bread, and of other things. It will thus be seen that money, whatever it consisted of originally, grew in time to be a complex instrument of societary life, — in short, an Institution of Law, designed to measure and determine value ; and that its efl&ciency, precision, stability, and equitable operation depended largely, if not entirely, upon the strength, wisdom, and virtue of the government by whose laws it was created and regulated. Instead of the simple and easy subject which some modern economists have airily supposed it to be, its proper understanding involves, as has been shown elsewhere, the mastery of more than seventy separate legal institutes. These constitute what may be termed the grammar of money .^ For the purposes of the present work only a few of these institutes — those which are already most familiar to the reading public — have been employed. Chief among these are the names of moneys, the inscriptions upon them, their numismatic family-names, such as £. s. d., or ora, scat, styca, etc., the arithmetical relations of the ' They are enumerated at leno;th in " Monej and Civilisation," pp. 413-17. INTRODUCTION. xxxix family, whether binary, decimal, octonary, or duodecimal ; the law of legal-tender ; the authority to coin ; and the legal ratio of value between gold and silver. The reader need not therefore be deterred from follow- ing the text through any fear of being perplexed or fatigued by technical terms or references. The lights by which he is asked to steer are few and plainly displayed. HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. CHAPTER I. INDIA. Antiquity of money in India — Moneys of the Vedas — Braminical ramtenkis — Moneys in the Mahabarata — Money in Panini's sutras — Budhic coins — Moneys in the Code of Mann — The darics of Persia coined from Indian spoil and tributes — Indian expeditions of Alexander and Seleucus — Great antiquity of Indian civilization attested by Megas- thenes — Bacchic or Budhic eras in Pliny and Arrian — Pre-Grecian moneys of India mentioned by the Greek writers — The monetary expe- rience of ancient India lost through the perversion of its history — Scarcity of the precious metals after the Greek expeditions — Revival of gold and silver mining — Budhic interdict of mining — Shipments of silver from Eome mentioned by Pliny — Indian imitations of Eoman gold coins — Coins of Julius Caesar, Marc Antony, Augustus, and Claudius found in the topes — Epoch of copper and other base moneys — Cowries — Mahometan raids in India — The Quinto and other spoils sent westward — Continuation of copper and base metal epoch — Piivate coin- age — Forbidden by Akbar — His attempt to establish silver money super- ceded by the East India Company — Moneys and revenues of the Grand Moguls — The Company's monetaiy system of 1766 — System of 1769 — Drain of precious metals from Europe — Suspension of the Bank of Eng- land — Monetary system of 1793 — Sir James Steuart — System of 1800' — System of 1835 — Silver system of 1852 — Issue of paper money, 1868 — Suspension of Individual coinage, 1893 — The ratio between gold and silver — Volume of money in India. nPHE supei'ior antiquity of coined money in India is -*- established by its mention in the Vedas, the Maha- barata, and the sutras of Panini. The Rig Veda Sanhita alludes to ten purses (dusa kosaiyih) of gold^ ten pieces of gold, and the coins dinara and niska. The Mahabarata 1 2 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. frequently alludes to moneys, including " a crore of gold coins/-" Panini, who wrote before the Persian invasion of India, defines several monetary terms, among them rupya, from rupu, to strike. All these terms are still in use. The Budhist scriptures contain numerous allusions to money ; and although many of these may be anachronical, they, nevertheless, support the main argument. The antiquity of money in India is confirmed by other ancient writings, by ancient epigraphic monuments, and by the existence of " punch-marked '' coins of a purely Indian type, which, though undated, are evidently older than the period of the Greek invasion, older than Budhism, and, according to Wilson, Marsden, and Thomas, older even than the Vedic writings. A later series of Indian coins, stamped with Budhic emblems, are probably those referred to in the accounts of Arrian and Quintus Curtius.^ Gold, silver and copper coins are frequently mentioned in the Hindu Code, or Institutes of Manu ; the ramtenkis, or rama- tankahs, probably belong to the Braminical epoch that preceded Budhism ; the archaic coins stamped with the figure of the Sun, countermarked by the Budhic emblems chaitya, svastica, cross, bodhi-tree, elephant, bull, etc., are certainly older than Budhism ; while those originally stamped with the chaitya, svastica, tau, cross, crook and lamb (or dog), and other Budhic emblems, are certainly of pre-Grecian date. These evidences will be found in the writings of Cunningham, Burnouf, and other English and Continental orientalists, many of whom are cited in my former work on this subject. Together they furnish ample basis for the conclusion that coins of the precious metals were used in India at epochs far more remote than can be attributed to any coins of the West. The earliest references to India in Western literature allude to the conquests of Darius Hystaspes, and appear in Herodotus. Some reference to this era also appears in ' Sir A. Cunningham (" Coins of Ancient India," p. 49) regards the kaltis mentioned by Arrian as a gold coin of about 52 grains. INDIA. 3 the emasculated pages of Trogus Pompeius and in tlie Life of Apollonia Tyanensis by Pliilostratus. Tlie Indian karshapana (of silver) is mentioned by Hesychius.^ About the year b.c. 525 Darius appointed Scylax of Cary- andra to take command of a squadron of boats^ fitted out at Caspatyrus, in the country of Pactya (the modern Pehkely), toward the upper part of the navigable course of the River Indus, and to fall down its stream until he should reach the ocean. The account which Scylax gave of the populousness, fertility, and wealth of that part of India through which he passed resulted in its being invaded about the year 521 by Darius himself; and although his conquests do not appear to have extended beyond the dis- trict watered by the Indus, he returned to Persia laden with spoil, after having imposed tributes, which were equal in amount to nearly a third of the whole i*evenues of the Persian monarchy. It was probably out of the spoil ob- tained from this expedition that Darius struck those gold darics which are mentioned in the Old Testament as darkonim, and which Mionnet regarded as the earliest coins of the Western world. ^ The next earliest account of India which affords a groundwork for historical dates is derived from the meagre chronicles of its conquest by Alexander the Great and afterwards by Seleucus Nicanor, which appear in the pages of Strabo, Diodorus, Pliny, Ptolemy, Arrian, and other Western writers. Among the fragments which re- main to us is the Bacchic (Budhic) era in Pliny,^ which is confirmed by Megasthenes in Arrian's " India. '^ This era has no historical value beyond what it derives from the period and circumstances of its preservation. It can scarcely be supposed that Megasthenes, who lived in India ^ Sir A. Cunningham, p. 2. ^ Herod. Mel., 44; Justin, lib. ii ; Philostr. Vita Apoll.; lib. iii, c. 47; Oleurius Tzetzet, "Chiliad.," vii, v, 630; "Hist. Mon. Anc," p. 80 ; Cunningham, p. 21. ' Pliny, "Nat. Hist.," vi, xxxi, 5. 4 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IX VARIOUS STATES. several years, pi'oserved this very ancient date without at least believing vaguely in the great antiquity of the civi- lization to which it belonged — an opinion that now derives corroboration from other sources, such as comparative philology, the advanced state of the mechanic arts in India at the remotest date known to the West,^ the antiquity of the Vedic scriptures, and the numismatic remains. The earliest Indian coins extant are neither of gold nor silver, but of a mixture of the two metals. This mixture, the appearance of which, probably marks an era when alluvial mines were succeeded by shallow quartz openings, carries us back to the ramtenkis of the Bramiuical epoch. The much later coins of Argos and Lydia are of the same material. This the Greeks called electrum — a name de- rived by them from its amber coloui', and this, again, from the amber procured from the Veneti of the Baltic. The Japanese used similar coins so late as 1866. In the Braminical monetary systems the arithmetical relations were evidently decimal. One thousand copper panas equalled in value 100 silver retti, or 10 silver siccals, or 1 gold suvarna. The suvarna seems to have contained about 180 English grains fine gold, the siccal about 90 grains fine silver. If these premises are correct, 5 silver = 1 ^old. It is to the epoch following the Mahabarata wars (b.c. 1650, Pococke ; B.C. 1367, Prinsep) that must be ascribed that severe dearth of the precious metals in India, which is evinced by the use of cowries and other commodity-moneys of illimitable supply, and of the prac- tice of that strange abstention from the employment of the precious metals which is enjoined by the Budhic Ten Commandments of the Yinaya, and mentioned farther on. In the Brama-Budhic monetary systems of a period that comes within the scope of "Western literature, the precious metals again crept into use. The principal piece of this ' For Indian articles in Egyptian tombs ascribed to fifteenth century S.C., consult Wilkinson. INDIA. 5' period was called tlie dhai-ana, and contained 140 grains fine gold ; the silver siccal about 84 grains. Ten of these equalled in value 1 dliarana, consequently the ratio was G silver = 1 gold. Siccals mean literally knife- money ; the same root giving us scythe, sickle, scissors, chisel, and other words for cutting-insti-uments. There is reason to believe that from the eighth to the fourth century befoi-e our era the Indian ratios varied from 6 to 6^ silver = 1 gold in weight. As between Northern and Southern, or maritime India, the smaller ratio pre- vailed in the South, where it was pi-obably about 6|- for 1. The prevailing ratios deduced by Leon Faucher from the most ancient monetary equivalents in tlie Code of Manu varied from G to 8 for 1. In the time of Cyrus and Darius, of Persia, the mone- tary systems of India were probably based upon the gold dharana of about 130 grains fine, equal in value to 10 silver siccals of about 84| grains fine each, a ratio of 6| for 1. There were 5 silver masheh to the siccal. Whatever these conclusions may signify to us in the future, they possess but little worth at present. The history of antiquity is obscured by mythology, and until this cover is removed from the story of the ages, no valid chronology can be arranged and no practical lessons gleaned from the cold lips of the distant centuries. Could the monetary experiences of India be gathered for the modern world they would prove of priceless merit, for India has evidently essayed and suffered everything in the way of monetary experiment. Unfortunately, its experience is lost in clouds of fable and historical per- version. As a basis for legislation it is essentially worth- less, and the future of the East will have to be gathered from the experience of the West, for there the truth of history has been, at least, far less grossly violated. The marauding expeditions of Darius, Alexander, and Seleucus again divested India of her hoards of the precious metals, this time to so great an extent as to lead, during 6 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. succeeding ages, to tlie almost exclusive use of copper for coins. Marsden (p. 53) finds numei'ous evidences of this in tlie altered Code of Manu ; Thomas deduces the same conclusion from a study of the extant coins ; -svhile Pausanias went so far as to suppose (probably because the Indians of his day possessed but a scanty stock of the precious metals) that they were entirely unacquainted with money. In my former work on this subject, from which many of these circumstances and considerations are repeated, I followed Marsden and Thomas, and ven- tured to believe that such few coins as existed of the precious metals were valued in the baser coins, and used, as multipliers for large sums of them, the groundwork of the system being copper coins. In spite of the Budhic interdiction of gold, this scarcity must have led to a revival of mining, as it certainly did to the establishment of a vast commerce with the West, both overland and by sea (chiefly through Egypt), the primary object of which, to India, was the recovery of the precious metals which she had. lost through tlie inferiority of her arms. In the time of Pliny the Indians took as much as fifty to a hundred million sesterces per annum in silver from Rome, and although this was largely paid for with mer- chandise, some of it was paid for with gold at a rate for silver that yielded the Romans nearly cent, per cent, profit. Of the gold thus sent to Rome a portion was coined in India, in imitation of the Roman aureus, and specimens of this singular coinage are still extant. The writer has examined several of them, and fouqd them to be rather paler in colour than the Roman gold coins, probably owing to the presence of a small proportion of silver in the native metal, which the Indians were unable to extract. Cowries were used for small change in India at this period. Some were found in the Manikyala tope, in the Punjaub, mingled with Sassanian and Roman moneys. Among the latter were coins of Julius Caesar, with the INDIA. 7 Stat*, alluding to liis apotheosis ; of Marc Antony as Osiris, with the radiated head of the Sun, and of Augustus Filius Dei. The Arabian superscriptions on the Sassa- uian coins prove that the tope was erected in the eighth century of our era, so that these coins must have been preserved for three-fourths of a millenium, to be buried here for another millenium. Among the treasures of the Madras Museum is a gold coin of Claudius, struck to commemorate his conquest of distant Britain, which now — such have been the mutations of empire — is the suzerain of all India and its sovereign the Great Maharanee, Whatever relief India derived from mining and trading for the precious metals was lost again after the eighth century, when the Moslem raids into that country began, because these coveted metals formed an essential part of their spoil, one-fifth of which was religiously sent to the Arabian caliph, while the remainder went to enrich the homes of the spoilers in Merv, Bagdad, and Damascus. The Arabian merchant Suleiman, a.d. 851, said that in his time the principal money of Bengal consisted of billon dirhems, called tahiria or thaterya, which went for 14 silver dirhems each. These, however, were of Arabian mintage, coined by the dynasty of Tahir, which began with Tahir-bin-al-Husain, a.d. 820. In the Tabakat-i- Nasiri, or diary of Minhaj-us-Siraj, a.d. 1242—4, it is stated that in Bengal cowries supplied the place of the chitals used in the north-west provinces.^ At Calicut, on the coast of Malabar, the current money used by merchants in the foreign trade consisted of Genoese coins, which reached India by way of the Euxine and Trebizond.- The polic}' of prohibiting the exportation of bullion^ also belongs to this interval, whose copper and other base ^ Phavre's " Coins of Buvmah," in Num. Orient. - Anderson's "Hist. Com.," i, 224. 3 Bell's " Geog.," iv, 476. 8 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. metal systems sufficiently attest tlie scarcity of silver and gold. More interesting to us than perhaps any other feature of India's dimly-outlined monetary shifts is the private coinage of the precious metals^ which appears to have grown up at this period. Thomas^ states that during the Mahometan era the sovereigns of the Deccan accorded to goldsmiths and other private individuals the right to coin gold and silver, provided, adds Sir .J. Malcolm, that the pieces bore the royal devices. Marsden (p. 57) regarded this custom as of still more ancient date. Ferishtah" and Sir J. Malcolm^ both describe the same custom. The latter adds that there were no limits to the privilege, the government merely exacting a seigniorage of about 2^ per cent. Such a privilege now goes by the name of Private or Free Coinage. Its origin, history, and consequences are of great interest to the Western world, which has permitted free coinage now for nearly three centuries, not without grave suspicions of its wisdom and equity. In one respect the free coinage of gold and silver in India at this period possesses no more significance to the sovereigns who per- mitted it than the free coinage of copper into tradesmen's tokens had in the Western world, in some states within the writer's memory. The metallic basis of the Indian monetary systems of this epoch was neither gold nor silver, but base metals. India had been so often plun- dered by foreign conquerors that it was not until after shipments .of silver bullion commenced from America, about 1540, that she acquired enough of the precious metals to warrant her Moslem potentates in endeavouring to bring their monetary systems into correspondence with the Moslem systems of the West. This they did by coin- ing gold and silver. It was Sher Shah who, in 1542^ ' " Pathan Kings of Delhi," p. 344. 2 u Bombay Text," i, 537. ^ " Central India," 1832, ii, 80. INDIA. 9- first struck the four-dirliem pieces, formerly called tankalis,. aud now first called rupees, and it was Akbar tlie Great, 1555—1604, who interdicted private coinage of the precious metals, and by whom a notable but abortive attempt Avas made to establish payments on the basis of silver coins struck by the government. However, it was not until a similar policy (of changing from copper to silver money) was pursued by the East India Company, in 1766, that it succeeded. Its accomplishment, as we shall presently see, was not only a severe check to the prosperity of India, it plunged the entire Western world into- bankruptcy. The Mahometan rulers of India would at any time have preferred to change the monetary basis from copper to silver had not the scarcity of this metal rendered the policy hazardous. A half measure — which, like most half measures in monetary systems, only engendered doubt and hastened the failure of the attempt — was substituted instead. This was the introduction of billon jitals of a value between the largest copper coin and the smallest silver multiple, and the use of these pieces as a common denominator of value. However, the legal ordinances or customs, which valued all gold aud silver coins in copper ones, and thus based the monetary measure upon copper coins, were not abrogated ; so that the requirement or custom of using the new billon pieces as a denominator, whilst it seemingly changed the pre-existing system, did not do so in reality.^ The new coin was known in the Punjaub as the delhiwalla, after the name of the place where it was fabricated. Elsewhere it was called the jital or chital. In the reign of Firoz Shah it was composed of about forty-two grains of copper, and from twelve to fourteen gi'ains of silver, and derived its value from the legal regulation, which made it equal to a given number of ' The jital or chital is the common money of Hindostan, says the " Tabakat-i-Nasiri," " Pathan Kings of Delhi,'"' 111. 10 HISTORY OV MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. •copper coins. It was in these billon coins that all sums of money were expressed. For example, " a lak " (100,000) meant in Northern India 100,000 delhiwallas, or cliitals ; just as " a million " now means in France a million francs, in America a million dollars, and in England a million pounds sterling. The auriferous con- tents of the chital would require 10 to 12 of them to equal the adali, and 12 to 14 to the full weighted silver tankah. However, the actual value of the chital in silver coins can neither be determined a j>riori from the quantity of silver, nor its value in copper coins from the quantity of copper, it contained. Its value in both of these classes of coins was fixed by law, whilst its value in commodities depended on the whole number of chitals, indeed, the whole sum of money of which it formed a part, and by many other circumstances both in law and in fact. In Bengal the system of copper money, with cowrie dividers and gold and silver multipliers, remained un- changed for a long period. It unfortunately happens that those who have communicated to us any knowledge ■of this system have valued the cowries, not in copper coins, to which they were nearest related by law, but either in the silver or gold ones, from which they were the farthest removed by law, but which were more familiar to our informants. The common money of Bengal, says Ibn Batuta, an Arabian traveller of the fourteenth century, is composed of cowries. A bustus is a lak of cowries, and four laks go to a gold dinar. On other occasions he states the equivalent at twelve laks of cowries to the gold dinar. In Orissa, which is the next kingdom south of Bengal, the following equivalents prevailed : — 1 four-dirhem piece, or kahawan = 10 silver masheh = 20 puns = 80 boories = 400 gundas = 1,600 cowries.^ Skipping, in this place, over ^ The kalmwan varied from 16 to 20 puns. The ettmologj of the pun has been traced to the pani, or handful, but this may be a mere verbal INDIA. 11 four centuries of time, and coming to the end of Moslem rule in India, to wit, the year 1740, a rupee, or four- dirhem piece, fetched 2,400 cowries ; 1756, 2,560 cowries ; 1814, 2,560 cowries'; 1833, 6,400 cowries; 1845, 6,500 cowries. Some of these figures are derived from acci- dental allusions in books of travel, and not from any systematic averages of the value of cowries during the years mentioned. Until the entire monetary systems of which these cowries formed a part are rescued from oblivion, particularly their relation to the copper coins, and the relation of the latter to commodities, their value in the silver and gold multipliers of the periods named can serve no practical use. The system of Mahomet-bin-Tuglak embraced the following features : — 1st, to alter the basic material of moneys from copper to silver ; 2nd, to render money more abundant ; 3rd, to levy the tributes in money instead of produce. Shaikh Mubai-ak, an Egyptian traveller of the fourteenth century, has left us a complete scale of the equivalents employed in this system, as follows : Monetary system of Mahomet-bin-Tiiglal-, a.d. 1324-51. 4 copper fals = 1 chital, or delhiwalla (or ani). 2 chitals = 1 dokani, or sultaui. 6 „ =; 1 shah-ani. 8 ,, =1 hasht-ani. 12 „ =1 dui-wazdah-aiii. 16 ,, ^1 shanzdah-ani. 64 „ =1 silver tankah. It is very evident that in this scale the chital or ani is the principal coin, and it must have been composed of ■copper plated with silver; for at 160 to 166 grains of silver to the tankah of this period" there could have ■coincidence. The pun is still employed in Bengal as the equivalent of •80 cowries. * Bell's " Geog.," iv, 520. 2 Mai-sden, 36, and Thomas, P. K. D., 114. 12 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. been but 2^ g'rains of silver to the cliital. The system of Mahomet-bin-Tuglak was, therefore, a copper one ;. and bej^ond the fact that this kind of money became more pleutlful and available for the payment of taxes, it does not appear to have essentlall}^ differed from its pre- decessors, all of which were systems of copper coins, with a few gold and silver multipliers, the latter strnck more for proclamatory purposes and show than for com- mon use as money. Says Thomas : " The standard, if any distinct conception of its meaning as we understand it existed at all, seems to have been based upon the primitive copper currency, which was of such universal distribution as to be confessedly less liable to fluctuation than gold or silver.'^ In another place he says : " The real prevailing currency of the realm consisted of billon money and copper pieces." In the reign of Tuglak's successor, Firoz Shah, the chital was raised, as before stated, to 12 to 14 grains of silver, combined with 38 to 41 grains of copper ; ^ whilst in the reign of Bahlol Lodi, 1450-88, the tankah was debased until it con- tained but 56 grains of silver. A century later Sher Shah I'aised it to 175 grains, and called it the rupee. When Akbar, the sixth in descent from Timur, recovered Delhi from the Pathans, conquered the whole of north- west India to Kabul and Kandahar, and merged all these kingdoms, together with several provinces of the Deccan, into one great empire, he coined a rupee of 170^ grains fine, and established its value at 40 copper or billon dams, each weighing 5 tanks (not tankahs) ; the seig- niorage on the rupee being 5 4 per cent, ad valorem. These last he made some efforts to force into the circula- tion, and endeavoured to retire the copper coins ; but the attempt was a distinct failure, not so much from a > H. M. A., 104. 2 In his earlier writintjfs, Mr. Tliomas reckoned 20 dams to the rupee; afterwards lie was positive that there were 40 dams to the rupee. The- last is right (Cunningliam, p. 25). INDIA. 13 scarcity of silver metal, which now came in more plenti- fully from America and Europe, as from the difficulty of changing the habits of the country. " Certainly in Akbar's time, when theory was more distinctly applied to the subject (of money), copper was established as the authoritative basis of all money computations." ^ In Gibbon^s account of Indian moneys, which formed a study for use in his great work on " The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," he says that the rupee, a silver coin of the Grand Mogul, is common throughout India. Its weight varies from 178^ to 179 grains ; its fineness 98 to 99 in the 100 ; its value in Eugland about 2s. 6d. sterling ; the gold rupee (mohur) is worth 30s. sterling. The ratio of silver to gold is 12^ for 1. A lak (ten thousand) of rupees .... £12,500. A crore (one hundred laks) of dams . . . 31,250. A crore (one hundred laks) o£ rupees . . . 1,250,000. An arrib (one hundred crores) of rupees . . 125,000,000. The dam is an ideal coin, valued at the fortieth of a rupee. In the above account Gibbon made several blunders. The ratio of silver to gold was 10, not 12^, to 1 ; because in the dominions of the Grand Mogul 10 silver rupees went to the gold rupee, or mohur, of precisely the same weight. The 12| ratio was the result of a conflict, or average, between the gold and silver valuations (ratio) made by the East India Company and by the European States, but this had nothing to do with the system of the Grand Mogul. The lak was not 10,000, but 100,000. The dam was not an ideal, but an actual coin. When corrected. Gibbon's table would stand as follows : System of the Grand Mogul previous to 1766. 5 tanks = 1 billon dam. 40 dams := 1 silver rupee of 175 grains fine. 10 rupees = 1 gold rupee, or mohur, of 175 grains fine. Hence, ratio 10 for 1. > Thomas, P. K. D., 231. 14 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. Converted into English equivalents at the (English) ratio, which at that time was 15 for 1, a lak of rupees was worth about £10,000 ; a crore of dams £25,000 ; a crore of rupees £1,000,000; and an arrib of rupees £100,000,000.^ The history of the coinage in India, as in other countries, is inseparably connected with its political affairs. It was the spoils of Europe, gathered by Napoleon, that threw into the French mints the immense treasures which enabled their coinage to control the ratio of the commercial world for three-fourths of a century. It was the spoils of India, gathered by Clive, and coined for the benefit of his army, that (aided by other circumstances) led to the suspension of the Bank of England in 1797. The spoliation of India began with the operations of 1749, and reached what might be termed its systematic phase after the battle of Plassy in 1757. Down to this time the legal-tender money of India consisted essentially of copper and billon coins. The demands of the victorious forces, now laden with the plunder of palaces, temples, and other receptacles, very naturally led to a large coinage of gold and silver. This began, according to Mr. William Winfred "Webb " in 1759 ; it was rendered effective by the coinage provisions of 1766, Avhich not only legalised the new issues but imposed no limit upon them ; in other words, they established the private coinage of gold and silver in the Company's mints, and practically demonetised copper and billon. This system included a gold mohur of 179*66 grains, or 149*72 grains fine, valued at 14 sicca rupees. Both of these coins were made full legal tenders. The sicca rupees of Allum Ghir (1759) contained 175" 8 grains fine silver. This was also the contents of the sicca rupee struck by the East India Company at Calcutta.^ At 14 rupees to the mohur this made a ratio of 16'438 for 1. The rupees of 1 Gibbon's Misc. Works, 4to ed., 1815, iii, 472. - " Currencies of Eajputana," 1893. 5 Kellv. INDIA. 15 Shah Allum (1772) contained 175 grains fine silver.^ At 14 rupees to the mohur this made a ratio of 16'36-4 for 1. Both of these ratios were too high; not only for India but also for England, indeed, for any country at that time. The consequence was that the sicca rupees were hoarded. In 1769 the East India Company issued a new mohur of 190' 773 grains, or 190"086 grains fine, to go for 16 sicca rupees. Compared with the rupees of 175*8 grains fine, this was a ratio of 14"81 for 1. According to Dow's '^ Ferishtah " (i, 37), the so-called bazaar value of silver, or rather the conflict ratio — between India and Europe — at this period, was 14 silver for 1 gold, so that even at 14"81 the mohur was rated too high. However, na practical difiiculty resulted from this lack of precision, and the two coins circulated side by side until 1793. In this year (1793) the East India Company issued a new mohur of 190*895 grains, or 189"4037 fine, and a new" sicca rupee of 1 75*923 grains fine, valuing the mohur at 16 rupees. This was a ratio of 14*86 for 1. The weight of this mohur is given by Harrison from the records of the Mint, and it agrees with that of the " Nineteenth Sun '* mohur published by Kelly. In this system, however,, the silver rupees were the only full legal tenders, so that the ratio of silver to gold was of no practical importance. The mistakes committed by the East India Company in endeavouring to unify the coinages of a multitude of native states were, perhaps, unavoidable ; but they were unnecessarily aggravated by the unwisdom of the Com- pany in soliciting the advice of Sir James Steuart,^ who, in his work on this subject, not only evinced entire unfitness to expound or apply the principles of money, but offered them the observations of a pedant, when they needed those of a statesman. It cannot be too often repeated that before the British conquest of India the 1 Kelly. ^ " The Principles of Money applied to the present state of the Coin, of Bengal," 1772. 16 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. money of tliat country consisted essentially of copper and billon coins^ with a comparatively few multipliers of gold and silver. The blunder of 1766 was not so much in valuing gold too high^ nor in making both gold and silver coins sole legal tenders, as it was in making coins of either of these metals sole legal tenders. The practical result of this enactment was to demonetise the bulk of the current money of India, and to cause a fall of prices in that country, which manifested itself in a desire to obtain possession of the precious metals at any sacrifice and in increased exports of merchandise to Europe. The consequence was a large and steady drain of gold and silver from the West to pay for these exports. The mohurs and rupees coined at the mints of Calcutta and Bombay did not go to the people of India, but to the conquerors of that country ; and the people were left without the means of discharging their mutual obligations or of prosecuting trade, unless they procured such means from Europe. The British commercial statistics do not show the vast movement of the precious metals to India at this period because England was at war with France, and much of her trade fell into the hands of the Americans. Bai'on von Humboldt estimated the export to Asia toward the end of the last century as equal to more than £5,300,000 per annum, and of this amount the bulk went to India. It will hardly be denied that such a drain as this, aggravated as it was by the plunder of the French armies in Europe, had much to do with that scarcity of the precious metals at commercial centres, which culminated in the suspension of the Bank of England ; and it cannot be gainsaid that if a similar blunder is committed at the present time by demonetising silver and attempting to inti'oduce a gold currency into India, it will be followed by somewhat similar consequences. In 1800 the East India Company issued a new Bombay mohur of 179 grains, or 164*68 grains fine.^ This coin is pub- ^ Harrison. INDIA. 17 lished by Kelly as the Bombay gold rupee of 1818. It Avas ordered to pass current for 15 rupees of the same con- tents, that is to say, current rupees of the Lucknow weight and standard, which Harrison gives at 165*2 grains fine and Kelly at 166"5 grains fine. Both the mohurs and rupees were made full legal tenders.^ Henceforth the coinages of the East India Company were all directed toward a unification of East India gold and silver moneys on the basis of a mohur of 165 grains fine, to pass for 15 rupees of the same weight and fineness. It would detain the reader too long to describe the various changes that took place. Suffice it to say that in 1838 this unification was substantially completed, and that in September, 1835, the mohurs were demonetised, and the Company rupee of 180 grains, 0*91 6|- standard, or 165 grains fine, were declared sole legal tenders throughout all British India. Mohurs continued to be coined of the same weight and fineness as the rupees, their nominal value being 15 rupees, while their actual value fluctuated with the price of gold metal. With slight interruption this system con- tinued until the Company's authority in India was super- seded by that of the British Government (in 1858), when the same system was adopted by the Crowu, and con- tinued without change until the suspension of free coinage for silver, 23rd June, 1893. The mohur and rupee, now called the Government rupee, are still struck at the same weight, namely, 165 grains fine. There were formerly many lighter rupees struck by native or Moslem I'ulers in. circulation, varying from 147 to 164 grains, known as " current rupees," which were for the most part valued at 0*9195 Government rupees each, but have since been called in and melted down. A very full and precise account of them is published by Kelly. Influenced by the native custom of private coinage mentioned above, perhaps also unconsciously by the operation of the British Mint Act of 1666, the East India » Kelly, 94. 2 18 B I STORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VAEIOUS STATES. Company entertained and acted upon the delusive theory that money, whose volume may be limited, and metal, whose volume is practically illimitable, were one and the same thing — a delusion which is almost as rife now as it was then. Hence, following- the legislation of Charles II., it threw open its mints to unlimited private coinage^ levying upon such coinage only the slight seigniorage shown in the table below. After a series of experiments, commencing with the Company in 1766 and ending with the Crown in 1893, the government of India finally came to the conclusion that, in spite of the Act of 1666, there was a difference between money and metal, and it now seems determined to mark this difference by keeping the prerogative of coinage in its own hands and for the benefit of the empire at large. Seigniorage charged by the Mints of British India. Year. Mint. Gold. Silver. Remarks. 1821. Madras. 3°/o 4°/o Kelly's " Cambist," i, 91. 1821. Bombay. 2i 3 Ibid. 1821. Calcutta. 2 2 and refining charge. 1835. Calcutta. 2 2 do. 1837. Calcutta. 1 2 do. 1844 Madras. 1 2 do. 1844. Bombay. 1 2 do. 1870. Calcutta. 1 2 do. 1893. All — — ss. 19 to 26 Act of 1870 repealed. Besides the British mints of India, there still exist many native ones, whose issues have not yet been sub- jected to British administration. These issues will be alluded to farther on. The currency of Barroda, Rajputana, Central India, and Hyderabad remains native to the present day, while Spanish dollars and other foreign silver coins still circulate in Upper Scinde^. It need hardly be stated that none of these native or foreign coins are legal tenders within the British possessions. It was not until after the Crown assumed the Govern- ment of India that any systematic issues of paper money ' garrison. INDIA. 19 took place. These began with the organisatioa of the Paper Currency Department, March 1st, 1862. The following table shows the issues each year to the present time in crores of rupees.^ Year. Issues. Year. Issues. Year. Issues. Year. Issues. 1863 . 4-52 1871 . lOSo 1879 . 1269 1887 . 1420 1864 . 511 1872 . , 10-87 1880 . , 13-80 1888 . , 16-16 1865 . 7-48 1873 . , 12-88 1881 . , 14-33 1889 . , 16-43 1866 . 7-4£) 1874 , , 10 91 1882 . , 13-90 1890 . 16-15 1867 . , 9-96 1875 , . 11-08 1883 . 14-50 1891 . 22-89 1868 . 10-32 1876 , . 11-22 1884 . , 13-39 1892 , . 25-44 1869 . 10-30 1877 . 11-97 1885 . 14-54 1893 . 27-10 1870 . 11.31 1878 . 15-05 1886 . 14-71 1894 . — In a former work, after noticing the extravagant estimates that had been made by recent writers concern- ing the volume of metallic money circulating in India, I reached the conclusion that it was very much smaller than is commonly supposed. Mr. James Prinsep esti- mated the Indian coinages from the beginning of British rule down to 1835 at 77 crores British and 33 crores native currency. Writing in 1892, Mr. Harrison regarded this estimate as excessive, believing that the net coinages could hardly have exceeded the sum attributed by Prinsep to British money alone. Mr. Harrison's estimate down to 1835 is 75 crores, of which about one-half was either melted down in the arts, hoarded, or exported, leaving 38 crores in circulation as follows : — Lower Bengal, 7 ; Upper Bengal, 6h ; Madras, 5 ; Hyderabad, 2^ ; Punjaub, 2 ; elsewhere, 15 — total 38 crores. He goes on to show that from 1835 to 1891 the net coinages were over 300 crores, of which 77 were retained in the circulation and over 223 crores lost in the arts, hoarded, or exported. If to Mr. Harrison's 38, plus 77, crores of metallic money be added 30 crores for the paper circulation of 1895, Ms estimate will amount to 145 crores for the total money of all India. As to the circulation of native coins and bills ^ Conf. 3Ion. Internationale, 1881, p. 205, and English bhie-book§. 20 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. of exchange (liundees), this would be to a great extent counterbalanced by the coin and bullion " reserve " ■withheld from circulation by the Currency Department. The large proportion of the Indian coinage which is be- lieved to have been melted down and absorbed in the arts, hoarded, or exported merits profound attention. From 1766 to 1835, a period of sixty-nine years, this is estimated at an average of one-half of all the metal (except re- coinages) received at the mints. From 1835 to 1891, a period of fifty-seven years, it is estimated at three-fourths of all, or 223 out of 300 crores. The systematic. destruc- tion of from one-half to three-fourths of the Indian Measure of Value is a circumstance that, absorbed in the petty conceit of " unifying " moneys and measures, appears to have Avholly escaped the observation of Indian statesmen ; yet it is of far greater importance than any other circumstance connected with money. The follow- ing table shows the total supplies of the precious metals in the AVestern world, and the portions respectively re- tained for money and consumed in the arts, hoarded, lost, or exported to Asia since the discovery of America. (Continued from the author's " History of the Precious Metals," p. 185) : Total product of gold and silver in the Western world (including £103,000,000 obtained from Japan in the seventeenth century by the Portuguese and Dutch) ; the total stock of gold and silver coins in the Western world ; the total consumption in the arts, etc., and the proportion per cent, of the consumption to the product. Sums ix Millions of Pounds Steeling. Per cent, of con- D^jg Cumulative supplies Gold and silver Cumulative cou- sumption to sup- to date. stock at date. sumption to date, plies since last date. 1675 509 250 259 50 1700 592 297 295 50 1776 1054 275 779 74 1808 1314 380 935 71 1828 1441 313 1128 78 1838 1510 270 1240 82 INDIA. 21 Date. Cumulative supplies to date. Gold and silver stock at date. Cumulative con- sumption to date. Per cent, of con- sumption to sup- plies since last date. 1850 1675 400 1275 76 1860 2040 560 1480 72 1870 2365 720 1645 70 1876 2564 740 1824 71 1879 2687 618 2069 77 1883 2853 700 2153 75 1894 3472 750 2722 78 From this table it will be seen that about three- fourths of the total supplies have gone into the arts, or have been hoarded or lost, or exported to Asia. As to the latter we have already seen that three-fourths of these have also been absorbed by the arts, hoarded, or exported. It may be added that such exportation was for the most part to China, Japan, and other Asiatic States. As to the supplies which are likely to be derived from Indian hoards, upon which so much reliance is placed by some writers on money, the evidence submitted on this subject to the Indian Currency Commission of 1892 settles the matter beyond further dispute. This evidence was derived from thirt}^ years^ records of the Bombay and Madras Mints, which show the native coins and ornaments, separated from other bullion, deposited at the mints for coinage. The average annual deposits of ornaments in the Bombay Mint were valued at about 27 laks of rupees. During the famine years, 1877 — 80,. they rose to 148 laks a year; in good years they sink to almost nothing. The statistics of the Madras Mint are to the same effect ; the recovery of the precious metals from hoards in India does not exceed the pro- portion that it assumes in other and far richer States ; and this proportion is too small to be relied upon as a source of replenishment for the currency.^ ' In the House of Lords, August 7th, 1893, the Lord Chancellor said that the evidence which was given before the Committee on the cur. rency question conclusively proved that there were no such hoards of 22 HISTORY OF MONETARY. SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. Witli regai'd to the ratio of value between silver and gold in India, it appears likely, from passages in Aga- tharchides, Strabo, and other authors, that in very remote times these metals bore the same value, and were mingled in the coins of India, as they were down to a comparatively recent period in Japan ; that during the Vedic epoch gold was valued at four times that of the same weight of silver ; that during the Braminical epoch the ratio was 5 silver for 1 gold ; and during the Budhic epoch 6 for 1. But these are inferences Avhich as yet rest upon slight foundations, and, therefore, which must only be held tentatively until more certain light can be thrown on the subject. With more assurance it may be believed that from the time of Darius Hystaspes to the twelfth century of our era, the Eastern ratio centi-ed at about 6| for 1. From this period to the discovery of America there appears to have been effected a slight but unsteady rise in the relative value of gold. At the period of the discovery the ratio in India was about 7 for 1. In the course of two centuT-ies it was raised to about 10 for 1, and so remained until the East India Company began to coin, when it was suddenly enhanced to about 16^ for 1, lowered to 14 (in 1821), and fixed at 15 for 1 in 1835, where it remained until the Western silver demonetisation of 1871-73. The details may be consulted in chapter xx. Since the beginning of the present century the Indian ratio has been made little more than a reflex of the European ratio. The ancient oriental value of silver is gone, and whatever it may be in future will depend, not at all upon its superior value as compared with Western ratios in the past, but upon what the Western nations may determine. The Empire of the East is ended. silver in India, as the Earl of Northbrook and others seemed to imagine. In times of emergency, no doubt, a large quantity of silver ornaments were pledged ; but it was equally certain that trade in silver ornaments had greatly depreciated of late years. CHAPTER II. ANCIENT PERSIAN ilOXEYS. The gold daric of Cvrus and Darius — Imitated in the Greek, Roman, and Sassanian coinages — The £ s. d. system also originated in Pei-sia, and was copied bj Eome — Coinage in Persia a sacerdotal prerogative — Etymology of the daric probably astrological- — The siccal, or shekel — The money talent — Allied to the tael and the silver thaler or dollar^ Confusion of the money and weight talent by modern writers — Mone- tary systems of Cyrus and Darius — Gold coins only struck by independent princes — The Pereian ratio of value between the precious metals. Ij^EOM the period of its foundatiou under Cyrus, -*- B.C. 533, to its destruction under Darius III., B.C. 331, the Persian (and Median) empire was almost cuntinuouslv at war with the Greeks. That this was not a mere empty contest for supremacy is evident from the events that marked its close. These prove that the struggle, though it was greatly stimulated by religious hatred, had for its object the possession of the land-route to the Orient, for it ended when that route was secured by Alexander. This ujonarch not only placed it under Greek control, but also added to it the sea-route, with its great emporium at Alexandria. The empire of Alexander and his successors of the Seleucidan line, in Persia, lasted until B.C. 250, when that country was wrested from the Seleucidge by the Parthian Arsacida?, whom Strabo and Justin regard as a Scythian dynasty, but who Arrian and the archajological remains indicate came of a mongrel race partly of Greek descent. By these kings was Persia governed until A.D. 226, when the successful revolt ot Ardeshir, or 24 HISTORY OF MONETARy SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. Artasliatr Babekan (Artaxerxes) grandson of Sassan,- terminated the Parthian dominion, and restored the Persian government and the Magio-Zoroastrian religion of Cj'rus and Darius. It is true that the Parthians were also Zoroastrians, but their religion, originally little more than piu'e deism, had become so greatly corrupted by Greek polytheism that it resembled its prototype even less than the Magian corruption of the Sassanians. As shown in the story of Zoroaster^, Ardeshir^s assump- tion of the sacred title Malkan-Malka, or Shah-in-Shah (king of kings), was in ill-keeping with his pretence of desiring to restore and purify Zoroastrism, because the lattei", in its purity, acknowledged no king of kings other than the Creator of the Universe. Beginning with such lofty pretences and backed by an army whose cavalry alone numbered 170,000, it occasions no surprise that Ardeshir should nest have had the temerity to make war upon all-powerful Eome. However, the contest (reign of Alexander Severus) ended without decisive results on either side. In relation to the coins of the Sassanian dynasty Noel Humphreys, the numismatist, and George Rawlinson, the historian, both commit the mistake of supposing that the weight of the gold coins followed that of the Roman aureus, whereas, in fact, both of them followed the daric of Cyrus. This coin contained 136 English grains stan- dard or 129"275 grains fine, which is also the weight of the Sassanian coins. The Roman aureus of Julius Caesar contained 131;!^ grains. The obverse of the coins of Ardeshir bears his portrait and the legend " By the Grace of God (Mazdiesn), Ardeshir, King of the Kings (Malkan Malka) of Persia (Airan)." The reverse has the flaming altar of the fire worshippers and the legend " Artashatr, les-dai,'' or the Incarnation of God. Some have " Divine (Bagi) Artashatr, King of Kings, or God- descended (les-dan)." His successor, Sapor I., a.i>. * " Storj of the Gods," chapter on Zoroaster. ANCIENT PEUSIAN MONEYS. 25 240-73 (in the early part of whose reign Armenia was lost to the Roman Empire), styled himself " Celestial germ of the gods.'^ It was this heavenly germ who playfully caused Manes, the apostle of Manichaeism, to be flayed alive and his skin stuffed with straw and exposed at the gate of the capital, Avhere Epiphanius says he saw it himself. It is very likely that the Eoman emperor Valerianus, who fell into his hands, shared a like fate. Down to the reign of Hormisdas II., a.d. 302—9, the emblems and legends of the Sassauian coins showed little variation ; after that they assumed an Indian type, with emblems of Siva and his Bull, etc. Sapor II., A.D. 309-79, added to his impious titles that of Almighty (Toham), which is the same as Nissus, one of the names of Budha, The line of Sassanian incarnations ended with les-digerd III., a youth whose celestial extraction failed to protect him from the sharp edge of a Moslem sword, beneath which he ingloriously expired, a.d. 651. / Briefly speaking, the monetary system of Persia under its native rulers was almost identical with that of England at the present day. Twelve copper coins went to the silver shekel of about 84 grains fine, and 20 shekels to the gold dai'ic, making a ratio between the metals of 13 for 1. The gold coinage was monopolised by the Shah-in-Shah, or sovereign-pontiff, and the tributes were payable in silver at the weight-ratio of 13 ; the Tatio in India at the same time being 6^ for 1. Rawlin- son's views on this subject, and those of the authors from whom he quotes at tedious length, are entirely at variance with the facts. Queipo, Mommsen and the numismatists generally are much more reliable authorities. The average contents of the 33 gold darics of early Pei'sia in the cabinets of Europe, Aveighed by Queipo, was 8*342 metrical grammes, and, as corrected for loss of weight by attrition, 8'376 grammes, or 129-275 English grains. This is somewhat heavier than a raodei!U English guinea 26 HISTOEY OF MONETAEY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. or American half-eagle. The average weight of 142 Persian silver siccals, shekels, or darics was 5*444 grammes, or 83"96 grains. The name daric, as applied to the prin- cipal gold and silver coins of this period is probably due to the effigy of a kneeling archer, which is stamped upon, them, Danaus being the Indian name for that Sign of the Zodiac. Madden, however, thinks it comes from dari, or daru, the king. The name siccal, or shekel, is men-' tioned by Xenophon and Hesychius, the former of whom said the Persian shekel weighed 7|, and the latter 8 Euboie or Attic oboles. This obole weighed 0*71 grammes, or- 10958 grains. Hence, the Persian shekel should weigh fi'om 74 to 8 times as much, or 82"185 to 87*664 grains — a literary conclusion perfectly sustained by the weight of the extant coins. As, according to Herodotus, the Persian ratio of value between silver and gold was as 13 is to 1, it follows that in the Persian system 20 silver shekels or darics went to one gold daric, the weights of the two- being dissimilar.^ — 5 ■' That the early Persians also used bronze coins is implied from their specific mention in 1 Chronicles xxix, 7,. their common use in the Orient and the States contiguous to Persia, and the facts brought together by Queipo- (i, 100). What relation of value such bronze coins bore- to the silver ones has not been determined positively," but. should it turn out (from the analogy of this Persian ecclesiastical to the other ecclesiastical systems of money which followed it in Egypt, Greece, and Rome) that such ' Queipo, ii, 304. ^ A celebrated German anViquarian (" Fortnightly Review," March,. 1889) declares that the Babylonians used copper coins, of -which 60 went, to what he confusedly terms the " drachma or half-shekel." The drachma, contained about 85 grains of fine silver, the shekel (of Babylon) about 83 grains, the half-shekel about 40 grains, and the five-shekel piece^^^ tliat which the writer probably alludes to as the drachma, or half-shekel — about 415 grains fine. If his surmise be well foundefl. then there were- 12 copper coins to the shekel-, and 20shekels to the gold daric — very much the :5ame system as at present, ,; iMid] -yji rvid ]■ ■'<■'<■' .• • ^ ANCIENT PERSIAN MONEYS. 27 relation was duodecimal, we shall be able to trace the well-known arithmetical proportions of £ s. d. to at least the sixth century before our era. As with many other metrological denominations, the talent w^as a coin or sum of money, as well as a weight. In the former sense it has been employed continuously from the most ancient historical pei'iod to the present time. Both Gronovius^ and Boeckh have shown, from ancient Greek texts, that " a weight of six drachmas (400 grains) of gold was called talent. ^^ " To illustrate this statement Boeckh goes on to show that (at one period) thi'ee Attic gold staters made a talent. As a general thing, however, the gold talent consisted of a sum of five gold coins of the denomination and weight of those most commonly used, and a silver talent of a sum of silver coins equal in legal value to five such gold coins. When the ratio was changed, the number of such gold coins as equalled the silver talent in legal value was changed with it, and this may account for Boeckh's valuation of three staters. The Greeks, Sicilians, and Romans all used a gold talent.^ In the Roman Civil Code of the fifth century a certain sum of money is called a libra, and defined as consisting of five solidi. This was possibly also a talent. In the thirteenth century the talent was one of the names given to the golden denarius, or maravedi, of 40 to 4S^ grains fine, which was struck by Henry III. in 1257, and valued at 5 gi-oats or 20 sterlings. Dui'ing the last century talleros, tallaros, or talleries was a name given to. the 5-livre pieces, or silver dollars.* This tallero was used both in Egypt and Florence, for the oriental trade, so late as the early part of the present century, and had approximately the same weight and valuation as in France.^' 1 De Pec. Vet., iii, 7. ' [ 2 Polit. Eco^. Athen., 40. ^ Appleton, Cyc, xv, 275. * Neckar's "Finances of France," London ed., 1785, iii, 74. * Kelly's " Cambist," i, 57, 130. 28 HTSTOEY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. The tael is still used in China and Japan, and it may be the origin of talent, thaler, and dollar. From these and other analogues and other circumstances, it appears that the Persian talent of money consisted of five darics, together containing, at the period of Cyrus or Darius, 646| grains, or about 1^ troy ounces of gold. The Chinese tael of the present day weighs about 1^ ounces avoirdupois. The weight talent greatly varied. Originating in the Orient, and weighing in remote times as much or more that the Chinese picul (133^ lbs. avoirdupois), it after- wards fell to a hundredweight (the kikkah of the Bible and quintal of modern times). The talent of Cj'rus probably weighed something less than the picul and more than the kikkah. Queipo (i, 106), following English metrologists, gives the Hebrew kikkah the weight of 93| lbs., avoirdupois. The Continental metrologists give lower equivalents. As to later ancient talents, for example the Euboic and Attic, they were lighter. The mean of various equivalents of the Attic talent is only about half an hundredweight. Through the blunder of mistaking the sum talent for the weight talent, some Biblical commentators have greatly exaggerated the sums mentioned in the Scriptures. Similar blunders have been committed by the classical commentators. The inhabitants of Chersonesus honoured the Athenian council and people with a golden garland "worth sixty talents, which the metrologists have decided to mean 1| tons ! Whereas, according to an authentic inscription of the period, a gold garland presented to the Delian Apollo at the great quadrennial festival cost only 1,500 silver drachmas, or about 1,000 sterling shil- lings, say £50 ; and must therefore have been quite light.^ ' Boeclch, 42. ANCIENT PERSIAN MONEYS. 29 Ancient Persian monetary system, assiimed to have been established by Cyrus, B.C. 533, and which, except jperhai^s as to the conjectural bronze coins, was certainly in use under Darius Hystaspes. Ratio of silver to gold 13 to 1. Eng. grains. 1 silver gera of account, equal to . . . . 4"190 12 {?) bronze coins, or 20 geras of account ^ 1 silver shekel, containing ...... 83'960 20 shekels = 1 gold daric, containing . . . 129'275 5 darics = 1 talent of money ..... 646375 When the talent of money was of silver, it contained thirteen times as much, or about I5 pounds Troy weight. As with the Indians and other nations of an earlier, and the Romans of a later, date, the Princes of Persia only struck gold coins when they were independent. Thus, there are gold coins of Artaxerxes I., a.d. 226—40, Sapor I., 240—71, Hormisdas I., 271—3, Vararenes I., 273-6, Hormisdas II. and Sapor II., 309-79 ; ^ but after the reign of Sapor III. (383-88) the kings of Persia ceased to strike gold — an infallible sign that they had become vassals of some other power.^ This power was indicated, at the time, by Procopius, the secretary to Justinian I., 527—65. '' The king of Persia is free to coin silver as much as he likes, but neither he, nor any other barbarian king, has the right (6£/^ Count D'Alviella, on " Symbols ; " London " Times," Oct. 30th, 1894. ANCIENT HEBREW MONEYS. 31 evident that where Abraham paid " four hundred shekels of silver (casef) current money with the merchant/' he paid coins and not bullion. " Shekels " were coins, *' casef " was money ; the italicised word moneij of the English version does not occur in the original, because it is not necessary, casef being sufficient ; " current with the merchant " is conclusive, for bullion cannot be cur- rent (Gen. xxiii). As to weighing the coins, all coins wei'e weighed before the mechanism of coinage became sufficiently pei'fect to detect wear, and to (practically) discourage clipping. That diverse coins circulated in Judea at this period is evident from the distinction made in the Levitical law between '^shekels of the sanc- tuary,'' "shekels of the king's weight," and others. The former must either have been gold shekels, or silver ones heavier than ordinary. The ingenious but unsound ex- planation that such shekels meant standard weights, and that shekel is derived from kesitah, the Hebrew word for a lamb, is met by the fact of its previous use for money in the Orient. Sicca is the Hindu word for knife, and by metonym, a mint where knife-coins were struck, or where coins were cut or finished with a shears, also coins or struck money. Hence the various deriva- tives, siccal, sycee, shekel, saiga, zikkah, sequin, etc., which flowed to Persia, China, Judea, Arabia, Gotland, Venice, etc., when commercial intercourse placed those countries in communication with India. In a similar way the word dinara, a sum of money mentioned in the Rig- Veda, which Prof. Miiller declares to be the oldest scripture extant, has come through Rome and Arabia to find a permanent resting-place in the third term of the modern English & s. d. Not only in the passage quoted, but also in Lev. xxvii, 25 ; 2 Sam. xiv, 26 ; ^ Ezek. xlv, 12, and other ' In 2 Sam. xiv, '26, the weight of Absalom's hair is given at "200 shekels after the king's weight." If, with the biblical commentators, we reckon the shekel as a weight of about half an ounce Troy, then Absa- lom's hair weighed over eight pounds, which is incredible ; the usual 32 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. places, the wori shekel is quite plainly used for money ^ generally ; whilst in Gen. xxiv, 22 ; Numbers vii, 13, and other places it may mean a weight. In 2 Kings xii, 9, money is explicitly mentioned. The darics men- tioned in 1 Chron. xxix, 7 ; Ezra ii, 69 ; viii, 27, and Neh. viij 70 to 72, as " adarkonim " stand in the Englisli version as " drams " — a palpable corruption. These coins are mentioned by Heiodotus (Mel. 166) in relation to Aryandes, who was Prefect of Egypt under both Camb- ysses and Darius. The origin of the term has been already alluded to. As previous to the Persian epoch, there was a dharana gold weight, and probably also a dharana gold coin in India, it may have come, as most other monetary terms came, from India. An analogue is offered in the name of the month Adar. The Hebrew Bible mentions various moneys, as the gera (of which, as in Persia, 20 went to the shekel), the silver shekel, the gold shekel, the gold daric, and the talent. From these materials, aided by the weights of the extant darics, the denominational ratios of the Persian system, and the metallic ratio mentioned by Herodotus and corroborated by the Khorsabad Mint standards weighed by Oppert, we are enabled to con- struct the following table of Hebrew money at the time of Ezra, which was the middle of the fifth century B.C. Eng. grains. 12 (?) bronze or iron coins (1 Chron. xxix), 7=1 silver gera 4*190 10 geras = 1 bekah (Exod. xxxviii, 26), containing . . 41'980 20 geras = 1 shekel (Exod. xxx, 13, 15 ; Lev. xxvii, 3, 25 ; Ezek. xlv, 12 ; Isaiah vii, 23, translated " silverings") containing 83"960 20 shekels = 1 gold daric, or gold shekel, containing . 129*275 5 darics = 1 talent, containing 646*375 A talent of silver money contained thirteen times as much in weight as a gold talent. weight of a man's hair not exceeding a few ounces, and of a woman's rarely amounting to a pound. If, with the present text, we reckon the skekel as a coin, weighing about one-sixth of an ounce, then Absalom's liair weighed nearly three pounds— of itself sufficiently marvellous. ANCIENT HEBREW MONEYS. 33 These various moneys, except perhaps the bronze and iron coins, -were of the mintage, not of the kings of Judea, but of their suzerains, the sovereign-pontiffs of Persia. Indeed, the Jews struck no silver or gold coins, and per- haps no coins at all until the period of the Asmoneans, who struck silver coins under the authority of their suze- rain, Antiocbus IV, B.C. 176-64. About a quarter of a century later, when the Hebrews broke into revolt (years 173 to 170 of the Seleucidan era), Simon Maccabee struck various silver coins (1 Mace, xvi, 6 ; and xlv, 32). Many of these, together with some later ones (sixty in all) were weighed or cited by Queipo, who believed that they were issued under five different systems of weights, to wit, the Greco-Asiatic, Ptolemaic, Olympic, Bosporic, and Attic. In this respect, however, he may have been mistaken. Their weights he arranged under eight classes, as follows : !)lass. Eng. grains. Class, Eng. grains, I 49-388 V 288-000 II 100-784 VI 233053 III 148-166 VII 223-793 IV 218-545 VIII 226-108 These coins are not stamped with their denominations or value ; and although Queipo remarked the absence of any homology between their weights and that of the weight shekel, yet he followed the older metrologists by assuming that the coin shekel must weigh a weight shekel, and by selecting for shekels from the coins before him those which approached nearest to the shekel in weight, and regarding the others as fractions or multiples thereof. Hence he selected Class IV, which weigh nearly half an ounce troy each. As well regard the English sovereign as only the fiftieth of a pound of money because it takes fifty of them to equal a troy pound weight ! The selection of the half-ounce silver coin of the Maccabees for a shekel is objectionable, first, because the Hebrew shekel evidently originated in the Persian shekel, which, in the time of Ezra, contained but 84 grains, and in that 3 34 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. of Xenophon very mucli less ; and, second, in the well- known tendency of coins to diminish rather than increase in weight. Four centuries had elapsed between Ezra and the Asmoneans, and the circumstances of the latter were not such as to render them affluent in silver ; in- deed, they soon after struck copper shekels. We must, therefore, look for the silver shekel of the Maccabees amongst coins of a lower weight than the shekels of Cyrus or Darius ; and as there is only one series of this charac- ter, it follows that the silver shekel of the Jewish revolt is indicated in the above table as Class I, and contained about 50 grains, or about 7| to the modern silver dollar. Of this class of shekels there are some half-a-dozen spe- cimens extant, in a good state of preservation, and un- questionably genuine, the heaviest of them, containing 50^ grains, being in the cabinet of Madrid. CHAPTER IV. ANCIENT GREEK MONEYS. Earliest moneys of Greece — Gold and silver bangs — Leather moneys- — Iron money of Lycurgns — Pheidon of Argos — Staters of ^liletus — Exa- mination of the passages in Herodotus and other writers concerning the antiquity of coinage in Greece — The Parian marbles — Knife-coins found by Schliemann at Troy— Coins of the Troezenii— The " bulls" of Theseus — Statement of Sophocles — Drachmas of Solon — Eatio of 10 for 1 — Mines of Laurium — Staters of Cyzicus — The first gold coins struck at Athens from the statue of Victory — Plato's monetary system — Pre- Solonic scale of equivalents — Solonic scale — Decadence system — Coins give rise to weights, and not weights to coins — Confusion of the money and the weight talent — The obelos, or handful, and the obolos weight. IT is quite possible that the earliest moneys used in Grreece were those bangs or rings which the Scythians carried alike into Egypt and Britain^ where, as to one country, they are sculptured on the temple of Thebes, and as to the other they appear in Caesar's narrative ; but there are no remains to support this conjecture as to Greece. So, too, of leather money. The Scythians who invaded Greece^ were freemen, who in later times were fond of using leather money — -a money which disdained both the ^ As -we ascend beyond the sixth century B.C. we are obliged to confess that Greek history is largely fabulous. Pinkerton, Jamieson, Pococke, and other authors have pointed out the reason of this ; it is that Hellas was conquered and colonised by the Scythians, whose paternity, when their power was overthrown, the colonists did not care to acknowledge, and instead created a fictitious paternity of their own. Hence all the heroes of Greece were gods or god-descended ; and until the period above indicated we can be certain of no name. For example, Eckhel, in his "Prolegomena," quotes Julius Pollux to the effect that the earliest money of Hellas was issued by Ericthonius, king of Athens, during the sixteenth century B.C. Eric is a Scythian name ; Ericthonius is a myth. 36 HISTOKY OF MONETAEY SYSTEMS IX VARIOUS STATES. stamp of sacerdotal authority to give it currency and the aid of capital to supply its material.^ There is a sug- gestion that such money was used in very ancient times in Sparta." We shall presently adduce evidences from Homer, Plutarch, and Sophocles which point to the use of coins in the Greek states and colonies both before and shortly after the period ascribed to the Trojan war. Neverthe- less, according to the numismatists, the earliest Greek- made moneys of which we have any literary evidences are those attributed to Miletus, Argos, Sparta, and. Lydia. It will be convenient, before discussing these moneys, to allude to the ratio of value between gold and silver wbicli prevailed in the Orient. As shown in another chapter the most ancient Braminical ratio of value between gold and silver in India was 1 to 5 ; during the Budhic period it was probably 1 to 6 ; and in the sixth century B.C. it seems to have been 1 to 6^. Judging from the Egyptian ratio shown in the inscriptions of Tutmosis at Karnak^ and the Persian and Greek ratios of a later period, the ratio in the punched moneys of Argos and Miletus was 13. The inscribed plates of gold and silver found under the palace of Khorsabad — which Sargon, king of Assyria, is believed to have erected, B.C. 706, i.e., the plates weighed by Oppert, give tbe ratio in Assyria at 13, as follows : — The gold plate weighed 2577i English grains, equal to the contents of 20 gold darics (properly dharanas) of 129 grains each ; the silver plate weighed 6769|- grains, equal to the contents of 80 silver shekels of 84J grains each. This silver plate evidently represented the Assyrian money-talent. As we know (from several equivalents mentioned in the oldest Hebrew scriptures) that there were 20 shekels to the daric, it follows that the gold plate ' The Scythians used leather moneys in Novgorod, Iceland, and China. ^ Jevons, " !lIonej and Mechanism of Exchange." ' Brandis gives the Egvjitian ratio at 13^, and assigns it to the six- teenth centurv B.C. ANCIENT GREEK MONEYS. 37 was of 5 talents and that the ratio was 13, or exactly double the Indian ratio. This Assyrian mint-valuation between gold and silver possibly dated back to the period when the Phoenician traders commanded the product of the Iberian silver mines. It bears the marks of a deliberate and permanent policy, which was to buy silver, or, what is the same thing, levy it in tributes, at the ratio of 13, and transport it for sale to India, where it was coined and exchanged for gold at double this price. The silver knife-money found by Schliemann at Ilium was probably made in the West, possibly in Greece, for the Indian trade. When, at a later epoch, the Greeks of Asia freed themselves from Assyrian control or influences, which was probably during the eighth century, they fixed their ratio at 10, and made efforts to open commercial intercourse with India by establishing factories, as the Veneti had done before them, in the Crimea and other parts of the Euxine, with the view of trading through Scythia and Persia. But they were not successful. They had trouble with the Scythians in the seventh, and with the Persians in the sixth, century, when their attempts at overland com- merce were definitely blocked by the conquests of Cyrus and the Persian adoption of the old Assyrian mint ratio of 13 to 1. The ninth century B.C. is regarded by numismatists as the probable era of the punched stater of Miletus, now in the British Museum, on which is stamped the lion head, sacred to Cybele. On account of its primitive ap- pearance, and also because of a loose construction placed upon certain allusions to coins in Herodotus and the Parian marbles, this " coin " has been regarded by some numismatists as the earliest '* money '^ extant. This is so far from being true that, as shown in my histories of money in China, India, Assyria, and Egypt, cast bronze money and coined or punched money, both gold and silver, were •employed in other states ages before the ninth century B.C. 88 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. Even in Miletus metallic money — whether cast or clipped with a pair of shears or coined, that is to say, struck with a cuneus or puuch, is immaterial — metallic money, I say, must have been in use before the ninth century B.C. ; not only because Miletus was a commercial city, and could hardly have refrained, either from fabricating her own money, or else from employing the moneys of Assyria, Egypt, or the Orient, but also because Miletus was settled by Greeks, and it is all but certain that the European Grreeks used money before the ninth century B.C. For this century was the era of Lycurgus (b.c. 881), who not only established a numerical system of money in Sparta — and it must be borne in mind that a numerical system is a refinement of money which bespeaks a previous expe- rience in other moneys — he interdicted the production and importation of gold and silver and their use as money. ^ It is not contended that punched money, or the bevelled discs so familiar to us as " coins " were in use ; on the contrary, I am inclined to the belief that the archaic money of Greece, like that of Britain, consisted of gold and silver bangs, which were either hammered on the anvil, or cast and then stamped with that mark of authority which made them payable and receivable for debts and tributes — in a word, money similar to that of Kuen-Aten, the Hucsos king of Egypt, specimens of which have been found in recent years at Tel-el-Amarna. Following this were possibly globular coins like the staters of Miletus. That money of some sort was used in Greece before the ninth century B.C. is no less certain than that the Greeks wore shoes before that period. The stater of Miletus may therefore be either older or more recent than has hitherto been supposed. Now, let us briefly examine the evidences upon which the numismatists have relied for support of the current theory concerning the antiquity of certain archaic and undated Greek coins. The subject has much more than ' "Hist. Monev, Ancient," p. 163; Athenaeus, vi, 23, 24. ANCIENT GREEK MONEYS. 39 a technical interest ; it is related to chronology, to reli- gion, and to general history. Herodotus (Erato, 127) says that Pheidou, tyrant of Argos, '' introduced measures among the Peloponnesians/' As, according to Aristotle, who wrote about a century later than Herodotus, " the function of money is to measui'e value," and as the Greek word for measure and for money is from the same root {nomos), it may be held that this passage concerning Pheidon includes or means money. Even though this be admitted, the passage does not necessarily relate to the antiquity of money, but only to the period when money was introduced among the Pelopounesians, and this may have been some new kind of money and not money generally nor originally. A series of ancient chronological tables were discovered in the early part of the seventeenth century in the island of Paros. These were brought to England by the Earl of Arundel, and pi'esented to the University of Oxford, where they still remain. They are variously referred to as the Arnndelian Marbles, the Parian Chronicles, or the Oxford Tables. Though it is by no means certain, they are believed to have been engraved during the second centui'y B.C., and are dated backward from the year when Diognetus was Archon of Athens, which the chronologists determine to have been in B.C. 264 ; though on this point they differ (and consequently so do all the dates on the marbles) to the extent of fourteen or fifteen years. ^ The Arundel marbles relate that " Pheidon of Argos, the eleventh after Hercules, invented weights and measures, and struck silver money in the Isle of ^gina,'* 631 years before the Archonate of Diognetus. This places the action of Pheidon in the year B.C. 895. It is to be observed that these accounts do not agree ; that Herodotus accords much less credit to Pheidon than the mai'bles claim, the former stating that Pheidon " in- ' Acad. Belles Letties, xxiii, 53 ; Freret, ibid., xxvi ; Selden, Disserta- ■iion, 1628; Prideaux, Dissertation, 1676. 40 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. troduced " lueasures to the Peloponnesians, the latter averring that be " invented " both weights and measures and sti-uck silver money in ^gina. This island is within sight of Athens, whilst it is distant from Argos, whence it can only be reached by weathering the dan- gerous pi'omontory of Scyllaeum. Neither does it appear that ^gma was subject to Argos ; on the contrary, it seems at this period to have been independent. Under these circumstances, if Pheidon struck silver money in the Isle of ^gina, it was struck for him by a foreign state and by people who, it must be presumed, had pre- viously struck similar money for themselves. This car- ries the fabrication of -^ginetan silver money backward as far, at least, as the tenth century B.C. Elsewhere (Clio, 94) Herodotus says : " The Lydians were the first people on record who coined gold and silver into money and traded at retail." This statement — the first part of which is ambiguous and the last part erroneous — is the main reliance of the numismatists. All archaic coins are dated by them from Gyges, king of Lydia, the first of the Mermnadse, B.C. 713. It is as- sumed that this is the earliest money of the world. The fact that we possess Chinese bell-shaped and knife-shaped coins professing to be twenty centuries older ; that a bell-shaped coin of the Chinese type has been found in the Swiss Lake-dwellings ; that Schliemann found what seemed to be knife-shaped silver moneys on or near the bed-rock beneath Hissarlik ; that money is mentioned in the earliest* writings and inscriptions extant, both Chinese, Indian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Hebrew, and Egyptian ; that inscribed baug-money of Kuen Aten has been found at Tel-el-Amarna, and that Pollux mentions even Greek money of the fifteenth century B.C. — all this is set aside. The theorists will not have it. Herodotus in Clio had attributed the invention of coins to the Lydians, and there was an end of the matter. All coins must be of this or a subsequent era. Herodotus in Clio was final. ANCIENT GREEK MONEYS. 41 Well, let us see about this. I have great respect for authority, but very little for pedantry, and none for per- versity. The same paragraph of Herodotus which says that " the Lydians were the first people on record who coined gold and silver/' also says, immediately after- wards, that during the reign of " Atys, son of Manes, king of Lydia," a famine occurred, to alleviate which, the people fasted and played games of dice, knucklebones, ball, and draughts every other day for eighteen years ! It must be evident, except to the dullest understandings, that this is mere fable. Atys and Manes are sacred names brought from India at a very remote era, and are about as nearly related to a distinctive or specific date •as is '' the eleventh after Hercules " of the Arundel marbles. If the Lydians coined gold and silver before they fasted eighteen years on dice and knucklebones, during the reign of "Atys, son of Manes," then they ■coined much earlier than Gyges, for Manu, or " Manes,'' wrote, or was quoted, both in India and Egypt some eight •or ten centuries earlier. However, there is somethingr more to be said on this subject, and as it bears upon the whole system of fabulous chronology it may as well be said now. The passage in Clio is assumed to relate to the eighth century B.C., because it is soon afterwards followed bytlie narrative of the Scythic invasion of Asia Minoi', which occurred in the following century — an inference that would connect it with the Lydia of the Greeks, which commenced with Gyges, who reigned from 713 to 678. It is also assumed to relate to any and all money. But these assumptions and inferences are quite unwarranted. Be- fore it w^as colonised by Greeks, Lydia, according to Herodotus himself, was inhabited by Etruscans, or, at all •events, the race which in Ital}* was afterwards known by "that name. The chronicles of Lydia previous to the Mermnadfe extend backward to the thirteenth century B.C., and, therefore, so may the date of the coinages alluded to 42 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. by Herodotus. The persistence of those commentators and metrologists, who rely upon this passage to establish the invention of money hy Gyges^ is inexplicable. Such a conclusion is not only unwarranted by the text, it is exploded by archaeological research. The passage con- tains no date and is very guarded. It relates only to states or peoples who fabricated money of gold and silver, to those who fabricated it by " coining " or punching (not cutting nor casting)^ and to those whose coinages, were, to the knowledge of Herodotus, of record — limitations which deprive this statement of all practical worth. Modern writers too often fail to grasp the circum- stances of the ancient Greek authors and the restrictions under which they wrote. The Athenians were inculcated by their priests into the old Braminical doctrine of their heavenly descent. They were taught that every free- born Atheniaii was descended from Jupiter and Apollo. One of the questions put to the archons upon their being invested with office was, " Are you a descendant of the gods ? "^ Although intelligent persons knew very well that they were not so descended, and therefore that the question was pi-actically " Are you a free-born citizen of Athens?'^ there was a very numerous class of "sojourners'^ and helots, who were, or were intended to be, imposed upon by this impious fiction, and to whom it was believed it would have been an unfortunate or dangerous disclosure to admit that anybody or anything existed before the Greeks and their works. Consequently Greek authors were obliged to claim for their countrymen, not only aboriginality, but the invention of every art or device known to man — of ploughing, of iron, of ships, of numbers, of letters, of money, of music, etc. Hence, although Herodotus in one place asserts that Egyptian priests traced their own chronology back 17,000 years, in another he is careful to assure us that the Phrygians, who were Greeks, were- more ancient than the Egyptians, and hence, without ' Potter, Ant., ch. xii. ANCIENT GEEEK MONEYS. 4S venturing to say it explicitly — for Herodotus was a pious and prudent man — he permits us to draw the conclusion, if we are simple enough to do so, that the Greek Lydians were the inventors of money. The passage is not only defective in the respects mentioned, it is defective in other respects (for example, in reference to retail trade) which hardly demand comment ; it is contradicted by the in- scriptions of Tutmosis at Karnak, which relate not to bullion but to coins, and which, whatever their date, are much more ancient than the IMermuadte ; it is contradicted by Pollux, who mentions both Greek and Etruscan coins of an earlier period than that which the metrologists have assigned to this passage, namely, the coins attributed to the mythical Ericthonius and those stamped with the two-faced Janus ; it is contradicted by the Parian chronicles relating to Pheidon of Argos, who was older than Gyges ; it is contradicted by the opinion of orien- talists, who carry the invention, both of coined and cast money in India, to a far more remote era than either of these kings ; it is contradicted by Josephus {" Wars," i, 2) , "who says that Herod got " three thousand talents in money ^' from the sepulchre of king David. Finally — and these evidences are most conclusive — the date and con- struction assigned to this passage of Herodotus is quite I demolished by the more ancient inscribed moneys of I China, of which numerous specimens are extant ; by the ' fragments of bell-shaped money found in the Swiss Lake- , dwellings ; by the bangs of Kuen Aten ; and by the six I specimens of knife-money (Indian siccals, or Levantine ' double-shekels of due weight and fineness) found by Schlie- ; mann under the ruins of the third or burnt city of Ilium. ^ But in the areopagus of the Western world it has been a rule of law for more than two thousand years to admit ^ "Sica, a knife of iron," appears in .Josephus' " Antiq.," xx, viii, 10, and is defined in the " Institutes of Justinian," iv, 18, p. 451. It sur- vives alike in the sycee of China, the sicca of India, and the assegais of South Africa. 44 HTSTOKY or MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. 110 other than Greek and Roman evidences. Although it has been shown over and over again that the Greek works which have been spared are filled with fabulous materials, the courts of literary appeal have invariably ruled that their evidence, and theirs onlv, was valid. Verv o^ood. We bow to the ruling of the courts, and shall proceed to adduce some more Greek testimony, to wit, that of Homer, Plutarch and Pausanias, all Greeks, all pious men, and all good witnesses. Says Pausanias (" Boeotics," 38) : " Even in the Trojan times they were in no want of money. This is evident from what Homer represents Achilles saying, in answer to the ambassadors of Agamemnon : ' Xot all the wealth Orchomenus receives I' It is clear from hence that the Orchomenians were supplied with great riches at that time.-" From this passage it appears, not merely that Homer referred to the wealth of Orchomenus at the period ascinbed to the Trojan war, but that Pausanius, his commentator — himself a learned Greek antiquarian — was of the opinion that wealth here meant money. Elsewhere the same author [" Argolics,^^ 30) mentions the " ancient coins of the Troezenii, which bear the figure of a trident and the head of Minerva," and which he evidently alludes to (though not explicitly) in connection with the remote and mythical period when the Egyptian god Horus and the Greek god Xeptune divided the dominion of Argos between them. It is true that in ''Laconics," 12, Pausanias savs that in the time of kingr Polydorus (eighth century b.c.) there were not (in Laconia) "any coins of silver or gold,'^ and that, forgetting that this was the period of Lycurgus' iron numeraries, he goes on to explain that trade was conducted by barter ; but this, and the belief that the East Indians in his own day were reduced to the same shift, because, as he was informed, they were " unacquainted with money," must be regarded as slips of an otherwise most exemplary ANCIENT CxREEK MONEYS. 45- Greek witness. The correctuess of this view is evident from " Messeuics/' 4, where he informs us that Polychares. of Laconia, who was the victor of the stadium in the 4th Olympiad (b.c. 760), was the creditor of Eu^phnus for " a sum of money," which the latter promised to " refund'^ ;, and lastl}', from "Boeotics," 37, where he alludes to ''an an- nual sum of money '^ as of a time more ancient than Hercules. Turning now from Pausanias to Plutarch, it must be premised that although his history of Theseus, the subject of his leading biography, is filled with many fabulous materials, this is no reason for doubting the reality of Theseus or the period of his reign, which is explicitly attributed in the Parian marbles to a year answering to B.C. 1259. Plutarch says of this Theseus : " To his money he gave the impression of an ox, either on account of the Marathonian bull, or because of Tauros, the general of Minos, or else because he would encourage the citizens (of Athens) in agriculture. Hence came the expression of a thing being worth ten or an hundred oxen.^^ Now, I contend that this testimony is quite as valid as that of Herodotus, and, corroborated as it is (with reference to the antiquity of money) by so many other evidences, that it is a great deal better. But this is not all. The Greeks were subject to the deified kings of Assyria and Persia more generally and for a longer period than their historians cared to admit. It was not for nothing that they called the sovereign-pontiff of those states " the King " par excellence. He was so- styled, not because he had no distinctive name, nor because he was the king of a great or of a contiguous empire, but because, like " the Sultan " of to-day, he was^ their king, the suzerain of numerous Greek states. Evidence sustaining this opinion is found in the long abstention of the Greeks from the coinage of gold and in the common currency in the Greek states of the- Persian daric. Sparta, who first held the hegemony of Greece, issued no gold coins at all ; whilst Athens, who 46 HISTOHY OF 5I0NETAET SYSTEMS IN VAEIOUS STATES. succeeded her iu the hegemony, only struck such coins^ in an hour of need and from Phidias' gold statue of Minerva.^ Fortified by these evidences of the antiquity of money- in the Levant, it may now be permitted to cite the evidence afforded by Sophocles, the contemporary of Herodotus. This writer, in his " Antigone,"' makes Creon say : '' Go, and buy if you will, the electrum of Sardis (Lydia) and the Indian gold.'^^ As Thucydides places the era of Creon about sixty years after the Trojan war, the dramatist evidently alluded to the electrum coins of Sardis and the gold coins of India as of the eleventh cen- tury B.C. We say '^ coins " because we have both electrum coins of Sardis and gold coins of India older, at least, than the fifth century B.C., and the former are of such artistic merit that it is evident that they are not archaic coins, but must have been preceded by others, of ruder type and workmanship. If by his expression '' mouey of gold und silver " Herodotus meant these same electrum coins, then his statement regarding money is still more specious and misleading. The allusion of Sophocles by itself would be of little worth. The archgeological corrobo- rations and the ai-tistic perfection of his era, which, both in sculpture and literature, boldly reflected the truths of Nature, lend it great interest. It not only points to the antiquity of money, it is still better evidence in regard to the antiquity of Levantine commerce with India. This was certainly in the hands of the Yeneti during the twelfth century B.C. ; for they were driven out of Pontus, Cappadocia, and Paphlagonia before the peroid assigned to the Trojan war. Previous to that time they monopolised the entire commerce of the Euxine, the Marotis, Tanais, Caspian, and Azof — waterways that cai'ried their oriental traders within twelve or fifteen degrees of their destina- tion. After that time and until they were driven out ' The Athenians struck no gold coins before this time. ^ Humphreys, 186. ANCIENT GREEK MONEYS. 47 of lUyria by the Romans, during the third century B.C., the commerce of the Veneti was confined to the coasts of Greece and the Adriatic and Baltic seas. According to Boeckh, p. 28, one hundred of the new •drachmas of Solon, who was archon of Athens B.C. 594, "were equivalent to 72 or 73 more ancient drachmas. If this were quite reliable, then to Solon belongs the merit or demerit of altering the ratio from 13 to 10 for 1 ; because as we have some of the drachmas of Solon and know their contents, the proportion given would make the more ancient drachmas contain about 85 grains fine silver, the weight of the shekel. As twenty of these were commonly exchanged for a gold coin, which, whether a dharana of India, a medimni of Media, a daric of Persia, or a stater of the Levant, contained a,bout 130 grains of fine metal, the Athenian ratio, pre- vious to the lowering of the drachma, must have obeyed the ratio of Assyria, Media, and Persia, which was 13 for 1. But, according to Queipo, who is a more reliable authority on the weights of coins than Boeckh, although we have drachmas older than Solon, they do not contain more than 65 grains fine silver ; so that the change of ratio from 13 to 10 for 1, assuming it have occurred in •Athens, must have taken place before Solon was archon. However, it is certain from the coins that the ratio under the administration of Solon was 10 for 1, and that it continued at this figure for nearly three centuries ; for it is impliedly mentioned by Menander, about B.C. 322, as being still in vogue at a recent period. During this interval the ratio in the Orient was 6^ or 65, and in Persia 13 for 1, or double the Indian ratio. Queipo's evidence on this subject is based on the weight of what he considers one of the oldest Greek tetra-drachmas (four-drachma pieces) extant. This he assigns to the seventh century B.C. It only weighs 260f grains, and he adds that the heaviest one extant of any age only weighs 266 graiiis.. So that, as before stated. 48 HISTORY or MONETARY SYSTEMS IX VARIOUS STATES. until these denominations and weighings are overthrown, '• we must regard the change of the Greek ratio from 13 to 10 for 1 as having occurred before Solon. Boeckh^ p. 44, also cites the anonymous dialogue on. Covetousness, conjecturallj assigned to Plato, in favour of a Greek ratio of 12, which is based on the equivalent of one chrysos (or stater) equals 24 silver drachmas. But this is not deemed a safe deduction, both because the 24> drachmas to the chrysos may be based on the 12^ ratio of Syracuse, and because the dialogue may be a forgery of the Alexandrian school. Indeed, this very ratio rather indicates the forgery, for there is no Athenian ratio of 12 which can be proved from the coinages pre- vious to the Alexandrian era. All of Boeckh^s observa- tions on the ratio are weakened by his inability to dis- tinguish between the like names of coins and weights, and by his misconception of the hitherto purely legal or ecclesiastical and arbitrary nature of this relation, as fixed by the mint laws of the temples. Croesus, king of Lydia, B.C. 560-46, and a vassal of the king of Persia, is believed to hare struck those Lydian gold coins of which some specimens are extant. As gold coinage was a pontifical right which was guarded with great jealousy by the deified Cyrus, it is not hazard- ing too much to conjecture that its infraction by his vassal provoked that invasion of Asia Minor by the Persians which ended with the entire destruction of the Lydian power. It will be remembered that a similar act on the part of Abd-el-Melik was assigned by Procopius as the reason of the war which was declared against him by Justinian II. In B.C. 540, Polycrates, of Samos, an island off the coast of Lydia, is said to have deceived the Spartans with false gold coins. Herodotus/ who repeats the story, affects to discredit it ; but whether true or false, it goes to prove that the art of forging coins was not unfamiliar to the » Thalia, 56. ANCIENT GRblEK MONKYS. 49 Greeks of that period. Nor was the art of testing coins a novelty, for Theognis (b.c. 570-490) informs us that " alloyed gold or silver is easily detected by a shrewd man."^ Thucydides, describing the second year of the great war, says : '' The Peloponnesians, after they had ravaged the inland parts, extended their devastations to those which are called the coast, as far as Mount Laurium, where the Athenians had silver mines/' This place is about fifty miles from Athens. The works, re- opened in recent years, show that the ore was calamine, full of base metal, and rather difficult to reduce. Its transformation into the nearly pure Greek coins of this period proves that the Greeks were also proficient metal- lurgists. In a note to this passage (p. 136) the Rev. William Smith follows Moyle in the assertion that '^ the silver mines at Laurium originally belonged to private persons, but were united to the public domain by Themi- stocles,'' whose era was b.c. 514-465. This remark con- veys an erroneous impression. In the sense of control, the mines always formed a portion of the public domain, but they were worked by individuals, both citizens and foreigners, at their own risk and for their own account, upon paying one twenty-fourth of the produce to the State. Xenophon, writing in B.C. 353, explicitly says : " It is very sti-ange that after so many precedents of private citizens of Athens who have made their fortunes by the mines (of Laurium), the public should never think of following their example.''" From this passage it is 1 Maxims, line 119. " Moyle's translation in D'Avenant's works, vol. i. Xenophon wrote about B.C. 353 as follows : — "It may be objected that gold is at least as useful as silver. I shall not deny this. I shall only remark that gold, if it become more common than silver, would fall, whilst silver would vise in value." This opinion could only have been sound at a time when there were no laws in existence determining or affecting the relative value of the precious metals ; in the face of such laws, especially when they were enforced or commended by sacerdotal authority, the relative quantity of these metals, whether the quantity produced or the quantity 4 50 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. quite evident that down to the time of Xenophon the State never worked the mines of Laurium, and there is no evidence that it ever did so. According to Pollux, half-staters, or 50-litra pieces (" pentakonta-litra ") in gold, popularly known as " damaretions,'' were struck about B.C. 480, bj Gelon, tyrant of Syracuse, from the jewellery which the women had contributed to support the w-ar with Carthage. Diodorus, overlooking the discourtesy that would have been offered by such an act, says they were coined from the garland of 100 talents which the Carthaginians pre- sented to the queen consort Damaretta on the ratification of peace. In 444 the chalcus or '' copper " (coin) of Athens was in circulation. During the age of Pericles, who died in 429, the drachma still contained 65 grains fine, a ratio of 10 for 1, and this continued during the whole of the Peloponnesian w^ar, 431-04.^ In 428 (87th Olym.) Eupolis alludes to the circulation of gold staters in Athens. They are next mentioned by Lysias 458-378. These were stamped with the effigy of the Mother of the Gods, and w^ere variously called stater and chrysos, the last being the Greek w'ord for gold. They were probably struck in Cyzicus. The name of chrysos suggests the '' christnalas '' of the Indians. None of the pieces thus stamped are extant." In 407, during the war, the Athenians melted the gold-copper statue of Minerva Victorious and converted on hand, might have no effect at all upon the ratio. Such was the case after the opening of Spanish America, when the world was " flooded " with silver; such, again, was the case after the opening of California and Australia, when it was "flooded" with gold. Neither of these events made the slightest impression upon the ratio. Xor could similar events have affected it in the time of Xenophon, when the ratios, both of India and Egypt, were fixed by sacerdotal authority, and that of Greece, if not also an ecclesiastical adjustment, was a necessary and unavoidable com- promise between the ratios of those two great empires. 1 Boeckh. - Boeckh, 37, 38, 43. ANCIENT GREEK MONEYS. 51 it into debased gold coins. These are alluded to by Aristophanes in his vulgar comedy of '' The Frogs/* first represented in 406 as '^ the vile copper coins struck but yesterday,'* in contrast with " the old coins proved by their ring/' Colonel Jordan, commenting on this in the "New York Financial Record," justly regarded the '^ old coins " as silver ones. It is true that both gold, silver, and copper coins had been long in use, and that in this very year (406) there was a new issue of copper coins, but the old gold coins were not of Athenian mintage, and the "■ old money " evidently alluded to silver coins. We know of no lowering of the silver coins until about the year 360, when the drachma was diminished to about 63^ grains fine. Timotheus, who died in 354, issued highly over-valued copper coins in place of silver ones, but this was only a temporary resource, and these copper coins appear to have been afterwards redeemed and withdrawn.^ According to Boeckh (pp. 37, 38, 39), Demosthenes, in his speech against Phormion, said that the gold staters of Cyzicus were worth 28 silver drachmas '' at the Bos- phorus." If the full-weighted Attic drachma is meant, this would imply a ratio of 14j, as follows : — 28 x 63 = 1778-1-125 (the weight of the Cyzicene stater) = 14|. But such a ratio is impossible, because the Cyzicene ratio, contemporary with the Athenian drachma of 63| grains, was 10 for 1, as follows : — 20 silver Cyzicene drachmas, • The statue of Minerva Victorious was executed by Phidias, and during the war, when the democracy of Athens vented its ill-humour in satirical literature, it was intimated not only that the artist had seques- tered some of the treasury gold provided to construct it, hut also that Pericles had shared in the embezzlement, and had urged on the war in order to avoid an investigation into the matter. This charge appears in Aristophanes' comedy of " The Peace." With a stain of such a character resting upon the statue, it is less difficult to understand why the Athenians made no opposition to its being melted down. Its weight (exclusive of the alloy) was forty talents, or somewhat over a ton (Thucydides> Book ii). 52 HISTORY OP MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. each of 622 grains = 1 gold stater of 125 grains. Queipo reads " of the Bosphorns/' instead of " oi," but this does not meet the difficulty, for 28 x 62^ = 1750 -7- 125 = 14, which, for a ratio between silver and gold at this period, is almost as bad as 14^. The true explana- tion lies in the fact that after the campaigns of Alexander and during the eras both of Demosthenes and Menander, the Cyzicene ratio was changed by decree to 12 for 1. Under this legislation the Cyzicene stater commanded 24 of the old Cyzicene drachmas, or else 20 new ones of about 75 grains, thus 125 x 12 = 1500-4-20 = 75. It also commanded 28 Athenian di'achmas of about 53| grains each. Although pieces so light as this were much more common at -^gina, there is not the slightest doubt that the}^ were also struck at Athens, for we have some of them yet, and a few, in an excellent state of preservation, as light as 50 grains.^ These were most likely the coins to which Demosthenes alludes. After descending to this point the Athenian drachma again I'ose to the old weight, not from any increase in the supplies of silver, or any improvement in the fortunes of the State, neither of which circumstances occurred, but simply from the fact that Alexander the Great had seen fit to change the ratio to 12, and that his power and authority, or the influence of his conquests, compelled all the Greek states to obey his command or follow his example. This ''deity" struck staters of 132-| down to 131 A grains, and ordered the tributes to be collected in these coins, or else in silver weighing 12 times as much. After this, and under the circumstances, the Athenian drachma, at 20 to the stater, was no longer pos- sible without a new coinage, and this was impracticable. The onl}^ other alternative was to reckon the drachma at 24 to the stater; and thus the score, the last fragment of the old Braminical decimals, was effaced from the Greek * Finlay, " Eom. and Byz. Money" ; Queipo, " Systeme Grec," sec. 280. ANCIENT GRKEK MONEYS. 53 coinage valuations, not to be restored until a mucli later period. The alteration of the ratio by Alexander can hardly be dated before the destruction of Thebes in 334, and was probably not promulgated before 332. It was possibly not adopted in Athens until shortly before the death of Demosthenes, Avhich occurred in 322, The "Laws" of Plato were composed in either 348 or 849, but it is evident from the rudeness of the diction and the conrseuess of thought which pervades many passages^ as well as from other circumstances, that they were "amended" by some writer of the Alexandrian school. In thus corrupting it the whole text of the work was evi- dently rewritten, and although the passage we are about to quote was probably penned by Plato himself, the absence of technical knowledge on the part of the transcriber has cast it into a coarser mould than the original. It occurs in Book v.^ " Further, the Law (of the Ideal Republic) enjoins that no private individual shall possess or hoard gold or silver bullion, but have money only fit for domestic use, such as is necessary for dealing with artizans and servants, so- journers," and slaves. Wherefore our citizens should have a money current among themselves, but not accept- able to the rest of mankind. For foreign expeditions, journeys, embassies, the expenses of heralds (abroad), and such matters, the Government must also possess a fund of coins current in other States. When an individual needs to go abroad let him obtain consent of the archon and go; but on his return, if he has any such money remaining, let him deposit it in the treasury and receive an equiva- lent sum in local money. If he is discovered to have con- cealed it, let it be confiscated, and let him who knows and ^ See vol. V, p. 313, of Jowett's translation for a more literal version. 2 This term, which Dr. Jowett rather ambiguously translates "immi- grants," occurs as "sojourners" in the "Acharnians" of Aristophanes, and in several places in Thucydides. See Smith's ed. pp. 108, 117, 125. 54 HISTORY OF MONETARY SY'STEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. does not inform, be subject to anathema and dishonour equally with him who brought the mone}^, and also to a fine not less in amount than that of the universal money which has been brought back." It is fairly deducible from this passage that even before the change of ratio by Alexander, the disorders of mone- tary systems had made a deep impression upon the Greek philosophic mind. The Athenian money, barring a few- coppers, was composed of gold and silver coins. If we leave out the copper-gold staters of the year 407 and the copper drachmas of the year 354 (temporary expedients) the Athenian coins had always been noted for their purity and full weight ; and even when, after the era of Pericles, they began to be degraded or lessened in weight, they were not debased or lowered in fineness. The dis- orders which led to the suggestion of so radical a remedy as is contained in this passage from Plato were due chiefly to the ratio between gold and silver. From the moment of their liberation from Persian authority down to nearly the third century, the Hellenic States had main- tained a constant ratio of 10, and that, too, in the face of a powerful neighbour, who demanded his tributes in silver at the rate of 13, in order that he might sell this silver in India with cent, per cent, profit. This dissonance of ratio gave rise to much disorder and probably to numerous local losses in the buffer States which separated Persia from Greece, as they fell alternately beneath the sway of these belligerent rivals. Not only this, but it gave I'ise to hostile ratios in other directions, as in the coinages of Sicily. Plato's remedy was a noji-exportable currency ; the expedient resorted to at the present day for q, similar disorder has been to demonetise silver. This will cer- tainly remedy the disorder of the legal ratio, because it will destroy it altogether ; but will it not, at the same time, introduce a greater evil by reducing to a moiety the stock on hand of the material of wliich coins are made ? ANCIENT GREEK MONEYS. 55 The scale of Greek monetary equivalents commonly adopted by numismatists and metrologists is 7 lepta = 1 chalcus ; 8 clialclii = 1 obolus ; 6 oboli = 1 drachma; 20 drachmas = 1 stater ; 5 staters = 1 mina ; 60 minas = 1 talent, and the talent from half a quintal to 72 pounds weight of silver. This system Boeckh applies not only to Athens, but to " almost all the Hellenic States, even those which were not in Greece but were of Hellenic origin." It is strangely defective. It em- braces in one system the coins of different ages ; it fails to distinguish coins that were issued at the ratio of 10 from those which were issued at the ratio of 12 ; it mistakes weights for coins, and the talent, which here was a sum of silver coins, for a weight or a sum of gold ones. Following the metrologists the biblical critics have valued the mone}^ talent at £187 10s. to £342. Its true value was about £5. Leaving out of view for the present the copper coins lepton and chalcus, the most ancient equivalents of money iu the Greek States were 5 silver oboli = 1 silver drachma of about 85 grains fine ; 20 drachmas = 1 gold daric, or chrysos, of 130 grains fine ; 3 chrysi = 1 talent of 60 drachmas containing 5,280 grains of coined silver. (Pol- lux distinctly, and in two places, says 3 chrysi to the talent.) The ratio in this system was 13 for 1. In the Solonic system the equivalents were 5 silver oboli = 1 silver drachma of about 65 grains fine ; 20 drachmas = 1 chrysos, or gold stater, of 130 grains fine; 5 staters = 1 talent of 100 drachmas containing 6,500 grains of coined silver. Ratio 10 for 1. In the decadence system of the fourth century B.C., the equivalents were 6 silver oboli = 1 silver drachma ■of 63^ grains fine ; 24 drachmas = 1 gold stater of 127 grains fine; 5 staters = 1 talent of 120 drachmas containing 7,620 grains of coined silver. Ratio 12 for 1. Boeckh says, "I agree with Gronovius that a weight 56 HISTOEY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VAKIOUS STATES. of 6 gold drachmas was called talent." ^ This is a double error. First, altbougli it is quite possible that Gronovius is riglit in supposing that, at some time or other, the talent was worth 6 staters, this valuation does not appear to belong to the periods under review. Origin- all}' the talent was worth 3 ehrysi, afterwards 5 chrysi. Second, it was not the weight but the value of the gold pieces that w-as " called talent." The Greeks were among the largest producers of silver ; they gave its name ta money generally ; they always counted in silver money ; and when the denomination was omitted silver drachmas were meant. The talent was originally a sum of 60, then 100, nnd then 120 silver drachmas, and its weight, derived from these numbers and weights and not from those of the foreigfn g-old coins in which its value was sometimes expressed, was successively 5,280, 6,500 and 7,620 grains. Like the penny-weight and shilling-weight of the Tudor pieriod in England, the money talent was (if regarded as a weight) derived from coins, and although not itself a weight, in time it became a progenitor of weights — for example, of the Roman libra and the avoir- dupois pound. In short, these last-named weights, whose origin the metrologists have long sought in vain, arose teleologically from the Indian siccal, multiplied by some function of the ratio of value fixed from time to time between gold and silver in Assyria, Persia, and Greece." * The "golden drachma" was a name sometimes given to the chrysos or stater. I fancy that " medimni," used by Plutarch in reference to the institutes of Solon, was another, perhaps the original, name for these- coins (Potter's " Ant. Gr.," i, 14). ^ Observe the confidence of a borrowed theory. Says Mr. Charles Rann Kennedy, "Orations of Demosthenes," Appendix ii : "Money (as is well known) has always been founded on a system of weight." I should put it quite the other way, and say that : From a study of the- monetary laws and numismatic remains of ancient states, precise weights appear to have originated from coins. Stater, talent, pound, penny- weight, etc., are terms which point to such an origin. ANCIENT GREEK MONEYS. 57 Elsewliere I have pointed out some of tlie blunders into wbicli metrologists and writers on money have been led by confusing the sum talent with the weight talent, but I cannot resist adding one more to the number. The garland presented by the Carthaginians to Queen Damaretta of Syracuse was probably of thin beaten gold, fit for wearing on the head. It cost 100 talents.^ In Athens this sum was equivalent to 10,000 silver drachmas, or (in gold), 500 staters, each stater being of about the weight of the modern English guinea or American half-eagle. But, according to the scale of the metrologists, 100 talents weighed 50 quintals, or between two and three tons 1 The sword that was afterwards suspended from the same throne over Damocles was but slight torture compared with the head-dress in which the metrologists have arrnyed the good Queen Damaretta. It is true that one of them says, *' When golden garlands of many talents are mentioned, no other talent but such as these (each of three staters) are meant."" Yet elsewhere this same metrologist falls into the old blunder and treats the talent o£ money as a talent weight of silver. In A.u. 566 (b.c. 187) a treaty was concluded between Rome and Antiochus III., of Syria, by which that " deity '' stipulated, among other things, to pay " 1 2,000 talents of silver of the proper Attic standard, the talent to weigh not less than 80 Roman pounds. '^^ Here, evidently, the talent means the weight talent, but this was not always the case in ancient writings. It frequently meant the sum of money indicated in the foregoing scales of equi- valents, just as now a sum in " pounds " means so many gold coins ['' sovereigns '') and not so many pounds weight of gold. Gibbon, who alludes to the crowns presented to the Empi'ror Claudius by Tarragonese Spain and Gaul, one of si'ven hundred pounds, the other of nine hundred pounds, was obliged to invoke the learned Lipsius to * Diodorus, xi, 26. - Boeckh, 41. ^ Livj, xxxviii, 38. 58 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. explain away what, if regarded as a weight, was evidently a blunder.^ We now come to the copper coins of Greece. Boeckh (p. 766) associates the chalcus and lepton with the name of Dionysius the Brazen, b.c. 444, but this appears to be a mistake. There was indeed a chalcus at that period, but the lepton seems to beloug to the Alexandrian era. The chalcus was probably most anciently 5 to the obolus, then 6, and finally 8. The lepton was 7 to the •chalcus. The original quinquennial relations of the chalcus, obolus, and drachma, which found their proto- types in those of the Indian retti and masha, were not, until a later period, disturbed with such inharmonious fractions as the one-seventh and one-eighth valuations of the Greek copper coins. Finally, it must be observed that all the Greek coins had significant names. The gold coin was called a stater, or standard, not because the Greeks regarded gold coins as better than silver ones — on the contrary, their prefer- ence was for silver coins, the product of their own mines — but because, owing to the sacerdotal character of gold in the Indian, Assyrian, and Persian religions, the weights of the gold coins used in the Greek States were kept constant, and the Greeks had to adjust their silver ones to those changes of the legal ratio which necessity or national polity enjoined. In other words, the daric was of a con- stant weight ; the drachma was not. The name of this silver coin means a handful. Aristotle (ap. Poll., 9, 77) says that this handful formerly consisted of six copper, or iron, obeloi. But this could not have beeii much before his own time, because anciently the obolos was made of silver. Obelos means a digit (and therefore a finger), a needle, a nail, or anything long and thin, as obelisk, which is from the same root. Some ancient authors reckon 10 grains to the obolos weight" — an equivalent evidently related to the ten fingers of the hands. It was also the name of ' " Decline and Fall," ii, 72, note. " Webster. ANCIENT GREEK MONEYS. 59 the smallest silver (afterwards a copper) coin, and is doubtless due to the fact that the " handful" of five fingers constituted the drachma. The translator of Aristotle makes him say that the Greeks formerh* used nails for money. Unless he alludes to the metonj-m for fiuger-nails, he might as well have said needles, or obelisks. The usual Greek word for finger was dactulos, from which are derived dactyle, digit, doight (Fr.), deut (D.), and doit (old Eng.), the last, like the primitive obolos, being the smallest coin of the time, and meaning, as the obolos did, a finger, or one-fifth of the handful. Chalcus Tiieans literally a copper. Lepton means small, and the lepton of a later period derived its "name from the fact that it had followed the obolos and ■chalcus in constituting the small change of the Greek xnonetar}" system. CHAPTER Y. EOME. Supposed silver coins of Servius TuUius — " Eoraano " coins — A.r. 369, the Xummulai-y system — A.r. 437, Scrupulum system of gold and silvei"- "Roma" coins — A.r. 485, Centralisation of silver coinage and change of" ratio — A.r. 537-47, System of the Lex Flaminia — A.r. 663, The Social War ; coins of the Italiotes ; concession of citizenship ; centralisation of money at Rome — A.r. 675, System of Sylla — Systems of Julius Caesar — Augustus — Caligula — Attempted revival of the Republic — Galba — Otho. — Caracalla — Aurelian — Diocletian — Constantine — Arcadius and Hono- rius — The Byzantine systems down to the Fall of Constantinople in a.d.. 1204 — The "Western Systems — Clo-\-is — Pepin — Charlemagne. O IXCE the -writing of my " History of Money in *^ Ancient States " many hoards of Roman coins- have been discovered, and many important numismatic- works have been published and discussed. These throw^ so much new light on the Roman monetary systems that the subject needs revision. The present chapter is an essay in this direction. I must begin by assigning a lower value to the monetary evidences contained in Pliny's " Natural History " than was. done in my former work. Pliny was far from being well- informed on the subject of Roman money. He wrote- hundreds of years after the establishment of those- earlier monetary systems of Rome, whose metallic remains have been preserved by the earth to the modern world^ but of which no collections appear to have existed in his- time. His observations on the subject are gathered rather fi-om grammatical than historical works, of which, owing to the proscriptions of Augustus, but few were- ROME. 61 extant in Pliny's time. When to these difficulties, which interposed themselves between the Roman encyclopedist i and the knowledge which he attempted to acquire and . preserve, are added the difficulties of an ecclesiastical [ and imperial censorship, deeply interested in conserving I the religion, history, and chronology invented and I bequeathed to it by Divus Augustus, the wonder is, not that Pliny missed, but that he secured so much on this ' subject as is to be found in his work. Hence, I have treated his observations with almost reverential deference, and have only put them aside where they are contradicted by the numismatic remains or other archaeological testi- ; monies. It has long since been demonstrated that the ecclesias- tical and political history of Archaic Rome is fabulous. To this must now be added its early monetary history. That, too, is fabulous. It is quite possible that the earliest money of Rome was the ace grave, or heavy copper brick, held as a " reserve," but " represented " in the circulation by leather notes. ^ It is also possible that this was followed by the ace signatum and afterwards by silver coins. According to Charisius, Varro wrote : " Nummum argenteum conflatum primum a Servio Tullio dicunt; is quatuor scrupulis major fuit quam nunc est."^ ' Ace is thus spelled by the earlier numismatists, and is preferable to As. It comes from the Sanscrit ayas, meaning totality. The Romans used the word to designate any congeries (Gaston L. Feuardent, in "Am. Jour, of Numismatics," 1878). The Tarentines gave the same meaning to this word and employed it in similar ways, but spelled it i Eis. The same word, bearing the same meaning, found its way from i India across the steppes of Russia to the Baltic, where it is still found in the les or Jes of the Netherlands (see chajDter xvii). The leather notes of archaic Rome are mentioned by Seneca : " Corium forma publica per- cussum." Consult my " Hist. Money in Ancient States " for further information on this subject. Some authors trace the les to Janus, whose face was stamped on the coins. ^ The grammarian Charisius, a.d. 400. Institutionum Grammaticse, : cited by Scaliger, " De Re Nummaria," ed. 1616, p. 42. Queipo, ii, 17. 62 HTSTOEY OF MOXETARY SYSTEMS IX VARIOUS STATES. " It is said that silver money was first made (conflatum means, literally, melted or cast,) by Servius Tullius. It was more valuable (or heavier) by four scrupulums than it is now." Yarro wrote during the Augustan age, when the denarius contained about 60 English grains of silver; but as he was a bookworm, who gathered his knowledge chiefly from ancient authors, these circumstances go for nothing. The silver coins, alluded to by his authorities as of the present time, " now," were probably the denarii of a.u. 437, mentioned by Pliny (xxxiii, 13), which weighed 78| grains, or five grains more than Pliny's inexact " six to the ounce " weight. At that period a scrupulum (as we shall presently see) meant a tenth of anything ; so that Varro's statement merely amonnts to this, that the most ancient silver coins of Rome were worth four-teuths more than the new ones, namely, those issued after the decline of the nummulary system.^ The Due de Luyues had a number of very ancient Roman silver coins in his cabinet, which, relying upon this text, he attributed to the reign of Servius Tullius ; but numismatists, while admitting their genuine- ness, are not disposed to credit them with such great antiquity. Xay, even the existence of Servius Tullius has been disputed. Upon a review of all the evidences connected with this difiicult matter, it seems that the Romans struck silver coins at a much earlier date than is commonly believed, that is to say, befoi-e a.u. 437, indeed, before the nummulary system, which preceded that of A.u. 437. The order of systems was, therefore, as follows : — 1. Ace grave, with leather notes; 2. Ace signatum ; 3. Silver (and copper) system mentioned by Varro, the silver coins (denarii) weighing each about 118 grains, many specimens of these coins being still extant ; 4. A.u. 369, nummulary system ; 5. a.u. 437, gold, silver, and copper system, the silver denarius weighing 78| grains. ' Queipo, table lix, gives the weights of some of these heavy denarii. ROME. 63 When these last-named coins became the principal circulating medium of the Roman State^ some of the more ancient denarii mentioned by Var^o^s authorities, and rescued from subterranean hoards, may have again crept into circulation, when they were valued at 1-j^ denarii each ; because, although they contained 50 per cent, more silver than the current denarii, they were antiquated, and fit only for recoinage, which involved the loss of a tenth or twelfth for seigniorage. This hypo- thesis disposes of the passage preserved by Varro and Charisius. It was probably taken from Timteus, and simply meant that ten of the ancient silver coins passed current for fourteen new denarii.^ Similar valuations are to be found in all ages and countries, many of them in the coinages of the present day. With regard to the Janus-faced circular copper coins, which Lenormaut ascribes to the period of the Gaulish invasion, A.u. 369, or B.C. 384, it is to be observed that although these pieces are now regarded as aces, they may have been nummi, afterwards called sesterces, or pieces of 2| aces, the figure ''I" upon them signifying one nummus instead of one ace, as has been commonly sup- posed. That these coins were connected with the num- mulary system of the Republic there can hardly be a doubt. Both the examples of the Greek Republics and the writings of Plato and other philosophers had taught the Romans the advantages of a limited and exclusive system of money issued by the State, and having little or no worth other than what it derived from its usefulness and efficiency in measuring the value of commodities and services. The proof that the Romans were familiar with such a system of money appears in the writings of Paulus, the jurisconsult, who enunciated its principles long after ' With regard to the practise of seigniorage on Roman coins, Neibuhr denies, while Boeckh affirms it. The coins prove that the hxtter is right ; but neither of these eminent savants seemed anxious to discuss the subject. •64 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. the system had ceased to exist. Had no such system ever existed in Rome, Paulus would have had no warrant in the Roman law for the monetary principles he laid down. As felted paper was unknown, the symbols of this system could most conveniently be made of copper. Therefore, the means necessary to secure and maintain such a money were for the State to monopolise the copper mines, restrict the commerce in copper, strike copper pieces of high artistic merit, in order to defeat coun- terfeiting, stamp them with the mark of the State, render them the sole legal tenders for the payment of domestic contracts, taxes, fines, and debts, limit their emission until their value (from universal demand for them and their comparative scarcity) rose to more than that of the metal of which they were composed, and maintain such restriction and over-valuation as the permanent policy of the State. For foreign trade or diplomacy a supply of gold and silver, coined and uncoined, could be kept in the treasury. There are ample evidences that means of this character were, in fact, employed by the Roman Republic ; and, thei-efore, that such was the system of money it adopted. The copper mines were monopolised by the Roman State, the commerce in copper was regulated, the bronze nummi were issued by the State, which strictly monopo- lised their fabrication, the designs were of great beauty, the pieces were stamped " S. C.,^^ or ex senatus consulto ; they were for many years the sole legal tenders for pay- ment of contracts, taxes, fines, and debts ; their emission was limited, until the value of the pieces rose to about five times that of the metal they contained,^ and they steadily and for a lengthy period retained this high over- valuation. The equivalent of four aces signata to the nummus probably mai'ks the period when the nummus was worth four times its weight of copper, for the ace signatum was merely so much metal to the Romans of ' " History of Money in Ancient States," 257. EOiVlE, 65 this period, thougli it may have had a superior value to the Etruscan and other surrounding nations. The equiva- lent of two and a half aces sig-nata to the uummus pro- bably marks a further decline in the value of the latter. When the nummulaiy system broke down entirely, the nummi, which had successively been worth 5, 4, and 2^ aces each, fell to the value of 1 ace, and were thence- forth themselves known as aces. The decadence of this system, that is to say, the precise period when the nummus fell to the value of an ace, is uncertain. If we permit ourselves to be guided by Livy, it was when, the soldiers^ stipend {" there being no silver coined at that time ") being paid in bronze coins, the immense quantity required for the army was conveyed to it in waggons ; in other words, in the year a.u. 402. The introduction, or rather the re-introduction, of silver coins into the monetary system of Rome must, therefore, with the greatest probability, be dated between a.u. 402 and A.u. 437.^ Livy (vii, 16 ; xxvii, 10) mentions a tax called aurum vicesimarium enacted a.u. 397 — an expression which implies the use of gold money in Rome at that early date, or, what is more likely, at a still earlier one. This implica- tion dei'ives corroboration from what we shall presently have to say concerning the " Romano " coins. Lenormant (i, 316) holds that " it has been established by Mommsen beyond all question that, with perhaps one exception, there exist no gold coins of the Republic but such as were struck by its military generals in the field, or at least elsewhere than in Rome." The exception relates to the aureus of Cn. Lentulus, and even this, it is claimed, was not struck under his civil authority as monetary triumvir, but as urban quaestor, specially com- ' Livy, iv, 60. A similar coinage of silver took place in China in 1845, where a somewhat similar system of bronze numeraries had existed, and where," by the way, it still exists (H. M. A., 43). At the present time (1895) silver is being again coined in China for soldiers' pay. 5 66 HISTORY OF MONETAEY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. missioned to provide for tlie expenses of a war. This opinion is based ratlier upon a theory tlian a fact. The theory is that the Roman coins of the Republic were struck by virtue of the imperiutn, that is to say, a military rather than a State prerogative. The answer to this theory is that there was and could have been no pre- rogative of the imperium other than that derived from the State. What was the irapeinum ? Supreme military com- mand : the right to do whatever was deemed essential to achieve military success. This right sprang from the people. In the most ancient times it was conferred by the Comitia upon the king after they had elected him, and by virtue of his office.^ When the monarchy was overthrown the people annually elected two supreme co- ordinate magistrates, into whose hands were committed all the powers of the State, including the imperium. These were acquired and exercised by virtue of their office. For this reason the consuls were sometimes called imperatores.^ When a general in the field had obtained a notable victory, it was customary for the troops to hail him by this proud title ; but it could not be retained after the ti'iumph or the return of the victorious commander to the city. There it fell, of course, to the consuls by virtue of their office.^ It follows that after the Comitia, the powers of the imperium were derived from the consuls, and were subject to modification or revocation by them. No doubt many of the Roman commanders, during the period of the Republic, struck coins in the field in order to melt down and divide the spoils or pay the troops, but such coinages were, legally, as completely under control of the State as though they had been made in Rome. Indeed, without such legal control and supervision it would have been impossible for generals in the field to 1 Niebuhr, i, 288 ; Carr, " Roman Ant.," 108. ^ Adams, " Roman Ant.," 91, and authorities cited. 3 Adams, 322. EOME. 67 adjust their gold coinages with such nicety to the weights of the silver coins and the ratios of value established by the State from time to time between the precious metals, as appear from a due consideration of the coinage systems of this era. Moreover, at the period alluded to by Mommsen, the State had but recently emerged from the use of a bronze currency system, whose efficiency and value had depended largely upon the limitation of its issues by the State, which was, therefore, not likely to have parted with this supernal prerogative. This system had broken down, not from any inherent defect or im- practicability, but owing to the circumstances of a war which took place upon Roman soil and threatened the very existence of the Republic. Finally, if there was a de- partment of the government which, more than any other, enjoyed the prerogative of coining gold, it was the pon- tificate rather than the imperium, for in the ancient times gold was always held to be a sacred metal, and upon it was stamped, not so much the emblems of war as of religion. But that; the Roman coins were struck by pontifical au- thority does not appear to have been suspected by the learned Prussian. When Mommsen's imperium argument is applied to the affairs of the Empire, it flies in the face of the most illus- trious witness whose testimony has been preserved to us from antiquity. Says Tacitus : *' Besides the honours already granted to Bleesus, Tiberius ordered that the legions should salute him by the title of imperator, ac- cording to the ancient custom of the Roman armies in the pride of victory, flushed with the generous ardour of warlike spirits. In the time of the Republic this was a frequent custom, insomuch that several at the same time, without pre-eminence or distinction, enjoyed that military honour. It was often allowed by Augustus, and now by Tiberius for the last time. With him the practice ceased altogether." ^ From this passage we learn that during 1 Tacitus, " Annals," iv, 74. 68 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. the Empire the title of imperator, and with it necessarily such prerogatives as belonged to the imperium, were granted Idv the order, permission, or clemency of the sovereign-pontiffsj and that Tiberius granted it for the last time. These replies to the argument of the Prussian savant are strengthened bythe legendsuponthe'''Romano^^ coins presently to be mentioned. The earliest Roman silver coins which are still extant in any number belong to two series, stamped respectively " Romano " and " Roma." Numismatists generally attri- bute both of these series to the mints of Capua and other cities of Campania, which were then included in Magna Graecia. They date the ''Romano" coins from a.u. 412 to 543, and the " Roma " coins from a.u 437 to 543. Before givinof their reasons for these attributions and dates, I must be permitted to say that several circum- stances induce me to regard the " Romano " coins as of an era previous to the Roman nummulary system ; in other words, that the silver coins of the "Romano" series are embraced in the heavier and earlier denarii alluded to by Varro. (1.) Many of them weigh half as much again as the •' Roma " coins_, and, for this and other similar reasons, could hardly have belonged to the same system. Babelon saw this objection, and attempted to avoid its force by sup- posing the ''Romano" denarii to be Greek di-di-achmas,but our chapter on Greek moneys proves that the explanation is defective. The " Romano " coins are not heavy enough for di-drachmas of that period, even when of the lightest weight yet found. (2.) Although the internal dissensions of the Samnites led to the interference of the Romans so early as a.u. 412, then under the consuls M. Valerius Corvus and A. Cornelius Cossus, yet this interference did not for many years result in any such conquests, on the part of the latter, as would have warranted them in stamping money in the field, or anywhere else, for circu- lation in Campania ; whilst the legend " Romano " forbids. the hypothesis that they were stamped for circulation else- ROME. 69 ii where than in Eome. Their Grecian type may be simply due to the employment of Greek die-sinkers in Rome. For these reasons the " Romano '' silver coins are regarded as older than the '' Roma " series ; this view iacluding all the " Romano " coins, whether of gold, elec- trum, silver, or bronze. The reasons advanced by numismatists for calling both of these series Capuan or Campanian coins are briefly as follows : — (1.) The types of the coins are Greek, not Roman. They follow the coins of Macedon ; some of them follow the types of previous Capuan coinages ; some are stamped '' Capua '^ in the Oscan letter. (2.) The ' word " Romano, '^ as employed on the coins, is a Greek rather than a Roman form. (3.) The type of some of the Capuan coins (for example, the casqued Minerva) is 1 apparently copied from the coins of Andoleon, king of I Pseonia (in Macedon), about a.u. 470, However, these i last are rather late " Roma " coins, about which there is no dispute. It is quite possible that during the wars of the Romans with the Samnites and other nations in Italy, their generals struck some "Roma" coins in the field; but unless we are prepared to throw both Livy and Pliny overboard, it must be admitted that such coins were also .•-truck in Rome, and that all of them, whether in Rome or elsewhere, were struck under the coinage prerogative of the Roman State — a prerogative which, from the birth to the downfall of their government, the Romans never willingly let slip from their hands. In A.u. 437 a notable addition was made to the monetary system of Rome by the issuance of a " Roma " gold coin, called the " scrupulum," which was valued at twenty aces, and others of forty and sixty aces — not sesterces, as has been hitherto supposed.^ Assuming that the denarius of this period contained 78f grains fine silver and the relation of silver to gold was 9 for l,then 1 Mommsen, M. R., i, 266, cited by Lenovmant, i, 162. 70 HISTOEY OF JJOXETARY SYSTEMS IX YARIOUS STATES. the scrupulum coins sliould contain about 17^ grains of gold, whiclij as is shown in the table below, was the fact. It should, however, first be explained that in Greece and Eome the scrupulum (not the scripulum, for which it has often been mistaken) was the name of a pawn or draughtsman, and that the game of draughts was ancientlv played with nine and afterwards with ten men. Hence the scrupulum at first meant the ninth, and afterwards the tenth part, or multiple, of anything*. So also an insect with ten feet was called scrupipid^, and a measure of land ten feet long and ten feet wide, containing a hundred square feet^ was called a scrupulum. At a still later date the game of draughts was played, as it is still played, Avith twelve men, but these numbers were unknown to tlie game at the period under review. Hence, in Rome, during the fifth century of the city, a scrupulum meant, not a weight, but the ninth of anything ; and in the case of money it meant the ninth of the gold aureus. This is shown in the following table : Roman coinage system about x.r. 437 or B.C. 316. Ratio of silver to gold, 9 for 1. 2^ bronze aces = 1 bronze sesterce. 4 sesterces ^ 1 silver denarius, 78f Eng. grains. 2 denarii = 1 gold scrupulum, 17'5 grains, stamped " XX.'* 18 denarii = 1 gold aureus, loT'o grams. 5 aurei = 1 libra of account, containing 787'o grains fine gold. Hence 900 aces = 1 libra. The gold and silver coins were of substantially fine metal. Type of gold coin : obverse, the head of Romulus or Mars, accompanied by numerals, denoting the tale value; reverse, an eagle, with the legend " Eoma.^^ Type of silver coins : obverse, female head with winged helmet ; reverse, a biga and the legend " Roma.^^ Pliny (xxxiii, 13) says that the libra was equal to " DCCCC,'^ or 900 sesterces, meaning aces, to the value of which the bronze sesterces meanwhile fell. From this table of equivalents it will be observed that ROME. 71 the scrupulum -was not a scripulum weight, uor the libra a pound weight ; but that the former was simply one- ninth of the aureus coin, and the latter five aurei. The scrupulum coins in the British Museum marked '•' LX/' meaning 60 aces, contain from 52 to 52"7 grains of gold, the theoretical weight being 52§ grains. Those marked '' XL " contain o4'4 to 34' 5 grains, the theore- tical weight being 35*106 grains; those marked "XX" contain 17"2 to 17'4 grains, the theoretical weight being 17'5 grains. The denarii contain from 66*5 to 79"9 grains. The lightest of these denarii evidently belong to later systems. With regard to the 'Mibra " of account. Gibbon says that, besides the libra weight, the Romans used a libra of account, which they called pondo : " Outre la livre pon- derale des Romains, ils avoient une livre de comte, qu'ils appelloient pondo. ^^ ^ An example in point is shown below. The pound of account was also called the " libra sestercia," or the '' sestercium ; ^' that is to say, a thousand bronze sesterces, whether composed of gold, silver, or copper coins, Pliny, Ammianus Marcellinus, and the Theodosian Code all assure us that there were 5 aurei to the " pound '' of account during the Empire, Gibbon supposed that the Romans commenced coining gold at 40 aurei to the libra weight, afterwards (citing Snellius and Agricola) at 42, and gradually more, until, in the time of Caracalla, the number reached 48 (109"38 grains each) ; "the drachma or denier^' always weighing half as much, and valued at ^V o^ ^^^ aureus, a ratio of 12i, But the "numismatic discoveries of the present century prove this to be all wrong. The aureus of a,u, 437 was struck 33^ to the pound weight ; the denier was not always lialf the weight of the aureus; the ratio was never 12|; there were not always 25 deniers to the aureus. As these errors are only a few, amongst a vast number on the same subject, that appear in the usual works of reference, they are only noticed here on account ^ Misc, works, ed, ISlo, iii, 437. 72 HISTORY OF MONETAET SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. of the eminence of the author, and the almost universal acceptance of the great literary masterpiece to which his essay on '' Roman Money ^' formed a preliminary study. In A.u. 485 a small silver coin was struck in Rome, the fourth of a denarius, called a sesterce. At the same time there appeared a new coinage of aces, of which 10 went to a denarius, of about 73 grains. These coins are shown in the following table of equivalents •} Roman coinage system under the consuls Ogulnius and Fabius, A.r. 485 or B.C. 268.^ Ratio of silver to gold 10 for 1. 24 bronze aces =: 1 silver sesterce, 18"229 grains. 4 sesterces = 1 silver denarius, 72'9167 grains. 20 denarii ^ 1 gold aureus, 14o'833 grains. 5 aurei = 1 libra of account, containing 729i- grains fine gold. Hence 1000 aces = 1 libra. The gold and silver coins were of substantially pure metal. Coins struck in Rome. It is in reference to this period that Budteus (lib. 4) says that the pondo of account consisted of 100 denarii, or 400 sesterces (or 1000 aces). The system was purely decimal : for example, ]Oaces=l denarius; 20denarii = 1 aureus ; 5 aurei, or 1000 aces = 1 libra. This circum- stance has a significance which does not belong to the present subject, but which the curious reader may pursue in my ''Middle Ages Revisited," index word "Ten.'' Mommsen holds that in a.u. 485 Rome limited the Latin colonies to the coinage of bronze, and thenceforth mono- polised for herself the coinage of silver. Between the era of this system and the year a.u. 535, ■when a treaty relative to the exchange of prisoners made during the first was renewed during the second Punic war, the libra of account appears to have been raised ' Ernest Babelon ("Monnais de la Republique," i, xxiii) dates the earliest silver sesterce in A.tT. 485 (486). It disappeared in 537, reap- peared in 665, and finally disappeared in 711. ' Pliny, xxxiii, 13 ; Livy, Ep. xv. EOME. 73 "from 5 to 10 aurei. There are several testimonies which support this opinion. Plutarch, who alludes to this treaty in his life of Fabius Maximus, fixes the ransom of the prisoners at 250 drachmas or denarii. Livy (xxii, 23), in alluding to the same ti-ansaction, com- putes it at two and a half pounds of money — " argenti pondo bina et selibras." This allows 250 denarii to the. libra of account. As the denarius of that period weighed about 70 English grains and the aureus about 160 grains, and the ratio was 10 for 1, it follows that there were 10 aurei to the libra, as appears in the next table. Ocher tes- timonies arise from the use of the phrases '' libra ses- itercia" and " sestertium,^' meaning a thousand sesterces or 2500 aces to the libra, which could only be the case if the libra was raised to 10 aurei. Roman coinage system during the second Punic ivar, a.v. 535, or B.C. 218. Ratio of silver to gold 10/or 1. 10 bronze aces = 1 silver denarius, 70 grains. 25 denarii =^ 1 gold aureus, 160 grains. 10 aurei ^ 1 libra of account. Hence 2500 aces = 1 libra. The gold and silver were of substantially pure metal. 'These coins were struck in Home. However, this valuation of the libra did not stand long. Before the conclusion of the war the libra appears to have 'been again valued at 5 aurei, as shown in the following table of equivalents : Roman coinage system under the consuls Claudius and Livius, A.u. 547, B.C. 206.^ Ratio of silver to gold 10 for 1. 16 bronze aces = 1 silver denarius, 63 grains. Qi denarii = 1 quarter-aureus, 39'375 grains. 25 denarii = 1 gold aureus, 157'5 grains. 5 aurei := 1 libra, 787'5 grains. Hence 2000 aces = 1 libra. ' Pliny, xxxiii, 13. Babelon, p. xv, dates this coinage from the Lex IFlaminius or Lex Fabius, a.u. 537, the year of the battle of Trasimenus, 74 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IX VARIOUS STATES. The gold and silver coins were substantially of fine metal. These coins were struck in Rome. About a.u. 525 tbe Roman authorities bad esta^blished branch mints, and authorised the striking of coins for the Republic in the provincial cities of Italy, Cis-Alpine Gaul, and Illyria ; but this did not include the right to strike the- ■denarius.^ In paying the troops a denarius was always reckoned at 10 aces. One result of the Social war (a.u. 664^6), which was caused by the demand of the rural Italians to share the privileges of citizenship with the Romans, was that the Roman provincial mints in Italy, with the exception of those in Sicily, were all closed, and the work of coinage- was removed to Rome. Before this, however, the in- surgents issued coins stamped Italia, but as the coins were suppressed with the insurrection, they hardly claim a place in the present brief review. Among the Italiote coins were the aurei of Minius leus, weighing lol^- grains." The period of the Lex Papiria, cited by Pliny, which the older commentators assigned to a.u. 587, has been gradually lowered, until, in the most recent numismatic works, it has been assigned to a.u. 663, when, by the Lex Julia, the rights of Roman citizenship were at length con- ceded to all freeborn Italians. It is now called the laws of Julia and Plautia-Papiria. The original authority for this lowered date is Niebuhr, who has been followed by Mommsen, Lenormant, and Babelon. The principal changes which took place in the Roman monetaty^ law at when Q. Fabins Masimiis was dictator and C. Servilius and C. Flaminius- were consuls. A discrepancy like this one, of ten years, and a further discrepancy of five years, appears in many instances between the Augustan and Christian chronology. See " Middle Ages Eevisited,'* Appendix, on " Ludi Saeculares." ' Mommsen, " Eechtsfrage," 18 ; Lenormant, ii, 234. ' Friedlander and Burgon give the weight of the aureus of Minius. leus at 131+ English grains. ROME. 75 tliis period will be found embodied in the system of Sylla. Roman coinage system under Sylla, a.u. 675, or B.C. 78. Ratio of silver to gold 9 for 1. 4 bronze aces = 1 silver sesterce, 15 grains. 4 sesterces = 1 silver denarius, of about 606 grains. 12| denarii ^ 1 gold half-aureus.^ 25 denarii := 1 gold ai^reus, of about 168'3 grains. 5 aurei = 1 libra of account. Hence 2000 aces = 1 libra. The gold and silver pieces were of substantially fine metal. Type of gold coins : MANLIA with biga, or L. SYLLA ; on reverse, figure on horseback. Type of silver coins : obverse, head of Ceres, with small head of Taurus ; reverse, altar and sacrifice — apparently a con- cession to the Bacchic cult of Italy. The gold coins of this series, which are very rare, are believed to have been struck in Asia. The weights of four examples in the British Museum are 169'3, 167' 7, 167'3, and 167'2 grains, the theoretical weight being' 168'3 grains. The silver coins of the same series are serrated on their edges, and weigh from 55 to 61^ grains each, the theoretical weight being 60'6 grains. Sylla sti'uck no bronze or copper coins, nor were any struck between his time and the xeav when Augustus celebrated the Ludi Steculares, and when M. Sanguinius and P. Licinius Stoto filled the position of monetary triumvirs. In his earlier coinages Julius Cfesar struck aui-ei of 142 and afterwards (in a.u. 694)" of 131 j grains, specimens of which are still extant. The ratio of silver to gold in these coinages was probably 10 for 1. In the coinages of A.u. 708 this ratio was definitively — and, as it turned out, permanently — fixed at 12 for 1. ' "No smaller gold pieces in use at tbis period" (Humpbrey.s, 303). - Letronne, p. 75. 76 HISTORY OP MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. Roman coinage system under Julius Csesar, a.tj. 708, or B.C. 45. Ratio of silver to gold 12 for 1. 4 bronze aces ^ 1 silver sesterce, 15 grains. 4 sesterces' = 1 silver denarius, about 60 grains. 25 denarii = I gold aureus, 125 grains. 5 aurei = 1 libra of account. Hence 2000 aces = 1 libra. The gold and silver pieces were of substantially fine metal. Letronue (p. 84) says that down to Vespasian the aurei were 0"99l to 0"998 fine. Csesar was the first to stamp the image of a living person (his own) on a Roman coin (Lenormant, ii, 332). No language is more positive than that of Mommsen and Lenormant in laying down the following institute : that Rome never permitted her vassals to strike gold. " La Republique se reservait exclusivement la fabrication de la monnaie de ce metal, sans la permettre a ses vassaux.^^ When gold was struck in the provinces — for example, the staters struck by Titus Quinctius Flamininus in Greece and afterwards the aurei of Sylla in Asia, or the aurei of Ponipey in Cilicia, a.u. 693 — it was always done in the name of Rome and under the prerogative of the State. ^ This practice was continued to the end of the Empire. Lenormant regards it as the jealous prerogative of the imperium.^ We have discussed this theory already, and shown it to be untenable. But even admitting, for the sake of limiting its place in time, that such was the case during the Republic, it certainly ceased to be so when the Empire was consolidated by Augustus, and all the powers ' " These were the so-called ' First Brass,' or, more properly, * First Bronze,' which took the place of the silver sesterce, the latter thenceforth disappearing from circulation. The half-sesterce, or dupondius, was the "* Second Brass,' and the reduced ace was the ' Third Brass ' of the •earlier numismatists" (HumiDhreys, 302, 312). 2 Lenormant, "Mon. Ant," ii, 120; Mommsen, M. R., iii, 344. ^ Weight of an aureus of Pompej, 146 grains. Lenormant, ii, 303. * Patin, 35 ; Lavoix ; Procopius ; Zonaras. * Pp. 121, 248, 304, 363, etc. ROME. 77 and prerogatives of the State, whether religious, civil, or military, were merged in tlie sovereign-pontiif. The latest of such alleged military coins were the silver denarii and bronze aces struck by T. Carisius, who was Legatus Augusti in Gallia and Lusitania, a.u. 731—2.^ Augustus united the imperium to the pontificate in a.u, 740, and from this time forward the right to strike gold became the exclusive prerogative of the sovereign-pontiff. That it was regarded a sacerdotal prerogative is proved by the continual repetition of religious emblems on the coins. Lenormant himself noticed this : " Pendant long- temps, elles ne portant que des types religieux assez uniformes, arretes par les autorites publiques et puises dans la religion de I'etat.''^" In this year the Roman coinage system was permanently organised.^ The coinage prerog-ative was divided be- tween the sovereign-pontiff and the Senate, the former retaining that of gold and resigning to the latter that of silver and copper. In a short time, through the virtual subjection of the Senate, the silver coinage also fell to the sovereign-pontiff. In accordance with the ordinance of a.u. 740, the coinage of silver was permitted to the proconsuls, and the pieces stamped PERMissu DIVI AVGusti, that is, " by permission of the divine Augus- tus.^^ The coinage of bronze always remained with the Senate.^ However, this prerogative, like that of silver, was virtually in the hands of Augustus ; yet it suited ' Lenormant, i, 362. - Lenormant, ii, 232. ^ " The school of.Mommsen hold that a reorganization of the monetary system took place in a.u. 727, when Octavius received the title of Augustus, or in A.u. 738, the date of the Ludi Sseculares and of his (second) attempted apotheosis " (Lenormant, ii, 214, 399). But they fail to offer any proofs *^ which connect the reorganization with these dates. Moreover, their conclusions are vitiated by the unwarranted assumption that the coinage was a prerogative of the imperium — an assumption which is negatived by their own admissions concerning the coinages of Otho mentioned further on. * Lenormant, ii, 195, 216, 218. 78 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. his interest not to meddle with, it as he did with the coinage of silver. Roman coinage system of Augustus, a.u. 740, or B.C. 13. Ratio of silver to gold 12 for 1. 4 bronze sesterces = 1 silver denarius, 58'4 grains. 25 denarii = 1 gold aureus, 121"6 grains. 5 aurei = I libi'a, 608 grains. Hence 500 sesterces = 1 libra. The gold and silver pieces were of substantially fine metal.^ In this system the silver sesterce gives way to a bronze one. The defects of Pliny^s history of the Eoman money arise chiefly upon his too confident reliance upon verbal- isms ; yet the school of Mommsen follow him without the least misgiving. They gravely inform us that pecunia is derived from pecus ; that the value of coins is dedu- cible from the names of weights ; that the modern pound sterling is from the pound weight of silver, and the marc of money from a mark weight of silver ; they talk familiarly of the single and double " standard '^ under Julius Caesar and Augustus ; and draw conclusions from ancient history, the premisses of which cannot possibly be traced in Europe farther back than the coinage legisla- tion of the sixteenth century. Such a school exhibits no claims to be regarded as authorities on either the prin- ciples or the history of money. They have been taught to look upon money as so much metal, Avhereas it is plainly an institution of law. It is as though measures of length and volume were regarded as so much wood, because it has been found most convenient to make yard- ^ Patin (" Hist. Coins," p. 71) says tbat the Eoman gold coins were of fine metal down to the reign o£ Alexander Severus, when they were alloyed with one-fifth of silver. This alliage, however, was not common, but exceptional. He goes on to say that the purity of the coins was re- stored by Aurelian. On this subject, consult Lenormant, i, 200, 203. ROME. 79 sticks, pecks, and busliels of that matei'ial. Moinmsen's conception of the monetary system of Aug-ustus is that it began Avith an attempt to establish the " double » standard^' at a ratio of 15*75, then at 14'29, etc., but that . after several trials this system was abandoned as im- practicable, and the " single gold standard " was definitely adopted in place of it ! The facts are that no such idea as is involved in the phrase of single or doable " standard " was dreamed of at that period ; that no such attempts were made ; that no such ratios are deducible from the Roman coinage systems ; that the ratio of the Empire was always 12 for 1 ; that no change occurred in its monetary system until the reign of Caracalla, and then ouly a slight one ; and that no change at all was made in the ratio for nearly thirteen hundred years. Gold standard, silver standard, double standard, halting standard, etc., these are terms derived from the legislation of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when, for the tirst time in the history of the European world, private individuals were permitted to coin money, or, what is the same thing, they were accorded the right to require the government to turn their bullion into money, free of taxation, loss, or expense. This idiotic legislation, euphemistically called " free coinage,'^ deprived govern- ment of that control over money which had ever been regarded as an essential attribute of sovereignty and as necessary for the maintenance of opportunities to facilitate a just distribution of wealth. In effect it destroyed money, or nomisma, which is an institution or a measure of value prescribed and regulated by law, and it substituted for money an unknown and illimitable quantity of metal — a substance that, as such, is not amen- able to legal control. Hence arose the modern jargon of gold standard, silver standard, etc. So long as money was governed by law, it was the whole number of coins, reduced to one denomination, that determined prices. When money ceased to be governed by law, as was the case after the 80 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. legislation procured by the Dutch and English East India Companies^ it was the Avhole quantity o£ metal that determined prices. Before the seventeenth century the " standard," or measure of prices, was the whole number of coins, at the valuation affixed to them by law ; after that period the legal valuation (except as to the ratio) formed no part of the measure ; and within the last quarter of a century, even the ratio has been swept away. The measure of prices in the Western world at the present time consists chiefly of metal, as such. When that metal is gold, the measure is called the " gold standard '' ; when it is silver, the " silver standard," etc. But in the days of Augustus this was wholly un- know^n. There was no individual coinage. The measure of prices was the whole number of coins which were legal tenders, and which circulated, not merely in Eome, but throughout the Empire, after they were reduced to one of the various denominations which were affixed to them by law. Within prudent limits, it made no difference whether the coins were pure or impure, light or heavy, yellow, white, or brown. iSTo one could lawfully stamp them except the State. The value they bore was (within such prudent limits) whatever the State choosed to stamp upon them j' and this principle was so deeply planted in the Eoman law and constitution, that it became the groundwork of judicial decisions as to Avhat constituted a good and lawful tender of money, down to and including the period of Sir Matthew Hale. With regard to the ratios which have been calculated by Mommsen and Lenormant between gold and silver, I have only room to say briefly that they are founded chiefly on two errors. The first one is that of mistaking the ''libra" of money, or argenti, which was simply a sum of current aurei, no matter of what weight or alloy, for a pound weight of silver metal ; the second one is that of calculating the ratio from anachronical ' Digest, xviii, i, 1. EOME. 81 coins, from exceptional coins, or from those of only local cm-rency or limited legal tender. The ratios calculated by Hoffman^ are of the same defective character. When the ratio is calculated, as it should be, from the full legal tender coins, issued under a given system by the sovereign-pontiff, it will be found to have always been 12 for 1, Although many of the Roman emperors issued debased silver coins, these Avere never full legal tenders ; for example, they were not receivable for tributes or taxes, which were payable either in aurei or in silver coins, or bullion, at the weight ratio of 12 for 1. Lenormant's statement (i, 185) that ''Alexander Severus, in order to steady the revenues, decided that all payments into the treasury should be exclusively in gold,^' is unwarranted by the text to which he refers, which merely says that the emperor " frequently caused his gold and silver to be weighed." This is precisely what is done periodically in all great treasuines." Upon this text Lenormant also builds the unwarranted con- clusion that the " standard," or measure of prices, was gold metal. His master, the illustrious Mommsen, also sees in the gradually lessened weight of the aureus, " a virtual demonetisation of gold."^ Whereas, in fact, nothing of the sort is to be seen. The lowering of the aureus (a slight one) was merely an economy of gold metal in the fabrication of Eoman money — a measure probably dictated by the necessities of the times, and of no necessary beax'ing on the position of money in the law, or even upon its power to correctly measure the value of commodities, services, or debts.* Mommsen and Lenormant conclude their remarks on this subject with the statement that the aureus was ^ " Lehre von Gelde," pp. 103, et seq. 2 " Omne aurum, omne argentuni, idque frequenter appendit " (Lam- pridius, in "Alex. Severus," xxxix). 3 M. K., iii, 63. " Mill, " Polit. Econ." 6 82 HISTORY OF MONETAEY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. eventually so much degraded and debased that it ceased to be regarded as money — that it became merely ingots of bullion, and was weighed out with balance in hand. They refer for their warrant to Vopiscus, in Aurelian, 9 and 12, Probus 4, and Bonosus 15. Upon turning to these texts we merely find that certain payments of gold "phillips/' or silver '' antonines,'^ or copper '' sesterces'^ are mentioned, just as we now say so many Louis d'or. Napoleons, Maria Theresa dollars, etc. Not a word appears in these texts about " ingot-money/' or bullion, or weighing in balances. These phrases and inferences are not only unwarranted by the texts, they entirely pervert and misrepresent the condition of money under the Roman law. From the second coinage of Constantine to the fall of the Empire, a period of nearly 900 years, the aureus was seldom degraded, and but once debased; it never ceased to be regarded as money. There was no ingot-money ; there was no weighing of gold coins, they passed then, as they do now, by tale, and, what is more, it was unlawful to refuse, criminal to alter, and death to deface them or to reduce them to bullion.^ Says Gibbon, of the Roman imperial revenues : "A large portion of the tribute was paid in money, and of the current coin of the Empire gold alone could be legally accepted."" Elsewhere he says : " Pendants que dans les tributs il exigeoit toujours I'aureus de Constantin;^' i. e. while as to tributes, they were always exacted in the aureus of Constantino.^ He should have added : " Or in twelve times their weight of silver." Suetonius informs us that upon the death of Caligula an attempt was made to re-establish the Republic* Among the acts of the Senate on this occasion was a decree decrying the tyrant's money, and requiring it to ' Arrian, Epictet, iii, 1 ; Paul. Sentent. recept. v, 25, 1 ; Lenormant, i, 237 ; Digest, xlviii, 13, 1; Suetonius in "Augustus." - "Decline and Fall," ii, 64, ^ Misc. works, iii, 460. ■* Claudius, 10. ROME. 83 be brouglit into tlie treasury and melted down, *'' so that, were it possible, both his name and features might be forgotten by posterity.'" Nevertheless, there are nearly an hundred different types of his coins still extant. The Senate of this period was republican ; but the lower orders of the people, the soldiers, and the priests were in favour of the hierarchy, the former for the sake of the largesses bestowed by the emperors, the latter on account of their benefices, which, ever since the time of Augustus, had been rendered lucrative and permanent. Claudius, the uncle of Caligula, was either so rapid in his move- ments, or, as the story goes, was so quickly taken up by the prffitorian baud, that the design of the Senate proved abortive, and it did not have time to issue coins proclaim- ing the Eepublic before Claudius succeeded in securing the support of the guards, and was enabled to suppress the incipient rising. It does not appear that the Senate issued any republican coins on this occasion, but, as we shall presently see, coins of such a character were indeed issued some twenty-five years later, when Nero died and before Galba seized the imperial throne. There were circumstances connected with the reign of Nero which must have encouraged the growth of a revo- lutionary spirit, having for its object the overthrow of the ; hierarchy and worship of Augustus, if not, indeed, the re- storation of the ancient Eepublic. Nero seems to have been rather sceptical about the divine origin which was claimed for Augustus, and but little disposed to offer adoration to him. When Kome was accidentally burnt, he did not hesitate to rebuild it .with funds plundered from the temples in which this profane worship was conducted. By way of retaliation, the enraged priests composed his biography, which they have filled with such horrid crimes that, were the least portion of them true, would render it difficult to under- stand why the memory of Nero was so dear — as many 1 Laurence Echard, " Eom. Hist.," ii, 103. 84 HtSTORY OP MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. instances prove that it was — to his countrymen for many ages. If Nero was imbued Avith any religion at all, it was that of Liber Puter, for it is the effigy of this deity which appears most frequently on his coins. Suetonius also informs us that he sacrificed three times a day to another deity, whose worship was clearly allied to that of Bacchus.^ Otho, who was one of Nero's favourites, professed the religion of Isis, which was either the same or a similar cult." This was the popular religion of Italy, where some remains of it survive to the present day. It was the religion of the poor and down-trodden, for it inculcated peace and friendship, and promised liberty and immortality. Nero's dislike for the religion of the State and his partiality for the cult of Bacchus, coupled with his neglect of discipline, his condescension, familiarity, and joviality, could hardly have failed to warm those Iiopes of restoring the Republic, which the example and writings of Brutus and Cicero assure us were deeply im- planted in the minds of the Roman patricians. Be this as it may, it is certain that upon the news of Nero's death many people, adopting for the emblem of their hopes the Phrygian cap of Liber Pater, ran wildly through the streets, uttering revolutionary cries, and fomenting an excitement that ended by involving the Senate in their design, and the issuance of an Act proclaiming a Repub- lican Government. Among the first measures of the short-lived administration was the coinage of money, de- signed to announce the restoration. It was, perhaps, unfortunate for these patriots that they began by striking gold, this being essentially a prerogative belonging to the pontifical office, and one whose violation, apart from other circumstances, would be likely of itself to array against them, not only the ecclesiastical orders, but the prejudices of all persons of religious pretensions or of superstitious tendencies. Besides the gold coins, there were struck silver and 1 Nero, 56. - Otho, 12. EOME. 85 bronze ones, and so numerous were they that nearly an hundred different types (not merely coins, but tj-pes of coins) are still extant. All these must have been struck between June 9, a.d. 68, the date of Nero's death, and July 18, A.D. 69, that of the investiture of Vitellius as sovereign-pontiff. A common type of these coins was a citizen clad in a toga, with a cap of Liberty on his head and a wreath of laurel in his right hand, and the legend LIBERTATI. Reverse : Victory standing on a globe, with crown and palm, and the legend S, P. Q. R. Others have the legends Concordia provinciarum, Concordia pr^etoria- norum, Fides militum, Roma renascens, Libertas, Libertas populi romaui, Libertas restituta, Jupiter Capitoliuus, Mars ultor, Volcanus ultor, Vesta populi romani quiri tium, etc.^ The person destined to destroy the ephemeral Republic was Ser. Sulpicius Galba, a member of the Quindecem- viral Sacred College, a priest of the Augustals and of the Titii, a man of enormous wealth, who never travelled without a retinue of monks and soothsayers, and who, wherever he pitched his camp, erected an altar, swung a censor, and offered frankincense, sacrificial wine, and costly jewels to the gods." This pious Roman enjoyed a proconsulship under Xero in Hispania Tarraconensis, where he appears to have divided his leisure between the celebration of religious ceremonies and the organisation of a conspiracy against the throne of his benefactor. AVhen this conspiracy was ripe, he declared it to be a holy war, " sacred and acceptable to the gods." Upon hearing that Nero was dead, Galba proclaimed himself the Caesar, hung a dagger from his neck, as a token of his bloody intentions, and, attended by his legions and a formidable body of Spanish recruits, made his way to Rome, where an accession of forces had been organised for him by his 1 " Revue Xumismatique," 1862 and 1865 ; Lenormant, ii, 375 ;. Cohen, " Mon. Eom." - Suet. "Galba," 4, 8, 9, 18. S6 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. ecclesiastical friends. Then Gaiba's dagger came into play. In the course of a few days the Nymphidians, as the Republicans were called, were all put to death or driven into exile ; the statues of Bacchus were destroyed, the Phrygian caps were burnt, the power of the sovereign- pontiif was re-established, and the ill-starred Republic ■came to an end. The coinage prerogative of the Pontifex Maximus is made the subject of a strange argument by the illustrious Mommsen. We must premise that after a short reign Galba was assassinated. He was succeeded by Otho, "who, because he declared it his intention to restore the Republic, was undoubtedly supported by the Nymphidians and opposed by the ecclesiastics. The latter now turned for aid to Aulus Vitellius. This person was the great- grandson of Q. Vitellius, " questor to Divus Augustus," the grandson of P. Vitellius, " a Roman knight and manager of Augustus^ affairs," and the son of Lucius Vitellius, who set the example of worshipping Caligula as the living God, and never approached him without covering his head with a veil, turning his body, as was customary in Roman worship, and falling prostrate upon the ground.^ The piety of his ancestors must have descended to Aulus, who was rewarded with numerous rich ecclesiastical benefices, the gift of three successive princes,^ besides the lucrative surveyorship of public buildings, a proconsulship in Africa, and another in Germany. This last office, the gift of Galba, was em- ployed by Vitellius as a means to secure his own eleva- tion to the throne. Indulgence, bribery, and promises were employed with success to win the legions under his command. The sword of Divus Julius was taken down out of the temple of Mars and placed in the hands of the ambitious proconsul ; the soldiers saluted him as Imperator and Augustus ; and a wreath of laurel '' most religiously begirt his brow." Sending a powerful army 1 Vitellius, 5. ^ Ibid. EOME. 87 ahead to overtlirow liis rival, he began his march to Rome. On the way he was informed of a decisive vic- tory at Bebriacum (now Caveto) and of the death of Otho. Arrived in Rome, Vitellius was soon surrounded , by "a numerous assembly of priests," who, together ^ith the faction known as the Yeneti, appear to have formed the bulk of his party in the capital. He was invested as Pontifex Maximus on the ominous anniver- sary of the battle of Allia, and after a brief and troubled reign of eight months was assassinated. The previous reign of Otho extended from the death of Galba, Jan- uary 15th (a.d, 69), to his own death, April 20th, a period •of ninety-five days.^ We are now prepared to follow Mommsen's argument. The investiture of the high-priesthood of Rome, after •an ancient custom, could only be conferred during" the month of March, there being only two instances to the •contrary. The coinage of copper, says Mommsen, was the prerogative of the high-priesthood. Otho was invested with the pontificate on March 9th. Within five days of •this date he was on his way to meet the troops of Vitel- lius in Lombardy. Therefore, he had not sufficient time to confer upon the Senate the necessary authority to strike bronze coins. This, in Mommsen's opinion, ex- plains why, although there are gold and silver coins of •Otho, there are no bronze ones, except such as were struck in Antioch, and these he accounts for on the supposition that the Antiochians, when they heard of Galba's death and Others elevation, presumed that of course Otho would be invested as Pontifex Maximus in March, and, there- fore, proceeded at once to strike those bronze coins with his image, which stand in the way of the extraordinary iiheory propounded by the Prussian savant. To this theory it would be sufiicient to reply that if Otho had time to authorise the issue of gold and silver coins, he 'Certainly had time to authorise the issue of bronze ones, and ^ Lenoi-mant (ii, 416) says Apiil l-5th. 88 HISTORY or MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. that if the vassal Senate of Antioch could venture to strike bronze coins without Otho's written authority, so could the paramount Senate of Rome. But there is a still further and more cogent reply to make. Mommsen' is mistaken in regard to the coinage prerogatives of Rome. His theoiy is that the prerogative of the gold and silver coinage belonged to the imperium and the bronze coinage to the pontificate. The fact was that the jjrerogative of gold coinage (certainly from the reign of Julius Csesar) be- longed to the pontificate. This is so overwhelmingly proved by the evidence adduced in chapter YI of the present work that nothing further need be said on the sub- ject in this place. In the sweeping interdiction of gold coinage to vassal and subject kings which the Romans maintained for upwards of thirteen centuries, a single exception was made. This related to the kings of Pontus- and the Cimmerian Bosporus. The reason of the excep- tion was purely sacerdotal. The kings of Pontus were the guardians of the temples, the oracle, and the mysteries, of that venerated Mother of God, one of whose eflSgies, piously conveyed to Rome when Hannibal was at its gates,, had saved it from impending ruin. Many of the emblems connectedwith this worship appeared upoii thePontic coins, and this is what saved them from the melting-pot. Augustus merely provided that these coins should bear on the reverse the image of himself as a mark of the suzerainty of Rome. The last coins that were issued by the Ponto-Bosporiau kings previous to this regulation are those of Asander, who reigned as governor from a.u. 704 and as king from a.u. 737. These are aurei of 125 grains each. The earliest under the Augustan regulations are those of Polemon I, stamped with his own head on one side and that of Augustus on the other. From this time onward to the reign of Galiien,. when the Temple of Ephesus was destroyed by the Goths, the kings of Pontus and Bosporus were permitted to strike a few gold coins, upon one side of which appeared their own- images and on the other that of the sovereign-pontiff of KOMB. 89 Rome, accompanied by the emblems of the Syrian goddess. With Rhescuporis VIII, of the Aspurgian dynasty, a.d. 312—18, this Pontic kingdom, already ruined, came to an end, and with it the feeble series of gold coins struck under these exceptional circumstances. Under Cotys III, a contemporary of Alexander Severus, tho Ponto-Bosporian aurei were made of electrum, and from this time onward they became paler and paler, until at last they were made altogether of silver, and, like the Dutch gulden of tho present day, were gold coins only in name. The prerogative of the bronze coinage belonged to the Senate, which, therefore, in the case of Otho, needed no express authority from the pontificate. Whether the silver coinage belonged to the pontificate or to the imperium at this period, is a matter of no consequence in the present connection. Of the gold and silver coins, the former were certainly struck in virtue of Otho's pontifical authority. The bronze coins of Antioch were undoubtedly struck by the Senate of that city in virtue of the authority which had long previously been conferred upon it by the Senate of Rome — an authority which remained in full force so long as it was not abrogated. That no Roman urban bronze coins of Otho are extant may be accounted for either by supposing that such coins were indeed struck but that none have been found, or else by supposing that the Roman Senate had good reason for not striking them. In the latter case the reason is matter of conjecture. The Senate was republican ; it was disgusted with emperor-worship ; it had but recently engaged in an attempt to restore the Republic ; its surviving members, who had returned to Rome, encouraged by the declaration of Otho that his object was to restore the Republic, may have naturally viewed with suspicion his subsequent a.-". — Gold ducats o£ Alfonso, gross weight 541 English grains, with the following inscription in Arabic : " In the name of the Father, Son, and Holv Ghost, God is One. He who believes and is baptised will be 1 From the period a.d. 645, when their conquests deprived the Eoman empire of the bulk of its Asiatic and African possessions, to about the beginning of the eighth century, the Arabians struck coins with the effigy of the Eoman emperor and the emblems ^ and the cross. At tliat period they struck coins still with these emblems, but in place of the emperor's effigy, that of Abd-el-Melik with a drawn sword in hand. Like the maravedis of Henry III (1257) and the nobles of Edward III (1344), the issue of these coins amounted to an assertion of independent sovereignty, and as such was resented by Justinian. To the nummu- lary proclamation of the Arabian : " The servant of God, Abd-el-Melik, Emir-el-Moumenim," the Eoman replied : " Our Lord Justinian, servant of Christ." THE SACRED OHARACrEIi OF GOLD. 117 saved. This dinar was struck in Medina Tolei- tola, in the year 1225, month of Saphar."' Here is a curious mixture of doctrines and dates. 1225. PoETCGAL. — Gold ducats of Sancho I, weighing oik grains gross. 1250. France. — Gold agnels, or dinars, struck for Louis IX by Blanche, his mother. Weight 63^ grains gross.- 1252. Floeexce. — Republican zecchins or florins, 56 grains fine. 1257. ExGLAXD. — Pennies, or maravedis, of Henry III, 43 grains line. 1276. Venice. — Zecchins or sequins, 55^^ grains fine. loiX). Boh. and Pol. — Ducats of Veneslas, 54J grains gross. 1316. Avignon. — Sequins of Pope John XXII, SIA grains fine.' 1496. Den. and Xoe. — Eight-mark piece of John, 240 grains gross.^ ' Although this can hardly be deemed a Christian coin, I have in- cluded it in the table. Heiss publishes a gold coin with "Ferdinand" on one side, and " In nomine Patris et Filii Spiritus Sanctus " on the other, which he ascribes to Ferdinand I (II), 1157-88 ; but Saez is posi- tive that they are sueldos of Ferdinand II (III), 1230-52. There is about the same difference of time between the Julian and Christian eras. The next gold coins, after those of Alfonso, were either the sueldos of Barba Robea, in the thirteenth century, or the Alfonsines struck by Alfonso XI, of Castile, 1312-50. The latter had a castle of three turrets on one side, and a rampant lion on the other. Gross weight 67'89 English grains (Heiss, i, 51 ; iii, 218). ^ Baron Malestroict (" Inst.," p. 4) ascribes the first gold agnel to Blanche of Castile, as regent of France during the minority of Louis IX. Patin (" History of Coins," p. 38) repeats that they were struck by Blanche as regent, but says nothing more. As Blanche was regent a second time (during the sixth crusade, 1248-52), these coins were probably struck in 1250 to defray the expenses of that war. Louis' Hansom of 100,000 marks was probably paid in silver. " There were sent to Louis in talents, in sterlings, and in approved money of Cologne (not the base coins of Paris or Tours), eleven waggons of money, each loaded with two iron-hooped barrels " (M. Paris, sub anno 1250, vol. ii, pp. 342, 378, 380). Humphreys (p. 532) ascribes these agnels to Philip le Hardi, 1270-85 ; but there is no reason to doiibt the earlier and moi'e explicit authority of Malestroict, Le Blanc, and Patin, nor the more recent judgment of Lenorraant (" Monnaies et Medailles," p. 228) and Hoff- man (" Monnaies Royale"). * This pope wrote a treatise on the transmutation of metals, the pro- lific examplar of many similar works. ■* The eight-mark piece and its fractions, of King Hans fJohn), a.d. 1481-1512, are in the Christiania Collection. The type of these coins is 118 HISTORY OF MONETAEY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. Tliat Christian Europe abstained from coining gold for five centuries because such coinage was a prerogative of the Basileus^ is an explanation that may not be acceptable to the old school of historians ; but this is not a sufficient reason for its rejection. The old school would have been very greedy of knowledge if they had not left something for the new school to discover. In his "Science des Medailles '' (i, 208-11), Father Joubert, and after him other numismatists, observing the strange abstention of the Christian princes from coining gold, and perhaps anxious to supply a reason for it which Avould have the effect to discourage any further examination of so suggestive a topic, invented or promul- gated the ingenious doctrine that the Roman emperors from the time of Augustus were invested, in like manner,. with the power to coin both gold and silver. If this doctrine enjoyed the advantage of being sound, it would deprive the long abstention from gold coinage by the Western princes of much of its significance ; because, assuming that the coinage of gold and silver stood upon the same footing, and remembering that all the Christian princes coined silver, their omission to coin gold might,, with some reason, be attributed to indifference. But that Father Joubert's doctrine is not sound is easily proved. I. With the accession of Julius Ctesar was enacted a neAV and memorable change in the monetary system of Eome. The gold aureus was made the sole unlimited universal legal-tender coin of the empire ; the silver and copper coins were limited and localised in legal tender f the ratio of gold to silver in the coinage was sud- denly — and in the face of greatly increased supplies of gold bullion — raised from 9 silver to 12 silver for 1 gold ; and the mining and commerce of gold were seized, controlled, and strictly monopolised by the sovereign- evidently copied from the nobles of Edward III, minted from 1351 tO' 1360. THE SACRED CHARACTER OP GOLD. 119 pontiff ; whereas the mining- of silver was thrown open to subsidiary princes and certain privileged individuals.^ With the production of gold thus limited to pontifical control, and that of silver thrown open to numerous per- sons, the coinage of the two metals in like manner, or under like conditions, was totally impracticable and his- torically untrue.' II. As will presently be shown more at length, the imperial treasury — which was kept distinct from the public treasury, and known by another name — was organised as a sacred institution ; its chief officer, then or later on, was invested with a sacred title ; the coinage of gold, which was placed under its management, was exercised as a sacred prerogative ; and the coins themselves were stamped with sacred emblems and legends.^ On the contrar}^, the coinage of silver was a secular prerogative ; it belong-ed to the emperor as a secular monarch, and as such it was thrown open to the subsidiaiy princes, nobles, and cities of the empire, while that of copper-bronze was resigned to the Senate. These are not like conditions of coinage, but, on the contrary, very unlike ones. III. From the accession of Julius to the fall of Con- stantinople, the ratio of value between gold and silver within the Roman empire, whether pagan or Christian, was always 1 to 12 ; whereas, during the same interval, it was 1 to 6^ in India, as well as in the Arabian empire, in Asia. Africa, and Spain ; and it was 1 to 8 in Freisland, Scandinavia, and the Baltic provinces. It is inconceivable that one single unvarying ratio of 1 to 12 should have been maintained for centuries by the innumerable and irreconcilable feudal provinces of the Roman empire, if ^ The exportation of gold had been previously conti'olled by the Senate. Csesar made it a prerogative of the .sovereign-pontiff. - See " History Money," chapter xxv, for further consideration of this subject. •'' The officers of the sacred fisc, who were stationed in tlie provinces to superintend the collection of gold for the sacred mint at Constantinople, are mentioned in the Notitia Imperii. 120 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. tlie freedom to coin silver, exercised by the feudal princes, was in like manner extended to gold. IV. The authority of ancient "writers is conclusive on this subject. Cicero, Pliny, Procopius, and Zonaras, though they lived in distant ages, all concur in repre- senting that the coinage of the two precious metals was not conducted in like manner nor under like conditions. V. The authority of modern writers, for example, Letronne, Momrasen, and Lenormant, is to the same effect. This absolutely closes the subject, and completely disposes of Father Joubert. The sacerdotal character conferred upon gold, or the coinage of gold, was not a novelty of the Julian consti- tution ; rather was it an ancient myth put to new political use. Concerning the testimony of witnesses, the very ancient Hindu Code says : " By speaking falsely in a cause concerning gold, he kills the born and the un- born ^^ — an extreme anathema. Stealing sacred gold is classed with the highest of crimes.^ A similar soli- citude and veneration for gold occurs elsewhere through- out these laws. The Budhists made it unlawful to mine for, or even to handle gold, probably because the Bramins had used it as an engine of tyranny. According to Mr. Ball, this superstition is still observed in some remote parts of India. It is possible that, in some instances, the sacerdotal character attached to gold by the Bramins belonged only to such of it as had been paid to the priests, or consecrated to the temples, and that when the priests paid it away it was no longer saci-ed ; but the texts will not always bear this reading. For example : " He who steals a suvarna '^ (suvarna, a gold coin) ''dies on a dung- hill, is turned to a serpent, and rots in hell until the dis- solution of the universe " (vide Bramiuical inscription found on copperplate dug up at Eaiwan, in Delhi)." The same superstition occurs among the ancient Egyp- ' Halhed's " Gentoo Code," viii, 99 ; ix, 237. - " Jour. Asiat. See. Bengal," Ivi, 118. THE SACRED CHAHACTKR OF GOLD. 121 tians, Persians, and Jews. There are frequent allusions to it in the pages of Herodotus. For example, Tai-gitaus, the first king of Scythia, a thousand years before Dai'ius, the sacred king of Persia (this would make it about B.C. 1500), was the divine son of Jupiter and a daughter of the river Borysthenes, or Dneister. In the kingdom of Targitans gold was found in abundance, but being deemed sacred, it was reserved for the use of the sacred king. In another place Herodotus relates that in the reign of Darius, B.C. 521 (of whom Lenormant says, in his great work on the " Moneys of Antiquity," that he reserved the coinage of gold to himself absolutely), Aryandes, his viceroy in Egypt, struck a silver coin to resemble the gold darics of the king. Possibly, to make the resem- blance greater, it was also gilded. For this offence Aryandes was condemned as a traitor and executed. Josephus makes many allusions to the sacredness of gold. A similar belief is to be noticed among the ancient Greeks, whose coinages, except during the republican era, were conducted in the temples and under the supervision of priests. Upon these issues wei'e stamped the symbolism and religion of the State, and as only the priesthood could correctly illustrate these mysteries of their own creation, the coinage — at least that of the more precious pieces — naturally became a prerogative of their order. Rawlinson notices that the Parthian kings, even after they threw off the Syro-Macedonian yoke, never ventured to strike gold coins." The reason probably was that in place of the Syro-Macedonian yoke they had accepted ithe Eoman, and that the Roman (imperial) law forbade ■the coinage of gold to subject-pi'inces. Whatever credit or significance be accorded or denied to these ancient glimpses of the myth, its significance becomes clearer when it is viewed through the accounts of the Roman historians. The Sacred Myth of Gold 1 Mel., 7, 166 ; Lenormant, i, 173. 2 Geo. Rawlinson, " Seventh Monarchy," p. 70. 122 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. appears in Rome at the period when tlie history of tlie Gaulish invasion of a.u. 869 was written. The story runs that after the eternal city had been saved from the bar- barians, it was held by the Roman leaders that to the ^old which had been taken from the mass belonging to the temples should be added the gold contributed by the women towards making up the rausom, or indemnity, of a thousand pounds weight, and that all of it should thenceforth be regarded as sacred. Says Livy : " The- gold which had been rescued from payment to the Gauls, as also what had been, during the hurry of the alarm, carried from the other temples into the recess of Jupiter's temple, was altogether judged to be sacred, and ordered to be deposited together under the throne of Jupiter.'' ^ At this period, according to Pliny, the Roman money was. entirely of bronze. If this is true, all offerings of money to the temples must have been in bronze coiiis. If the object of conferring a sacerdotal character upon gold was merely to preserve the ecclesiastical treasure from violation, it is inexplicable that the same sacred character was not also conferred upon the current bronze- money. It is far more consistent with the grossly super- stitious character of the age to believe that the Romans, (of the period when this legend was penned) were taught to regard all gold, except such as was worn upon the person, as sacred ; and that the object of prououncing- the gold in the jewels contributed by the Roman women to be sacred, was to prevent its ever being again worn, as jewellery. This gold had saved Rome, for although it is said it was not actually paid to the Gauls, the delajr attending the weighing of it had given time for Camillus to advance to the rescue of the beleaguered citadel and. drive the barbarians away. There was no less reason for rendering sacred the gold in the jewels, whose weigh- ing had saved the city, than the geese whose cackling- ^ Livy, V. 50. THE SACEED CHARACTER OF GOLD. 123 had coutributed to the same happy event. Howevei-, it is possible that, as yet, a sacred character was only attached to such gold as had been consecrated to tlie gods. The social, servile, and civil wars of Rome were cha- racterised by great disorders of the currency, and during , the latter, that is to say, in B.C. 91, Livius Drusus, a I tribune of the people, authorised the coinage of silver denarii, alloyed with " one-eighth part of copper," which was a lowering: of the long-established standard. As the i o o : civil wars continued, a portion of the silver coinage was. ! still further debased, and the denarius, whose legal value had long been 16 aces, was lowered to 10 aces. Later on we hear of the issue of copper denarii plated to re- semble those of silver. It is possibly to these debased or plated coins that Sallust alludes when he says that by a law of A'alerius Flaccus, the Interrex, under Sylla (B.C. 86), '^ argentum fere solutum est," i. e. silver is now- paid with bronze. Valleius Paterculus explained the operation of this law differently, in saying that it obliged all creditors to accept in full payment only a fourth part of what was due them. These explanations afford a proof that at this period the gold coins were not sole leo-al tenders. The discontent produced among com- mercial classes by this law^ of Valerius Flaccus, induced the College of Praetors (b.c. 84) to restore the silver money to its ancient standard by instituting what we would now call a trial of the pix. Sylla, enraged at this interfer- ence with the coinage and the political designs connected ■with it, annulled the decree of the prtetors, proscribed their leader, Marius Gratidianus, as a traitor, and handed him over to Catiline, by whom he was executed.^ Sylla's lex nummaria (b.c. 83), which prescribed the punishment of fire and water, or the mines, to the 1 Modern writere on money have expended a good deal of false senti- ment on Gratidianus. Cicero, who was his relative and possibly knew 'him better, proves him a liar, cheat, demagogue, and traitor [OS., iii, 20j. 124 HISTORY OF ilONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. forgers of gold and silver coins, implies that at this period the immunity which perhaps previously, and certainly after- wards, attended gold coins, was not yet secured. About B.C. 82, Q. Antonius Balbus, an urban prtetor, was autho- rised by the Senate, then controlled b}' the partisans of Marius, to collect the sacred treasure from the temples and turn it into coins. This money was employed in the struggle with Sylla. It is to this period, doubtless, that Cicero afterwards referred when he said : " At that time the currency was in such a fluctuating state, that no man knew what he was worth." ^ After Sylla's triumph over Marius, and his resignation of the dictator- ship (B.C. 79), the ancient standard of the silver coinage was restored ; and the opulent citizens, in order to ex- press their approbation of this measure, erected full- length statues of the unfortunate Marius Gratidianus in various parts of Rome. About B.C. 69, Cicero alluded to the public treasury as the " sanctius asrarium.^' This ex- pression, in connection with the coins struck by Antonius Balbus, from consecrated treasure and the statues erected to Marius Gratidianus, all point to this period as that of the adoption of the sacredness of gold in the Roman law. About this time the Jews appear to have again acquired some share in that lucrative trade with India which they had formerly shared with the Greeks, and Avhich has ever been a source of contention and hatred among the states of the Levant. The principal channel of this trade was now by the Nile and the Red Sea, and was in the hands of the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt. A portion of it, how- ever, went overland by Palmyra ; and from this portion Jerusalem derived important commercial advantages. Such as they Avere, these advantages were lost to the Jews and acquired by Rome, when, in B.C. 6o, Pompey and Scaurus snatched Judea from the contentious Maccabees, and established over it a Roman govern- 1 OfE., iii, 30. THE SACRED CHARACTER OP GOLD. 125 ment.^ In B.C. 59 Cicero said : '^ The Senate, on several different occasions, but more strictly during my consulship, prohibited the exportation of gold." Exportare aurum non oportere cum saspe antea Senatus turn me consule gravissime judicavit.^ Cicero was consul four years previously, that is to say, in B.C. 63. '' Exportation " here seems to mean transmission from one province of the Eoman empire to another, because elsewhere, in the same pleading, Cicero says : " Flaccus '' (a proconsul of Syria) "b}' a public edict, prohibited its exportation "(that of gold) " from Asia." The introduction of the word " Italy " in Cicero's plea for Flaccus, can only be regarded as a means of enlisting the prejudice of the judges. Here is the passage in full : " Since our gold has been annually carried out of Italy and all the Roman provinces by the Jews, to Jerusalem, Flaccus, by a public edict, prohibited its exportation from Asia." The Jews pro- bably bought gold (with silver) in the provinces between Judea and India, because it was cheaper in those places than in Europe. They may have bought silver in Greece or Italy, but unless their commercial pre-eminence is a trait of altogether modern growth, it is hard to believe that they bought gold in Italy, when it could have been obtained nearer by, at two-thirds the price. The penalty which this unlucky people have paid for their ill-starred attempts to share in the Greek and Roman profits of the oriental trade has been more than two thousand years of injustice, opprobrium, and ostracism. The conquest of Egypt by Julius Csesar (b.c. 48) threw the whole of the oriental trade into the hands of Rome. Canals connecting the Mediterranean and Red Seas had ^ The Maccabees struck the earliest Jewish coins. These were called sicals or shekels, the same name given to coins hj the ancient Hindus, ■with whom sicca meant a mint, or " minted," or " cut." The Arabians. of a later period also borrowed the same term. - " Oi-at. pro L. Flacco," c. 28. 126 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. been constructed successively by Necho/ Darius, and Ptolemy ; and sliortly after tlie Julian conquest, one of these canals was used for the voyages of the Indian fleet.^ A century or so later Pliny recorded the fact that a hun- di-ed million sesterces worth of silver (equal in value to one million gold aurei) was annually exported to India ■ and China.^ The numercial proportions of the gold and silver ratios in Europe and India indicate that this trade was not a new one, and that a similar trade had been conducted by the Ptolemies and by the Babylonians and Assyrians upward to a remote era of the commercial intercourse between the Eastern and Western Avorlds.* During the Ptolemaic period the ratio was 10 for 1 in Europe, and 12^ for 1 in Egypt, whilst it was 6 to 6;^ for 1 iti the Orient. In other words, a ton weight of gold could be bought in India for about 6^ tons of silver, and coined, in Egypt, into gold pieces worth 12 i tons of silver.^ The profit was therefore cent, per cent., and even after the Romans conquered Egypt, the i-ate of profit on exchanges of Western silver for Eastern gold 1 Herodotus, Clio, 202 ; Eut., 158 ; Mel., 39. - Strabo. At a later period the inter-oceanic canal became clogged with drifting sand, and was reopened by Trajan or Hadrian, probably the latter. It was kept open by the Byzantine emperors. See Marcianus in Morisotus, " Orbis Martimus," and Anderson's " History Commerce." It was again reopened by Amrou in a.d. 639, during the reign of the caliph Omar. The Ptolemaic (and Eoman) route was by Alexandria, the Nile, the Canal, Berenice, Sabia, and Muscat. It is fully described in the " Periplus maris erythrsei " of Arrian. •'' Minimaque computatione millies contena millia sestertium annis omnibus India et Seres peninsulaque ilia imperio nostro adimunt. Tanto nobis deliciiB et feminse constant (" Nat. History," xii, 18). In another place (vi, 23) he puts it at half this sum, " Quingenties H. S." for India alone. The " feminine luxuries " imported in exchange included gold, silk, and spices. Numbers of the silver coins exported to India at this period have been found during the present century buried in Budhist topes. ■* " Hist. Money, Ancient," p. 71. ' Lenormant, i, 146-51. I . THE SACRED CHARACTER OF GOLD. 127 ' was quite or nearly as great. This explains what seems I so abstruse a puzzle to the industrious but uncommercial ; Pliny : he could not understand why his countrymen " always demanded silver and not gold from conquered ' races. '^ ^ One reason was that the Roman government knew where to sell this silver at an usurer's profit. When j this profit ceased, as it did when the oriental trade was ; abandoned, the Roman government entii-ely altered its • policy. During the middle ages it preferred to collect its I tributes in gold coins. When the enormous difference in the legal value of the precious metals in the Occident and Orient is considered, [and that, too, at a period when maritime trade between these regions was not uncommon, it is impossible to resist the conviction that the superior value of gold in the West was created by means of legal and, perhaps, also : sacerdotal ordinances. This method of fixing the ratio may even have originated in the Orient. Colebrook" states that the ancient Hindus struck gold coins, "svhich were multiples of the christnala, the latter containing about 2;^ English grains fine. According to ^ Equidem miror P. R. victis gentibus argentuin semper imperitasse non aurum ("Nat. Hist." xxxiii, 15). - "Asiat. Eesearches," London, 1799, v, 91. Meniusky, in his "The- saurus Ling. Orient.," p. 1897, voc. "Chcesrewani," says that, in the time of Chosrces (a.d. 531-79), the Persians woi-shipped the dirhems of that monarch. If we read " venerated " for "worshipped," and " dinars " for '"dirhems," we shall probably get nearer to the truth. Chosrces the deified was so successful in his wars against Justinian, that the latter was obliged to pay him an annual tribute of forty thousand pieces of igold (sacred besants). These were most likely the pieces that, upon being recoined in Persia, were venerated by its subservient populace. Von iStrahlenberg (p. 330) says that, in the reign of Charlemagne, the lestiaks or Oes-tiaks, near Samarow, venerated a cufic coin of the Arabians, from whom they had captured it. In a tomb near the river Irtisch, between the salt lake lamischewa and the city Om-Iestroch, a flat oval gold coin that had evidently been used as an object of worship, was found and de- divered to Prince Gagarin, the governor of Siberia (about a.d. 1715). 128 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. Queipo/ five christnalas equalled a maslia of Hi grains and 80 clirisnalas a tola, or suvarna,. of 180 grains. This system appears to have originated at two different periods, the octonai'j relations belonging to the remote period of the Solar worship, and the quinquennial to the Braminical period. Dished gold coins (scylates) of the type after- wards imitated in the besant, called " ramtenkis," and regarded as sacred money, were struck in India at a very remote period. The usual weights were about 180, 360, and 720 English grains (1, 2, and 4 tolas). One example weighed 1,485 grains, and was probably intended for 8 tolas sicca. The gold being alloyed with silver gave a pale appearance to the pieces. The extant coins contain no legible dates or inscriptions, and are much worn by repeated kissing. The emblems upon them are the sacred ones of Kama, Sita, and Huuuman. They were evidently held in high veneration by the Bramins. Facsimiles of' these coins have been published in the ''Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.'^ ^ In the Braminical coinages the value of silver seems to have been lowered from 4 (to 5) for 1 gold ; and though in later coinages the value of silver was again lowered, as before stated, to about 01 for 1 gold, the general tendency in the Orient was to maintain the value of silver, and in the Occident to raise that of gold. So that, although the system of deriving a profit from the device of altering the ratio was probably of oriental origin, the practical operation of this system — certainly at the periods embraced within the Greek and Roman histories — was precisely opposite in the "Western world to what it was in the Eastern. The governments of Persia, Assyria, Egypt, Greece, and Rome made a profit on the coinage by raising the value of gold, while those of India, China, and perhaps also Japan, made their profit by maintaining, or enhancing, the value of silver. In the 1 Queipo, i, 449-52. 2 " Journ. Asiat. Soc. Bengal," liii, 207-11. THE SACRED CHARACTER OF GOLD. 129 last-named State silver was valued at 8 (some say at 4) to 1 of gold, at one of which ratios it stood so late as 1858. It is evident that, by continuing the use of this myth, or by attaching' a sacerdotal character to the coinage and coins of gold, which in Italy may hitherto have only been attached to consecrated deposits of gold — a character which the conqueror, who was also the pontifex maximus of Rome, was quite competent to confer upon it — he would not only acquire the means to republish upon its coins the mythology and religious symbols of the empire, altered to accord with his own impious pretensions of divine origin, but he would also be enabled to reap profits equal to those which the Ptolemies had derived from the oriental trade. Indeed, in this respect Caesar made another innovation : he in- creased the Roman ratio from 9 to 12 for 1, and there it remained fixed, in consequence of his ordinance, for thirteen centuries. That Caesar attached a sacerdotal character to the gold coins of Rome, and that Augustus and his successors, both the pagan and Christian sovereign-pontiffs of the empire, continued and maintained this sacred character is so abundantly evidenced that it has never been disputed. It is only in assigning reasons for the measure that numis- matists have differed. Evelyn believed that the gold coins were I'endered sacred to preserve them from profanation and secure them from abuse. ^ Others have found the origin of this regulation in the desire to preserve the most precious monuments of Roman antiquity from the melting- pot, and they point to the numerous coinage restorations of Trajan as a proof of the Roman anxiety on this subject. The reasons herein suggested as the true ones are, first, the usefulness of coins to proclaim monarchical and pon- tifical accessions, and to disseminate religious instruction ; and, second, the profits of the oriental trade, which could only be secured by means of an ordinance enjoying the 1 Evelyn, " Medals," 224r-7. 9 130 HISTORY OP MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. sanctity of religious authority. These reasons even receive confirmation from the contrai'y regulations adopted by the Arabians. Whether in scorn of the Roman mythology, or else to enhance the value of the immense silver spoil which they had derived from the conquest of the Roman pro- vinces in Asia, Africa, and Spain, or because they were unable or unwilling to continue that pretence of sacredness, partly by means of which so artificially high a valuation of gold had been created in Europe, it appears that when the Arabians came to permanently regulate the affairs of the conquered provinces (reform of Abd-el-Melik) they swept away the mythological emblems upon the coins for all time, and for several centuries they destroyed the sacred character of gold. They issued plain coins of constant weight and fineness, and reduced the ratio to the Indian level (then) of 6^ for 1. Whatever reasons induced Caesar to enhance the value of gold, there can be no doubt of the fact. In the scru- pulum coinages of a.u. 437 the ratio was 10 silver for 1 gold I in the coinage system of Sylla (a.u. 675) the ratio was 9 for 1. Csesar raised the value of his gold coins by a single jump to 12 for 1 ; in other words, he gradually lowered the aureus from 168|- to 125 grains fine, and this alteration he sanctified and rendered permanent by stamp- ing upon the coins the most sacred devices and solemn legends. If this great politician of antiquity endeared himself to the masses by thus lowering the measure of indebtedness, he secured for his empire the approval of the patrician and commercial classes by securing its stability, for the ratio which he adopted and solemnized was never changed until Rome dissolved into a mere name — a name by which ambitious princes long continued to conjure, but which really belonged to a dead and power- less empire. In that admirable review of the Byzantine empire which forms the subject of Gibbon's seventeenth chapter, he de- clares that by law the imperial taxes during the dark ages THE SACRED OHAKAOTER OP GOLD. 131 were payable in gold coins alone. ^ We now know the reason of this ordinance — the oriental trade was gone. The custom of the period was that when gold coins were not paidj silver coins were accepted instead, at the sacred weight ratio of 12. In the reign of Theodosius the officer entrusted with the gold coinage was the Comes Sacrarum Largitionum, or Count of the Sacred Trust, one of the twenty-seven illustres, or greatest nobles, of the empire. His powers supplanted those of the former qusestori -prsefecti serarii and other high officers of the treasury. His jurisdic- tion extended over the mines whence gold was extracted, over the mints in which it was converted into coins, over the revenues which, being payable in gold coins, kept the latter in use and demand, and over the trea- suries, in which gold was deposited for the service of the Scicred emperor or in exchange for silver. Even the woollen and linen manufactures and the foreign trade of the empire were originally placed under the control of this minister, with the view, no doubt, to regulate that exchange of Western silver for oriental gold, of which some remains existed at the period of these elabo- rate and subtle arrangements. It is the peculiarity of sacerdotal ordinances that they long outlive the purpose intended to be subserved by their enactment. In the hot climates of India, Egypt, Palestine, and Arabia the interdiction of certain meats for food may possibly have been originally founded upon hygienic considerations — a fact that may have commended this ordinance to local acceptation, but certainly did not earn for it that general and continued observance which it owes to the Braminical, Jewish, and Mahomedan religions. It is not to be wondered that Justinian I rebuked Theodoret the Frank for striking heretical gold coins, nor that Justinian II proclaimed war against Abd-el-Melik for presuming to pay his tribute in other heretical gold ; but it certainly seems sti-ange to find this myth observed ^ Same, in his Misc. works, iii, 460. 132 HISTOEY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN YARIOUS STATES. in distant ages and among distant nations — for example, to witness the pagan Danes of the mediaeval ages solem- nizing their oaths upon baugs of sacred gold ; to find Henry III, of England, after plundering the Jews of London, receiving the gold into his own hands, but tlie silver by the hands of others ; and to discover that Philip II, of Spain, attempted to re-enact in America this played-out myth of idolatrous India, Egypt, and Rome.^ The importance of this myth, in throwing light upon the political relations of the Roman provinces toward the Byzantine and Western or mediasval empires, does not depend either upon its antiquity or the reasons of its adoption into the Roman constitution, nor upon its general acceptance or popularity. It is sufficient for the purpose if it can be shown that, as a matter of fact, the sovereign- pontiff alone enjoyed the prerogative of coining gold throughout the Empire, and that the princes of the Empire respected this prerogative. It is submitted that con- cerning this cardinal fact the evidences herein adduced are sufficient. 1 Procop., "Bel. Got.," iii, 33; Lenormant ii, 453, ■154 ; Du Chaillu, " Yiking Age " ; Matthew Paris, i, 459; " Eecopilacion de Leyes de los Eejnos de las Indias," law of 1565. CHAPTER VII. POUNDS, SHILLINGS, AND PENCE. This system appears in the Theodosian Code — Is probably older — Its e^ssential characteristic is valuation by moneys of account— Advantages — Previous diversity of coins — Danger of the loss of numismatic monu- ments—Exportation of silver to India — Difficulty of enforcing contracts in coins of a given metal — £. s. d. as an instrument of taxation — As an historical clue— It always followed Christianity— Sidelights to history afEorded by the three denominations — £. s. d. and the Feudal system — It saved the most precious monuments of antiquity from destruction — Artificial character of the system — Its earliest establishment in the pro- yiii(.es — In Britain — Interrupted in some provinces by barbarian systems — Its restoration proves the resumption of Roman government — This rule applied to Britain. QEAECHIXG for the beginniug of a custom is like ^ tracing a river back to its source : Ave soon discover that it has not oue source but many. "When brevity is preferable to precision, it is sufficient if we follow an institution to its principal or practical source. AVe have elsewhere shown the marks of chronological stratification in Roman history — originally decimal and afterwards duodecimal — which resulted from a change that, it is assumed, took place in the method of measuring the solar circle. This, we are persuaded, was originally divided into ten parts, each of 36 degrees; hence the archaic Roman or Etruscan year of ten months, each of 36 days, and the week or nimdinum of nine days. At a later period the zodiac was divided into twelve parts, each of 30 degrees, whence the year of twelve months, each of 30 days.^ In these two systems we have the basis of 1 By some writers the year of 360 days has been erroneously called a lunar year, but in fact a year contains nearly thirteen lunar months. The 134 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. the decimal and duodecimal methods of notation, which are so strangely intermingled in all Eoman numbers and proportions, and which also appear in £. s. d. Thus, the number of solidi to the libra was five, and the number of sicilici to the libra twenty, both of which are decimal proportions.^ On the other hand, the number of denarii to the sicilicus was twelve, and the ratio between the metals was twelve, which is duodecimal." Those writers whose researches into monetary systems are bounded by the narrow conclusions of Adam Smith's " Wealth of Nations " or Tooke's " Histoi^ of Prices,'' usually attribute the origin of £. s. d. to William the Norman or to Charlemagne, and their explanation of the system is commonly confined to that of the £., which they regard as the symbol for a pound weight of silver, year of twelve months was originally solar, and was always astrological. Many of the early institutes mentioned by Livy, Pliny, and Censorinus were evidently taken from the laws of conqnered and obliterated Etriiria, and falsely attributed to Romulus, Numa, and other creations of Eoman fancy. Among these institutes was the change from ten months of 36 days to twelve months of 30 days to the year (Livy, i, 19). ' The " pound " of money is to be discerned diu'ing the decay of Attic liberty. The Eomans used the term " pondus" to mean 100 drachmas, and the Greeks iised the "talenton" of money before them. Twenty drachmas (silver) equalled in value one stater, and five staters were valued at a talenton, which the Eomans called a pondus. The Greek ratio was 10. Most of the confusion on this subject has resulted from the refusal of numismatic writers to recognise — what their own monetary .systems of to-day attest — that every name of a weight also meant at the same time a sum of money, which had no relation to such weight- Humphreys, Chambers, and Putnam all furnish confused references to the pondus of 100 drachmas. The Persians in the time of Cyrus appear to have had a system of £. s. d. very like what the Eomans afterwards had. - A remarkable custom, which, it may reasonably' be conjectured, ori- ginated in the changed subdivision of the zodiac, prevailed among the Goths. With them ten meant twelve, and an hundred was six score. The custom still prevails in Essex, Norfolk, and Scotland (Sir Francis Palgrave, i, 97). Some vestige of the score system still lingers in the French names for numbers. Curiously enough, too, the method of counting by scores was employed by the Aztecs (Prescott, p. 35). POUNDS, SHILLINGS, AND PENCE. 135 or else a pound weight of silver coins. The diilerent books in -which this delusion is repeated are probably sufficiently numerous to stock a good-sized library ; yet it can be demolished in a few words. Neither the con- tents of the Xorman or Carlovingian nor of any other coins sustain this theory, neither is it sustained by tlie texts of the Carlovingian or any other period. The libra of money (not the whole triad- of £. s. d.) is at least five hundred and may be fifteen hundred years older than Charlemagne, being clearly defined in the Theodosian Code (lib. xiii, tit. ii, 11), of which the following is the text and , literal translation : — " Ita nt pro singulis libris argenti quinos solidos inferat " — " So that for each libra of money five solidi are to be understood.'^ ^ This portion of the code is attributed by souae commentators to the constitu- tions of Constantine, by others to a law of Honorius and Arcadius (a.d, 397) ;~ but, as shown elsewhere, the libra of five gold pieces is older than either. It was used for five gold aurei by Caligula, Probus, and Diocletian, It fre- quently occurs in the texts of Valens,'^ Arcadius, and 1 It is from this passage in the Theodosian Code that the learned Boeckh, Eome d'Lisle, and Bodin regarded the libra as a weight, and de- duced the supposed ratio between silver and gold of 14'4 to 1. It is needless to say that if the libra was a money of account and not a weight, the deduction is erroneous. There is no instance of such a ratio as 14'4, or thereabouts, in Roman or Greek history — a fact which by itself should have rendered these erudite persons more cautious. The Code of Jus- tinian (liber x, tit. Ixsvi, de argenti pretio) also gives the ratio, "pro. libra argenti, 5 solidi." ^ Queipo, ii, 56. 3 The cupidity of the Duke of Moesia induced him to withhold pro- visions from the Gothic refugees, whom Yalens, the sovereign-pontiff, had permitted to enter that province, so that a slave {mancipium) v!a.s given by the Goths for a loaf of bread {unum panem) and ten libras (of money) for a carcass of meat {aid decern libras in unum carnem onercarentur). It is evident that ten libras meant precisely what the law declared it should mean, namely, 50 solidi (equal to the contents of about 32 English sovereigns '. for ten pounds weight of gold would contain as much as 464 English sovereigns. Gibbon avoids the difficulty by saying, "the word silver must be underetood ;" but such was not the custom of that 136 HISTOEY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. other sovereign-pontiffs of the fourth to the eighth century, Avherej except in one instance, it always means five solidi. According to FatherMariana (^'De Ponderis et Mensures"), the siciHcus — known in a subsequent age as the gold shilling — was struck as early as the first century of our era, for he states that in his own collection were gold pieces of this weight, struck by Faustina, Augusta, Vespasian, and Nero. Others of Justinian, weighing 16 grains, are now in the Madrid collection. The denarius of the early empire, of which 25 in value went to the aureus, tallied in weight, though not in fineness, with the half -aureus. In the reign of Caracalla 24 denarii went to the aureus, the ratio of value between the metals remaininsr unchansred. Such is briefly the genesis of £. s. d. The translation of " argentum " into " money '^ needs no explanation to Continental readers, for in all the Conti- nental languages — French, Spanish, Italian, etc. — "silver'^ means '' money.^' This custom is dei'ived from the Eomans of the Empire, with whom " argentum '' meant money, as the following examples sufficiently prove : — Argentariae tabernte, bankers' shops (Livy) ; argentaria inopia, want of money (Plautus) ; argentarius, treasurer (Plautus) ; argentei sc. nummi, or money (Pliny, xvi, 3) ; ubi argenti venas aurique sequuntur (Lucretius, vi, 808) ; cum argentum esset expositum in asdibus (Cicero) ; emunxi argento senes (Terrence) ; con- cisum argentum in titulos faciesque minutas (Juvenal, xiv, 291) ; tenue argentum venjeque secundas {ibid., ix, 31). The Eomans in turn got this term from the ancient Greeks, whose literature they studied and whose customs they affected. One of the Greek names for money was " arg-yrion," from ar gyros, silver. The Hebrew word for money was caseph, literally silver, alluding to time, any luore that it is no^^. "When silver was undei-stood it meant money and not metal. Said the law : " So that for each libra (libris argenti) five solidi (of gold) are to be undei-stood " (Jornandes, '* De Geta- rum," c. XX vi; Gibbon, ii, 597, 4to ed.). POUNDS, SHILLINGS, AND PENCE. 137 the coined shekels of the Babylonians. The same custom, i. e., using the term " silver " for money, is to be found in the most ancient writings of Egypt and India. In a letter of Honorius and Theodosius II to the Pre- fect of Gaul, written in our year of 418, after suggesting the formation of a council to regulate the affairs of that province, the emperors proposed, in case its members failed to attend the meetings, to subject them to fines of three and five " libras of gold " each. It is evident that the ^' libras ^' here mentioned are moneys and not weights ; for five Koman libras weight of gold are equal to the quantity contained in 232 English sovereigns of the present day, and this would have been a preposterously heavy mulct for mere non-attendance. On the other hand, a libra of account represented by five gold solidi, would not have contained more than one-fourteenth of this quantity of gold, and it is evident that this was intended. These researches into the origin of £. s. d. were necessary in order to determine its essential chai'acteristics as a sj'stem of valuations and proportions. The names of the subdivisions of money have in all ages been used to denote the relative proportions or subdivisions of other measures, as of weight, area, capacity, etc., and it is this practice which is responsible for much of that confusion on the subject of money that distinguishes econo- mical literature. For example, £. s. d. were at one time used as proportions of the pound weight for weighing bread, at another time as proportions of the acre for ■ measuring land. In the former case £. represented a pound weight of bread, s. an ounce, etc. ; in the latter £. ^ meant one and a-half acres and d. a rod of land. Sir Francis Palgrave (i, 93) says that many instances of this practice are to be found in charters of the sixth century. ,The mischief of it lies in the insinuation it conveys that ^ Statute 51, Henry III (1267) ; Fleetwood's " Chvonicum Preciosum." 138 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. because a " pound " weight can be the unit, integer, or standard of -weight, and a "pound^' measure (one and a-half acres) can be the unit of superficial area, so a "pound" sum of money can be the unit of money, which in the last case is physically impossible. The unit of money can never be one " pound, ^^ but must necessarily be all the "pounds," under the same leg-al jurisdiction, joined together. In other words, the unit of money is and must necessarily be all money. ■"■ Taking the essential character of £. s. d. to be a system of valuation by moneys of account, as distinguished from^ a system of valuation by coins, it must have possessed merits that rendered its adoption highly necessary and advantageous. We shall find that this was actually the case. Previous to the adoption of £. s. d. there was. commonly but one denomination of money and — except in the peculiar monetary system of the Roman Common- wealth — it usually related to an actual coin. With the Romans this coin was successively the ace, denarius,, sesterce, and aureus. Even when two of these kinds of coins circulated side by side — as the ace and the denai'ius, or the sesterce and aureus — sums of money were always couched in one denomination, never in both. We now say so many pounds and shillings and pence, perhaps com- bining some of each denomination in one sum ; or we may say so many dollars and cents, or so many francs and centimes. Down to the era of £. s. d. the Romans, in ex- pressing sums of money, only used one term. So long as only one or two or three kinds of coins were current at the same time, there was no inconvenience in this custom ; but when coins came to be made of different sizes and weights and of several different metals — bronze, silver,, and gold — some of them of limited tender and highly over-valued, like the bronze coins of to-day, one term for money became inexact and inconvenient. This is one of the reasons that led to the adoption of £. s. d. ^ See chapter on this subject in the author's " Science of Money." POUNDS, SHILLINGS, AND PENCE. 139 In the last quartei' of the third century the Eoraau i empire was divided between four Cassars, to whom was ' afterwards added he Avhom Sir Francis Palgrave has ' rather effusively termed " our own Carausius/' Even before this division took place, the diversity of bronze and silver coins was so great as to produce confusion. With four emperors almost daily adopting new designs : for coins, and several thousand unauthorised moneyers expelled from Mount Caslius and other places to ply their trade in every province of the Roman empire, the con- fusion became intolei'able. Without some device by aid of which this maddening variety of types and weights could be readily harmonised and valued, it became im- possible to carry on the operations of trade. Such a device was £. s. d. The infinite diversity and number of local and I imperial silver coins had long since broken down that ■ fragment of the fiduciary system of money which was. attempted to be revived by Augustus ; it had effaced all the influence of mine-royalties ; it had nullified all the effects of mint-cliarges and seigniorage. The relative^ value of coins, which Rome was formerly content to read in the edicts of her consuls or emperors, she was now ! almost compelled to determine with a pair of scales. The \ imperial government could scarcely have observed this symptom of popular distrust without grave concern. In proportion as such coins lost fiduciary value, and rested upon that of their metallic contents, so did the empire lose importance to the provinces and the proconsuls to ■ the local chieftains. Furthermore, when money ceased ' to derive any portion of its value from limitation of I issue or from sacerdotal and imperial authority, why might not the proconsuls feel at liberty to issue circu- lating money as well as the sovereign-pontiff ? why not I the under-lords as well as the . proconsuls ? why not foreigners as well as citizens ? — why not anybody or everybody ? 140 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. Besides this, it is to be remembered that the coins of Rome were designed to illustrate its mythology and! history, and that they constituted its most precious and •enduring monuments. Upon them were stamped the! story of its miraculous origin, the images of its gods, demi-gods and heroes, the symbols of its religion, thei spirit of its laws, and the dates of its most glorious achievements. All these now threatened to disappear in: the melting-pot. The monuments had come to be re- garded only as so much bullion, and every provincial governor or barbai'ian king would be tempted to reduce i them to metal, in order that, upon recoining them, his own \ upstart image might shine in the glass that had once reflected a Romulus, a Ctesar, or an Augustus. There was but one way to stop such a calamity, and that way was monopoly of the coinage and arbitrary valuation ; but this had to be done through some new device, for the old ones were worn out, and would be seen through and rejected at once.^ The efforts to save the old monuments would justify a slight discrimination of value at the onset in favour of certain precious issues, and this discrimination might be extended and enlarged as time went on, Rome had hitherto kept its most sacred numismatic monu- ments from the furnace by means of a golden myth, a fixed ratio, and the restriction of exports. Without dis- turbing either of these arrangements, it was now pro- posed to supplement them with the device of £. s. d. The diversity of coins, and the hope of restoring some of their lost fiduciary value, furnished reasons for the adoption of a triad of monetary terms, in the place of that single term in which the Romans had hitherto couched their valuations and contracts ; but tlie same ^ In a less superstitious age perhaps not even the device of £. s. d. would have allayed the fear that the valuations would be changed, or have kept the coins from the melting-pot. But to the Romans that law was a sacred one, which forbade the melting down of old coins (Digest i, •c. de Auri pub. prosecut. ; lib. xii, 13 ; Camden, " Brit.," p. 105). POUNDS, SHILLINGS, AND PENCE. 141 considerations do not explain why these denominations were essentially ideal ones, nor why they remain so still. The explanation is simple enough. It will be- found in the physical impossibility of adding together quantities of various materials and producing a quotient of one material. If £. means a piece of gold, s. a piece of silver, and d. a piece of bronze, then as a matter of fact it is impossible to add them together and produce a sum which shall represent a quantity of any one of these metals. Hence these denominations are essentially ideal. HoAvever, as logic seldom stands in the way of practical legislation, we may be sure that it was not this difficulty which compelled the Eomans, when they adopted £. s. d., to make them ideal moneys, or moneys of account, that would logically add together ; it was the practical diffi- culty of enforcing contracts payable in coins of a particular metal. Numbers of the mine-slaves had revolted, or- escaped, to swell the armies of the Goths and other mal- contents ; the produce of the Eoman mines had become irregtilar ; the oriental trade had absorbed vast quantities- of silver.^ A contract to pay sesterces meant so many silver coins, and the name sesterce had been so long- wedded to a silver coin that it was found easier to establish a new denomination than divorce sesterce from silver. The same may be said of the gold aureus. £. s. d. being imaginary moneys, might be represented by either gold,, silver, or bronze coins at pleasure of the government, and as best suited the convenience of the times or the equity of payments." 1 Pliny, " Natural History," vi, 23, and xii, 18. " In 1604 the Chief Justices of England decided that £. s. d. were imaginary moneys, and meant concretely whatever coins the sovereign from time to time might decree they should mean. They deduced this conclusion, not only from the spirit of the common, but also from the principles of the civil law ; and there can be no doubt that such was its legal significance at the period of its original adoption in Eome (State- Trials, ii, 114; Digest, xviii, 11). 142 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. It is scarcel}'- necessary to turn from tlie public to the private influences wliicli urged the adoption of £. s. d. upon the imperial and pontifical mind, A monetary system which by insensible degrees might be made to slip away from all metallic anchorage or limitation, needed no further recommendation to a needy treasury. Yet it still had another one. The diversity of races that constituted the population of the Empire and a nascent feudal system both stood in the way of any uniform system of taxation, while the distance between Rome and the capital of each province greatly multiplied frauds upon the treasury, and threw too much power and profit in the hands of the provincial vicars or proconsuls and the greedy farmers of the revenues. The facility to regulate the value of various coins which the adoption of £. s. d. promised to afford, placed in the hands of the sovereign- pontiff the means of levying* a tax that could neither be evaded nor intercepted. Thus many reasons and interests combined to recommend ■the system of £. s. d. It brought into harmony the diversity of coins and coinages ; it promised to restore some of the lost value of bronze and silver coins, and to conserve or ■obliterate (at pleasure) the ancient and sacred types ; it offered to remedy the difficulties produced by the irregular supplies of the mines, and by the heavy exports of silver to India ; it placed a future choice of other remedies in the hands of the emperor ; and, finally, it was competent, at a pinch, to solve the problem of suddenly recouping an empty treasury. Under the system of £. s. d. any coin or piece of money could be legalised or decried at pleasure of the government, and any value could be put upon it that seemed expedient or desirable. All that was needed was a brief edict of the supreme sovereign, and at once, with military precision, this or that piece of money took its allotted station among the £. 6\ d., and there it served in the capacity and with the rank assigned to it by its ■imperial master.^ ' On different occasions the same coin has ranked as a penny three- Ij POUNDS, SHILLINGS, AND PENCE. 143 ' In the fourth century the d. was represeuCed by a silver coin, and the s. by a gold coin containing about 18 ' (afterwards 16) grains of fine gold, and the £ by five ' large solidi (afterwards called besants), each containing 72 '(afterwards 64) grains of fine gold. ! If we follow the adoption of £. s. d. in the various ■provinces of Europe — for example, Gaul, Britain, Spain, or Germany — it will be found that it never preceded, whilst it invariably followed, the establishment of Roman Christianity. It therefore furnishes a valuable guide to the date of such establishment, and to the restoration of Roman government. £. s. d. was adopted in Gaul by Clovis, in a part of England it was established by Ethel- bert, -whilst in other parts it was rejected by the uncon- verted Gothic kings, his contemporaries.^ So the Arian Goths of Spain, down to the close of Roderic's reign, half-pence, two-pence, and even three-pence. A shilling was at one time tepresented by a gold coin, at another by a silver coin. Examples of this character often occur in the ordinances of the mediaeval kings of France; and there is reason to believe that the sovereign-pontifEs of Eome more than once altered the legal value of their silver and bronze issues. ^ The name of the sicilicus, which is evidently derived either from the fourth of the aureus or else from the fifteen-grain gold pieces of Sicily, was applied to the Xorse aurar in the laws of Ethelbert (Sections 33-35). From the context it is evident that fifty scats are less in value than three ■ shillings, hence that the purely silver scat of five to the gold shilling was not yet in use, and that the scats alluded to were the old rude ones of composite metal, weighing 7i grains and upwards, and of varying and uncertain metallic contents. The shilling of Ethelbert's laws is the earliest mention of that coin in England. There was as yet noXorse analogue, either for the libra or the penny ; in other words, there was no twelfth of the aurar nor any twenty- aurar piece, hence there was no further application of £. s. d, at that ■ time to Gothic coins. The Roman " pounds, shillings, and pence " had yet to be fully established in England. Some of the gold siciliei of the heretical Roger II, of Sicily, bear the legend in Arabic : " One God ; Mahomet is His prophet." On the other is the phallic sign. A specimen, somewhat worn, weighed by the writer, contained 15 grains gross. These shillings were evidently copied from older Sicilian coins of the same weight and type. 144 BISTORT OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VAEIOUS STATES. refused both, tlie Rornau religion and the Roman sjsteir of money, and the Saxons would have none of either until Charlemagne bent tbeir stubborn necks to the yoke of the Roman gospel. Another valuable historical sidelight is derived from £. s. d. The arithmetical relations of these moneys of account were originally, but have not been always, 12x20 = 240. Sometimes they were 5x48 = 240, or. 4 X 60 = 240, or even (exceptionally) 5 x 60 = 300. When- ever this is observed it affords a sure indication of grafting.! The Gothic ratio between the precious metals was 8, the Arabian ratio 6^, and the Roman ratio 12. Consequently,! when the Roman arithmetical relations of £. s. d. werei grafted on Gothic or Arabian, or Gothic- Arabian, monetary systems they had to be modified to suit the local valuation of gold and silver.^ For example, in the eighth century in Roman Christian Gaul (ratio of 12) it took 12 silver pence, eacb of 16 grains, to equal in legal value 1 gold sicilicus of similar weight, whilst in the Gothic parts of Britain, where the Arabian ratio prevailed (ratio of 6^), 5 silver pence, each of 20 grains, sufficed ; so that if, as convenience dictated, the newly-introduced £. was still to consist of 240 pence, it would have to be valued at 48 shillings of account, and this was accordingly done." Modifications in the weights of the silver penny, and efforts to harmonise the two principal conflicting ratios — the Roman and Arabian — will explain, not only tbe re- maining variations of £. s. d. above alluded to, but also many other obscure problems connected with the early | monetary systems of England. ! We have seen how £. s. d. arose out of the circum- stances of a decaying empire ; we shall now see how it accommodated itself to those circumstances, so as to ^ The system of Offa, king of Mercia, was J Gothic-Arabian, and, as is elsewhere shown, some of his coins had Arabian inscriptions upon them. 3 System of Ethelbert, king of Kent, 725-60. POUNDS, SHILLINGS, Ax\D P.ENCE . 145 promote the very disease it was in part designed to remedy. The empire was falling to pieces^ splitting into many parts. First, it had one Csesar, then two, three, four, or more. Even when it got rid of its Thirty Tyrants, and reduced the number to six, the diversity of coins and coinages was too bewildering for practical purposes. To harmonise and regulate these coinSj as well for other reasons, £. s. d. was adopted. Yet by accommodating itself to a diversity of moneys, this system prevented the evil from righting itself through the simple and efficacious means of re-coinage. Dispensing with the necessity of uniformity, it encouraged heterogeneity by rendering it less intolerable, and thus facilitated that splitting up and subdivision of the coining authority which characterised the matured feudal system, and lent it strength and support. Devised in part to unify moneys and centralise authority, it became no insignificant aid to decentralisa- tion and feudalism. On the other hand, but for its influence the Roman coins, and with them the memories which they invoked and the sacred myths they per- petuated, would have been destroyed, and the modern world would have had to read the history of the past in the unmeaning baugs of Scandinavia, the saigas of Frakk- land, or the composite scats of the Anglo-Saxon heptarchy. Returning to the historical clue afforded by the adop- tion of £. s. d., the reader will scarcely fail to have been impressed with the extreme artificiality of this system. Hundreds of books have already been written upon it, and hundreds more will probably yet be written upon it before its true character, mischievous bearing, and incon- gruity with the modern age of progress will be recognised and acted upon. Allusion is here made, not merely to a system of three denominations, as £. s. d., nor to a mingled Tai-decimal and duodecimal notation, nor to its character as money of account, but to the mingling in this system of imperial with provincial and municipal or other coins ; of seignioried with non-seignioried coins ; of coins 10 146 HISTOEY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN YARTOUS STATES. witli various degrees of legal tender ; of coins of local with others of extensive legal tender ; of native witli foreign coins made legal tender ; of redeemable with non- redeemable coins; of governmental with private (bank) issues of various degrees of legal tender ; and of non-j interest-bearing with interest-bearing legal-tender issues. In these respects and others the principles of all the monetary systems of the present day originated in the Roman imperial system of £. s. d., and so far as they follow it they interpose important obstacles to the prac- tice of equity, the just diffusion of wealth, and the progress of civilisation.^ The £, c j just as there is between social phases and language. For example, if one of the sentences of Cicero or Tacitus were imputed to a savage orator, no matter how eloquent or renowned, the unfitness of the phraseology, and its lack of harmony with the social phase of the speaker, would at once expose the blunder or imposture. Similarly, if an £. s. d. system of money were attributed to a tribe of Zulus, the incongruity of the collocation would imme- diately stamp it as untrue. For not only are three denominations of money too artificial a means of valuation to fall within the mental compass of a barbarian tribe, one of them (the £.) was always an ideal money, and all of them were maintained, and could only be maintained, by a mint code of extreme complexity, and covering mining, minting, seigniorage, artificial ratio between the precious metals, and an hundi*ed other subjects, concerning which neither Zulu nor Goth ever had a clear conception. For these various reasons the artificial system of £. s. d. furnishes an unerring clue to historical researches during the dark ^ " Science of Money," chapter vi. POUNDS, SHILLINGS, AND PENCE. 147 ages. In a previous chapter similar clues were found in the golden myth and the sacred ratio of twelve ; in the present one we shall follow the clue of the three denominations. The text of the Theodosian Code implies the use of £, s. d. at Eome and in all the Christian provinces of the Empire. The non- Christian provinces wei-e those parts of Gaul and Britain which, at the time of the promulga- i tion of this code, were temporarily under the control of 'Anglo-Saxon, Frankish, and other barbarian chieftains. : The letter of Honorius and Theodosius II (a.d. 418) I implies the use of £. s. d. at that date in southern and ■' perhaps central Gaul. From 496 to 561, during the govern- ments of the Koman patricians Clovis and Clothaire I, the I £. s. d. system was probably established throughout the ! whole of Gaul, except Brittany, Burgundy, and Provence. The Roman coins found buried with the body of Childeric,^ and more especially the Roman offices and titles accepted by the Merovingian Frankish princes down to the sixth century, when image-worship was insisted upon, or, still worse, when the assassin Phocas was worshipped at Rome, imply the continuance of Roman government in Gaul until ■ that period. After this time, and until the reign of Pepin, many of the provinces forgot their allegiance.^ Over and over again the Franks had professed and evinced their will- ingness to live under Roman law and Roman government, and they proved their sincerity and good faith in these pro- fessions by accepting Roman ecclesiastics as the adminis- trators of that law and the representatives of that govern- 1 ment. So long as Rome inculcated the worship of a heavenly deity the Franks continued loyal to the empire, but when the Roman pontiff fell at the feet of Phocas, and . 1 His tomb was opened in the seventeenth century (Morell, 67). 2 The Merovingians struck gold under authority of the Basileus until the reign of Theodebert, who struck gold for himself. Yet even after this period many of the Merovingians coined under authority o£ the Basileus. 148 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IX VARIOUS STATES. the detested religion of emperor- worship seemed about to be revived in the very fane of religion, they turned upon the Empire.-^ From Theodebert to Pepin the Short the Eoman monetary system was interrupted in Gaul. Its place was partly filled with a Frankish system, in which the relative value of gold and silver, no longer kept in place hy the sacred myth of Eome, fell back to the old Druidical (and Etruscan) ratio, or else obeyed, to a certain extent, the influence of the Moslem mint-laws of Spain and Southern ■Gaul, for it became 1 to 10 instead of 1 to 8. The gold sou, or solidus, was valued in Merovingian laws at 40 silver deniers, or denarii ; the little sou, or sicilicus, was valued in the same laws at 10 silver deniers, the sicilicus and denier containing the same weight of metal. The first fact is from the texts of the period, the last from the coins themselves. The establishment of this system was the mark of Frankish independence from the empire. It lasted about a century and a half ; after that Gaul again became a Eoman province." In short, the monetary system of £. s, d. was established wherever Eoman government prevailed — in Italy, Greece, Asia Minor, Armenia, Egypt, Carthage, Spain, Gaul, Eritain, and Germany. It was not established by any state or people not subject to Eome, never by the pagan Angles, Jutes, Saxons, Franks, Sclavs, or Huns, and never hy the Moslem, whether in Arabia, Egypt, Africa, Spain, France, or Persia. After the dry bones of the sacred Empire fell into the hands of the Turks, in the fifteenth century, the latter, in order to accommodate their num- mulary language, so far as pi'acticable, to the customs of the conquered Greek provinces, employed the £. and the d. to mean — not indeed what they formerly meant — but ^ Charlemagne, at the Council of Frankfort (794), denounced the wor- ship of the imperial images. - The earliest rehabilitation of the Roman system appeal's in the capi- "tulary of Pepin and Carloman, a.d. 743, wherein the sol is valued at 12 ideniei-s (Guizot, iii, 27). POUNDS, SHILLINGS, AND PENCE. 149 something that suggested it, and this practice afterwards found its way into other provinces of Turkey ; but it had no essential connection with the £. s. d. system, and employed only two denominations instead of the charac- teristic three. Although it is probable that the libra of money (not the £. s. d. system) continued to be used in the Roman cities of Britain from the Roman period down to the time when these cities fell into the hands of the Anglo- Saxons, we have no certain evidence of the fact. The earliest implication of the £. s. d. system in any docu- ment now extant occurs in the barbarian laws of Ethel- bert, A.D, 561—616 (ss. 33—5), where certain fines are levied in shillings. No " libras ^' are mentioned ; nor no denarii for twelfths of the Norse aurar -^ hence no entire adoption of the system can be positively inferred. The shilling of Ethelbert was probably either a Latin name for a coin identical in weight with the Norse aurar, or an anachronism, inserted by copyists at a later date." In neither case would this text afford any certain indi- cation when the £. i'17o may have been due to the fact that iu all the western countries conquered by the moslem, silver was chiefly in the hands of the people, whilst gold was in those of their rulers ; and the great alteration which was made in their relative value was a covert bribe to gain the suffrages of the former and reconcile them to moslem government and religion. But it is far more likely to have originated in a simpler and sti'aightforward manner. The Athenian, Persian, Egyptian, and Roman governments had succes- sively absorbed a lai-ge portion of the profits derived from the Indian trade, by lowering the value of silver (in which their tributes were chiefly received) in the Occident to lialf its value in the Orient. By making the bullion trade a strictly governmental monopoly, as Cicero informs us was the case with Rome, that hierarchy obtained twice as much gold for silver in India as it paid for it iu Europe. This policy, except where it was swept away by the influence of Islam, Avas pursued until the Roman empire expired. The Arabian government was more considerate of its merchants: it threw open the oriental trade to all true believers ; it imposed no restrictions ; it was averse, at least at that period, to the imposition of covert exactions. During the seventh century of our era the ratio in India was about 6^ for 1, and this high valuation of silver in India con- tinued substantially unchanged until the fifteenth century. It was at the Indian ratio that the moslem struck their coins of gold and silver. Whatever the true reason of this policy, it was certainly more profitable for the moslem conquerors than had they adopted the contemporaneous Roman ratio of 12 for 1. A brief computation will serve to measure this profit. After consulting those Arabian authors who have treated the subject, and making allowances for instances where exaggeration seems to have been employed, we have ventured to roughly estimate the moslem spoil of the precious metals, including the tributes exacted fi'om the conquered nations during the first eighty years of the 174 HISTOliY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IX VAEIOUS STATES. conquestj at about five miilion marks' weiglit of gold and about one hundred million marks' weight of silver. In determining at what i elation of value of one to the other metal this mass of gold and silver should be coined, Abd-el-Melik may be reasonably supposed to have indulo-ed in some such considerations as the following ; " We have a vast treasure before us to coin. At what ratio of value between silver and gold shall we coin it ? Our armies are invincible: the populations are tired of Eoman rule ; our conquests will extend. Arabia is a com- mercial country, watered by three oceans — the Mediter- ranean connects it with the "West, the Euxine with the North, and the Eed Sea with India and China, The influx of the precious metals, due at first to our arms, will be continued by means of trade. In the Roman empire and its feudatories the coinages have hitherto been con- ducted on the basis of 12 weights of silver for 1 of gold ; in the Orient the ratio is 6 or 7 for 1. It is evident that the most profitable, perhaps also the most important, part of our commerce will be with what we soon hope to call our Indian empire; and it is more desirable that our moneys ehould harmonise with the Indian than with the Roman coinages. It must also not be forgotten that to conform with the Roman coinages would involve us in pecuniary loss, whereas to follow the oriental ratio would afford us a profit. Judging from the proportions of the metallic spoil thus far captured, we shall secure about twenty times as much (in weight of) silver as gold, and assuming that we eventually secure 100,000,000 marks of silver, and coin it at the Indian ratio, our fund will amount to 1,120,000,000 dinars; whereas if we coin at the Roman ratio, it will only come to 746f millions. Let those who are learned in the art of arithmetic make the calculation for themselves. The only questions left to consider are these : Can we permanently maintain this ratio of value — so different from that established by the coinages of the Roman empire, a large portion MOSLEM MONEYS. 175 of which, however, is already' subject to our arms ? '\^'ill not our gold dinars flow out and silver metal come into Arabia to take its place ? and, if so, will not this prove injurious to our affairs ? These questions can be answered very readily. As we have already gained con- ti'ol of the Egyptian, and, please Allah, will soon have control of the Spanish mines, from what other country is the silver metal to come which is to bu}' our gold dinars ? Answer — No country. As we have driven the Eomans from the Mediterranean, and will soon control the commerce of maritime Europe, whither could our gold dinars go outside of the influence of our own ti'ade ? Answer — Nowhere. If, nevertheless, such an unlikely thing should come to pass, how much should we lose were our 280,000,000 of gold dinars to flow out and we received for them 280,000,000 dinars^ worth of silver at our own ratio of valuation ? Answer — Nothing. Then what is the objection to the adoption of such a ratio of value between silver and gold as best suits our present interests and our probable future trade with India ? Answer — None whatever.'^^ Encouraged more than likely by reflections of this character, the Arabians commenced, under Abd-el-Melik, that system of purely Arabian coinages which continued until the centre of their empire was virtually removed to India, and they had lost control of both the mines and the commerce of Europe. These coinages were for several centuries conducted ou the basis of 6h weights of coined silver as the equivalent in value of 1 weight of coined gold. This was not only a peculiar ratio ; it differed so greatly from the Roman one of 12 for 1 that it can never fail to be recognised wherever and whenever it existed — whether in the couu- ^ At the ratio of 65 there would be 56 dinars and 84 dirhems struok from the mark weight ; at the ratio of 12 there would be 56 of each coin struck from the mark weight. The difference in the total sum would amount to 373^ millions of dinars. 176 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATE]S. tries of Islam or elsewhere. Moreover, when found else- ' "where, it is an infallible sign of moslem connection or influence. As in the remains of antiquity the presence ' of silk and porcelain denotes commerce with China ; of spices, with India ; of tin, with Britain ; of amber, with lestia ; and of papyrus, with Egypt, so, in the monuments of the medieval ages, does the establishment of this pecu- liar ratio of value between silver and gold in coins denote intercourse with the Arabians. Wherever this ratio was adopted merely by giving currency to Arabian coins at Arabian values, the intercourse with Arabians xuay have been limited to commerce. Where the ratio was esta- blished by means of local coinages, based on the moslera valuation and supplemented by the use of moslem types, the former implies resistance to Roman government, and the latter implies the presence of moslem artificers. Where to the moslem ratio and types was added the moslem religious formula, " There is but one God,'' this definitively bespeaks the presence of moslem influence, and a formal protest against polytheism. All these will be found in some mediasval States — the moslem ratio, type, and religious formula ; hence their historical significance. When it is borne in mind that the moslem empire was a sacred one, that the moslem coinages, like the Roman or Byzantine, were employed as a means of disseminating religious doctrine, and that, also like the Roman, the legal ratio of value between coins of the precious metals, once fixed, remained unchanged for centuries, the import- ance of the moslem ratio for solving other historical problems will be better understood. For example, how far did the moslem conquest and occupation of France extend ? and how long did it last ? are questions to which a far more reliable answer will be found in the Merovin- gian coinages than in the popular stoiy of Martel's victory.^ To what extent, at a given era, was Christianity ^ One of the earliest Arabian dinars, now in the Paris collection, was MOSLEM MONEYS. 177 establislied in Gothic countries, is a problem to be solved ' mucli more satisfactorily by means of the coinages and valuations which prevailed in those countries than by listening to the airy fictions of the Quindecemviral College. We find moslem remains or else marks of moslem influence in tlie antiquities of England, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Frakkland (Burgundy), Spain, and other Gothic or semi-Gothic States of the seventh and eighth centuries. In Sicily moslem marks continue to the twelfth century, and in Spain to the fifteenth. When- ever we find them we have not far to look for the frontier - Hue of Christianity. Since the Julian era, in whatever country the ratio of 12 prevailed, that country may be safeh' regarded as having been first under Roman-pagan, and afterwards under Roman-Christian domination ; in whatever country west of India the ratio of 7 or 6^ pre- vailed, it may be regarded as having been under moslem in- fluence. But for the influence of the archaic Gothic ratio of 8, explained elsewhere, it might also be concluded that wherever any intermediate ratio between 6^ and 12 prevailed, that place was at or near the frontier-line between the spheres of Roman and moslem influence. To those to whom the ratio of value between the pre- cious metals appears due to any other circumstance than the arbitrary laws of national mints, or to those whose attention to the history of this recondite subject has now been drawn for the first time, the ratio may seem a strange or inadequate criterion of political or religious domination ; but it is precisely in such obscure relations between great and little things that an all-wise Creator has sheltered the truth of history from man^s destructive powers. The forgeiy of books, the defacement of monu- ments, the perversion of evidences, the extermination of nonconformists, the invention of fabulous cosmogonies found at Autun, with two Merovingian coins (Lavoix's Catalogue, No. 26). 12 178 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. and superstitious fictions — all are made in vain to conceal or crush the truth so long as a blade of grass or a breath of air remains on earth to reveal it ; for all Nature is united in a mysterious harmony, and to even approxi- mately master one branch of science is to gain a key which, with patience and industry, may eventually unlock for us all the others. The moslem systems of money were based on the dinar coin, whose weight was called a mithcal, this word mean- ing literally " any weight with which one weighs ; " in other words, the mithcal of money was the weight of the dinar, which was theoretically a symbol, a money of account, forming part of a monetary system, but palpably a single coin, containing 65 grains fine gold, this having been the average contents of the Homan solidus at the period of the first Arabian coinage.^ In the earliest moslem system (period of Mahomet) the mithcal was divided into 96 parts, as follows : 96 barleycorns = 48 habbeh = 24 tussuj=6 danik = l mithcal. The ratio of silver to gold in this system was 12 for 1. Hence the silver drachma, of which 12 went to the gold dinar, con- tained 65 grains fine silver.' In the system established by Abd-el-Melik, about three-fourths of a century after the Hegira, the mithcal was divided into 100 parts, as follows: 100 barleycorns = 20 karats = 1 mithcal. Hence a barleycorn of this system weighed 0*65, or about two- thirds of a grain, and a karat S^ grains. Both the Roman binary weights and the Eoman ratio of silver to gold were now dropped. The weights became decimal. The gold dinar remained unchanged, but the principal silver coin was modelled upon the average Sassanian dii-hem of 14 karats, or seven-tenths (in weight) of the dinar, and it took the name of its Sassanian prototype. Hence the ^ The extant solidus of Heraclius I, weighs 69'9 grains, about 65 grains fine. 2 Esh Shaf J and Ibn Hanbal both affirm that the ratio was 12 in the time of the Prophet. MOSLEM MONEYS. 179 dirliem theoretically contained seven- tenths of 65 grains = 45^ gi-ains. The dinar was valued at 10 dirhems — a valua- tion derived from the ordinances of the Prophet, and one which it would have been sacrilegious to alter. The law of the Prophet levies a tithe on all possessions of the pre- cious metals, amounting to 5 oukias, or 200 silver dirhems, or 20 gold dinars. 1 Here the dinar is valued at 10 silver dirhems, and it I'emained so until the tenth century. This ratio had nothing to do with the value of billon, potin, copper, or glass dirhems, of which we have had to speak elsewhere ; it related only to gold and silver coins of fine, or substantially fine, metal. Had both the gold and silver coins of the Mahometan mints contained the full theoretical weight of metal, and had they been of like standard, alloy, or fineness, the weights given above would have made a ratio of 7 silver = 1 gold ; but the actual circumstances were different. The dinars weighed 65 grains (0*979) fine; the dirhems weighed 43 grains (0*960 to 0*970) fine. Hence the ratio of value between silver and gold in the coins was 6*52 for 1. There has been a good deal of confusion and mis- understanding on this subject, and it is essential to clear it up in this place. El-Hassan, an Arabian writer (a.h. 22-110), calculated the theoretical ratio of value between the precious metals in the coinage at 3^ for 1, which is just half of the true theoretical ratio. Bergmann, a recent winter, doubled the theoretical ratio, and made it 14 for 1. Queipo doubled the actual ratio, and made it 13 for 1. These errors probably arose from mistaking ■ the number of dirhems to the dinar. El-Hassan may : have assumed 5 to be the correct number ; Queipo and Bergmann certainly assumed the number to be 20. The correct legal number was 10.^ M. Sylvestre de Sacy supposed that, because there were 10 dirhems to the dinar, the ratio was 10 for 1.^ This would be true if ^ The Koran, as revised by Othman or Ali. ' Sauvaire, pp. 49 — 55. ^ " Money and Civilization," p. 22. * Sauvaire, p. 55. 180 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. the weights and fineness of the two coins were alike, but not true as the case stood. The average gross weight of 2,222 whole dinars now extant, and dating from a.h. 76 to 132, is 65'3 grains ; that of 6,982 whole dirhems of the same period is 43"36 grains, all of them being coins in the best state of con- servation.^ The legal valuation of 10 dirhems to the dinar will be found repeatedly confirmed in the works of Makrisi, de Sacy, Queipo, Lavoix, Sauvaire, and Poole. The standard, or fineness, of the coins is given by Sauvaire. The conclusion that the ratio was (approximately) 6^ for 1 therefore stands upon very solid grounds. Coinage system of Abd-el-Melih, a.h. 73 (a.d. 692). Batio of silver to gold 6-52 for 1. 6 copper fels = 1 silver dirhem, 41'495 grains fine. 10 dirhems = 1 gold dinar, 63'63o grains fine. 4 dinars = 1 oukia. 5 oukias = 1 nisab. Hence 240 fels = 1 oukia. Ed. Bernard (" Mens, et Pond.," p. 188) gives also the ■equivalent of 700 mithcals, or dinars, equal 1 talent ; but whether this applies to Abd-el-Melik^s time or not is oincertain. The talent appears to have had only a local meaning, which varied from five dinars to almost any number. The original word for it in the Koran is ■^^ quintar." " There are some who if thou entrust them with a talent (quintar) give it back to you ; and some if thou entrust them with a dinar will not return it " (Imran's Family, iii ; Medina, v. 60) . Eeverting to the subject of the ratio, because of its great importance, both from the numismatic, the monetary, and the historical point of view, Sauvaire, in his " Mate- riaux,'' gives 57 eccentric valuations of the dirhem to the dinar, Avhich are repeated by Poole in the " London Numismatic Chronicle '^ for the year 1884. Of this number thirty-one (or more) belong to Egypt, and only 1 Sauvaire. MOSLEM MONEYS. 181 one to Spain. These commence in a.h. 363-5, and vary I from 50 in the fourth centui-y of the Hegira to 13^ in the sixth century. They relate not to silver, but to billon dirhems, some of which — for example, the nukrah — con- tained but 10 per cent, of silver, the rest being copper. In another instance (a.h. 815) the relation is between the dinar and the so-called " pure dirhem, each weighing a half-dirhem." It is evident that no correct ratio of weight and value between the dinar and dirhem can be deduced from coins of this character. The other exam- ples are equally useless. From the era of Mahomet to the fourth century of the Hegira there are no examples at all except one for a.h. 225, which is probably a corrupted Fatimite date. In this example there are 15 dirhems to the dinar. Some examples relate to copper coins, as the Delhi tanhah dirhems of a.h. 823 (800 dirhems to the dinar) ; nearly all of them bear the impress of miscalcula- tion, and none of them state the fineness of the coins. With the exception of the 12 for 1 in the time of the Prophet and the 10 for 1 in Bagdad (a.h. 632), I regai'd them as entirely worthless for the purpose of deducing the ratio of value between silver and gold. The moslem always respected the 10 dirhems for 1 dinar, just as the Romans respected the 12 silver for 1 gold, and from similar motives. The relation of the dirhem to the dinar was ascribed to the law of the Prophet ; the relation of 12 silver for 1 gold was fixed by Julius Ceesar. The former was not altered while the empire of Islam lasted; the latter remained unchanged until the throne of the Cffisars was overturned. The prototype of the dinar has been mentioned ; it was the Roman solidus. The dirhem, according to Sau- vaire's translation of El Damiry, was based upon an average of the three sorts of silver coins then circulating in the Persian dominions. Those Avith the efiigy of the iing and the legend NOUCH KHOR,or ''Feast in Health," ■weighed one mithcal. Of the Samarys dirhems there 182 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IX VARIOUS STATES. ■were two sorts, one weighing six-tenths of a mitlical, the other half a mithcal. The inscriptions on these coins were in Pehlvic. An average of the three sorts made seven- tenths of a mithcal, and accordingly^ this was the weight o£ the Arabian dirhem adopted by Abd-el-Melik. In A.H. 1276 (a.d. 1859) a Persian, named Djevad, paid into i the post-office at Constantinople a dirhem struck at Eassora in a.h. 40. This dirhem is now in the Paris collection. Its weight is 36"13 English grains, but it is somewhat worn, and it may have originally weighed seven-tenths of a mithcal. It has been submitted to Mordtmann, Rogers, Longperier, Sauvaire, Waddington, and other competent judges, all of whom pronounced it genuine, the only dissentient voice being that of Mr. J. Stickel.^ If genuine it rather discredits the Arabian account of the manner in w^hich Abd-el-Melik got the weight of his dirhem, for it belongs to the reign of Ali, and the averaging of the three sorts of dirhems, if it was done at all, must have been done by him. This view is sustained by the tale equivalents cited from the Koran, a work revised in the reign of Othman or Ali. However, the Bassora coin may have followed the Samarys dirhem of six-tenths of a mithcal, in which case its original weight was 39 grains. The prerogative of coining became vested in the •caliphate from the moment of its inception. '' I have left to Irak its dinar and to Syria its dirhem ■" is a boast ascribed to Mahomet, and which, whether true or false, and whether uttered by Mahomet or somebody else of the same era, implies control of the coinage from some centre of administration, either religious or civil. This is a point which will be discussed farther on. During the conquest, before the central administration was organised, the emirs or commanders in the field struck coins. Tbis was merely to facilitate the distribution of the spoil, for these coins were exact fac-similes of those already in cir- ^ J. Stickel, in '' Handbuch zur Morgenlandischer Munzkunde," p. 51. MOSLEM MONEYS. 183 culation, including their religious emblems and legends. The division of the spoil was regulated by the Koran ; in all cases one-fifth of it went to the hierarchy. "When- ever ye seize anything as a spoil, to God belongs a fifth thereof.^' (Spoils, viii ; Medina, v. 40). This is the origin of the Royal Quinto, which the Spanish monarchs after- wards exacted fi'om the conquerors of America.^ The coins of the emirs extend from about a.h. 5 to a.h. 60. In a few instances such coinages continued after the administration was centralised by Abd-el-Melik, but they were gradually suppressed until the entire system was brought under the control of the caliph. We have the assurances of the Arabian numismatists and the cor- roboration of Lavoix that such control was rigidly exer- cised and jealously guarded.^ No private individual dared strike a coin ; no individual had the right to require the government to strike a coin for him ; it was a felony for any person or corporation other than the State either to fabricate or destroy a coin. In respect to the emir coinages the policy of the Arabians was similar to that of the Romans during the Punic Avars, when the State, for reasons of convenience, permitted its commanders in the field to strike coins. Such was the whole foundation of that imaginary " pre- rogative of the imperium," with which Mommsen and Lenormant have enlivened the pages of their works on the Roman monetary system. In the Roman empire all suggestions of such a prerogative must certainly cease from the tiiiie when Augustus organised the administra- tion ; in Islam they disappear with the coinage reforms of Abd-el-Melik. In both cases the coinage was really the prerogative of the State, and was only exei'cised by the imperatores, emirs, or commanders in the field, under the actual or anticipated authority of the State. In both cases the coinage became the prerogative of that hierarchy ' See my previous works for full discussions on this subject. -Henri Lavoix, "Catalogue des Monnais Musulmanes," 1891, 4to. 184 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. into which the State developed. In both cases the coins were employed, not merely for money, but also as means to proclaim accessions and to promulgate and disseminate religious doctrine. But here the analogy ends. The Roman hierarchy continued down to the time when Constantinople was overthrown by the troops and allies of the Latin pope ; until that event the coinage of gold was exercised solely by the Basileus. Says Freeman : " That the caliph of the Prophet was the lawful lord of the world no true believer thought of doubting ; but who really was the caliph of the Prophet was a question on which opinions might widely differ.^' It was the same with the Roman government. That the Augustus was the lawful lord of the world no one presumed to question ; but who was the lawful Augustus was often a matter of vital dispute. The difference between the Roman and Arabian hierarchies — at least so far as such difference affected the monetary system — was of another character. In the Roman empire the right to coin gold always remained with the sovereign-pontiff, and was never exercised by any other authority ; in the Arabian empire, after the revolt of Spain and Egypt from the authority of the caliph, it was lost by the latter, and became vested in the independent sovereigns of those States, and was exercised by them and by other moslem sovereigns who had thrown off the same authority. A belief in the unity of God is not favourable to the maintenance of an hierarchy. According to Lavoix, the gold dinar was the only full legal-tender coin of the moslem in Egypt. This may have been the case elsewhere in the Arabian empire, but so far as we can determine, not in Spain nor in India. In those States both gold and silver coins seem to have been clothed Avith the full legal-tender function. This only ceased to be true when the latter were adulterated. CHAPTER X. EAELT ENGLISH MONEYS. Sterling standard — Type of the penny — Arabian coins in Gotland — Offa's dinar — The mark — The mancns — Arabian moneyers in England — Arabian ratio — Arabian metallurgists — The Gothic-Arabian monetary system. /~\UR account of English moneys begins with the ^-^ moslem remains which have been found in England. This does not allude either to the Moorish troops whom the Romans stationed at Watchtowers nor to the reputed Arabian remains in the Yorkshire Tyke (Tyrkr) dialect, but to the numismatic monuments of the medieeval age.^ For reasons which will pi^esently be adduced, we venture to regard the sterling standard of England as practically of moslem origin. By sterling standard we mean, not the nummulary terms £. s. d., but the metallic com- position of the silver sterlings — the alliage of all the best silver coins now extant of mediasval England. The mancus and carat are certainly moslem. The peculiar ratio of value between the precious metals in medieval England was either wholly moslem or largely due to moslem influence. There is reason to believe that the sterling- alliao-e was also moslem. Although we have no Gothic-Arabian coin with an Arabian inscription earlier than Offa, and only one of that ' Muratori III (Dissert, si, pp. 686-708) prints some rhymes embodying the medical precepts of the Arabians, which were addressed by a student at Bagdad, to Edward Confessor, Eex Anglorum. The English words admiral, algebra, alkali, almanac, cotton, cypher, damask, damson, sheriff, and many others are well known to be Arabian. What is alluded to in the text is an obscure dialect only spoken in Northumberland. 186 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. prince, it is probable that otber Arabian types of coins were introduced into England during the seventh century; for that period coincides alike with the earliest mention of the Arabian mancus in England and with the appearance of flat thin coins of nearly pure silver (and Arabian type), in place of the lumpish ones of composite metal which preceded them. The moslem monuments of England may be con- veniently described under the several heads of : Type of the so-called penny ; Arabian coins found in Scandinavia ; Offals dinar ; Arabian moneyers in England ; Arabian ratio in England ; Arabian pre-eminence in the metal- lurgical arts ; and the practically Arabian origin of sterling. Type of the so-called Penny. — This piece is a flat thin round silver coin, about three-quarters to seven-eighths of an inch in diameter ; in weight, from 17 in the earlier, to 21i grains in the later, ages. It roughly coincided with both the Byzantine half-siliqua, or quarter-miliaresion, and the Norse scat, but it differs from them in size, com- position, and design. These last-named pieces, especially the scats, are thicker and smaller, the diameter of the latter being usually about half-an-inch. The standard of the so-called penny is 0*925 to 0'960 fine, that of the quarter-miliaresion is about 0*900, and of the scats of this period indeterminable, because they were not made of refined silver, but of old jewellery. Pieces of the type of the so-called penny, and known at the time as half- dirhems, were coined by the Arabians in the seventh century, and carried by their armies to the coasts of the Caspian and, during the eighth century, into northern Africa, Spain, and France. Whilst the moslem were in possession of a large portion of France, Charles Martel , struck coins of the same si.^e, weight, and composition as their dirhems, while Pepin the Short imitated their half- dirhems. Modern numismatists call these last-named pieces deniers, or pennies. The design of the half-dirhem EAELY ENGLISH MONRYS. 187 'was simply a few lines of writing with arabesque work. [Sucli, alsOj was tlie design upon tlie so-called pennies of the Norse or Anglo-Saxon kings of England. Afterwards .they stamped their own effigies on one side; but this was Inot a moslem pi'actice, for with them it was strictly [forbidden both by law and custom. ! Although the use of the Arabian gold mancus in [England during the seventh century, and the hoards of Arabian silver coins — some of them bearing an equally early date — which have been found in Gotland and in [many other places in Scandinavia, afford reason for believing that the silver dirhem and half-dirhem were ; employed in England at the same period, yet the first j certain appearance of what we have ventured to regard as the half-dirhem type in England was during the reign of Ethelbert II, king of Kent, who struck a silver coin !of that description. It circulated side by side with the gold mancus of unquestionably Arabian origin,^ thus ; leaving but little room to doubt the Arabian parentage I of the former. Locally, however, the coin was nob known ■ as the half-dirhem, but variously as the scat and the [penny, according to the local prevalence of Gothic or ; Eoman nomenclature. At a later period it was appro- Ipriately called the " sterling.'' \ Arabian Coins found in Gotland, Sfc. — More than 20,000 ji moslem coins have been found in various parts of ' Scandinavia, chiefly in Gotland, some dated so early as ' A.H. 79, others so late as a.h. 401. The presence of such large numbers of these coins evinces an extensive com- merce with Arabians, and implies the currency of their ■coins and familiarity with their ratio in Scandinavia and I probably also in Mercia and Northumbria — in short, ^ Keary assigns the first coins of this type to a still later date. " The s pennies of OfEa, struck about the year 760, were the first ever struck in England. Their artistic beauty was not equalled for many centuries, not until the period of Henry VII" ("English Coins," p. xxii). These so-called k pennies we regard as half-dirhems. The penny, or Roman denarius, was j of a different size, thickness, and metallic composition. 188 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. Scandinavian England, or all England nortli of a line drawn between the Severn and the Wash.^ Offa's Dinar. — In every country which fell beneath their I sway, whether Syria, Irak (Persia), Egypt, Barbary, Spain, or Sicily, the Arabians struck bilingual coins of the denominations and partly of the type of those which .they found in circulation. " I left to Irak its dinar, to Syria its dirhem," boasted Mahomet. His successors took care to observe this wise policy. From the reign of . Abd-el-Melik coins were struck by Arabian moneyers , after the type of the dinars and dirhems which he pre- scribed. A gold dinar of this character belongs to the- reign of Oifa, king of Mercia,^ and its type is only to be accounted for upon the supposition that that prince waa obliged to employ Arabian moneyers. On this coin appears, in Arabic, the words " In the name of Grod: This dinar was struck in the year 157'^ (a.d. 774). The I'everse has : " Mahomet is the messenger of God, who sent him with the doctrine and true faith to prevail over every other religion,'^ and, " There is no other God than one God — He has no equal.'' Between the lines, in Latin, appear the words " Offa Rex.'^ A description of this coin by Adrien de Longperier is published in the " London Numismatic Chronicle," iv, p. 232, and in Kenyon's " Gold Coins of England," 1884, where a fac- simile also appears in the frontispiece. The coin itself was in the collection of the Due de Blacas, who obtained it in Rome about the year 1840. It contains about 60' English grains of fine gold. Its genuineness has never ' At the period mentioned Kent formed part of the Mercian kingdom. Arabian coins of gold and silver have also been found eastward, in the Gothic province of Novgorod, and in Great Permia. Hundreds of round bronze coins with ninic characters have been found in graves betweea the Irbyht and Toboll rivers. A cut of one appears in von Strahlenberg's. valuable work, p. 408 ; see also pages 110 and 409. 2 Murcia was one of the names of Venus and the name of one of the' provinces of Spain. The gold maravedi was sometimes called obolus de- Murcia. I , EAELY ENGLISH MONEYS. 189 been doubted. It lias been asserted tliat towards the end of bis life Offa declared or pretended fealty to the pontificate^ and was summoned to Rome, where he per- formed homage and entered into an obligation to pay • to the Holy See 365 mancusses a year as Eome-scat. ■ The conversion and the pilgrimage to Rome are doubtful. ' Longperier believes that the bilingual dinar was the sort of coin stipulated. Its heretical inscription, which, although in Arabic, could not have remained long unread, supplies a reason for its early suppression and present rarity.^ The JIarJi. — The origin of the mark has ever been a mystery to the metrologists. Agricola says it is men- tioned in the earliest annals of the Cimbrian peninsular."^ ' This carries it back to the third century. Queipo deduces it from the half-rotl of Ptolemaic Egypt ; De Vienne, • following the German metrologists, traces it from Etruria ; ' whilst Saigey discovers it in a weight which he imagines ■ was sent by Haroun-al-Raschid to Charlemagne before the year 789. These metr£»logists must have overlooked Agricola ; they also forgot the common custom of antiquity in using coins for weights.^ Instead of seeking the origin of this weight, as they have done, by means of mere literary coincidences, had they placed in a scale two- thirds of the silver coins representing a Roman "libra'' they would have found the mark at once. In the first place it is quite evident that the name " mark " is neither Egyptian, Etruscan, Gaulish, or even Arabic, but Gothic. Among the Saxons it meant a collective number of men or things — a community, a society, a clan, a market. Applied to money, it meant precisely what the Roman ' ^ We are informed that upon Offa's return to England he built a ■ monastery at Holmhurst, near St. Albans, another at Bath, and a church 'at Off-Church in Warwickshire, and that he was buried at Bedford (Speed, p. 362, ed. 1650, fol.). Perhaps. 'Bircherod, " Moneta Danomm," ed. 1566, p. 7. * See Herodotus, i, p. 65, where hair is weighed with a silver coin in Egypt. II 190 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. '^ libva " of the Theodosian code meant, namely, five gold aureii, or else theii' equivalent value in silver. Among the Romans this equivalent was twelve times the weight of the gold ; among the Noi-thmen it meant eight times, because the ratio in Gothic coins was 8 for 1 ; hence the mark of money was always two-thirds of the " libra '^ of money, not of the Roman libra weight. During' the third century, between the reigns of Caracalla and' Probus, the aureus was degraded to 90 English grains fine ; consequently a " libra " of money contained 450 grains of gold. The Roman equivalent of this weight of gold in the silver coins with which the barbarians paid their tribute was 5,400 grains. The Saxon equivalent of a gold libra of this period was (at 8 for 1) 3,600 grains, which is the Saxon mark weight.^ In short, the mark was originally the Gothic equivalent at the ratio of 8 for 1 of a Roman libra.^ From this mark of money descended the mark weight, and from the mark weight the livre poid de marc (two marks) of King John of France. The mark of money is mentioned in the reign of Osbright, or Osbercht, the Norse pagan king of North- i umbria (848-67) ; in the Alfred-Guthrum Treaty of 878 ; ■ in the " Formanna Sogur," vi, p. 271 (a work ascribed to the tenth century) ; and in many other Norse writings. Tlie Manciis, Quarter-mancus, and Half-dirhem. — The gold dinar or mancus contained at first 65 grains, 0*979 ^ Bishop Fleetwood (" Chron. Prec") regards the mark of money and the mancus coin as identical, hut in this instance the learned and venerable numismatist is hopelessly wrong. Among other proofs the lawyer's fee of half a mark is still extant to refute him. 2 These were the marks alluded to by Louis IX, in his reply to the moslem demand of ransom. But, as a matter of fact, in the various tem- porary valuations which were made in the course of changing from the moslem or the Saxon to the Roman ratio, the mark of account was not always valued at two-thirds of the libra of account. There are instances when the valuation was 150 pence to the mark, and at the same time 240 pence to the " libra." EAELY ENGLISH MONEYS. 191 fine, saj 63§ grains fine, afterwards about 60 grains fine. Two heretical and exceptional mancusses (so called) of 54^ and 51i grains gross weight are mentioned elsewhere. In purity and colour the mancus resembled no other coin 3f the Western world ; hence it always retained the Arabian name of mancoushj or, as Latinized, mancus.^ ,Such was not the good fortune either of the gold jquarter- mancus or of the silver half-dirhem. These being smaller and less valuable coins, their superior purity and slightly different weight went unheeded, and in the inter- course between Goth, or Anglo-Saxon, and Roman, which took place in England, they passed respectively for the gold sicilicus and silver denarius. Although there was a jdifference in their purity, there was substantially none in the net contents of the mancus and besant, and these also .passed for one another. As greater precision was obtained ,in refining the precious metals, and in striking coins of uniform weight, this practice gradually fell into disuse, but not until it had left the nummulary language of the period in great confusion. However, much of this disappears :when the weights and fineness of the two classes of coins, ^Arabian and Byzantine, are contrasted in tabulary form. It is then perceived that while there was disagreement between the gross weights of the one set and those of the other, there was little or none in the fine contents of the gold coins, and also that each set of coins was by .itself harmonious. Arabian coins, 0-960 to 0-980 fine. Gross Net ' Eng. gr. Eng. gr. Gold dinar or mancus ^ . . . . 65-00 63-75 Gold quarter-mancus . . . . 16-25 16-00 Silver half-dirhem (0-925 to 0960 fine) . 21-50 20-00 ' Wex, " Metrologie," p. 114 ; De Yienne, " Livre d' Argent," pp. 43 — 56. Without agreeing with the conclusions of either of these writers, their works contain much incidental information on this difficult subject. - The dinar was probably struck sixty to the mark weight, then of 3,600 to 3,7774 grains, while the besant was struck seventj-two to the 192 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. Byzantine coins under Heraclius, about O'QOO fine. Gross Net Eng. gr. Eng. gr. Gold solidus, or besant .... 7000 63-00 Gold sicilicus, or skilling .... 17'50 15"7o Silver quarter-drachma, or whole denarius, or penny 17*50 1575 Arabian Money ers in England. — Among the money erg of the Norse and Anglo-Saxon kings, and afterwards oi •other kings of England, are many whose names are •clearly Arabian. These names are : Ahlman, Ahlraund, Almuth, Alchised, Alchred, Abenel, Adulfere, Alghere, Alvyda, Abba, Aldruri, Baba, Babba, Beriche, Bosa, Baee, Bofa, Bora, Buga, Buiga, Dealla, Diar, Diola, Duda, Dela, Dia, Deid, Diora, Eckber, Eoba, Eaba, Eana, Elda, Enodas, Gineef, Heaber, Hussa, Hdiraf, Ibba, Idiga, laia, Lulla, Liaba, Ludic, Lil, Messa, Nom, Osmund, 'Osyaef, Ohlmund, Oshere, Osmere, Oba, Osmune, Oeldai, Tatel, Teveh, Tevica, Tata, Tila, Tisa. Five centuries later than this period, Edward I, was obliged to send to Marseilles and Florence for artists skilled in refining and coining the precious metals.^ Indeed, this was a common practice in England down to the fifteenth century ; and it is not too much to suppose that the princes of the heptarchy sent in like manner for Arabian moneyers. Arabian Ratio in England. — As will be seen in another place, the ratio of value between gold and silver was fixed by the coinages of Ethelbert, king of Kent, and Offa, king of Mercia, and perhaps other early English princes, at 6| silver for 1 gold. This was a distinctly Arabian ratio, that of the Byzantine Empire being Roman libra of, say, 5,250 grains ; the sicilicus 288 or 300 to the libra, •and the quarter-miliaresion 288 to the libra, or one-fourth of the whole miliaresion de sportula, which was ordered to be struck seventy-two to ■the libra (M. de Vienne). ' Lowdnes on Coins, p. 94. EARLY ENGLISH MONEYS. 193 always 12 for 1. The coinages of those Merovingian kings of France who spurned the authority of Rome must be classed, like Offa's, with the Arabian. The following ' table affords a view of various ratios of silver to gold pre- valent in England from the early portion of the eighth to , the twelfth century. Pepin le Bref adopted the Roman i monetary system in 754 or 755, from which date he ■ refrained from striking gold. The ratio of valuation ■ between his silver coins and the gold solidi of the Empire was 12 for 1, for the solidus is valued in the texts of the ; period at 40 silver pence, and the quarter-solidus, or J petite sou d'or, at 10 pence. The ratio being 12 for 1 in \ France, it is difficult but not impossible to believe that, [ at the same period, it was successfully and permanently kept at 6| or 6| for 1 in England. However, there is no reason to doubt the ratios deduced in the table. The influence of Pepin's 12 for 1 is seen in the coinages of our Alfred. Ratio of silver to 1 gold in the moneys of England from the eighth to the twelfth century. Remarks. East Indian, Eastern-Arabian, and Spanish-Ara- bian coins of seventh and eighth centuries. Coins of Ethelbert II, king of Kent. Coins of Offa, king of Mercia. Valuations of Egbert, king of Wessex. Coins of Burgred, king of Mercia. First coin valuations of Alfred. Second „ ,, Third Valuations of Athelstan, son of Edward, elder. „ Ethelred II, king of Wessex. ,, Canute. „ Edward Confessor. William I. „ William Rufus. The Arabian ratio was adopted in England during the seventh century. It lasted without any substantial altera- 13 Period a.d. Ratio. 650— 750 64 725- 760 61 758— 796 64 800— 836 6 852— 874 6|@7. 874— 878 74 878— (?) 10 (?) — 901 12 925— 941 12 978—1016 loi 1016—1033 9 1024-1066 8@12 1066—1087 12 1087—1100 12 194 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. tion until the second valuation of Alfred — a period of about two hundred years, and this in spite of its great variance with the Roman ratio. ^ Arabian pre-eminence in the Metallurgical Arts. — Except the Byzantines and Arabs, there were few or no raoneyers in Europe during the seventh and eighth centuries who were able to reduce gold or silver to the uniform fineness requisite for the coinages of new and, as yet, untried mints and governments. Mr. Keary's assays of the early Norse scats fully prove this view with regard to English moneyers. The cutting of steel dies was another me- chanical difiiculty. To the Gothic mints of the dark ages it was substantially insuperable. The earliest coinages of mediaaval England are later than those of France. Dr. Ruding's flourish about the pontificate of pope Hadrian I, cannot weaken the assertion that, down to nearly the beginning of the seventh century, no Anglo-Saxon coins, other than the rude unlettered products of the early mints, were struck in England. The moslem occupation of Spain and southern France, so long as it lasted, put an end to the exercise of the coinage prerogative of the Byzantine emperors in those countries. The last triente struck by Roderic of Spain was coined under Byzantine authority, and this was followed, with scarcely any interval of time, by the bilingual coins of Mousa-ben-Nozier. The refining of the precious metals and the cutting of steel dies for the West now fell wholly into the hands of the Arabians, and, taking into account the Gothic aversion to the Byzantine hierarchy, it would be difficult to advance any valid proofs that the nearly pure mintages of pagan gold and silver, which appeared in England during the seventh and eighth centuries, could, under the circumstances, have been effected without the aid of Arabian artists and moneyers. V Practically Arabian Origin of Sterling. — This term is ^ Foi* further information on Arabian ratio and coinages, consult " Money and Civilization." I , EARLY ENGLISH MONEYS. 195 now applied to distinguisli coins, or bullion, of a standard fineness, or alliage, of metal, equal to that of certain sterling or easterling coins, or " sterlings " of the middle ao-es. This standard, afterwards called " old sterling,'^ was 0-995 for gold and 0-925 for silver/ There have been many explanations of the term sterling, none of which, however, are free from objection. There certainly existed during the eighth century an important traffic along the Gothic zone, which, bounded by the 50th and tJOth parallels, extended from Mongolia to Britain, and found its chief emporia in Novgorod and Yinet, the eastern and western portals of lestia." The money chiefly employed in this trade, as we know from the vast quantities of it which have been dug up in modern days, was Arabian half-dirhems. This was the current money of lestia, whose cities were all destroyed and whose records and monuments all perished under the proscriptions of Charlemagne and his successors. The earliest mention of lesterling money which occurs in Western literature appears in the laws of the Ripuarian Franks. Hovenden, as cited in HoUingshed, attributes the term sterling (indicating a coin) to the reign of Osbright, the pagan king of Xorthumberland (a. D. 848—67).'^ It also occurs in the Alfred-Guthrum Treaty, still meaning a coin. It does not occur in Domesday book, where ■"libra arsa" and "arsura'^ are used to indicate the metallic fineness of money, and denarius to indicate the coin in common use, which, to the Arabians, was a half- . dirhem, and to the Gothic races, as we are persuaded, was known as the iesterling or esterling. Ordei'icus Titalis, an author born during the reign of William I, uses the expression, " XVlibr sterilensium," meaning, doubtless, £15 in silver pennies.* The word sterling, meaning a certain coin, crept into extant texts during ^ Lowndes on Coins, p. 18. ^ Von Strahlenberg. ^ Chambers's Encyc. ^ Samuel Pegge, in " Gent's. Mag.," 1756, p. 456. 196 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. the reigns of the Norman and Plaatagenet kings, anc in the dealings of the Christian Hansa of the thirteentlj century. The origin of its present meaning is not ena tirely clear ; but, as the degree of fineness indicated, precisely that of the Arabian coins contemporaneous wit the heptarchy, and was not that of any other coini (unless we go back to the Roman coins of the thir( century), it is all but certain that sterling meant, firs- the Arabian half-dirhem, and afterwards the Arabiai standard for coins. The only people who struck sucl coins at this date were the Arabians, whether in Arabij Africa, Spain, France, Persia, Parthia, or Scythia ; an( not only did they adopt a high standard for coins, the] struck such immense quantities of them as to fill the channels of commerce, and render the standard well known and typical. Finally, they adhered to this standard for several centuries, and thus caused it to be depended upon and regarded as reliable, which, except as regards the besants of the sacred Empire, is more than can be said of any other coinages of the dark ages. These marks of moslem influence upon the early monetary types of England are submitted to the indulgent criticism of archfeologists. Before the discovery of these evidences it appeared strange to the author that, during a period when Arabian industry and commerce and Arabian art and literature dominated the Western world, no traces of moslem civilisation were to be found in England — a country always famous for its maritime pro- ficiency and the intimate knowledge of other maritime States which such proficiency promoted. These evidences bring to the surface a link in the chain of English history, whose long subversion finds ample explanation in the circumstances of the age to which it relates, and whose recovery, like a guide through a labyrinth, may enable us in future to outline with more assurance the stilli obscure history of the heptarchical era. Grafted upon the Gothic monetary system, described ini I . EAELY ENGLISH MONEYS. 197 a previous cliaptei', the moslem coins aud types produced a hybrid system, which differed from its predecessor ichiefly in the weight and composition of the scat and in jthe number of scats to the ora, also in the weight of the latter. At first the Gothic- Ai-abian system embraced the following coins and scale of equivalents, but as time went on several of these were modified : y Gothic- Arabian system {eighth century). Ratio, 6^ for 1. Coins. Money. Value in scats 8 stycas (bronze) . 1 scat (silver) . 1 3 scats ... 1 thrimsa 3 5 scats ... 1 ora (gold) 5 4 oi-as .... 1 mancus, or dinar . 20 8 eras .... 1 double dinar (dobla) 40 20 oras .... 1 mark of account . 100 Under the Salic law," as it was remodelled by Clovis, the gold sou, solidus, or besant, then of 68 English grains weight, was valued in Gaul at 40 silver deniers (scats), then of 17 English grains each — a ratio of 10 for 1. This was a mean between the Roman and Gothic ratios. The etymology of styca, scat, and thrimsa is uncertain. Lye derives styca from the Saxon sticce, but to this Ruding objects that the word sticce cannot express value distinct from magnitude ; and, again, why not sticce from ;styca, rather than styca from sticce ? It is much more likely to be derived from the oriental word for a cutting instrument. Sicca (Indian), sycee (Chinese), styca (Gothic), saiga (Frankish), siccal, or shekel (Chaldean ' Abd-el-Eaman spent on tbe mosque of Cordova over 600,000 doblas, or "double pieces," of gold (Calcott's "Spain," i, p. 152.) - The law of the Salian Franks (from the river Sala, les-sel, orYessel) 'is believed to have been compiled after the Franks were established in 'the Netherlands. None of the extant compilations are of an earlier date ithan tbe seventh century. The original compilation was in Latin ; in the later copies there are some German words, those copies containing the most German words being the most recent of all ("Wiarda, " Histoire et Explication de la loi Salique "). Upsala (Sweden) appears to be another, ifonn of Ober les-sel (Holland). 198 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. and Hebrew), zicca (Arabian), and sequin (Venetian are evidently tlie same word and meant the same tliingr that is to say, an instrument or tool for clipping coins and, by metonym, a mint, a coin, etc. In fact, most o the coins of this period were finished with the shears. As the thrimsa was valued at three scats, its name was probably derived from the Latin trium. The etymologj of scat, scad, or shad, has been already treated. During the dark ages the Roman imperial fisc in Gaul was obligee, to accept its revenues and make its payments in rations/ If the Eomans were obliged to use rations for a measure of value there is nothing improbable in supposing thai the Norsemen used herrings. Ora, or aurar, is obviouslj from the Latin equivalent for gold. The term is stil employed in the monetary systems of Scandinavia Mancus is from the Arabian mancoush, coined money, anc this from the verb macasha, to strike. Marcrus, manenco etc., are corrupted synonyms." The scat, or properly half-dirhem, of this period was nearly of pure silver, thin and flat, but larger anc heavier than the composite scat which preceded it It contained 21^ grains, 0-925 to 0-960 fine. The tern scat is, of course, a name given to these pieces by moderr numismatists, by some of whom they are termed pennies but, for the various reasons herein adduced, these flat thii pieces must be regarded typically as half-dirhems, and o\ Arabian origin. Owing to their superior weight anc uniform standard, these scats were now reckoned at five to the ora instead of eight, as their namesakes had pre- viously been reckoned. The thrimsa (it was not long ir use) was either a coin or money of account, valued a1 three scats, and therefore worth three-fifths of the ora ol five scats, or three-fourths of the later ora of four scats. The ora of this hybrid system was identical both ir weight and fineness with the Arabian quarter-dinar. Il ' Guizot, " Hist. Civ.," i, p. 351. - Longperier, " Re vista Num.," 1844, p. 292. EARTiY ENGLISH MONEYS. 199 contained about 16^ grains of gold, 0*960 to 0"979 fine, or nearly 16 grains fine, and it so closely tallied in con- ; tents with the sicilicus, or gold skilling, as to pass, at least \ in the south of England, for the latter. It is called a i scilling in the Christian chronicles, and at a later period i it found its way by the same Roman name into the Norse ' sagas. " Olaf (1015—28) went southward across the sea ■ from England and defeated the Yikings before Williamsby. ; He captui'ed Gunnvaldsborg (in Seljopollar) and levied a i ransom on it and the jarl of 12,000 gull skillingar.^ The gold mancus, or dinar, has been already described. ) That this coin circulated iu the Norse kingdoms of 1 England the frequency of its mention in documents of ' the seventh and eighth centuries leaves no room to doubt. : The only Gothic-Arabian mancus extant is the unique j coin of Offa, and this is stamped a " dinar. '^ Of the ; doblas, or double dinars, there are no English specimens ' extant, although there are plenty of Spanish-Arabian I ones. The ratio of value between silver and gold in this ■ system is indicated by dividing the fine contents of the I era (about 16 grains) into that of its legal equivalent of : 5 scats, say lOJ? grains, the quotient being- 6^. Whilst this was the ratio in both the Indian- Arabian, Spanish- Ai'abian, and Anglo-Arabian monetary systems of this era, I it must not be forgotten that in the coinages of Byzantium the ratio was always 12 ; in other words, that the Chris- tian valuation of gold (in silver) was nearly double that : of the moslem. Such are the moslem remains yet to be found in England — remains which, being traced upon monuments that the impassioned eyes of superstition failed to per- ceive, fortunately escaped its merciless proscriptions. To point out their significance and bearing upon English history is a task that belongs to the philosopher rather than the historian. ' Olaf's saga, c. 16. CHAPTER XI. MONEYS OF THE HEPTARCHY. Summary of historical evidences furnished by the materials of this chapter — No coins of the Anglo-Saxons exist earlier than Ethelbert — Pagan gold coins — Gothic coins of Ethelred — Intei-polations in ancient texts — Moslem coins of Offa the Goth— Rome-scat, or Peter's-pence — Egbert adopts the Roman system of £'. s. d. — Danish invasions — Bur- gled is defeated and interned in a monastery — Guthrum is baptised and reigns as Athelstan II — Alfred of Wessex — Mingling of Gothic and Christian coins and denominations — Changes of ratio — Edward the Elder — Athelstan — Edmund I — Eadred — Leather moneys — Ethelred 11 — Danegeld — Canute the Dane — Harold the Dane — Edward Confessor — Harold II — Evidences derived from these researches. T^HE monetary systems of the various Auglo- Saxon -■- States were of such essentially different structure as to denote the existence of different governments and religions, some Gothic, others Roman, some pagan, others Christian. After the era of baugs these States employed oras, scats, and stycas, that is to say, native coins of gold, electrum, and bronze, all of somewhat irregular weights, bearing no marks of a common authority, and issued by pagan chieftains owning no superior or over-lord. The tale relations were octonary, and the ratio of silver to gold was 8 for 1. At a later period some features of the Arabian monetary system were grafted on the Gothic : the mancus and half-dirhem — coins of sterling fineness and reo^ular weio;hts — were issued or circulated in the various States, the tale relations exhibit the influence of the Arabian decimal system, and the ratio was 6| for 1. AVhen they successively adopted Christianity these States received their monetary systems from Rome. The MONEYS OP THE HEPTARCHY. 201 coius now used were besants (5 to tlie libra), shillings, and pence; the denominations were £. s. d. ; the weights were accommodated to these tale relations, which, as be- tween shillings and pence, were duodecimal ; the ratio of silver to gold was duodecimal ; and the coinage preroga- tive, as to gold, was exercised exclusively by the emperors of Rome, and granted by them to the English princes as to silver — practices that are held to denote both the feudal form of government and the Roman religion of the vassal States. Of these various features of money the absten- tion from the coinage of gold by the converted princes, and the marked difference between the Christian, Gothic, and moslem ratios between the value of gold and silver, are the most significant. It will simplify the subject to observe : first, that with few exceptions, which will be noticed as we go along, the only English coius now extant of the heptarchical period are silver scats, half-dirhems, and pennies, all of which, being of somewhat similar weight, are usually, though erroneously, classed as pennies ; ^ second, that as the Roman ratio was always 12 for 1, the denarii (of which 40 went to the Roman aureus, when the latter was struck 60 from the pound weight of standard gold) weighed 26^ grains gross ; third, that the denarii (valued at 40 to the aureus, solidus, or besant, when the latter was struck 72 from the pound weight) weighed 21| grains gross ; fourth, that the denarii (when valued at 240 to the £., or 48 to the solidus) weighed about 19 i grains gross, or 18i grains fine. There wei-e also lower weights to the denarius, explained elsewhere. As this was the prevailing system of valuation in Christian States of the period answering to the heptarchy, it follows, fifth, that when any so-called denarii, or pennies, belong- ing to such period, and being in good condition, are * There is nothing but historical inference to prove what these pieces ■were respectively called at the date of their issue. 202 HISTOET OF MONETAET SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. found to contain more metal than is here indicated,\ they were either struck under the Gothic or Gothic- Arabian systems, and were really silver scats, or half- dirhems, or else, if of Christian stamp, they were valued in the law, at the time of their issue, at more than a., penny each — a practice concerning the prevalence of which we have the testimony both of Bishop Fleetwood, and M. Guerard. It does not, however, follow from this, rule that a scat, or half-dirbem, containing more silver i than a penny was worth more than the latter, because, as Christianity and " pennies " gained ground, and paganism, with scats and dirhems lost ground, the latter, evea when heavier, were accorded a lower value in the law. The earliest coin of the heptarchical kings now extant- is a certain unique one stamped " Ethelbert,'' containing- • about 20 grains of fine silver. Some writers ascribe this, monument to Ethelbert I, but there is not sufficient, evidence to warrant the inference. It is very much morer likely to have been an issue of the second Ethelbert, king of Kent (748—60), replacing the composite scat, which by. this time was disappearing in the refining crucibles of the Arabian moneyers. Mr. Keary prefers, indeed, ta attribute it to Ethelbert, king of the East Angles, who- died in 792 or 793, and, moreover, hints that its genuine- ness is not above suspicion. Of this class of coins twenty went at this period to the gold mancus, or solidus, of 60" grains fine, and five of them to the gold ora, or shilling — < a ratio of silver to gold of 6|- to 1, thus 20 x 20 = 400- -^ 60 = 6|-. In some Anglo-Saxon coinages of this period the ratio was 6| to 1, in others 6 to 1. In othei' words, gold in England was valued as in Asia and. Arabia, that is to say, at half the price (in silver) at which it was maintained by the sacred empire of Rome. The- adoption of the oriental ratio in England, though pro-i- bably due directly to the influence of the Arabian ' In applying this rule some allowance must be made for the unskil- fulness of early mints in striking coins of an uniform weight. MONEYS OF THE HEPTARCHY. 203 coinages of Spain, may also have been superinduced by the Gothic-Arabian trade of this period through Russia and the Baltic. Whatever the cause, the fact is believed I to be indisputable, and as its acceptance solves many of [ the otherwise inexplicable problems of this period, it is \ commended to the careful consideration of the reader. I Similar ratios of 6, 6h, and 6^ for 1 will be found in the I contemporaneous coinages and valuations of Spain and i southern France, f Hawkins and Keary both intimate that during the reign of Ethelbert II, thei^e was a silver penny of twelve to I the shilling, and leave it to be inferred that there was I either a silver shilling- coin or a shilling of account em- ployed in England at this period. A silver shilling coin is hardly worth discussing ; there is none extant and there is no evidence that such a coin ever existed until the reign of Alfred, and even then it is by no means cei'tain. , At all previous dates the shilling, whenever embodied in i a coin, was made of gold. With regard to a supposed silver " penny," of which twelve went to the shilling of account, this is an inference drawn from extant copies of the laws of Ethelbert, in which such denominations are mentioned. But as it is quite unlikely that two coins, namely, the scat and the penny, of nearly similar weight and contents, circulated in the same kingdom side by side, the one five, the other twelve, to the shilling, we must regard the latter as an anachronism introduced into copies of the law at a later period, when there were indeed twelve pence to the shilling. Ethelbert^s laws are unique in being written in English, but the MS. is Anglo- Norman of the twelfth century, and the original laws have evidently been frequently altered.^ Bishop Fleetwood has proved several anachronisms in the monetary terms employed in the earlier English texts of laws. The ratio ^ttjQ silver to 1 gold, assumed by Keary for the coinaHJWof Ethelbert's reign, rests upon this same ^ Sir Francis Palgrave, i, p. 44. 204 HrSTOEY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. literary and probably auacbronical penny, and must stand or fall with it. It will probably be found difficult to overthrow the ratio of 6|- derived from the Anglo-Saxon valuation of 20 silver pence to the besant. Some of the other conclusions of Mr. Keary — for example, that the thrimsa was a tremissis, that the pound or livre of money always consisted of 240 pence, and that the mark weight was (in England) half a pound weight — will incidently receive consideration as we proceed. The tax of Peter's-pence was first collected in England by the Roman pontificate from Ina of Wessex.-" It is also alleged that after the conversion of Offa (about 790) it was levied upon that prince, who testified his submission to the pope by going to Eome in 793, and paying him homage in person ; but this is doubtful. At this period Charlemagne was at the height of his power, France, Germany, Saxony, Hungary, Italy, and even a portion of Spain acknowledged his sovereignty. Pope Hadrian I, had vowed himself Charlemagne's liege subject and vassal, and governed in his name. If Offa acknowledged the suzei'ainty of the pope, it is not clear whether he intended to admit or ignore that of Charlemagne, the pope's political superior or suzerain. Egbert, a Christian king of AVessex (800-36)," had been for three years a soldier in the army of Charlemagne. He obtained his kingdom through the good offices of that emperor, to whom he swore fealty and did homage. When Charle- magne died (814), and the weak-minded Louis le Debon- naire was brought under the domination of the pontificate, the latter seems to have at once claimed Egbert as its vassal ; but there are no evidences — at least not of that period — that the latter conceded this claim. The slender remains of Egbert's coinage system throw no certain light upon the question. The only coin of his reign ^ For examples of Rome-scat, see Ruding, ii, pp. 205, 21^B|2, 218, 230, 366, etc. ^^ • Xot Egbert, or Egf rid, son of Offa, who died in 796. MONEYS OF THE HEPTARCHY. 205 extant is the silver penny of fifteen grains fine. The mutilated texts of the period mention a shilling of iive- pence and a pound of sixty shillings^ both of which may be anachronical, and supplied by the copyists of the extant MS. If the shilling was an actual coin, it was probably the old ora of 12|, worn down to 11^, grains fine. At fivepence to the shilling, this would give the Arabian ratio of 6^ for 1 — a result that would hardly tally with the Christian attitude ascribed to Egbert, for no Christian prince, except the Basileus, could lawfully coin gold, aud he only coined it at 1 for 12 silver. Following Offa on the Mercian throne were Egbert, his son (heterodox, died suddenly, 796), Coenwlf, or Kenulph (706-18), Kenelm, Coelwlf, Beornwlf, Ludica, Wiglaf (interned), Berthwlf, Bui'gred (interned), and Coelwlf, the last of the line. The church had employed excom- munication, female influence, monastic internments, and , other resources to reduce the Mercian and Northumbrian princes to submission, but without definite success. The Danish invasion served its ends better. London was taken in 851, York fell in 867, Guthrum, the East Angli- can, was baptised in 878,^ and both Mercia and stubborn Northumberland were at length brought beneath the dominion of Rome. From 831, when the seven kingdoms of England were merged into the three kingdoms of Wessex, Mercia, and Northumberland, until the date of the Alfred-Guthrum Treaty of 878, the intrigues of the pontificate and the military operations of the Danes were incessant. Gotfried, king of Denmark, having been poisoned in 819 and Harold installed in his place, the latter was baptised at the court of the conqueror, Louis le Debonnaire. Ridding himself of Regenfroy, his pagan rival for the throne, Harold made preparations to con- ^ There are reasons for believing that Guthrum was a Christian before this time. In 875 he succeeded in dividing the Anglo-Danish army, of which a portion, under Halfdane, took possession of Northumberland and applied themselves to agriculture. 206 HISTORY OP MONETARY SYSTI<:MS IX VARIOUS STATES. tinue on a large scale the war against tlie English king- doms, which had been inaugurated a quarter of a century previously by Ragnar Lodbrok, under king Sigurd Snogoje. This circumstance, together with the suddenness of Harold's conversion, and the fact that his expedition was mysteriously directed from the south of England against the not yet converted kingdoms o£ the north, warrants the suspicion that papal intrigue was at the bottom of the entire project. In 832 the Danish forces landed on the isle of Sheppey ; in the following year they overran the coasts of Dorset, and in 835 those of Cornwall. At this juncture died Egbert of Wessex, yielding the crown to his son, Ethel- wolf, at that period a subdeacon of the cathedral at Winchester. In 844, at the Council of Winchester, upon the instigation of the bishop of Sherborn and the bishop of Wilton, and perhaps also influenced by the menaces of the Danish commander, Ethelwolf, as king of the West Saxons, made a donation to the church, by which he granted to it " the tenth part of the lands throughout our kingdom in perpetual liberty, that so such donation may remain unchangeable and freed from all royal ser- vice and from the service of all secular claims."-^ This embraced the Three Necessities — building bridges, forti- fying and defending castles, and performing military service. So soon as this grant was duly executed the Danish forces disappeared. A few years after this happy relief — that is to say, in 854 — Ethelwolf went to Rome, where he did homage to the pope, and presented him with a crown of pure gold weighing four pounds, a sword adorned with pure gold, two golden images, two golden vessels, a service of plate, and a donation of gold to the clergy and of silver to the people of Rome. On his return from this pilgrimage, he married Judith, the daughter of Charles the Bald, of Prance. In the following year (855) the bishop of Sher- ' " Anglia Sacra," i, p. 200. MONEYS OF THE HEPTARCHY. 207 boru played Ethelbald, one of the king's sous, against the father, and won from the latter another donation to the church, which donation was to last — to quote its own terms — "as long as the Christian faith shall flourish in the English nation." Bearing in mind the fact that a ratio of 12 for 1 duriug this period was always a mark of Roman government, an attentive examiuation of the table of ratios in a previous chapter will afford a tolerably correct indication of the dates when Roman domination was thoroughly re-esta- blished in the various provinces or kingdoms of Britain. However, the new domination, though practically the same, was not altogether identical with the ancient one : its appearance was changed^ as though vieAved through a defective glass. The ancient domination of Rome, so far as Britain is concerned^ was in great measure a military one ; the re-established domination was practically an ecclesiastical one. Both brought in their train the benefits of the ancient Roman civilisation and the ancient arts. This civilisation during- its banishment had borrowed something, both from the anti-hierarchical spirit of the Norsemen and the scientific spirit of the Arabians. It bore a new aspect ; it lacked the refinement of the old imperial civilisation, but it was fresher, healthier, and stronger. To the student and philosopher who contem- plates the mediaeval ages, the civilisation that accompanied Christian government must have appeared like the face of a friend whom ill-health had banished to remote climes, but who had returned after a long absence — his frame the same, his features bronzed, his gestures coarse, but his step vigorous, and his eye animated with a new and hopeful vitality. Such seems to have been the character of that Roman civilisation which, cleansed in the fire of Christianity, had returned to regain its wonted influence upon the Western world. Resuming our consideration of the heptarchical mone- tary systems, the appearance of the extant coins and the 208 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VAEIOUS STATES. study of the valuations accorded to them in the texts, make it evident that Burgred struck silver coins of 15 grains fine, which were valued by Christians at one penny each, with five pennies to the shilling. This gives a ratio of 6. silver for 1 gold, but owing to the varying weights of Burgred's coins, the ratio was in fact more commonly 6{ to 7^ for 1.^ In 874, after Burgred was driven from his throne by the Danes, he repaired to Rome, where he was quietly interned in the convent of St. Mary's,^ from which, it is perhaps needless to say, he never emerged; alive. We next turn to Guthrum, several of whose; money ers (like those of Offa and other Gothic kings of; England) were Arabian. It does not appear whether these officers were retained or not after Guthrura's public i avowal of Christianity. If his monetary system accorded with the valuations in his treaty with Alfred, it embraced the Saxon gull-skilling (now reduced to 10 grains), the Arabian gold mancus of 60 grains as the equivalent of 30 silver pennies (each of 15 grains), and the mark of gold (a money of account) as the equivalent of 30 Saxon shil- lings. The ratio was 7| for 1.^ ' In Schmid's " Gesetze der Angelsachsen " the scale of monetary equivalents relating to this period is confused and defective. \ Compar- ing the anachronical money " pound " of sixty shillings, mentioned in the tests of Egbeii's reign, with the contemporaneous money mark of thirty shillings, mentioned in those of Guthrum's reign, he deduces a money pound of two money marks. Whereas, in point of fact, when- ever the mark and pound were contemporaneous and belonged to the same system, whether they were moneys of account or weights, the former was two-thirds of the latter. 2 Henry, ii, p. 71. ^ An eminent English numismatist says of this period that the mancus was " one-thirtieth of the pound, or thirty pence." The mancus was, indeed, thirty pence, but there was no pound, and if there had been, it would not have been valued at 30, but at 7i mancusses. The equivalent in silver coins was not 900, as our authority would argue, but 225 pence. MONEYS OF THE HEPTARCHY. 209 Table of supposed moneys of Guthrum, afterwards Athelstan II. Contents, or value, in fine metal. Moneys. Gold, gr. Silver, gr. Penny, silver coin .... 2 . 15 Saxon shilling, or ora, gold coin . 10 . 75 Quarter-mancns, gold coin . . .15 . 112^ Mancus, gold coin . . . . 60 . 450 ! Mark, money of account . . . 300 . 2,250 i . The monetary systems of Alfred of Wessex exhibit a [curious mingling of Arabian, Gothic, and Roman influ- ' ences. The standard of fineness and the old mancus coin were Arabian^ the ora was Saxon, the £. s, d. system and the ratio of 12 silver to 1 gold, in his third system, was Roman. It will be remembered that after the im- mense benefice which Ethelwolf granted to the church of Rome, the Danes disappeared from Wessex. This man- oeuvre appears to have occasioned some dissatisfaction in 'Denmark, for we hear no more of Harold the Christian, who, in 850, was succeeded by Eric the pagan. Under this monarch preparations were made to conquer England for the Danes, and in 851 a fleet of 350 vessels landed an army on the Isle of Sheppey, which soon afterwards cap- .tured and plundered Canterbury and London. In 853 the .Danes invaded Mercia, and upon the accession of Eric II, I (pagan) in 854, they landed an expedition on the northern 'coast of Britain. In 858 Ethelwolf died, and Ethelbald, his eldest son, married Judith, his step-mother. This, and some other scandalous acts of the new prince, seem to have rendered the English nobles indifferent to the progress of the Danes, who (in 867) took York, and thus gained control of Northumbria. Two years afterwards the jconquerors occupied the county of Fife, in Scotland ; in. |871 they defeated the Anglo-Saxons at Merton, in. [Surrey ; in 875 they divided into two armies, led seve- rally by Guthrum and Halfdane the Black; in 876-7, although previously repulsed at sea, they invaded Alfred's .dominions by land, and before they were checked took 14 210 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IX VARIOUS STATES. Wareham, Exeter, and Chippenliam. In 878 Guthruni publicly accepted baptism, and made a treaty witli Alfred, by which Britain was virtually divided between these princes. In 885 Alfred turned the River Lea, where a number of pagan Danish war-ships were lying, and com- pelled their abandonment. In the following year he occupied, rebuilt, and strengthened London. In 893 the famous viking, Hastings, with 300 ships, one of which was commanded by Rolla, seized Appledore and Melton-on- Thames. In 894 Alfred defeated Hastings' forces at Farnham, and captured that leader's wife and children. In 897 the pagan Danes were defeated at sea, near the Isle of Wight, and although their forces afterwards roamed through Mercia, and even invaded Wales, they gave for a time a wide berth to Alfred's dominions, and made no substantial progress in their conquest of England. However, a very considerable portion of the island was already in their hands, and, evident as was Alfred's desire to submit his kingdom in all respects to the ordi- nances of Rome, it can hardly be supposed that, so far as his monetary S3'stem is concerned, he could bring this at once into harmony with the Roman system, while the very different system of the Danes was employed so close to his frontiers. In arranging the coins of Alfred, Mr. Hawkins says that " they seem to fall into four principal divisions, struck, apparently, at different periods of his reign." ^ This opinion is corroborated by a study of the tale rela- tions of his different moneys, which cannot be harmonised without admitting at least three different coinage systems. The Arabian mancus was certainly in use, or else its value was well understood, down to a certain period of Alfred's reign, for the king himself, writing of his translation of the pastoral of Gregory, says : " I sent a copy to every iDishop's seat in my kingdom, with an aestel, or handle, 1 " Silver Coins of England," 2nd edition, p. 121. A MONEYS OF THE HEPTARCHY. 211 wortli 50 maucusses.'^ ^ The Guthrum Treaty and the writings of ^Ifric the Grammarian both testify that the mancus at this period was valued at thirty pence. Dr. Ending has deduced a silver mancus of about the year 838, but no silver mancus has been found, and its exis- tence is doubtful. A silver coin, possibly a two-shilling piece of this reign, is mentioned farther on." Of the silver scats or pennies of this reign there are two sorts extant — one containing 19 to 20 grains, the other about 15 grains, of fine silver. The Alfred- Gathrum Treaty values the mark of account at thirty shillings ; ^rElfric the Grammarian valued the shilling at five pence. In another text^ he says *' they are twelve shillings of twelve pennies. '^ These last are regarded as coins and valuations which belonged to Alfred's third system. Bearing in mind Mr, Hawkins' opinion that the light pennies of Alfred were of his first coinage, his first monetary system, about 874—8 appears to have been pre- cisely the same as that supposed above of Guthrum. The contents of 60 grains fine, accorded to the mancus, is a measure derived from the contemporary dinars of Abd- el-Raman II, of Cordova.* There is a silver coin of Alfred, now in the British Museum, yf of an inch in diameter, and weighing 162 grains gross, presumably containing- about 150o;rains fine — a measure which would exactly answer for that of a two-shilling piece in this ' Spelman, in Heniy, vol. ii, p. 58. - Both the mark and the ora are mentioned in the Edward-Guthrum Treaty of between 901-24 (Ending, i, p. 314). Keary says that the ora is first mentioned in Guthrum's Laws, vii, and is there valued at 2^ shillings. In the earliest Anglo-Saxon coinages and valuations, the ora '. and shilling, both gold coins, were of like weight and value. The shilling afterwards lost weight. The difference in the value of the ora probably arose when the shilling, no longer made of gold, was represented by a sum of silver pennies, the ora of gold still survi\'ing and the ratio being changed to 12. ^ His translation of Exodus xxi, 10. ■• The dinars of Al-Mostain-Billah were of the same weight. 212 HISTORY OF MO^TETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. system. Humplireys and Hawkins regard it " more in the light of a medal than of a coin " — a convenient if not a convincing method of avoiding a practical contradiction of their theory of the ratio^ the ratio being the significant and political feature of the Avhole matter. Alfred's Second System. — This may be conveniently dated about the year 878. The principal features were the coinage of sterlings, containing about 20 grains fine silver, and an enhanced valuation of the foreign gold coins, in such sterlings. The Arabian mancus of 60 grains fine was still valued at 30 standard silver pennies, but as the latter were 5 grains heavier than the previous penny, this valuation makes a ratio between silver and o^old of 10 for 1. The mark (money of account) of 5 mancuses was valued at 150 standard silver pennies.^ The shilling was represented by 5 sterling pennies. If the " pound " was in use it consisted of 45 shillings, or 225 pence. Alfred's TJiird System. — This must be dated some time between 878 and 901. Its principal features were the adoption of the modified Eoman system of 5 x 48 = 240 pence to the pound of account, and the definite relin- quishment of gold coinage. This meant the eventual acceptance of the Byzantine gold coins and ratio of 12. By this time all gold coins, except old and greatly worn mancuses, had probably disappeared from circulation. Assuming that these mancuses (really zecchins) contained about 50 grains fine gold, the ratio was now 12, as follows : — 5 standard pence = 1 shilling of account ; 6 shil- lings of account = 1 mancus or zecchin ; hence 600 grains of coined silver equalled in value 50 grains of coined gold, or 12 for 1. ^ During the mediaeval ages, the English mark of account is valued variously at 80, 100, 150, or 160 actual scats or pennies. It would seem that the mark of account was always two-thirds of the pound of account ; it was also, from the analogy of weights, counted as eight oras of account, and from this it was also, though erroneously, reckoned at eight times the value of the gold coin era. The ora of 2§ shillings has been mentioned in the text. MONEYS OF THE HEPTAECHY. 213 In tlie earlier portion of the reign of Athelstan III/ Christian king of AVessex (925-41) the Byzantine shilling was valued at 5 silver pence, in the latter portion it was altered to 4 pence." This involved an alteration in the value of the Gothic thrimsa, which before was 2.V, and was now rated at 3 scats. It also involved a change from 5 X 48 = 240 to 4 x 60 = 240 pence to the £., while the mark of account was valued at 160, instead of 150 pence as before.'^ There can be little doubt that this adjustment was made by Athelstan. At this period the terms '' mark " and " pound of account " were chiefly employed in the valuation of " retts," taxes, and fines, all of which went to the king. The adjustment, therefore, was in favour of the crown. The ordinary transactions of trade were conducted in pennies, or scats and stycas, and these were not affected by the changes mentioned. Guthrum had been the first English prince to assume on his coins the pretentious title of " King of England.-" Athelstan III. improved on this style by stamping his coins " Rex toticus Britanniee." It was after the battle of Brunanburg, when, flushed with triumph and backed by an overwhelming display of power, that he was most likely to have adopted this measure. In one of his edicts Athelstan orders that no coins except those struck or authorised by himself shall pass current in England, that none shall be struck except within the precincts of a town, and that no names, titles, nor effigies shall be placed upon the coins except those of himself. It is evident that coins were being struck by rival princes independent of his authority, and that the object of his edicts was to prevent ^ There were three Athelstans or ^Ethelstans. The first was a son of Ethelwolf by his first wife. His father made him king of Kent, Sussex, and Essex, in the year 836 (Henry, ii, p. 65). The second was the converted Guthrum. The third was the son of Edward the Eldei", and the victor at Brunanburg. 2 Hawkins, pp. 268, 269. ^ rieetwood, p. 23. 214 HISTOEY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. tbe chieftains whom lie claimed as vassals from striking coins in the name of such rival princes. Because tbe extant texts of the period mention but few alterations in tbe value of coins and moneys of account^ we are not at liberty to assume that no others occurred. On the contrary, from tbe appearance of the various coins, it is probable that many cbanges occurred, tbe only uncertainty about the matter being the precise date and manner of their occurrence. The weight of the penny, tbe proportion of alloy in this and other coins, the composition of the scat, tbe relation between penny and scat, the number of pennies and scats to the shil- ling, the number of scats to tbe mark, or pennies to the pound of account, and tbe ratio of value between silver and gold in tbe coins, were all altered. The kings of tbe heptarchy were no less ready to exercise the prerogative of "coining moneys and regulating the value thereof " than were the Romans before or the Normans after them. There Avere but few princes, from Offa to William I, who hesitated to avail themselves of some form of this financial resource. A later monetary scale of Athelstan shows a further intrusion of the Roman system into the moneys of Northumbria and Mercia. It consisted of Roman £. s. d. in the numerical proportions of 4x60 = 240 pence to the £., and of the following Gothic coins and moneys of account : — 8 stycas = lscat; 3 scats= 1 thrimsa ; 7 thrimsas = 1 ora ; 8 oras = lmark; 1^ uiarks = £l. The foregoing two classes of moneys were united by tbe following scale of equivalents: — 4^ scats = 4 pennies, or 1 shilling; 160pennies - = 1 mark. Hence, 250 (exact!}' 252) Gothic scats, or 240 Christian pennies=l " pound ^^ of account. Hence also, 20 pennies to tbe ora, " Denar qui sunt XX in ora,^' as mentioned in Domesday Book, vol. i, fol. i. The styca of this reign was a small brass coin, the scat a small lumpish silver coin containing about 17 grains fine, the penny contained about 18 grains fine, or 22 grains alloyed, MONEYS OF THE HEPTARCHY. 215 the sterling-, or lialf-dirhem, was slightly heavier than the i penny. The ratio of fine silver to gold in the coins of Athelstan was 12 for 1.^ During the reign of Edmund I, king of Wessex (941—46) , ; the silver pennies contained from 16^ to 22^ grains fine." We are aware of no alterations in the valuation of money during the reign of Edred, king of Wessex. The reign of Edgai', king of Wessex, is marked by the issuance of , leather moneys and an effort to unitise the numerous and I heterogeneous coinages of England — an effort which proved futile. The sterlings of this prince contain 18 to 20 : grains of fine silver, but we do not know at what valua- I tions they passed. Many of these coins were surreptiti- ously reduced by clippers to half their weight. After executing a batch of these criminals, a new coinage was ordered, and it was probably to fill the void thus tem- porarily created in the circulation that the leather moneys were issued. ' The mark of silver was reduced to two gold mancuses, whereas pre- viously it was worth five. This was mainly due to the rejection of the Arabian and adoption of the Byzantine valuation of gold, an act which lowered the value of silver to a moiety. - Ending, i, p. 292. 236 HISTORY OF MONETAET SYSTEMS IN TARIOUS STATES. them weighed 19 lbs. 6 oz. 5 dwts. This is an average of 22 grains each^ or (assuming the fineness as equal to- sterling) 20^ grains fine; but as he says nothing of the remaining 573 pieces found at Tealby, it may be that the- average of the whole corresponded with Keary's assays. With regard to tin money of the nobles, mention of albata, or white money {argentnm hlancum) occurs in the Exchequer Eolls pertaining to the fourth year of this reign, where it is expressly distinguished from silver- money [argenti). In the fifteenth year Walter Hose paid one shilling in the pound for the bianco firmse of Treatham ; in the seventeenth year twenty shillings wei^e- paid in argento bianco j in the twenty-third year Walter- de Grimesby forfeited a lot of the same metal ; in the- twenty- sixth year the sheriffs of London and Middlesex paid in, from the effects of a coin clipper, £9 55. 4c?. in silver pennies and iive mai'ks in '' white money." In. order to deteimine the meaning of " white money," it is to be remarked that the term " argento bianco examinato " was used when silver bullion was meant. For example,, in the thirtieth year of Henry II, the sheriff of Devonshire paid 8s. 9cl. in bullion {argento bianco examinato) , made up- of divers old coins, and in the thirtj^-third year the same sheriff paid twenty-six pennies in bullion {argento bianco- examinato) , made up of numerous coins dug up from the earth. Sir Charles Freemantle was of opinion that the trial of the pix mentioned in the Lansdowne MS. related to- this reign. ^ In this opinion the author finds himself unable to concui', but believes that it relates to the reign of' Edward I. Some consideration of this subject will appear further on. Turning from the monetary system of Henry to that of his successor, we find it marked by the same characteristics- — a full legal-tender gold coinage issued by the Basileus, and constituting the basis of the system ; a silver coinage (pennies) issued by the king, as nearly as practicable of • Bi-itish Mint Eeport, 1871, p. 12. EARLY PLANTAGENET MONEYS. 237 even weight with and exactly one-twelfth the value of the Byzantine sicilicus ; and a base coinage of local circu- lation, issued by the nobles and ecclesiastics, the gold coinage being never, the silver coinage rarely, and the base coinage frequently, altered. Although there are no native coins extant of Richard I, the evidences that he exercised the usual coinage rights of provincial kings are so numerous as to leave little room to doubt the fact. In 1189, upon his accession to the throne, Eichard weighed out more than 100,000 marks from his father's treasure at Salisbury ; in an ordinance of the same year moneyers at Winchester are mentioned ; in the same year he granted a local coinage-license to the bishop of Lichfield; in 1190, while at Messina on a crusading expedition, he found it necessary to command and exhort his followers to accept his money — a tolerably sure indication of coinage; and in 1191, Henry de Corn- hill was charged in the exchequer accounts with £1,200 for supplying the cambium, or mints of England (except Winchester), and with £400 the profits of the cambium for a year. The names of Richard's moneyers in his mints at Warwick, Rochester, and Carlisle appear in several texts relating to his reign. Coins which were struck in Poitou 4feider his authority are still extant. Finally, as will presently appear evident, he granted and revoked licenses to nobles and ecclesiastics to strike tin and other base coins. All these prerogatives were such as were common to provincial kings ; but^Richard struck no gold, and made no attempt either to interdict the circulation of the Imperial coins or to alter the sacred valuation of gold and silver which was laid down in the constitution of the Empire. With regard to his ransom, the inference of new coinage is totally wanting. In 1192 Richard was taken prisoner on the continent, and handed over to Henry YI, of Ger- many. In 1194 he was ransomed for about the same amount of money that he is said to have inherited from 218 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. pence went to the zeccliin.^ Eegarding the penny aa containing 18| grains and the zecchin 51^ grains, this would imply a ratio of lOf for 1. There is little room to doubt that the middle term shilling was changed from forty-eight to sixty, and after- wards to twenty, to the pound of account. The first pro- portion rests upon the authority of Fleetwood (p. 23) and Anderson (i, p. 98), and the third upon yElfric GrammaticuSj the translation of Exodus xxi, 10, and the " Historia Eliensis." Both Guerard and De Vienne testify to thej same practice at the same period in France. Shifting the middle term affords the best proof that the ora wasi now too valuable to pass, for a shilling, and that thai latter was merely a money of account, payable in silver pennies. Canute, the Christian but anti-papal king of Denmark and England, has left us a greater variety of coin-types- than any other English prince before the Plantagenet dynasty. His Gothic coins and valuations were 8 scats = 1 ora ; 3 oras = l mancus ; 5 mancuses = l mark of account. His Christian coins were valued in £. s. d. on the scale of 5 X 48 = 240 pence to the £." The pence vary in weight from 12 to 18, and the scats from 20 to 24 grains each, and are all about eleven-twelfths fine, the lighter weights,! or the pennies, greatly predominating. The intervaluation j between the two systems was 80 silver pence, each of 16 1 grains fine, equal to 1 " mancus,^' really a zecchin, of 50'i to 54 grains, bespeaking a ratio of about 9 for 1. How- ever, his Danish coinages render this ratio uncertain. The accession of Edward Confessor marks the decline of Danish power and influence in England — an event long celebrated by the Catholic portion of the population in the religious festival of Hokeday. This prince's friend-' ship for Normandy and his fealty to Rome manifested,! ' ^Ifric the Grammarian. ^ "Chron. Preciosum," p. 23. MONEYS OF THE HEPTAECHT. 219 itself in the appointment of Xonnan favourites to office, in the quarrel with Godwin, the incarceration of Edgitha, the welcome which he accorded to William of Nor- mandy, and his removal of Godwin's hostages (his son Ulnoth and grand-nephew Haguin) to William's court. Although the quarrel with Godwin w^as patched up, the ■ hostages remained in Normandy. After Godwin's death . (in 1053), when his son Harold, now the head of the . family, sought to recover these hostaijes, he was refused 1 by William. Upon the death of Edward (in January, 1066), Harold usurped the throne, and until the fatal battle of Hastings reigned for a brief period as Harold II. The following scale of equivalents will illustrate I Edward's system of moneys: — Five light silver pennies containing variously from 12 1 to 18^ grains fine = 1 .shilling, and 48 shillings equal 1 pound of account; rfour heavy silver pence (scats), containing from 20 to 25, ibut for the most part about 20, grains fine = 1 shilling ; and 60 shillings = 1 pound of account. The shilling of four pence appears to have survived that of five pence. Thus there were successively two classes of pounds, shillings, and pence, and it is not improbable that there Avere three, the third consisting of the factors : 12 X 20 = 240 pence to the £., and based on a degraded ; penny containing about 8| grains fine silver. Edward's coins were of uneven and oft-changed weights, and owing to the disturbed state of the government, they were also of uncertain and fluctuating value. The gold besant of Constantinople was in circulation, and, accord- ing to Dr. Henry, was valued at eight shillings, each of five silver pence. During another portion of Edward's reign the besant was valued at nine shillings.^ There is some reason to suspect that about this time the payment of Danegeld by the people to the king's officers was made in the degraded coins above mentioned, ' Henry's " Hist. Brit.," ii, p. 275. 220 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS -STATES. but the evidences are not sufficiently conclusive to entirely warrant the inference. However, the imposition of this tax was abolished by Edward, and it was not imposed again until the reign of William I. The Gothic moneys of Edward Confessor were valued as in Canute^s reign. There is too much uncertainty about the weights and value of coins in this reign to make any reliable in- ferences concerning the relative valuation of gold and silver. The gross weight of an heretical zecchin ascribed to this reign, as given by Kenyou, is 54| grains. The ratio may have been any figure between 7| and 11 for 1. It was probably often changed.^ Harold II only reigned nine months, yet his coins are very numerous, nearly one hundred varieties of moneyers^ names having been found upon them. It is quite probable that in the confusion of the times the chieftains and the prelates who supported Harold's pretensions to the crowul took occasion to coin money for themselves, the profit upon such coinage varying from a twelfth to a tenth of the metal coined, sometimes more. Harold's silver scats weigh about 22 grains, and contain about 20 grains of fine silver. There is no reason to believe that he changed the previously existing system of £. s. d., nor that any of the coins previously in circulation — such as the Arabian zecchin, the besant and its fractions, or the Gothic stycas, scats, and oras — were decried or interdicted. ^ For allusions to ' mint laws of Edward Confessor, see Kemble, pp. 67-9 ; for " Treasure Trove," see Euding, i, p. 390. i CHAPTER XII. SYSTEMS OF ANGLO-NOEMAX MONEYS. I 1 Norman, Anglo-Saxon, early Gothic, Moslem, Byzantine, and other ; coins circulating in England — Difference in the silver value of heretical and orthodox gold coins — Scats, sterlings, and pennies — Efforts of the Xorman princes to escape the monetary supervision of Eome — Eeceipts and payments made in different moneys — Counterfeiting — Barter — Per- • mutation — Fairs — Taxes and rents in kind — Bills of exchange — The r monetary systems of the Noi'man princes exhibit a strange condition of political affairs. TPVUEIXG the Xorman dynasty tlie coins in circulation -*-^ consisted chiefly of five classes^ namely : Norman, Anglo-Saxon, early Gothic, Byzantine, and Moslem. Norman Coins. — These were " sterlings,^^ or flat, thin, silver coins of the half-dirhem type, containing about 20 grains of silver 0"925 fine, or about 18 1 grains of fine silver. In modern numismatic works these are , always called " pennies.'^ Xo less than twelve thousand '; of the " pax " sterlings of William I. were discovered at Beaworth, in Hampshire, in 1833, besides other large hoards elsewhere. Twelve of these sterlings went to the Norman shilling. It has been assumed by numismatic writers that the sterlings were always valued at one penny each ; but in face of a contrary practice in France at this period, where the sterling was sometimes rated at three halfpence, two pence, etc., and of the twopenny sterlings, and three- penny sterlings cited elsewhere in the present work, this is by no means certain. Anglo-Saxon Moneys. — The best Anglo-Saxon silver sterlings (scats) were valued at four to the Saxon shilling 222 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IX VAEIOUS STATES. of account, while sixty Saxon shillings were counted to the pound of account. These relations were not disturbed by William, who continued -to employ them in all pay- ments under the Anglo-Saxon laws, or in reference to Anglo-Saxon rents and contracts. There were, there- fore, two moneys of account employed during his reign, namely, the Norman 12x20 = 240 pence to the pound of account, and the Saxon 4x60 = 240 pence to the pound of account. Early Gothic Moneys. — The ora is valued in Domesday Book at 20 pence, from which it would appear that Edward the Confessor's base pennies were meant, or else that William's sterlings actually went for twopence each. It has been suggested that the ora here meant was either the ora weight of 45 grains (one-eighth of the Gothic mark), or else a gold coin of about that weight, say the Moorish obolus de Murcia or maravedi,^ because in 37 Henry III, (a.d. 1252), the maravedi of Moorish Spain was valued at 16 pence" — a fall in value which, if it related to a weight of gold bullion, would be difficult to account for, but which, if to an actual gold coin, might have been due to its having been reduced by abra- sion or " rounding." But, in fact, at the period of Domesday Book, the maravedi was a new coin, therefore we regard the first hypothesis as more reasonable. The composite or electrum scat had disappeared ; the silver scat is mentioned under the name of a penny. The brass stycas, so common during the Gothic era, do not appear to have remained in circulation during the Norman one, for no mention is made of them in extant texts. They were replaced by Roman bronze coins. Moslem Moneys. — The Spanish-Arabian dinar (60 to Q'o grains fine) and the zecchin (50 to 55 grains fine), circulated in England under the misnomers of besaut and mancus. Norman sterlings of the half-dirhem ' The maravedi of this period weighed about 43 gi'ains (nearly) fine. 2 Ending, i, p. 316. \ SYSTEMS OF ANGLO-NORMAN MONEYS. 223 or sterling type, and containing 18 to 20 grains fine silver, liad taken the place of the half-dirhems coined in Arabian-Spain. A^alued in these Norman sterlings, the dinar was worth o-i to 36 sterlings, and the zecchin 30 tool sterlings — a ratio of 9 or 10 for 1. The mark of 5 zecchins, afterwards of 5 maravedis, was valued at 160 sterlings. The other moslem coins which circulated in England during this period were the gold half-mithcal and a few of the old silver dirhems and half-dirhems. Byzantine Moneys. — These were the gold besants of ; 65 grains, valued at 40 sterlings — a ratio of 12 for 1.^ The besaut of this period was a thin and slightly '"' dished " gold coin, or " scyphus,^^ with a rayed image on one side. It was the direct descendant of the sacred aureus of Augustus and the sacred solidus of his successors, the sovereign-pontiffs or emperors of Rome. Other Moneys. — Besides these coins the circulating money of England included the silver coins of France, Venice, and other States. These were rated, by official proclamation, at something near their bullion value. Roman bronze coins of varied types and designs also cir- culated among the common people, and, according to Sir John Lubbock, they continue to circulate among them, in ,the remoter parts of England, to the present day. || The legal status, history, and tale value of bronze or 'Copper coins, and an investigation of the authority under which they were struck, during the interval between the establishment of Christianity in the provinces and the fall •of the SacredEmpireinthe thirteenth century, is a domain of numismatics upon which so little certain light has hitherto been shed, that it would, perhaps, be unsafe to make it a ■ basis for historical induction. There is strong reason to believe that the Roman Senate never parted with its authority to strike copper, and that during the dark and mediaeval ages the Christian provinces were supplied with ' It results that the ratio for moslem' or heretical gold was 9 or 10 silver, and for Byzantine or orthodox gold, 12 silver. 224 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. copper coins struck by moneyers appointed by the Senate, first of Rome and afterwards of Constantinople. It is certainly a remarkable fact, one well worthy the pro- foundest attention, that, except when at rare intervals they ventured to disregard the authority of the Empire, the Christian princes of England struck no copper coins until after the fall of Constantinople. The Anglo-Norman kings coined no gold at all. The coinage of gold ceased when Christianity was introduced, and the last gold coins known to have been struck in England previous to the reign of Henry III, were the dinars of Offa, before his alleged submission to the yoke of the gospel.^ A good deal of learning has been spent upon that passage in the Black Book of the Exchequer (ascribed to William of Tilbury, in the reign of Henry II), which states that a custom was introduced by William I, of requiring payments into the treasury to be made ad scalam (by weight). Lowndes treats this custom as general, and ascribes it to the universal prevalence of clipped and counterfeit coins ; but this explanation, in view of the valuations based on the Byzantine ratio, and in view of the large hoards of full-weighted sterlings which have been found in modern days, is not satisfactory. Madox — who if less concise, is more practical — assures us that coins were received in the exchequer by deducting six- pence from each twenty shillings, for light coins : this was payment ad scalam. When the coins were unusually light they were only received as standard bullion : this was payment ad jpensum. When their purity was in question they were received as crude bullion and sent to the refiners and assayers : this was payment by combus- tion. In brief, this means that payments mi/o the exchequer, when made in light or debased coins, were, as nearly as ' Two or three heretical exceptions to this rule have been already mentioned. SYSTEMS OP ANGLO-NORMAN MONEYS. 225 possible, subjected to precisely the same regulations that they are to-day. There is no reason for supposing that the phrase of '^ payments into the treasury" meant anything more or less than what it literally conveys. Notwithstanding the theory of Lowndes, it may be asserted with confidence that it did not include other payments, such as payments Old of the treasury, nor payments between merchants, nor between merchants and nobles. For all these classes of payments the king, at times, assumed the right to .prescribe different sorts of moneys — a right which he invariably relinquished when admonished by the sacred college that he was exceeding his powers.^ In view of this tendency of the crown it would be absurd to suppose that when clipped or counterfeit coins were received at the treasury by weight, they were re-coined or paid out by weight. Nothing of the sort. The revenues came from comparatively few sources, whilst payments were made to a vast number of people ; and payment by weight would have been simply impracticable. On the other hand, if \ the clipped and counterfeit coins received into the treasury had been re-coined, it would have taken but a comparatively short time to reform the entire currency ; but no such reformation appears to have been undertaken. The fact is that the crown practically legitimatised clipped I and counterfeit coins, not by receiving them into the ; treasury ad scalam, but by paying them out of the treasury ad numero. Some of the numismatists have ,: patriotically paraded one custom, and carefully suppressed 1 the other ; but the evidences of its practice appear i| plainly enough in the course of this work to satisfy the j! ordinary demands of reason. The power that scrupled |i not to receive and pay by different weights, would scarcely have hesitated to receive and pay with different coins, and it may be confidently believed that this was the practice. ^ This practice (elsewhere) is alluded to and condemned in the Koran. 15 236 HISTOEY OF irONETAET SYSTEMS IN TAETOUS STATES. tlieni weighed 19 lbs. 6 oz. 5 dwts. This is an average of 22 grains each^ or (assuming the fineness as equal to- sterling) 20^ grains fine; but as he says nothing of the remaining 573 pieces found at Tealby, it may be that the- average of the whole corresponded ^vitlL Keary^s assays. With regard to tin money of the nobles^ mention of" albata, or white money [argentum hlancum) occurs in the Exchequer Eolls pertaining to the fourth year of this reign^ where it is expressly distinguished from silver- money {argenti). In the fifteenth year Walter Hose paid one shilling in the pound for the bianco firmse of Treatham ; in the seventeenth year twenty shillings were- paid in argento hlanco ; in the twenty-third year Walter- de Grimesby forfeited a lot of the same metal ; in the twenty-sixth year the sheriffs of London and Middlesex paid in, from the effects of a coin clipper, £9 bs. 4d. in silver pennies and five marks in '' white money." In, order to determine the meaning of " white money/' it is to be remarked that the term " argento hlanco eomrninato " was used when silver bullion was meant. For example,. in the thirtieth year of Henry II, the sheriff of Devonshire paid 8s. 9f?. in bullion [argento hlanco examinato), made up- of divers old coins, and in the thirty-third year the same sheriff paid twenty-six pennies in bullion [argento hlanco- exavvinato), made up of numerous coins dug up from the- earth. Sir Charles Freemantle was of opinion that the trial of the pix mentioned in the Lansdowne MS. related to this reign. ^ In this opinion theauthor finds himself unable to concur, but believes that it relates to the reign of' Edward I. Some consideration of this subject will appear- further on. Turning from the monetary system of Henry to that of his successor, we find it marked by the same characteristics — a full legal-tender gold coinage issued by the Basileus, and constituting the basis of the system ; a silver coinage (pennies) issued by the king, as nearly as practicable of ' British :irint Eeport, 1871, p. 12. EARLY PLANTAGEXET MOXEYS. 237 even weight with and exactly oue-twelfth the value of the Byzantiue sicilicus ; and a base coinage of local circu- lation, issued by the nobles and ecclesiastics, the gold coinage being never, the silver coinage rarely, and the base coinage frequenth', altered. Although there are no native coins extaut of Eichard I, the evidences that he exercised the usual coinage rights of provincial kings are so numerous as to leave little room to doubt the fact. In 1189, upon his accession to the throne, Eichard weighed out more than 100,000 marks from his father's treasure at Salisbury ; in an ordinance of the same year moneyers at Winchester are mentioned ; in the same year he granted a local coinage-license to the bishop of Lichfield; in 1190, while at Messina on a crusading expedition, he found it necessary to command and exhort his followers to accept his money — a tolerably- sure indication of coinage; and in 1191, Henry de Corn- hill was charged in the exchequer accounts with £1,200 for supplying the cambium, or mints of England (except "Winchester), and with £400 the profits of the cambium for a year. The names of Eichard's moneyers in his mints at Warwick, Rochester, and Carlisle appear in several texts relating to his reign. Coins which were struck in Poitou 4fcider his authority are still extant. Finally, as will presentl;^ appear evident, he granted and revoked licenses to nobles and ecclesiastics to strike tin and other base coins. All these prerogatives were such as were common to provincial kings ; but^ichard struck no gold, and made no attempt either to interdict the circulation of the Imperial coins or to alter the sacred valuation of gold and silver which was laid down in the constitution of the Empire. With regard to his ransom, the inference of new coinage is totally wanting. In 1192 Richard was taken prisoner on the continent, and handed over to Henry YI, of Ger- many. In 1194 he was ransomed for about the same amount of money that he is said to have inherited from 238 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. his father. This ransom was collected in England and from the possessions of the English crown in France. From the particulars of its collection — to be found in the pages of Madox — it appears to have been contributed in coins. Caxton says that plate " was molten and made into money. ^' Stowe makes a similar statement. Alto- gether ten ancient texts agree in stating that the ransom was paid in money, and that the same was answered in " marks weight of Cologne/' which latter was natural, that being the standard of weight with Avhich the emperor was most familiar. Notwithstanding this testimony, it may be safely conjectured that there was no new coinage, for such an operation would have been needless, tedious, and expensive. The old coin and bullion was probably melted down, refined, cast into bars, assayed, weighed, and delivered to the emperor's legate — a supposition that precisely agrees with Polydore Vergil's account of the affair. In this same year (1194), according to Trivet and Brompton, the king decried the divers coins of the nobles and ecclesiastics which remained in circulation, and ordained one kind of (silver) money to be current through- out his realm. ^ Among these various coins were those of tin. Camden would have us believe that the coinage of tin was a term used to denote merely the payment of that forty shillings per one thousand pounds weight which was the heirloom of the dukes of Cornwall ; but this can only relate to a subsequent period, for there were no dukes of Cornwall in the reign of Richard I. In 1196 Henry de Casteillun, chamberlain of London, accounted to the king for £379 Is. 6d., received for fines and tenths on imported tin and other mercatures, also for ' In this same year (1194) occurs what has been regarded as the earliest mention in extant texts of the mark, valued at 13s. 4d. (Fleetwood, p. 30, from M. Paris) ; but, as shown in a previous chapter, the mark of 13s. 4cZ. is three or four centuries earlier. The mark of 1194 was composed of five gold maravedis ; 13s. 4 Madox, i, p. 759, note x. 2 W. Henningford, preface, p. xlv, cited in Ruding, ii, p. 74. 244 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATKS. The following passage from Matthew Paris (sub anno 1247) is an example : — " As the money was now adulterated and falsified beyond measure, the king began to deliberate on some remedy for this, namely, whether the coins could not be advantag-eously altered in form or metal ; but it seemed to many wise persons that it would be more advantageous to change the metal than to alter the shape, since it was for ; the sake of the metal, not the shape, that the money was subject to such corruption and injury." As a matter of fact, however, the king did not change either the metal or the shape. In the 30th Henry III, the sheriff of Devonshire paid into the exchequer 25s. Id., the profits of his contract for fining the black metal {nigra minera), which we take to be tin, that being its usual colour in the ore (oxide) . He also accounts for 79s. received from the sale of dealbanda and tin. Dealbanda seems to have been a composition of tin, like album or albata. He also accounts for £6 13s. 8d., profit upon an issue of small coins, and of £54 15s. 3(i. upon an issue of large coins [de exita majoris cunei) ,\)otla. of which were evidently of tin, and were emitted by some local magnate. The comparatively small profit thus derived by the crown from the issue of tin coins in one of the principal tin-mining districts of England, implies a dwindling of this coinage. It is true that we have no accounts from Cornwall, and none from the mints, of tin coined during this reign, so that quantitative conclusions drawn from this single entry are apt to be misleading. Although, as is shown in another chapter, this reign is marked by the issue of a native gold coin — the first one ever struck by a Christian king of England — the issue was almost immediately retired, and matters remained apparently as before; so that the besants of the sacred mint continued to form the basis of the English monetary system. But though in shrinking from the coinage of gold the king was afraid to definitively repudiate the suzerainty of the EARLY PLANTAGENBT MONEYS. 245 sacred Empire, the nobles and the burghers were not. The General Council of 1247 resolved to lower the stan- I dard of royal silver coins — an act which by itself is almost 1 sufficient to raai'k the fall of the sacred Empire, and the declining authority of Rome.^ Corrupt coins : made their appearance in all directions — counterfeit coins ; at St. Albans; tin coins in Cornwall and Devon ; base and clipped coins everywhere.^ It is now evident that i at this juncture the besant began to disappear from I circulation, and that its agency in regulating the English monetary system was sensibly diminished ; but in the j era of the Plantagenets no such explanation offered itself. ' In that age the solution of all monetary problems was found in torturing the Jews. Henry had resorted to this measure before the decision of the General Council.^ He now resorted to it again. It was a pretty theory, a furtive belief in whose efficacy is not yet wholly effaced from the minds of men; but it did not work. With the second persecution of the Jews, the besants became still scai'cer, and as, for lack of besants, couti'acts could no longer be discharged with them, the use of other coins was rendered unavoidable, and the multiplication of base or over-valued ones was thus encouraged. One of the last contracts in which the consideration is specifically expressed in besants is still extant. It is a Hebrew bond and mortgage executed during the reign of Henry III, a complete English translation of which, by Dr. Samuel Pegge, the antiquarian, appeared in the " Gentleman's Magazine," 1756, p. 465. The besants are therein called laku of gold, in allusion to the rayed figure which is stamped upon them, laku being the Hebrew form of the Greek lacchus, and Roman Bacchus. /^ The division of the pound of account into twenty parts, and each of these into twelve, was in this * The profits of this coinage are shown in Ending, ii, p. 67. ^ Eliding, ii, p. 74. ^ The second massacre of the Jews was in 1264. 246 HISTOKY OT MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. reign extended to the pound weiglit^ used for the assize of bread. Still more strangely it ^Yas imitated in the sub- divisions of the agrarian acre. By the Act 51 Henry III, (1266) it was provided^ aniong'other things^ that ''when a quarter of wheat is 12d. per quarter, then wastel bread of a farthing shall weigh £6 16s. ;" by which we suppose was meant 64- pounds weight.^ A similar enact- ment was made as to acres. The acre was divided into 160 pence, or 320 halfpence, or 640 farthings, so that it- tallied with the subdivisions of the mark of account.^ Thus denariatus terrse (a penny of land) meant a rod or perch, for the perch was the 160th part of an acre^ as the penny was the 160th part of a mark. So the obolus, or half-penny, of land meant half a perch, and the quadrante, or farthing, of land, meant a quarter of a perch, or 4^ square feet. The expression " 40 perches of candles " quoted in Anderson's "History of Commerce" (i, p. 178), and the use of "shillings'' for ounces in the mint accounts of Henry III, are puzzling."'' rThis application of the divisions of moneys to weights and measures was not peculiar to England. It is to be found in all the king- doms which grew up from Eoman provinces ;' for the custom is as ancient as the Empire it self J Wine measures were based on the Eoman ace, which was the integer, and consisted of twelve cyathi. Thus a cup of two cyathi, was called a sextans, three cyathi a triens, four cyathi, a quadrans, etc., after the names of Eoman coins.^ ' Martin Folkes' " Table of English Silver Coins " ; Harris on Coins, i, p. 51. - " Chronicon Preciosum," p. 40. ' Ending, i, p. 179. The term " shilling " appears to have been also used in the mint accounts of this reign for an ounce weight (Fleetwood, p. 23 ; Ending, i, p. 179, etc.). The origin of this practice is obscure. Twelve sterlings (value one shilling) weighed less than half an ounce, so it could not have been derived from this analogy. Perhaps it was due to the use of tin or albatapennies, of wliich twelve may have roughly weighed an ounce. * Adams, p. 396. The custom is accounted for by M. de Vienne. EAELY PLANTAGENET MONEYS. 247 Many modern economists and writers on money have argued that because by this law a £ meant a pound weight, as applied to bread, therefore it meant a pound weight of silver as applied to coins ; that because an s meant the twentieth of a pound weight as applied to bread, therefore it meant the twentieth of the pound weight of silver as applied to coins ; and that as a d meant the two-hundred-and-fortieth part of a pound weight as applied to bread, it meant the two-hundred-and- fortieth part of a pound weight of silver as applied to coins. This mode of reasoning, if applied to the sub- divisions of the acre, would lead to very startling results. For example, because by law a mark meant the whole and a penny the one-hundred-and-sixtieth part of an acre, therefore when applied to coins the mark meant an acre of silver, and the penny a perch of that metal ! Another fallacy of money — one of practical importance at the present time — derives its origin from the monetary issues of this period. Jevons, in his " Money and Ex- change," avers that the " standard " of England, from the reign of the Plantag-enets to that of the House of Brunswick, was silver, and afterwards gold. This is one of a host of modern sophistries which have sprung from the Act of 1666, and which no one before that period ever stumbled upon. It will be found in Harris's '' Essays on Money and Coins," printed in 1757, and possibly in somewhat older books, although neither so old as the Dutch prototype of the Act of 18 Charles II, nor as that story of the disputative knights and the shield, which on the one side was of yellow metal and the other of Avhite. In the case of money, the shield was neither of one metal nor the other. The term standard, as here used, can only mean measure, and neither gold nor silver metal was ever the measure of value in England until 1666, while since that date it has been such only to a limited extent^ and under the operation of that Act as affected by sub- sequent legislation. Down to 1666 the ''standard'' of 248 HISTORY OF AIONETAEY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. England was the whole number of £. s. d. in the kingdom, whether of gold, silver, tin, copper, or leather, and the whole number of £. s. d. was whatever the combined coinages of Basileus, king, barons, and prelates happened to make it. In the course of this history many instances have been given when the king altered the measure or *' standard " of value by simple decree, and without increasing or diminishing the quantity of either gold or silver — an irrefi'agable proof that the standard was not either of those metals, nor any other metal, but merely the whole number of £. s. d., whether coined or existing by the king's will. Had either gold or silver been the standard of value, that standard would have been beyond the power either of Basileus, pope, or king to alter. It needs but a cursory perusal of the annals of the time to be convinced that such was not the case, and that, in fact, gold and silver metal had very much less to do with measuring value than the imperial and royal constitutions and edicts. Edward I, Longshanks, found the coinage of England in great confusion and very corrupt. The sterlings of Henry III, badly executed, and so much worn and rounded or clipped that they contained but half their original weight of silver ; the base silver coins of the nobles and ecclesiastics, which had in great degree replaced them in the circulation ; the gold besants and maravedis, which the Jews and goldsmiths hoarded for export ; and the nu- merous foreign silver coins which had crept into the circulation, combined to form a melange of money which was impossible to replace and troublesome to improve. Before making any efforts in this direction, the king commenced to fill his treasury by robbing the Jews and the goldsmiths,^ putting great numbers of the former to a cruel death, and throwing the latter into prison. In the reign of Edward III, there were few or no Jews left to kill, so the king robbed the Lombards ; in that of Charles I. there were no Lombards, so the king robbed EARLY PLANTAGENET MONEYS. 249 the goldsmiths. Edward Longshanks' apology for slaying the Jews was that they circulated base money ; but^ in fact, everybody did this, including the king himself, for there was at one period practically little other money in circulation. Their real crime was the hoai'ding of gold, which the king coveted. Edward's raid upon the Jews and goldsmiths was made in 1279, the eighth year of his reign. As a make- weight to this transaction, he affected great concern for the purity of the silver coins purchased with this innocent blood. In the ninth or tenth year of his reign, he ordered the barons of the exchequer to '' open'the boxes of the assay of London and Canterbury, and to make the assay in such a manner as the king's council were wont to do.'^ Nothing is said in these instructions about the base coins minted at St. Albans, nor the coinage of tin in Devon and Cornwall, nor the issue of leather moneys at Conway, Caernarvon, and Beaumaris, nor the pollards and crock- ards valued in other royal edicts, nor the light coins, called from their devices mitres and lions, nor the cocodones, rosaries, stepings and scaldings," nor the ' three sorts of copper coins which this king issued after cunningly plating or washing them with silver. Lowdnes, with some intemperateness attributes to this reign " the , most remai'kable deceits and corruptions found in ancient records to have been committed upon coins of the king- dom." Nothing is said of these matters in Edward's instructions concerning a trial of the pix ; and nothing is said of them in modern numismatic works.^ Yet these . corruptions of money have the highest historic value. I Just, as in after times, the New England shilling first announced the stern resolution of her people to be free, and the " Continental " note proclaimed and asserted that ' Madox, i, p. 291. - Fleetwood, pp. 39, 47. ^ For leather issues of this reign, consult Ruding, ii, p. 130, and , * Money and Civilisation," p. 64. 250 HISTOKY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. freedom, so did the leather notes and base coins of Edward's reign mark the parting of that mighty cable which held the province of Britain to the sinking ship of the Empire. The laws of politics, like those of pathology,. are not gained by study of the healthy or the normal,. but by observing the diseased and the abnormal. In 1289 an indented trial-piece of ''old sterling" (0*925 fine) was ordered to be lodged in the exchequer,, and " every pound weight troy was to he shorn at twenty shillings and three pence, according to which the value of the silver in the coin was one shilling and eightpence farth- ing an ounce. '^ So says Lowdnes (p. 34), citing the Red Book of the Exchequer, but this citation o.nly conveys part of the truth, the remainder being supplied by Dr. Ruding.. This conscientious author states, with reference to sterling coins, that from the Conquest down to the year 1527, the royal mints of England bought bullion by the pound troy (5,760 grains), and sold it by the pound tower (5,400' grains) ; so that even when the buying and selling price was the same, there remained to the crown a profit of about 7 per cent.^ The weight of Edward's sterling pennies, many of which, in a perfect state of preservation, are still extant, corroborate this statement. If we assume with the Eed Book that Edward paid 243 sterling pence per pound troy for stei'ling silver bullion — which is doubtful, for there were probably deductions made from this price to cover the cost of coinage — the coins prove that he sold it at 260 pence per troy pound, or, Avhich is the same- thing, 280 pence per tower pound. According to Keary's assay's, the extant sterling pennies weigh 22^ grains, eleven- twelfths fine, equal to about 20| grains net ; but these- are exceptionally heavy specimens. In the same year (1289), says the Black Book, Edward sent for foreign moneyers, to teach him how to make and ^ The statute of the Pillory and Tumbrel and o£ the Assize of Bread and Ale, 51 Henry III (1266), provides punishment for those " that sell by one measure and buy by another " — a proof that the royal example had become contagious. EARLY PLANTAGENET MONKYS. 251 orge moneys. Forging here means simply striking. It loes not relate to the forged coins which were current in his reign, and which Edward's apologists imputed to the oreigners and the Jews, but which^ it is much to be eared, were made with the connivance and for the profit )f that ingenious prince. However, the Jews suffered for he forgeries all the same, for in the very next year Edward plundered and banished the remainder of them rem the kingdom.^ In 1298 (27 Edward I), it was com- nauded 'Hhat all persons, of whatever country or nation, nay safely bring to our exchanges^ any sort or sum of j-Qod silver coins or bullion, which shall be valued or j-educed by the assayers according to the ' old standard ' )f England. Silver bullion, when assayed and stamped ;,vith its value"' at our exchanges, may be used as a oiedium of barter — that is to say, as money .^' This was dmilar to a Spanish- American regulation of the sixteenth :entury,^ and it proved quite as impracticable and futile. It was also provided by 27 Edward I, " that no bullion ishall be exported out of the country without special license." This prohibition was repeated by Edward II, in 1307, thus implying that it had meanwhile been success- fully evaded. This, and some other acts of the Planta- genets, which encroached upon the imperial prerogatives of Rome, must be recognised as efforts on the part of these kings of England to throw off their allegiance to the Empire. But it was not yet thrown off entirely. In 1299 (28 Edward I), it was provided ''that silver plate shall be of no worse standard than coins. Gold plate shall be no worse than the ' touch ' of Paris. All plate shall be assayed by wardens of the craft, and marked with a leopard's head. The wardens shall visit the ' See forgery, confession, and pardon of Sir William Thurington, in reign of Edward YI. - OflBces in the mint for exchanging coins (Madox, i, p. 291). ^ This could only mean the value with reference to gold, which the coins of the Basileus still imposed. * "Money and Civilisation," pp. 17, 78, 146. 252 HISTOEY OF MOXETAEY SYSTEMS IX TAEIOCS STATES. goldsmitlis' sliops, and confiscate all plate of a lower standard." This Tvas a new exercise of royal authority. With regard to the pollards, crockards, and other base coins of the reign^ Dr. Ending assumes (apparently be- cause they were base, or because their coinage does not appear to be provided for in the laws or mint indentures) that they were of foreign fabrication and surreptitious circulation ; but this does not follow. Base issues were the rule, not the exception^ of this reign. It is mere prejudice to heap them upon Phillip le Bel and other French kings, and omit them from the records of the English monarchy. Base coins were quite as common in England as in France ; they were due to similar circum- stances ; they were attended by similar social phenomena ; they had similar results; and no good can come of their suppression, concealment, or false ascription by modern historians. Pollards and crockards appeared in the circula- tion so early as 1280. In 1303 (32 Edward I) the custodes of the ordinance for the money at Ipswich were charged upon the Exchequer Eolls with £14 4.5. lie?, for pollards and crockards.^ If these were foreign and unlawful coins it is difficult to account for their use in the royal treasure and their appearance and recognition in the royal accounts In 2 Edward II, there is an entry of a relief granted to the kinof's sheriffs and bailiffs who had received these coins at a penny each, which '' by the king's proclamation were fallen from a penny to a half-penny." " Does this lool; like a reference to foreign or discredited coins ? Tht king's officers are first required to receive them at a peun} and afterwards at a half-penny each, and royal relief is o-ranted to them for such of this class of coins as hat accumulated in their hands during the royal alteration ir their legal value. That they were m use during the whole of the reign of Edward I, and part of that of his successoi is of itself almost sufficient proof of their legality. Sii MathewHale says that they were decried in 1300 (29 Ed. I) 1 Mados, i, p. 294. - Ibid., i, p. 294 EAKLT PLANTAGENET MONETST^"" "" 253 lit is possible that this was the date when they were lowered by pi'oclamation, but the entries above quoted prove that they actually continued in use for years afterward. As to their omission from the laws and mint indentures, there are no such instruments extant. With a fragmentary and unimportant exception, all instruments relating to the coinage previous to 18 Edward III, if an^^ existed (which is doubtful), have been lost or destroyed. The extant sterlings ascribed to the first and second Edwards are not distinguishable one from the other. Numismatists assign those with the name composed of the fewest number of letters, as " Edw.,^' to Edward I ; those with more lettei-s, as " Edwa,^' to Edward II ; and those with the full name, " Edwardus," to Edward III. This classification is attributed to Archbishop Sharpe, a numismatist of the last century, whose reasons for its adoption are, however, far from convincing.^ In respect of the groats. Bishop Sharpe's capricious arrangement was as capriciously reversed, for there the full-spelt " Edwards " are ascribed to Edward I, and the abbre- viated Edwards to his successor. For the reason that ; Lowndes' citation from the Red Book merely relates to the buying price of silver at the exchequer, and as there is ' no certainty that any of the extant coins were struck by Edward I, and, finally, because it is incredible, in such a con- I dition of society as existed during this reign, that sterlings should have remained in a circulation filled with tin, copper, and leather coins, we should deem it quite likely that no sterlings at all were issued during this reign were it not for a circumstance recorded by Bishop Fleetwood, namely, that Edward's sterlings were valued at the time at two, three, or four pence, or sterlings, each — a custom quite common, both • in England and France, during the whole period from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, but commonly ' Euding, ii, p. 123 ; from " Bib. Top. Brit.," No. xxxv, p. 25. Per contra, see Leake, p. 8, and Folkes. 254 HISTORY or MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. ignored or suppressed by modern writers on the sul^' ject.^ Among his other issues Edward struck silver coin weighing 80, 85, 92, 116, and 138 grains each, whic' are regarded by various writers as groats, shillings medals, etc., but which might have passed as half-marki •or even marks, for all that can be learnt from the fe^ recoi'ds now left of his numerous issues and their capriciou valuations. The whole sum of money coined during thi reign is estimated by Dr. Ruding at less than £16,000, bi3 as this calculation leaves out of view the enhanced lesrs valuation of the sterlings, it is of little worth." Th native mines produced some small amount of silver this reign. Those of Martinstowe, in Devonshire, yielde S701bs. weight of silver in 1294, 5211bs. in 1295, an 704 lbs. in 1296, after which time they seem to hav been abandoned as unprofitable.^ An assay of silve from the mine of Byrlande, in Devon, was made in 2 Edward I.* The assumption of control over the min^ which the i-endition of these accounts imply, was also new exercise of royal authority. The system of £. s. remained unchanged, but what constituted a pound account was now quite within the king^s newly-assume powers to determine at pleasure. The king's prerogati^ to raise or lower moneys, or to enhance or diminish the value, or to reduce them to bullion — a prerogative whit had only been assumed by Henry II, when the sacre empire drew to its close, and was only asserted after had expired — developed during the course of Edward reign into a very practical form. • Fleetwood, pp. 34, 35, 39, etc., and " Present State of England." - Consult Humphreys, p. 140 ; Sir M. Hale in Davis' Reports, 1674, p. 18 ; Drier's Rep., 7 Ed. VI, fol. 82 ; Madox, i, p. 294 ; " Mo: and Civilisation," p. 65 ; Ruding, ii, p. 129. 3 Jacob, " Hist. Prec. Met," Phil, ed., p. 195. ♦ Madox, i, p. 291. CHAPTER XIV. LATER PLANTAGENET MONEYS. i Ko mint indentures prior to Edward I — Xo statutes of any kind pre- vious to Magna Ciiarta — Sudden beginning of frequent monetary changes in the reign of Edward II — Significance of this movement — 'proo'ressive assumption of regalian rights — Lowering of pollards and crockards — Interdiction of commerce in coins and bullion— Lowerings of 'sterlings— Establishment of a maximum— Coinage of base money by the ikiug — His death — Accession of Edward III — New monetary ordinances —Black money — Mercantile system — Tin money — Review of the gold question — The maravedi of Henry III — Preparation of Edward III, to issue gold coins — Permission from the emperor — Convention with Flan- dei-s — Authority of parliament — Issue of the double florin — Its imme- diate retirement — Fresh preparations — Issue of the gold noble or half mark — Its great significance. ]VrO written annals so plainly mark the steps by which ■^^ England gradually developed from the provincial to the national phase of its existence as those which are stamped upon the coinages of the second and third Edward. Before describing these issues, one or two observations ^are necessary. I With the exception of the statute 28 Edward I. already cited, not a single indenture of the mint, from 1066 to 13-i6, is extant at the present day, nor is there any reason to suppose that any ever existed. If negative evidence were admissible in an enquiry of the present kind, this fact would be conclusive. It furnishes the inference tbat, down to the era of the Plantagenets, the princes of England did not enjoy control of the coinage, and had neither occasion nor authority to prescribe its regulations. The continued coinage and circulation of the gold solidus by the Basileus, its recognition by the Latin pontificate, and the prescriptive ratio of 12 silver for 256 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. 1 gold, rendered the coinage of silver by the king a mer perfunctory act. The silver penny coined by Christiai princes had to be of the same weight as the gold shilling' coined by the Basileus. AVhen the penny failed to con form to this rule, it failed to circulate ; and the sacrei college had the power to seal the prejudices of the publi with its official condemnation of the heretical coin. Bu no sooner was the power of the Basileus extinguishe^ than all this began to change; and every prince o Christendom stretched out his hands to grasp the covete^ prerogative of coinage. The Gothic and Saxon princes as usual, were the foremost. It was a Gothic prince c Leon who, next after the emperor Frederic, struck th first Christian coin of gold, and a Gothic prince c Denmark who first openly repudiated the suzerainty c pontifical Eome.' It need hardly be added that in sue a cause the Saxon kings of England were not behiu' their compeers. Gold coinage began with Henry III and mint indentures with Edward III. Not only are there no mint indentures before the foui teenth century, there are no national laws of any kin previous to the fall of Constantinople. The earliest entr in the Statutes at Large is an altered copy of Magn Charta, not drawn from any official registry, but fishe out of an antiquarian collection. Hardly more creditabl is the appearance of the ordinances which follow it dow to the reign of Edward III." They have all the appea: ance of having been "restored" in modern times. the kings of England previous to Edward III were n( vassals, why have we none of their ordinances ? and if tt pope or the Emperor was not their suzerain, why do th marks of the latter's superior authority appear in this, i they do in every kind of literary record, except, indee( upon the pages of recently written history ? ' See letter of Waldemar in the preface to Boulainvillier's " Life Mahomet." 2 These ordinances are not in the English, hut the Eoman language. LATER PLANTAGENET MONEYS. 257 , However, it is not alone upon literary evidence that tlie aro-ument relies ; it stands also upon the far more certain evidence of coins and the nummulary grammar. Many of these evidences have been already adduced. Those which will now be furnished relate chiefly to the sudden and frequent alterations of money which began after the , fall of Constantinople, and culminated in the reign of Edward III. There are, indeed, many modern writers , who either affirm or assume that no such alterations took : place ; but the evidence on the subject is overwhelming. From the accession of Edward I, to the coinage of gold , by Edward III, is a period which corresponds with the I reigns of Philip le Hardie, Philip le Bel, Louis Hutin, ; Philip le Long, Charles le Beau, and Philip Valois, when.. , we are taught, that hundreds, almost thousands, of alterations were made in the monetary system of France, I of which country apart still remained subject to the kings of England. In 1346 (reign of Philip Valois) there are recorded no less than ten alterations of the ratio between gold and silver in the French coinage. As to the debase- ments and degradations of Philip le Bel, every historical ; work is full of them. Yet all this time, while a furious I storm of monetary changes and financial shifts was raging ; across the Channel, and whirling into every nook and corner ! of the English possessions in France, the political econo- mists assure us that England lay in the midst of a dead I calm, and that nothing of the sort happened there. How utterly unfounded is the inference upon which they rest so confidently will be seen when the positive evidence of the extant coins is unfolded. The wave of monetary alterations which distinguishes this period began in Gothic- Spain, whence it flowed into , France and England. The changes which began in France Avith Philip le Hardie and became so numerous under Philip le Bel and his successors, have rarely been correctly described and never fully understood. Even Mr. Hallam, one of the ablest and most impartial of historical 17 258 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. writers, must have failed to grasp the significance these transactions when he stigmatised them by the coarg names of fraud and robbery. '' The rapacity of Philip Bel kept no measure with the public. . . . Dissatisfacti( and even tumults arose in consequence. . . . The film hd now dropped from the eyes of the people, and thes adulterations of money, rendered more vexatious by con tinued re-coinages of the current pieces, upon which fee was extorted by the moneyers, showed in their trt light as mingled fraud and robbery.^' ^ The fidelity of th description is discredited by Mr. Hallam himself, wl elsewhei'e says, " these changes seemed to have produce no discontent " — an admission that ill-agrees with tl imaginary dissatisfaction and tumults above set fort' That the crux of the situation is misunderstood is evidei from the absence of all allusion to the fall of the Empiit and the recent acquisition of its coinage prerogatives the Christian states of the West. If we turn from Mr. Hallam's condemnation of Phil le Bel to his approval of his contemporaries, the princ< of England, we shall, find even less cause to be satisfie with his opinions on this subject. In the former cas they find some apology in the defamation with Avhich th medigeval ecclesiastics pursued Philip for curtailing the: privileges and restraining their rapacity ; in the latter, is left with the poor defence of patriotic partiality. Saj the historian : " It was asserted in the reign of Philip Bel as a general truth that no subject might coin silve money. The right of debasing the coin was also claime by this prince, as a choice flower of the crown. ^' Whils a little farther on in the same paragraph, he says : " N subject ever enjoyed the right (I do not extend this t the fact) of coining silver in England without the royj stamp and superintendence — a remarkable proof of th restraint in which the feudal aristocracy was always hel in this country." If, in fact, the nobles and ecclesiastics o 1 Hallam's "Middle Ages," chapter ii. LATER PLANTAGENET MONEYS. 259 England exercised the privilege of coining silver, as we know they did, it is difficult to see wherein they were under greater restraint than the same classes elsewhere. But this is not all ; Mr. Hallam's flourish goes farther. It implies that the right to coin, which he represents to have been so sadly abused by Philip, was more rightfully or more justly exercised by his contemporaries, the English princes. Such is not the opinion of the earlier English writers. Our Matthew Paris says that the coins of his own time were adulterated and falsified beyond measure. Holinshed (ii, p. 318) says that, notwithstanding the baseness of the father's coins, the son, Edward II, proclaimed them to ibe good and current money. Stowe (p. 326) says that Edward II, ordered that his father's base coins should not be refused on pain of life and limb ; and Carte prefers a similar accusation.^ Indeed, the text of the proclamation (4 Edward II), which contains this mandate is extant, to justify the mediaeval chroniclers. Lowndes (eighteenth icentury) says that the greatest deceits and corruptions known to history were committed in the coinages of Edward I; and Lord Liverpool — who wrote during the present century — reluctantly confesses, in a letter to the king, the adulterations of money which were inaugurated by the Plantagenets." We shall presently offer even better testimony than the opinions of historians, namely, the evidence of the coins themselves. It will then be seen, not only that England fully kept pace with France in the wildest ex- cesses of a now unrestrained right to coin, but also that these excesses, in which Mr. Hallam only perceives fraud and robbery, really constitute our most valuable proofs of England's approach toward national autonomy. They are the unsteady steps of tutelage, which preceded the firm march of an actual and independent sovereignty. 1 " History England," ii, p. 308. , 2 " Letter to the King," chapter ix. 260 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. The year 1307 (1 Edward II), is the most probabli date when the value of the pollards and crockards wai lowered one-half. In effect it was decreed that tha ■which was yesterday a penny, to-day shall be but a half- penny, and that which yesterday constituted a pound shall be to-day but ten shillings.^ In the same year wai also enacted an explicit interdict against the expoi'tation of either coined money or bullion from England." j similar interdict was made in 1326.^ It does not appes to have occurred to the crown that the Jews, banishei to the continent, had it largely within their power to pre vent the shipment of foreign moneys to England by paying for English merchandise with, bills of exchange, drawi against foreign merchandise shipped to England. In this way they could, and doubtless did, intercept and prevent the shipment to that country of some of the coins or bullion which would otherwise have been remitted to it to pay for its exports. Many people, even at the pre- sent day, similarly fail to comprehend the operation of ex- change. Their view is that unless every nation makes its money of the same material as other nations, it will place itself in the position of being unable to pay its foreign debts. A lesson from practical bill-drawers would greatly tend to alleviate such an apprehension. In 1810 the Commons petitioned, and represented to the king that the coins were depreciated (meaning probably, not in value, but in contents of silver) more than one-half. Nevertheless, the king made proclamation the same year that the coins should be current at the value they bore under iEdward I, and that no one should enhance the price of liis goods on that account. This is the edict of which Hol- inshed, Stowe, and Carte complain. Mr. Jewitt ^ says that ' Madox i, p. 294, ^ Eggleston, " Antiq.,'* p. 196. ^ Ruding, ii, p. 136. ] ■» Rolls of Par., i, app. p. 444. Consult 4 Edward II, m. in 12 dors. (Ruding, ii, p. 133). ' ■' " Antiq.," p. 146. LATER PLANTAGENET MONEYS. 261 ] the petition of the Commons set forth that the coins (pro- bably meaning- the old sterlings) were clipped down to . one-half. This was very likely, because unless the silver , coins were cut down so as not to contain any more silver than the base coins of like denomination, they would pro- bably have disappeared. But this time it could not have been the Jews who committed the offence, for there were no Jews now in England. Nor should the Caursini, Peruchi, Scali, Fiscobaldi, Ballardi, Reisardi, or other .Roman clans or families, who filled their places in the English marts and exchanges, be suspected, for these were all good Catholics, and therefore presumably loyal sub- jects. Clippers and counterfeiters had been condemned to excommunication by the Council of the Lateran in 1123, and were subject by a statute — attributed to Edward I — to I the penalty for treason.^ Earth denounced such sacrilegious criminals, and heaven forbade them to approach its holy precincts. We are therefore at a loss to look for the transgressor, unless, indeed, he was to be found in the iToyal sanctuary itself. It may have been with the object to more effectually keep his base money afloat that the ,king, by proclamation in 1310, forbade, under heavy penalties, the importation of false moneys. If these false moneys were close imitations of the king's base coins, and .contained the same proportion of fine silver, the practice of importing them infers that prices had not risen to the level of the debasement. In 1311 the Lords Ordainers enacted that no changes should be made in the value of the coins without consent of the barons in pai'liament assembled. This startling declaration amounted to a claim on the part of the nobles for a share in those regalian rights which the king was daily acquiring from the falling power of Constantinople :and Rome, but it was successfully resisted by Edward, who, in 1321, repealed the ordinance, at York. There are no records relating to its operation in the interval. Accord- 1 Euding, ii, pp. 214-226. 262 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN YARIOTJS STATES. ing to tte Eoll of 9 Edward II, the king commanded Eichard Hy wysli, sheriff of Cornwall, by writ, to pay on his account £372 14s. 4d. to Antony di Pessaigne of Janua, out ol the profits of the tin coinage [coignagio stagminis)? Indeed, tin money and gold money appear to have been struck by the Western princes at the same time, and owing to the same parent event, the fall of the Basileus. There being then a great deal of false money in circula- tion, a writ was issued in 1318 to the barons of the exchequer, commanding them to order the sheriffs of England to make proclamation that '' no man should import into the realm clipped' money or foreign counter- feit money, under great penalties, and that such persons as had any dipt money in their hands, should bore it through in the middle, and bring it to the king's cam- bium to be re- coined." ~ This proclamation must have had some other than its professed object, for in the, same year Edward complained to Philip le Bel of France that ^'merchants were not permitted to bring any kind of money out of France into England, for that it was taken from them by searchers." AVhen it is remembered that the coins of Philip le Bel were greatly debased and over- valued, it appears more likely that the clipped and " foreign " counterfeit coins mentioned in the proclama- tion were fabricated in England. This view finds further corroboration in the fact that, in 1318, "an assay was made of the money minted in the exchanges of Londoi and Canterbury ... to wit, of £40,730 minted in the saidH exchanges within the said time'' (about two years), and ''upon this assay it was found that the said money wasi too weak and of a greater alloy than it ought to have been by £258 5^. lOcl." ^ ' i The classification of bullion into domestic and foreign ' first occurs in the reign of Edward II, and was continued 1 Madox, i, p. 386. - Ibid., i, p. 294 ; " Statutes at Large," vol. i. 3 Madox, i, p. 291. LATER PLANTAGENET MONEYS. 263 (Jiin that of Edward III, after which no traces of it appear ••in the mint records. Nature does not admit of such classi- fication, because all bullion of the like metal and when refined is alike. Domestic metal cannot be distinguished : from foreign. It was clearly impracticable to prevent foreign bullion from being imported, indeed, the complaint of the times was that foreign clipped and counterfeit coins were imported, and if practically coins conld be imported, so also could bullion. Nor was it tho policy of the crown to prevent the importation of bullion; on the contrary, it did everything in its power to promote such importation. It is therefore difiicult to see what object was aimed at by classifying silver into eismarinuni and transmarinum^ except a further asser- tion of that newly-acquired imperial prerogative of entire control over the coinage, and the materials of coinage, which the king had in his mind and seemed determined to proclaim to all the world. Whatever his plans, they were defeated by the rebellion of his Avife Isabella and ithe nobles whom he had previously curbed and restrained. These, fleeing to France with the infant son of the king, : there organised an expedition, which landed in England ;during the autumn of 1326, defeated and captured the king, .threw him into a dungeon, and there dispatched him, Edward III, was crowned January 25th, 1327. To the numerous and sudden alterations of money which, like an exhibition of firewoi'ks, celebrate the emancipation of the i Western princes from the thraldom of Caesar^s empire, but ! introduced the greatest confusion into nummulary denomi- . nations and relations, England contributed an additional element of confusion. At all events, it was far less com- • iiion in other countries. This was a marked difference I between the contents of a coin as provided by law or mint j indenture and its actual contents, as found by weight and assay, of perfect specimens still extant. For example, the mint indenture of 1345 provided that the pound tower ^ Rudinsr. 264 HISTORY OF MOXETARY SYSTEMS IN TAEIOUS STATES. of silver, 0"925 fine, should be coined into 22| pennies This would make the gross weight of each penny 24 grains and the contents of fine silver 22'2 grains, whereas the actual coins in good condition weigh but 20 grains and contain but 18^ grains of fine silver. Similar differences are to be found in other coins of the period. In choosing between the conflicting evidences of the statutes, the mint indentures, and the actual coins, the author has observed the following order of preference : — first, the actual coins ; second, the mint indentures ; third, the Acts of Parliament, which in many instances were only intended for show or deception, and in such cases were practically a dead letter. Even in the actual coins there is room for error, because they vary considerably. Mr. Keary's weighings are those of the heaviest, and because this practice is regarded as misleading, we have not always been guided by that author. Among the earliest statutes of the new reign were those of 1327, against the importing of light and counterfeit coins, and of 1331, against the ex- portation of either coins or bullion. The penalty for the latter was at first made death and the forfeiture of all the offender's profit, but two years afterwards it was lessened by proclamation to mere forfeiture of the money so' attempted to be exported, and in 1335 the Act was ex- tended to " religious men " as well as others. The conviction which must enforce itself upon all persons in authority that such ordinances can never be practically executed, the actual failure of similar ordinances in the preceding reign, and the language and tone of the present ones, all combine to produce the impression that the latter were intended as a cover, to account for the melting down of the '' old sterlings " in the king's mints, and to furnish an apology for that emission of black money which soon afterwards made its appearance, and was probably fabri- cated at the king's behest. That he was not above the art of issuing insincere edicts is strikingly proved by his proclamation of 1341, wherein he avows that in his LATER PLANTAGENET MONEYS. 265 previous Interdict of Usury he " dissembled in the premises " and " suffered that pretended statute to be sealed/^ which he now revokes and declares void.^ Dr. Ruding naively enquires if the Turouensis nigri, mentioned in the statute of 1335 as being "commonly current in our (the king's) realm/' meant copper coins struck at Tours ? We think not. There are no proofs that copper coins of Tours circulated in England at this period, but many proofs that English black money did ; for in the same statute it was provided that all manner of black money in circulation should cease to be current in one month's time after it is decried." Yet but a short time afterwards the king's council in parliament at York authorised new black money to be made, containing one- sixth part of alloy .■'^ In 1338 various proclamations were made, which denote that black money was still in circu- lation, and in 1339 one was made which authorised the circulation of black " turneys " (Tournois) in Ireland.* Black money was not peculiar to Edward III, but had been used by both his father and grandfather. Edward I, (in 1293) agreed to pay to the emperor Adolphus 300,000 " black livres tournois," and in 1297 to certain nobles of Burgundy 30,000 "small black livres tournois."^ To the earl of Guelders Edward promised to pay 100,000 "black livres tournois,"^ and it is not likely that at this period he would have stipulated to pay so laro-e a sum in a coin which he did not himself fabricate. 1 " Statutes at Large " (Ruding, ii, p. 251). - " All manner of black money which hath been commonly current of late in our realm " shall cease to be current within a month after it is decried (" Statutes at Large," 9 Edward III, 1335). ^ A great part of this statute is not printed in the modern editions of the " Statutes at Large." Consult 9 Edward III in Statutes, folio ed. (1577), black letter. * Consult 4 Edward III, pt. ii, 35 dors (Rymer, ' Fcedera," v, p. 113). '" Anderson's " History Com.,"' i, p. 250; " Fadera," ii, p. 778. ^ Anderson, i, p. 251 ; Eymer's " Fcedera," ii, p. 675. 266 HISTOET OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. In the royal ordinance autTiorising the establishment of a mint at Calais, after the capture o£ that city in 1347, the king (Edward III,) commanded " white money " to be made there similar to that which was struck in England.^ In ISSi the moneyers of Aquitain were allowed threepence in the mark for all money coined by them for the king, whether " white or black,^' except gold." We repeat that these black moneys, which the historians usually evince much anxiety to keep out of view, ai-e really the proofs of England's dawning independence ; for while she re- mained a fief of Rome, and the mints of the Basileus supplied her with besants, nobody was obliged to use silver, aud the fabrication of black money would have brought the king no profit, and therefore none was coined. The coinao-e of black monev and the abrog-ation of the sacred besant mean the same thing — the refusal and rejection of any further allegiance to the Empire. In 1341 a great mass of sterling coins and silver-plate was collected in London by private parties for exportation. In 1342 a similar event occurred at Boston.'^ It is difficult to see the motive for these attempts to export silver, unless the circulation consisted of royal money overvalued, and unless there was no further use for sterlings and silver bullion in the hands of private owners. In 1342 the king's rents in Guernsey, Jersey, Sai-k, and Alderney were exacted in sterlings, while his payments were made in light coins worth but ten shillings in the " pound. ■'^ * This may have been clipped coins or black money, of which each penny piece had but a half-penny's worth of silver in it, and therefore the nominal " pound " but ten shillings' worth. In 1343 the council in parliament advised the king to issue what would now be termed a Convention gold coin, to be current, with permission of the Flemings, both in 1 Rot., France, 22 Edward III ra. 19 (Euding, ii, p. 182, n.). 2 Eot., Vase, 28 Edward III m. 1 (Ending, ii, 195). ^ Euding, ii, pp. 150-2. ■* Ibid., ii, p. 152. LATER PLANTAGENET MONEYS. 267 Flanders and England, that no silver sliould be carried out of tlie realm except by noblemen, and that these should be limited to the carrying out of silver plate for use in their houses. The first part of this proposal introduces one of the most important subjects connected with the regalian rights of the English crown. Down to the year 1204, or practically to 1257, the gold coins law- fully circulating in England had been supplied exclusively by the Basileus, and consisted, as before stated, of the besant and its fractions. When in that year Henry resolved to invade the prerogative of the Sacred Empire, he struck, not a solidus nor a fraction of a solidus, but a Moorish maravedi — a piece which commerce with the Spanish-Arabians had rendered familiar to Englishmen under the various names of " maravedi,^' '' new talent,'* " obolus de ]Murcia,'' " gold penny,'' etc. The maravedi of that period contained 40 to 43 grains of fine gold ; it circulated in England, not, like the besant, by force of law and immemorial usage, but mereh' because it was a justly-minted and well-known coin of regular weight and fineness, and preferable to the adulterated and clipped coins which had made their appearance when the besants began to disappear in the reign of John. The maravedi had filled the circulation in continually in- creasing proportions. Its low valuation in silver (10 for 1) proves that it had no standing in the law. As the common circulation of the maravedi in England may seem incredible to a certain class of numismatists, it has been deemed useful to bring together some of the texts in which it is mentioned. It will be seen at a glance that its era agrees substantially with that of the Plantagenet dynasty. Year when circulated. Eegnal period. 1176 23 Henry II 1193 5 Richard I 1215 17 John 1250 35 Henry III 1252 37 Henry III 1257 41 Henry III 1283 12 Edward I 1293 22 Edward I 1347 21 Edward III 268 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. Table showing the texts which mention the maravedi, or obolus de Murcia, as circulating in England. Eemarks. Madox, ii, p. 367, valued at 20 sterlings. Madox, i, p. 278, valued at 10 for 1. Madox, ii, p. 261, valued at 21 sterlings. Madox, re Philip Lurel. Euding, i, p. 316, valued at 16 sterlings.* Weight 41^ grains fine, coined by the king,j valued at 20 sterlings. Madox. Madox. Sir M. Hale, in Davis' Eeports. The maravedi was first coined in Spain^ during the dynasty of the Almoravedis, hence its name. One of these coiuSj struck in Murcia^ a.h. 548 (a.d. 1153),' during the interregnum between the Almoravedi and Almohade dynasties^ is called by Queipo a " Mourdanish/ which we are inclined to believe is a misnomer. This' piece, in a very good state of conservation, is now in the' cabinet of Gayanos, and weighs 44^ English grains. It' tallies in weight with the siliqua weight, or the y^ part' of the Egypto-Roman pound of 5,243| English grains,^ with the gold maravedi, with the silver dirhem, and with two sterling pennies." The true Mourdanish should rather be found in the half-mithcal, a specimen of which,.' struck during the first years of the Almohade dynasty, is now in the cabinet of Cerda. This coin is also published by Queipo, who accords it its true name the " Mourdanish of Murcia," and gives its weight at 34| grains, the state- of conservation being very good. The use of the gold' mithcal in Spain can be traced back to the eighth century, when Hachem I, settled upon his brother Suleiman a life annuity of 70,000 " mithcales or pesantes " as an equiva- * From Henshaw's translation o£ Domesday Book, vol. i, fol. i. The pence were light ones. ^ The siliqua weight must not be confused with the siliqua coin, which weighed scarcely more than a third as much. LATER PLANTAGENET MONEYS. 269 lent for Ms estates in Spain. ^ In the tenth century the mithcal was called by the Christians the ^' dobla/' probably in reference to its being the double of the more popular and better known half-mithcal or " Mourdanish." ^ Abd-el-Raman III, (912-61) settled a life annuity of 100,000 " doblas of gold " upon Ahmed-ben-Saia for his capture and plunder of Tunis.^ The annual reve- nues of Alhakem II, besides the taxes in kind, were " twelve million mithcals of gold.'' * The piece we are considering is therefore not the half-mithcal, but the maravedi, and its period is not that of the early but of the later caliphs of Spain, the contemporaries of the Plantagenets. The weight of Henry's gold coins was 43 grains (0'965 fine), equal to about 41^ grains fine. They were probably intended to weigh exactly the same as one gold maravedi, or two silver sterlings. These coins he called " oboli,'' and ordered them to pass for twenty silver sterlings, or half-dirhems — a ratio apparently of 10 for 1, but really of 9 fori, because his sterlings weighed less than 20 grains, and were only 0'925 fine. It is alleged that these gold coins were objected to, on commercial grounds, by the merchants of London. This is hardly credible, because the coins were really undervalued. They could be : bought with nine weights of pure silver, whereas they • were worth twelve, which was the ratio of the time in all ' Christian States. This conclusion is strengthened by the jcircumstance that these same " oboli," after being tem- 'porarily demonetised, were raised, by Henry's command !in 1269, to 24 pence — a ratio of 12, and that at this ratio they actually passed current without objection. As to ' Calcott, i, p. 139. ' - The contents of the dobla de la vanda in " Money and Civilisation," p. 93, deduced from the assumption that the castellano coin was as I heavy as the castellano weight, are given erroneously. j . » Calcott, i, p. 223. -• ibid., i, p. 249. 270 HISTOET OF ilOXETAET SYSTEMS IN VAEIOUS STATES. their mechanical execution, the author is able, from per- sonal examination, to declare that they were far superior to any other coins, English or French, of that day. The only valid reason that can be assigned for the objection made to them was the superstitious repugnance to accept i gold coins not stamped with the authority of the Sacred Empire. This repugnance may have been enhanced by * the fear that the coins would not be currently accepted i in England, or, if in England, not in other Christian ! states. Bearing in mind the example and failure of Henry III, i Edward did not venture to strike coins of gold until he had acquired that full degree of sovereignty which the Basileus had involuntarily bequeathed to the Western princes. In Xovember, 1337, Edward was appointed, and he accepted the appointment of Yicar-General to the German emperor, with power to coin gold and silver. Though this formality now seemed needless, yet that it was entered into with the view to prepare the way for the coinage of gold is evident from several circumstances. In 1340 the king's council in parliament enacted that all shippers of wool should undertake to bring in for each bag two marks' worth of gold or silver.'^ Again, in 1342 the king ordered still more pointedly that all corn exported to foreign countries should be sold for gold coins or bullion. Another preparation — a futile one to be sure- consisted in employing Raymond Lully, or some other alchemist, for whom a laboratory was fitted up in the Tower, which should enable that impostor to transmute gold from baser metals. Was it an excess of caution, lest the great step he meditated might miscarry at the last moment, that the king found a means to prompt the advice of his council in parliament that he should coin gold ? At all events, such seems to be the character of the insinuation that the Fleinings sold their goods only for Flemish gold florins, which were valued so highly in 1 Euding, ii, p. 149. LATER PLANTAGENET MONEYS. 271 English silver coins as to render payment in the latter unprofitable to English merchants. ''In other words/' said the king, " by paying gold florins with silver coins our ; merchants continually lose ; let us, therefore, enable them to pay with gold ones.'' Such appears to have been the genesis of the famous ordinance of 1343. Upon the king's information, the i king^s council advised the king, in case the Flemings I were willing, to issue a convention gold coin, and it was provided, in such event, that such coins should be un- , limited legal tender between merchant and merchant, : " as money not to be refused ;" that all other persons, [ great or small, might accept them if they pleased, but I not otherwise ; that all other (foreign) gold coins should I be melted down ; and that no silver should be carried out of the realm, except by noblemen, and then onlv , silver-plate for use in their houses. This advice was : carried into effect in 1344 by the coinage of a gold double- : florin, weighing 50 to the pound tower and 23^ carats : 0-979i fine, the " old standard " for gold.^ Thus, each I piece would contain lOSJ grains fine. It was ordered ta ibe current at six shillings (each of 12 sterlings). Two or ; three specimens of this piece are extant, both found in I the river Tyne. The best one weighs 107 grains gross. I There were also florins and half-florins of the same issue, 'now extremely rare. At first — and differing' from the advice of the council in parliament — the double-florins were made full legal tenders in " all manner of payments," afterwards optional legal tenders, and finally they were demonetised all within the same year. They were the first English coins of any kind upon which were stamped ! I ' As this was the first issue of gold coins by any Christian king in 'England, or any king of all England, except the abortive maravedis of Henry III, the expression "old standard" in the mint indenture could only refer to the Byzantine or the Arabian standard. The former was ' about 0-900, the latter was 0-979^ fine (23^ carats). Therefore, " old, , standard " in reference to gold meant the Arabian standard. 272 HISTORY OF ilONETAET SYSTEMS IX VARIOUS STATES. tlie words ^' Dei arratia."^ Down to tliat time the kinofs of England coined by the grace of Caesar, or, as in John^s case, tlie pope, his successor. Edward III. first coined by the grace of God. Previous to 1344 the sterlings of Edward III/ con- tained 20f grains 0"925 fine =19^ grains fine silver. Hence the ratio between the double-florin and sterling was about 12"6 for 1 — too hig-h for gfold and too low for silver. As the Flemings were evidently unwilling to accept gold at this valuation, and the double-florins found no welcome with the merchants, the king, bent upon the successful issuance of this significant proclama- tion and token of national independence, ordered a new gold coin to be struck, and he decried the first one. The ■second issue, which was made in the same year as the first, was of nobles weighing 39| to the pound tower, same fineness as the double florins, hence containing 1338 grains fine, and valued at 6s. 8d. — a ratio of 11 '06 for 1, These were made legal tender for all sums of 20 The name given to the interval between the death of Frederick II, jand the acceptance of the so-called " imperial crown " by Rudolph of 'Hapsburg in 1273. 276 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. pithily remarks, " witli Frederick fell the empire." Thel brief and eventless reign of Conrad IV, and the assassin- ation of Conradin, by the connivance and with the ap- proval of Clement, ended the Suabian line of ^'^ emperors,' but furnished no basis for a new dynasty. In vain didl the See of Rome urge Richard of Cornwall, Alfonso of: Castile, and others, to fill its puppet-throne of empire. In vain did it urge upon the Western princes the necessity! of choosing an imperial sovereign. It met with nothing but respectful apathy. Edward was not the only princej who, during or shortly after the Interregnum, drew ani independent national sword. The church had extinguished! both the Basileus and the "emperor"; there was no longer; any Empire, neither sacred nor holy, neither Eastern nori Western. The edifice which Csesar had erected had often given way, and had been as often propped up, patched^ and repaired. This time it went to pieces, and many ofi these pieces disappeared in the void of the Interregnum. The pope remained master of the field, but the field wasi a desert. The princes of Europe, the pro-consuls, dukes, and kings of the Roman provincial states were free. Nay, more ; the people also were free, and the Commons! once more assembled together as a political body, withi political rights and functions. Yet, though long since condemned by the united voice of Europe, though dismembered and past all hope of resuscitation, there was still enough vitality in the empire! to make a show of authority. The pope of Rome, who had been its executioner and Avas now its legatee, wasi anxious to revive its prestige, in order that he might! inherit that as well. He possessed sufficient resources toi make a strong effort in this direction, and resolved to embark them in a contest with the Western princes. This struggle did not come to a close until the reigns of Philip le Bel and Edward III. Boniface VIII. had written to ! Philip, claiming him as " a subject both in spirituals and ; temporals." To this Philip had replied, " We give your I EVOLUTION OF THE COINAGE PREKOGATIVE. 277 Foolship to know that in temporals we are subject to no person."' And with this contemptuous retort was blown out the last spark of Caesar's empire. From this period commenced a new era in the develop- ment of European liberty. Previously the movement , against Roman suzerainty was directed both against the " emperor " and the pope, and, therefore, was divided and weakened. It had now only to contend against the pope, land the result was that it won many important victories. i Among the great political signs which mark the birth iof the independent English monarchy was the assumption iby the Crown of entire control over the precious metals. This was accomplished by various steps — the assertion of mines royal ; treasure trove ; coinage of gold ; demonetisa- tion of the Imperial besant and other coins ; control over the movement of the precious metals ; the suppression of episcopal and baronial mints ; the trial of the pix ; the regulation of the standard; and the doctrine of national money. All these steps were accomplished at this period. Control over such supplies, as mining and commerce .afford, of the material out of which money is to be made by the sovereign power, is a necessary corollary of the sovereign right to create money, and the two prerogatives will always be found in one hand."^ The doctrine of imines royal holds that all mines producing such materials belong of necessity to the Crown. Down to the fall of the sacred Empire the only material out of which the princes of Europe could lawfully create money was silver f •after that period such material or materials included gold. iThe earliest assertion of the doctrine of mines royal, including gold as well as silver, by any Christian king was made by Louis IX, of France. He was followed by ^ Brady, " Clavis Calendaria," ii, p. 84. - Consult my " Money and Civilisation " on this subject. A proper idjustment of the rights of government to mines of the precious metals, both in England, France, Spain, and America, still awaits the dispas- sionate consideration of this great principle. ' ^ With regard to copper, see elsewhere herein. 278 HISTOEY OF MONETAEY SYSTEMS IN VAEIOUS STATES. Henry III^ who in 1262 asserted, for the first time ini England, a similar doctrine and prerogative. But Henry — i though in this, as -well as in other respects, he frequently i assumed an attitude of independent sovereignty — wasi easily bullied out of it by the effrontery and swagger of i the pope ; so that, according to Matthew Paris, the inde- ; pendence of England was asserted and surrendered many times during his weak reign. The heroic example of Frederic II, in defying the impudent claims of the Vatican, was thrown away upon this superstitious and faithless voluptuary, who saw his country again and again led captive to the foot of a foreign throne rather thani brave a single curse from the lips of a scheming pontiff. The prerogative of mines royal was, therefore, practically abandoned until the period of the first issue of gold coins by Edward III, when, without any formality, it again came into force, and has so remained, with apparently little change, down to the present time. However, ini point of fact, the institution of private coinage has dragged | this prerogative down with that of I'oyal coinage. i The prerogative of treasure trove was adopted, held, and subsequently relinquished by the sovereign- pontiff of Eome, who, in the reign of Hadrian, equit- ably divided it between property and discovery. This right afterwards fell into the hands of the Koman proconsuls, vassal kings, and great lords. What dis- position they made of it does not appear in the chronicles of the mediaeval ages, but we need no chron- icle to inform us. The chance discovery of a hidden treasure was not, like the opening and working of a mine, a public and onerous enterprise, involving outlays of capital, the co-operation of numerous persons, and the permission of the State authorities. On the contrary, the finding of hidden treasure -was of a secret and furtive cha- racter, and in the medigeval ages treasure trove belonged to him who could keep it. The earliest public notice of the subject in England relates to Edward Confessor, who EVOLUTION OF THE COINAGE PREROGATIVE. 27^ declared that all of the gold and one half of all silver •treasure trove belonged of right to the king. It will be borne in mind that the England of this prince em- braced only a portion of the present kingdom. We next hear of treasure trove in the reign of Louis IX, of France (1226—70), who declared: "Fortune d'or, est au roi ; fortune d'argent, est au baron/' thus claiming gold treasure trove for the Crown and relinquishing silver to the nobles.^ The same doctrine in England belongs to the reign of Henry III, and it was not until the following cen- tury that the Crown claimed both the gold and silver of treasure trove. The coinage of gold, first timidly attempted by Henry, then boldly and resolutely begun by Edward, has been sufficiently treated in this work. It is only necessary to repeat that it forms, and has always formed, practically the most striking, notorious and unequivocal assertion which it is possible to make of sovereign authority and power, and that its entire relinquishment and avoidance by the Western Christian princes is to be accounted for on no other sufficient grounds than that the Basileus ■was universally conceded by them to be the lawful suc- cessor of Constantine, and therefore the lawful suzerain of the Empire to which in certain respects they owed i fealty. An intermediate step between the acts of Henry and Edward III, was taken by Edward I, who in 1291, or ■thereabouts — the date being uncertain — ordered that no iforeign coins should be admitted into the kingdom except such as might be in use by travellers and others for casual expenses ; and as to these, he provided public offices where jthey might be exchanged. This law may have been in- tended to iuclude^and aim at the besant, then the most important "foreign" coin in circulation; for, with regard to other foreign coins, they appear to have been as numerous * " Etablissements," liv. i, chap. 15. 280 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. and as commonly employed in England after this enact- ment as before.^ The policy of regulatings or attempting to regulate, the import and export movement of the precious metals, which, as we may see from Cicero, Pliny, and other authors, was systematically pursued by the Roman State, both as it approached, and after it had assumed, the condition of an Empire," was also first adopted by the king of England during the Plantagenet period. It is true that Mr. J. E,, McCulloch was of opinion that this policy was pursued in England before the Norman Con- quest ;^ but as he has offered no proofs to support it, and the coinage and other legislation respecting gold contradicts it, the author is compelled, though with reluc- tance, to differ in this instance from that distinguished economist. The same policy of regulating the movement of gold and silver, now erroneously known as the mercantile system, was assumed by all the States that rose on the ruins of the empire, but not until they had shaken off its claims to their allegiance. The sudden assumption of this regalian right implies a previous interval of over thirteen centuries, during which, save the Empire itself, there was no permanently independent sovereign State within the domain of Christendom with power to exercise it.* Analogous to this regalian right was that of purging the kingdom of episcopal and baronial mints, with the view to concentrate the prerogative of providing an unital measure of value for the whole kingdom, and placing it in the hands of the sovereign. Such right was evidently j attempted to be exercised by means of the Monetary Com- mission of 1293 (22 Edward I), which was appointed to 1 Jacob, " Hist. Prec. Metals," p. 204. - At that period, for reasons which the readers of this work will understand, it was confined to gold. 3 « Polit. Econ.," p. 27. * This view is amply supported by Mr. Bliss in his recently published " Papal Eegistei-s." EVOLUTION OF THE COINAGE PEEROGATIVE. 281 examine the various coins employed throughout the kingdom, and report upon the same to the king. The text of the instructions to this commission is preserved in Madox's '^ History of the Exchequer/' i, p. 293, note F. xinother assertion of regalian rights during this period was the trial of the pix, which is first specifically :3ientioned in the Exchequer Rolls relating to the 9th or 10th Edward I, about 1280 or 1281.^ • The regulation of the standards of weight and fineness s necessarily connected with the prerogative of coinage. So long as the sacred Empire remained, the coinage pre- •Qcrative of the Basileus — which the princes of Christen- 'lorn had never presumed to violate — acted as a continual iiheck upon any desire or tendency on their part to .idulterate or lower the coinage. Anybody could balance L quarter-besant against a silver penny, and so settle out |)f hand the question of weight. That of fineness, though 'lot susceptible of so satisfactory a solution, was almost as eadily determinable with the aid of the touchstone. 3y these means the tendency of the vassal princes of the :3mpire to adulterate their silver coinage was effectually defeated. That such was their desire and tendency, and ihat they often attempted to indulge it, has been abundantly iroved ; and to rid themselves of the serious restraints rhich the ancient prerogatives of the Basileus imposed ■ pon their fiscal operations, they would probably have •teen glad to enlist in a dozen crusades, instead of : 1 The regulation of weights and measures— an obscure subject await- 'flg elucidation at the hands of scholars — seems to have been in ancient :mes connected with the coinage, and exercised as an ecclesiastical func- ion. With the organisation of the Eoman empire it fell into the ands of the sovereign-pontiff, and continued to be exercised by his -iccessor, the pope. The ninth decree of the council assembled bj -thelstan, at Gratanlea, forbade the holding of fairs on Sundays, while le tenth exhorts the bishops " to keep the standards of the weights and leasures of their respective dioceses, and take care that all conformed ) these standards." The acts of this council, or parliament, were videntlv made in conformity with orders or advices from Eome (Henry, •Hist. Brit. II," i, p. 262). ' 282 HISTOET OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IX TAEIOUS STATES. five. Bat whilst the faineant Empire of the Basileui actually lasted — and this it did so long as the pope hesi tated to destroy it — the Christian princes had to retu sooner or later to the ratio of value and the standards ol weight and fineness imposed upon them by its senile but venerable authority. The moment the Empire fell all restraint flew before the winds. The standards then, and for the first time, began to permanently vary, and they continued to vary until all sight of the originals was lost. Indeed, nothing more curiously, yet unerringly, marks the emergence of the Christian princes from the position of vassals to that of independent monarchs than the open, flagitious, and radical alteration, debasement, and degradation of the coinage which began in all parts of Europe after the fall of Constantinople, and which, un- like all previous alterations, parted completely from the original Eoman standards and never returned to them. In all its aspects money is the most certain indication of sovereignty, but in none of them so absolutely as in the practical and continued assertion of the principle that that is money which the State declares to be money. This principle was asserted by the ancient Commonwealth, preserved by Paulus, and enshrined forever in the Digest of the Civil Law. It was practically observed and em- ployed by every sovereign of the Empire, but, until the downfall of that Empire, by no other prince of Christen- dom ; then, like all the other prerogatives left by the defunct Basileus, this one was assumed by the princea who had shaken off his ancient but dishonoured claims of suzeraintv, and we first hear of it in Enc^land durinof the! reign of Edward II I. ^ If we turn from the prerogatives of the Basileus to those of the pope, to mark the end, as we have already marked the beginning and progress, of those practical 1 Plowden's " Com.," p. 316 ; Polvdore Teigil, Pari. EoUs, 21 Edward III, fol. 60 ; Chief Justice Hale's opinion in " State Trials," ii» p. 114. EVOLUTION OF THE COINAGE PREROGATIVE. 283 lissertions of sovereignty -svliicli constitute the birth of the ndependent monarchy of England, we shall find it in il366, the fortieth year of the glorious reign of Edward III. lin that year it was ordered that Peter's-pence should no jnore be gathered in England nor paid to Eonie.^ j 1 Cooper's " Chronicle," fol. 245 ; Stowe, p. 461 ; Fabian's " Chron." .0 Edward III, in Nicholson's " Hist. Lit." ; Statute, 25 Henry VIII, ■. 21 (1533) ; Ending, ii, p. 205. CHAPTER XVI. HISTORY OF MONEY JN SAXONY AND SCANDINAVIA. Fish, vadmal, baugs, and coins — Eatio — The mark — Imitations o: Eoman coins — The pagan Hansa — Charlemagne — The Christian Hans^ — Great fair of Xovgorod — Ruric — Harold Hardrade — Christian II- The tyrant's "klippings" — Massacre of Protestants — Mons — Gustavni Vasa — " Klippings " of freedom — Marks, talents, and dalere — Pnvat< coinage — Rundstyks — Copper plates — Assignats — Transport notes — Bank of Stockholm — Goertzdalers, or mynt-saicen — State notes — Banks of Copenhagen — Inconvertible notes — Silver dalers — Demonetisation oJ silver — Gold " standard " of 1872. \ NCIENT Saxony consisted of the southern sliores of -^"^ the Baltic and North Seas. It was situated between Germany and the ocean. Its inhabitants were Goths, that is to say, a mixture of the SacEe and the native tribes whom they had conquered, and with whom they had amalgamated. Their original seat of government was Yinet or Julin. In the eighth century the Goths were destroyed or dispersed by Charlemagne. Those who sur- vived an almost exterminating war, escaped for the most part to the Cimbrian and Norwegian peninsulars, where they united the fylkis, and founded new kingdoms. The, principal ones were Danmark, Gotland, Upsala, and Halgoland, now called Denmai-k, Sweden and Noi'way. Collectively these are known as Scandinavia.^ In very early ages, and in later ages among the more remote, isolated, or primitive communities of ancient Saxony and Scandinavia fish, cattle, vadmal, and linen- cloth were used as money; but as society became more numerous and its affairs more complicated, the equity of ^ Scanda was the name of a Getic city in Colchis, and Scandea that of a Getic seaport at the extremity of Cythera, a large island off the southern coast of Greece. Pausanias in " Laconics," p. 23. HISTORY OF MONEY IN SAXONY AND SCANDINAVIA. 285 lexchanges, rentals^ and heritages demanded a measure of value more refined than commodities ; and this — as ippeared in the customs and institutes of China and ,[ndia to the eastward, and Greece and Rome to the southward, with all of which States the Goths were in jommunication — was money. The earliest moneys found n Saxony and Scandinavia are coins of Tyre and Sidon. ifter these come native baugs and Greek and Roman ;oins. Between the era of baugs and the ninth century he Goths were obliged to use foreign moneys, and they )ften compelled captured cities to strike coins for them.^ during this period they successively used five classes of Qoneys, only two of which were of native fabrication. ,(^irst, native baugs ; second, oriental coins ; third, Greek ,nd Roman coins ; fourth, native and rude imitations of ioman coins. For example, a Gothic imitation of a loman imperial gold coin was found with a skeleton at lareslen, in Odense, amt Fyen, an island about 86 miles rom Copenhagen ; while a similar imitation of a Byzan- ine coin of the fifth century was found at Mallgard, in Totland.^ Fifth, moslem coins of the seventh and eighth enturies, of which immense numbers have been found all iver Scandinavia and the shores of the Baltic, from ICsthonia to the Netherlands. It is possible there was a lixth class, silver sterlings, struck in Saxony before he Carlovingian period ; but there are none in the British Museum collection nor in the collections of Paris, Copenhagen, or Christiania.^ ( Bang means literally a ring or bracelet. In the ormer sense the term is still used in France ; in the latter 1 Thompson's " Social Science," p. 157. ' Du Chaillu, i, pp. 262, 275. ■ ^ The Gothic kings strack coins in Spain from the Roman to the iioslem period, that is to say, from a.d. 411 to 711. Other Gothic kings truck coins in England from Ethelbert II, to Harold, that is to say, pom A.D. 748 to 1066. Specimens of all these coins are extant (" Ancient jritain," chap. xix). Under such circumstances it is difficult to believe iiat the Goths of the Baltic struck no coins before the Carlovingian era ; t'et this is what some numismatists maintain. 286 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. sense it is retained in the bangles of India. Bangs wen used as money in the Northern lands at a very remote date. They were mentioned by C^sar as being in use when he landed in Britain; and they have been found in graves of apparently a far higher date. On thd other hand, they continued in use long after coins were introduced, and only disappeared when the superior eflSciency of the latter, as a measure of value, was univer- sally recognised, or else when the use of the former w&i forbidden. As baugs thus passed fi'om use as money,! they were employed as relics and ornaments — a circum* stance which appears quite plainly when the texts of the sagas are examined with attention. Egil, having been paid two chests of silver as indemnity! for his brother's life, returned thanks in a song, in which he calls the indemnity a " gul-baug." ^ In this passage! " gul " cannot mean, as " argentum " did in Latin and " argent " does in French, money generally, because it is! coupled with " bang " ; nor can it mean gold money; because it was actually paid in silver. It can only meanj a money payment, that perhaps was once made with gold- baugs, and was now commuted with silver coins, of which a "chest " was a known number. " If a leudr-man wounds another he has to pay 12 baugr, each of 12 aurar, valued in silver.''^ Twelve aurar to the bang is an alteration of rather low date. Aurar was the name of the Gothic ounce weight of 450 English grains, derived from the weight of a " libra " of gold, or five Roman aureii, of the time of Caracalla to Probus. It was also the Gothic name of a gold coin, the' sicilicus, or skilling, containing from 30 down to 16 grains.J Still later it became the name of a Gothic silver coin,! eight times the weight of the gold one. Du Chaillu (i, p. 549) regards the aurars mentioned in the last pass- age as weights. If they were, it would follow that thej ^ Egil's saga; Du Chaillu, ii, pp. 16, 476-7. - " Frothstathing Law," iv, p. 53. i HISTORY OF MONEY IN SAXONY AND SCANDINAVIA. 287 indemnity for wounding a man was equal to 18 marks „veight of silver, which at the period of this law would ,iave been a prepostei-ous penalty. They are far more ikely to have meant gold skillings, payable in silver ,:oins. I "Olaf II, (1015-28,) went southward across the sea ifrom North Britain or Norway to the continent), and lefeated the vikings before Williamsby. He captured ■xunnvaldsborg, in Seljopollar, and laid ransom on it and he jarl of twelve thousand gull skillingar. This was ;)aid by the town."^ Grold baugr have been found at Baugstrop, with Eoman ■oius of the third and fourth centuries — a circumstance ihat marks the contemporaneous use of bangs with Eoman mperial coins.^ Some of the bangs found in graves consist if small spiral rings, strung upon a large loop, like keys ipon a modern key-ring. If the spiral rings were used s money, the loop was probably the " silver aurar," But am inclined to believe that these particular baugs were lot money. , In the following passage the baug was evidently used ,or sacerdotal or ceremonial purposes : " Egil fastened a laug on each arm of the dead Throlf, and then buried lim."^ ''A baug was paid for a bride."'' King Olaf [he Holy (a.d. 993-98) sent a large gold baug from Qngland to Queen Sigrid in Sweden. He wanted to :iarry her. She had the ring broken, and found that the nside consisted of brass. ^ This was the same Olaf who 5 said to have established Christianity in Norway, and 7ho helped Sveyn to conquer Northumbria. , Although the Goths employed moneys so diverse, as re shown in the five classes stated above, they accorded ,3 them a valuation (as between the gold and silver ones), iT^hich was peculiarly their own ; and as in this valuation, 1 St. Olaf's saga, c. 16 ; Du Chaillu, ii, p. 485. - Du Chaillu, i, 245. ^ Egil's saga. ^ " Frostathing," vi, p. 4. * " Olaf Trygvaeson," pp. 65-6. 288 ETSTOEY OF MONETAEY SYSTEMS IX YAEIOUS STATES. and its connection with passages in the sagas, there ai locked up many precious fragments of a buried histoid it is worth while to explain it at length. "What the Eomans called a feira, or fair, the Goths ( Holnigard and lestland called a naerk, or market, possibl from mir, a community, the term being still used i Eussia.^ Gatherings by this name were held in village once a week, when the people came together and exchange their produce and wares. At these markets very little no money was employed. At the great fairs, which war held once a year — for example, at Novgorod Veleki— traders came from the most distant regions, from Chins' India, Mikliardi (Constantinople), Lumbardi, Gaullanc Angleland, Frakkland, Saxland, Gotland, Heligolanc Yinet, and lestland. "Lodin, a Norwegian trader, was one at a market in Eistland."" At these fairs money was th necessary medium of exchange ; and the most importan question to be settled in respect of money was the rati of value between gold and silver coins, for this is wher the utmost diversity existed among the various peopl who brought their goods to the merk. During the fon centuries which preceded the Gothic revolt against Romt that is to say from Sylla to Carausius — the oriental valued gold at about Qh times its weight in silver, th Persians at 13 times, the Greeks at 10 times, and th Eomans (from the time of Julius Csesar) at 12 times Possibly for the reason that it was a convenient meai between these various ratios the Goths of the third centnr adopted the ratio of eight for one ; in other words, gol«' coins were to pass current for eight times their weight 6 silver ones. The Eoman libra of this period consisted o five gold aureii, each of 90 English grains. Hence, i ' The tenn merk is still used by the Scots. In their ancient scale o moneys there were 2 doits (fingers) to a boodle, 2 boodles to a plack 3 placks to a bawbee, and 13-| bawbees, or 160 doits, to the merk. - " Olaf Trygvaeson," p. 58. The Flateyarbok contains an animate* description of the Great Fair at Xovgorod ("Anc. Brit.," c. xii note 26 j. HISTOET OF MONEY IN SAXONY AND SCANDINAVIA. 289 : contained 450 English grains of gold, and the libra of i silver 12 x 450 = 5,400 English grains of silver. At the Gothic ratio of 8 for 1, it only required 3,600 grains , weight of silver in merk money to pay off a Kotuan libra ' of account, and hence it was that this quantity of silver coins came to be known as a merk, or mark. If we have correctly indicated the origin and signifi- :cance of this intei'esting term, the equivalents employed at the great fairs of the Baltic cities during the dark ages were as follows, the integer being the mark of silver coins, weighing about 3,600 grains, the origin of the Saxon mark weight of a subsequent age, but as yet only a sum of money. In this system there were eight silver saigas to the ortugar ; 4 ortugars to the ora ; 2 oras to the eyrir ; and 4 eyrirs to the mark.^ At a subsequent period there were 6 bronze penningen to the silver penningar, and 10 silver penningen to the ortugar ; but with these and other vai-iations we have at present no concern. As for the relation of the mark and syrir there is some uncertainty.^ There was also a coin called a thveit, but its value has not been ascertained.^ A few words here to those numismatists who still linger in the exploded belief that the names of moneys iire derived from weights. The mark of money was :raced by Agricola (a.d, 1550) to the earliest annals of ;he Cimbrian peninsular ; the Roman libra of five solidi s defined in the Theodosian Code, and is mentioned by luthors of a much earlier period. It was Elagabalus who .)rdered all the tributes to be collected in aureii, or else in diver coins of equal value, which, as the law then stood, neant twelve times their weight. The ratio of 14'40 for . in the reign of Theodosian, deduced by Rome de Lisle, 3oeckh, and other metrologists, is a blunder, based on a ^ " German Law," vi, 13 ; " Bavarian Law," ix, 3, 4 ; De Vienne, ■ Livre d' Argent " ; Du Chaillu, " Viking Age," ii, p. 216. I ^ " The eyrir of gold " is mentioned in the Egil saga, c. 7. Compare )u Chaillu, ii, pp. 13, 58 n, 216. ^ Du Chaillu, ii, p. 238. 19 290 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. wrong reading of the Code^ and the modern delusion thati a libra always meant a pound weight, which was no more; true in the time of Theodosius than it is now. The goldi sicilicus, or little solidus, which, toward the end of itsi career contained about sixteen grains, and was indicated by the middle of term of £. s. d., was struck by Justinian, | and specimens are now in the Madrid collection. Indeed,; we are assui*ed by Father Mariana tbat it was struck at! a much eai'lier date, when, of course, it weighed some-i thing more. He speaks of some of these earlier sicilici: in his own collection. Retuiming to the mark of the Baltic, if we include that whole period of the dark and middle ages, its weight varied in different places from about 3,800 to 3,200 grains, according to the date when the mark was adopted ; iu other words, according to the fineness of the baugs or coins employed to make up the sum of a mark. As this was to consist of 3,600 grains of silver in baugs or coins equal in fineness to gold standard, and as the Roman gold standard of the third century was -f-^ fine, it followed that whenever coins fell below this standard they had to be increased in number to make up the Gothic mark of money. This circumstance accounts for the variation in the mark weights of England, Cologne, Holland, Scandinavia, lestland and Novgorod. The mark weights which are of less than 3,600 grains — as are those of Castile, Stockholm, Riga, Konigsberg, etc. — are the progeny, not of early debased coins, but of subsequently degraded weights. The coins found at Aarleslen and Mallgard are not the only examples of Gothic or Saxon imitations. Moulds for making false Roman coins, and the coins with them, have been found beneath King William Street, London ; at Lingwell Gate, in Yorkshire ; at Edington, in Somerset- shire ; at Ruyton and Wroxeter, in Shropshire ; at Castor, in Northamptonshire ; at Epernay, in France ; and, at other places. Some of these may have been of Roman HISTORY OF MONEY IN SAXONY AND SCANDINAVIA. 291 fabrication, wliile others were Gothic. The earliest ones mentioned imitated the coins of Claudius ; the latest, those of Constautius. Gothic imitations of the coins of Louis Debonnaire have been found in the Netherlands. I The monkish chronicles represent the Goths as being always pirates and destroyers, but the security and pros- perity of Vinet, Julin, Bardewic, Lunebui'g, and other Gothic cities ; the great fairs of Holmgard, Gardariki, Eistland, Saxony, and Denmark ; the organisation of the pagan Hansa, which — centuries before the establishment jof the Christian Hansa — monopolised the maritime com- 'merce of northern and western Europe; and many other circumstances, prove the contrary. The following inci- ;dent, which relates to the terrible invasion of Attila (a.d. 450), indicates that the Goths, at all events at this period, were anything but savage people, for it alludes with horror to the cruelties of the Huns. It is from the Volsunga saga, one of the oldest Norse scriptures still extant. '' King Atli (Attila) tortured his prisoners at the stake. . . . He cut out the thrall's heart, because he would not tell where the gold was. . . . Then he cut out the heart of Hogni, who smiled as he underwent the torture. . . . 'They showed the heart to King Gunnar (Gondicar I, the Gothic king of Burgundy), who said : ' I know where the ;gold is, but the Rhine shall keep it sooner than the Huns jshall wear it on their arms. . . . Atli, mayst thou fare as ill as thou didst keep faith with me ! ' " How strangely ihis reads like the dying curse of Montezuma's brother, svhom Cortez coldly put to death at Shrovetide in 1525, "or precisely the same offence ! This was because he A^ould not, or could not, disclose the gold hoards or mines 'or which the Spanish adventurer thirsted. '' Oh, Malinche (Cortez), it is long that I have known the falseness )f your words, and have foreseen that you would award ne that death which, alas ! I did not give myself when I urrendered to you in my city of Mexico. Wherefore do 'ou slay me without justice ? May God demand it of you ! " 292 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. Whatever development of civilisation was attained byi the Goths and other Saxon tribes of the Baltic, it -was cut down, I'oot and branch, by the mighty arm of Rome wielding the zealous sword of Charlemague. Between i A.D. 768 and 800 this bigot destroyed hundreds of thou- sands of the Saxon race, transported vast numbers of the survivors to Upper Germany, filled their places with! Germans, levelled their cities — including Vinet, Julin, Bardewic, and Luneburg — almost to the dust, and drove their commerce to Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia,! Britain, Ireland, and even to Iceland. The exterminating wai's which the Western Empire waged against Gothic Saxouy explain an otherwise insoluble problem of history. Why are there no Norwegian or Swedish regal coins' before the epoch of Charlemagne ? Because these coun- tries had no kings. The seat of Ivan Yidfami's power was Eistland or Austriki. It was from this centre that,' in the fifth century, the Norse fleets ravaged the coasts i and began or extended their conquests in Saxony, Den- mark, Sweden, Norway, Britain, France, and Spain ; ! and it is with the saigas of Eistland that we must begin our researches into Scandinavian monetary history. The list of Norse kings from Odin to the Skol-konungs of the eighth century are purely fanciful. Jarls and fylki- konungs and vikings of Sweden and Norway there were in plenty, but we are persuaded that no sovereign existed on the northern peninsula, clothed with independent regal attributes, until the Saxon kings were defeated by Charle- magne, and the seat of Gothic power was removed from the southern to the northern, western, and eastern shores •of the Baltic. In the eighth and ninth centuries, Gothic kings, exercising sovereign powers, disappear from Saxony, whilst others spring up all of a sudden in Denmark, Nor- way, and Sweden ; the germs of Gothic republics are established in Russia and Iceland ; Gothic refugees re- inforce the populations of Normandy and Britain ; and in all of these countries Gothic coins make their appear- . HISTORY OF MONEY IN SAXONY AND SCANDINAVIA. 293 ance. In Scandinavia this period yields us the earliest coins of local mintage ; in Novgorod we have an issue of Gothic leather money ; in England, where the Goths had often before struck money, they now exhibit us — and that, too, in gold — the pagan coins and moslem legends of Offa ; while in Iceland the Norse colonists went back to the primeval vadmal and fish-money {" sild ") of the Saxon coasts. From this period the Saxons disappear ifrom history, and the Scandinavians take their place. Is ,it not quite evident that these are only two names for .the same Gothic people ? . We must now make a short digression in order to trace the origin of the pagan Hanseatic League. Under the hierarchical government of Rome, which began with the .semi-mythical Romulus and ended with the overthrow of the Tarquins, all corporations {collegii) were chartered by the chief-pontiff. These included both sacerdotal and commercial bodies, such as the Fratres Ambarvales, the Luperci, and the trade guilds of Numa. In B.C. 306, the Senate, which had now become republican, forbade the formation of any new sacerdotal communities, and abolished all commercial corporations, new or old. In :B.C. 59, when the republic was about to expire, and upon the motion of P. Clodius, provisions were made for the :re-establishment and increase of corporations by the Senate — a power, of which, under the hierarchy erected by Julius Caesar, that ambitious body was afterwards entirely deprived. This power was now again, as in the ancient times, vested in the sovei-eign-pontiff, and it continued to ibe exercised by that functionary from B.C. 47 to a.d. 1204, when the long line of Roman hierarchs was broken by the ■fall of Constantinople. Among the numerous commercial •corporations whose remains attest the exercise of this •power by the sovereign-pontiff of Rome are the Navicu- ;larii of Alexandria and the Nautas of Paris, both of them companies of maritime adventure. But far more impor- ,tant than these, or any other corporations of ancient or 294 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. mediasval tiraes^ -was the Hansa established at a very early' epoch by the pagan Goths, chartered — or more properly- licensed — by the Basileus in the fifth or sixth century • greatly damaged by Charlemagne and his successors' during the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries, andi finally destroyed by the papal forces and superseded by the Christian Hanseatic League in the twelfth or thir» teenth century. As the Christian Hansa was the earliest trade corporation chartered by or under the authority of the Latin Christian pontiffs, and as all the so-called ancient trade-guilds of the present time came into existence soon afterwards, and by virtue of the same sacerdotal authority, it is worth while to rescue from the oblivion into which they have fallen the scant chronicles and remains of the once powerful pagan Hansa, upon whose ashes were planted this crop of Christian companies, the progenitors, in turn, of an entire forest of modern commercial cor- porations. The word ^'han^' is Mongolian, and means a corporation, guild, company, or association; ''hansa" is the Latin form of it. Concerning the origin of the Hansa we have no explicit information, but it may have existed when Csesar broke up the commercial emporium of the Yeneti, which he discovered at the mouth of the Loire, and who sent to their colleagues in Britain and the Netherlands for assistance against his attacks.^ Two centuries later than this there was a trading station at Scandea, in the island of Cythera, south of the Morea. From its Gothic name, the quarrel its people had with the king of Pontus, where the Veneti formerly dwelt, the fact that it was inhabited by a community of foreigners as well as Delians — and of foreigners, too, who were famous sailors and merchants — as wellas from other circumstances, Scandea appears to have been an emporium of the Veneti." The earliest positive information concerning the pagan Hansa is furnished by Werdenhagen, who informs us that, ages before the establishment of the Christian Hansa, there ^ Caesar, " De Bell. Gall.," iii, c. 9. - Pausanius, "Laconics," 23. I HISTORY OF MONEY IN SAXONY AND SCANDINAVIA. 295 existed a number of confederated commercial cities on the shores of tlie Baltic and North Seas, and upon the lower banks of the rivers that empty into them, including the Volkof, Dwiua, Memel, Vistula, Oder, Elbe, Aller, Ems, lessel, Rhine, and Weser : that among these cities were Dantzic (Danes-wic) Julin, Vinet, Bardewic (Bhadr- wic), Munster, Dortmund, Nimeguen, Tiel and Deventer, and that the confederacy included such distant places as Novgorod and Cologne ; that all these cities practised freedom of trade ; and that they were all destroyed or conquered, and their inhabitants put to the sword, or banished, to make room for a Christian Hansa, that was ' substituted in its place. Julin is described by Adam of ' Bremen, writing about 1080, as the richest city in Europe. Helmoldus says the same. Meursius calls it the capital ' of the Vandals, and Gibbon says that the Vandals were Goths, Vinet is described by Helmoldus. Bardewic • stood about a mile north of Luneburg. Both of these cities were captured and sacked by Charlemagne, and ' their inhabitants slaughtered or driven away. In the ! twelfth century these cities were finally destroyed — I Vinet in 1127, Bardewic and Luneburg in 1137, Julin in ■ 1 140. Within half a century of this time the Christian i Hansa, chartered by the pope, slipped into the place of its pagan predecessor, absorbed its trade, and divided its ! profits.^ \ Let us now visit the great annual fair or merk of S Novgorod, shortly after Euric made that city his seat of ' government. Let us rehabilitate the moneys of the pagan ' Hansa, and read the tablet upon which was inscribed, ' in Gothic runes, the value of the various moneys then current in the Baltic. The weights are in English grains. The standard at this period was that of the Arabian coins." The scale of equivalents was 4 ortugar= 1 ora; and 8 oras = ' 1 mark. There were probably 3 saigas to the ortugar. ' " Ancient Britain,' 'ch. xiii. " For details of which see "Money and Civilisation," p. 20. 296 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. on >. "' I I |(M|tH|rH| I rHrH|(MCqrH| I ^ ^ ^ i-IC0 01(MO(M| i-Hli-H I ^ 1-^ I I I 1-^ I I c CO o m be u O c8 o^ O o" (M I I •^ -^ 111^ I I I I I I I I I 1 — CO a> (— ) . -- )!2 ^4-^ 6e; a.^ go as g t> ^ ^^ c£ 02 ;..) :« S S e Kr^ ^ 6c •«' ;;■ — C3 « C tt - ^ 2 be -^ ^ ^^ 00 ^^i«.S beg t- 3 ^ * i =^'oo CO g S be rH I— 1._ .S 3 — — eS '5 ^'^ ' ojj j: ^ rt "'■ « c^'^i^ g g S S c. s ° 1 ^iT3 I— ( CO eS i^ Sf^ a Hpq ..^^ llJ O r-- 3 ^^ ITS ® C C oj . . cS '4= C -S -'* '''^ " ,; , ^ c be £ «g-= ^ be S IJ "— I HIS) c be rt CO ■ -r -iti bcrs P 5^ 'O 13 be be be H.2.S 5 fi 'S P-> P' Ph c a -o . s? "^ vs "^ ^ "^ 15 ^ -e 'E 'S 'S . HISTORY OF MONEY TX SAXONY AND SCANDINAVIA. 297 Besides these moneys the paper notes of Heentsung, A.D. 807, the leather notes of Edgar, king of Wessex, and of Ruric of Novgorod^ also porcelain coins of Thibet and Siani; were probably seen at this fair ; but we have no accounts of thera. There was also probably employed at this fair, as we know there was at the fairs of Baldwin III, in Flanders, a system of clearings called ' 'permutation," by which purchases and sales were offset by debits and credits, only the balances of which were settled in mone}'.^ Specimens of nearly all the coins mentioned in the above table have been found in Saxony or Scandinavia. The finds of moslem coins number tens of thousands, the earliest being those of Abd-el-Melik (a.d. 684-705), and the latest of Al Kader (1010). At this period the moslems had mastered India. Coins of Abd-el-Melik, Hacham : (724-43), Walid II (743-4), Merwan II (744-50), Abbas '(750-4), Al Mansur (754-75), and Al Mahdi (775-85), together with others, have been found near Christiania, and one coin of the last-named caliph, together with several other moslem coins, at Eker, between Konigsberg and Drammen. A gold coin of Haroun-al-Raschid (786—809), besides several other gold and silver moslem coins, were found atTeisen Tundet, near Christiania, and are now in the museum at that place, where I personally inspected them in 1892. More than twenty thousand moslem coins have been found in Gotland and elsewhere in Sweden, some of them struck by the caliphs of Spain." The choicest of these, together with some specimens of the porcelain coins of Thibet and Siam, are in the Christiania collection. None of the leather or paper moneys alluded to in the table are known to exist at the present day. From the period of Ruric (a.d. 862), whom the moslems 3alled a Frank or a Feringhese, and the Greeks a Va- rangian, a new era began for Scandinavia. In Norway ' " Annales Flandrise," Anno 958 ; " Middle Ages Revisited," ch. xviii. ^ L. B. Stenei"son. 298 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. Harold Harfager (865—933) united tlie jarldoms and established the kingdom ; although, in consequence of the conversion of Olaf Trygvaeson (995— 8) , a civil war afterwards ensued, and Norway was divided (a.d. 1000) between Denmark (whose king had accepted Christianity) and Sweden, which had not. Under Canute (1014—35) Norway formed part of his united realms of Denmark, England, and Norway, and under Magnus it again be- came a sole kingdom. After the death of Gotfried by poison in 819, Den- mark was awarded by the pope to Harold, who had been baptised at the Court of Louis le Debonnaire ; but the Danes do not seem to have been disposed to accept a Christian king until nearly two centuries later. Like Norway, Sweden was ruled by petty fylkings, until Biorn united them under one crown and Eric Arsell (993—1001) acquired part of Norway. Thus, in the three Scandinavian kingdoms there existed a peculiar interval, which began in Denmark with Gotfried, in Sweden with Biorn, and in Norway with Harold Harfager, and ended in all of them with the plunder of the temple at Upsala by Hakon Jarl and the definitive establishment of Christianity in the eleventh century.^ During this interval all the Scandinavian states united their petty rulers, and became sole kingdoms ; they were freed from the evils of divided government, though as yet they were strangers o the trammels of Rome. They were devoted to traflSc, ?and possessed an emporium in the powerful republic of Novgorod, through which passed a lucrative commerce V ij with the Orient. " Who can resist the gods and Novgo- rod V ran an exultant proverb of the period. But with the termination of this interval, the Hansa, which before the Carlovingian era possessed emporia or staples at every port of northern and western Eui'ope, was restricted to those only which adhered to the pagan religion; for ^ Hakon Jarl (who had been baptised in Denmark) plundered the great temple in Gotland and got much property. Jomsviking saga, ch. i. HISTORY OF MONEY IN SAXONY AND SCANDINAVIA. 299 the Christians i-efused it all accommodotion. Thus, in the tenth century Lhe Hanseatic commerce was confined, first, to the Scandinavian states, which being compara- tively poor and sparsely populated could take but little of it; second, to some of the French, English, and Ii'ish ports ; and third, to moslem Spain. This last was its chief dependence. In the eleventh century, as Christianity was introduced into the northern Courts (the first Christian pennies known to have been struck in Norway were those of Harold Hardrade (1047—66), the trade of the pagan Hansa was almost exclusively with Spain. The civil wars in which that country was involved during the minority of Hachem II, greatly injured the trade of the Hansa. Mahomet ben Hachem and other usurpers mounted the throne of Coi-dova ; the city was taken and retaken several times ; the aid of Christian princes was invoked by both parties, and always with loss of territory. By the middle of the eleventh century the sun of the Omeiads went down, and the prosperous epoch of the Spanish Arabs came to an end.^ This was the death-blow to the Gothic Hansa. It lost its remaining emporia in the west. It might buy, but it could no longer sell. Except as to the now distracted kingdoms of Cordova and Granada, Christianity had built a commercial wall around the whole of Europe, within which no pagan was per- mitted to trade. So the great ships of the Norsemen folded their wings and retired to the Baltic, while the pagan league of the Hansa underwent the process of christianisation, and fitted itself for a new career. The profits of the Hansa offered to the mediaeval church a powerful lever of evangelisation. During the interval following the civil wars in Spain, and before the earliest mention of the Christian Hansa (a.d. 1140), occurred the definitive conversion of all the Gothic sovereigns to Christianity ; in Sweden Ingo I, in Norway Harold Hardrade, and in Denmark Waldemar I; though judging 1 Calcott's " History of Spain," ch. vii. 300 HISTOKT OF MONETAET SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. from the tone of some of their letters to the pope, the Norsemen accepted the ne^v dispensation with no little distrust of Rome.^ Christianity is said to have been introduced into the whole " empire/' including Novgorod^ by Vladimir (him of the 800 wives and 12 sons) in the year 989 ; but the fratricidal wars between the sons of Yaroslov render it all but certain that, at least so far as Novgorod and Kief are concerned, those great trading centres did not accept it until about the period of the fall of Constantinople. By the middle of the thirteenth cen- tury the process of christianisation was completed. Kings, people, shipping, wore a new crown, a new dress, a new flag. One more reform remained to be accomplished. The Jews, who had officiated as go-betweens in the commerce of the old Hansa aud the earlier commerce of the new Hansa with Spain, were no longer needed. Accordingly some few thousands of them were slaughtered in the streets of London and Paris, and the rest banished to moslem Spain — or to Hades. When these middle- men were quite disposed of, prices advanced and trade became far more profitable. The earliest coins imputed to the kings of Sweden are the silver pieces of Biorn, a.d. 818, which imitated those of Charlemagne even to the cross stamped upon them, although Biorn was not a Christian." The next earliest moneys of the North appear to have been the leather- notes of Euric, 862-79.'^ Between this date and the reign of Olaf Trygvaeson of Norway we continue to read of fairs. There, money must have been employed,* but no 1 Waldemav, King of Denmark, to the Bishop of Eome, greeting (this was Gregory XI. who had threatened him with excommunication) : " We hold our life from God, our kingdom from our subjects, our riches from our parents, and our faith from thee, the which if thou wilt not grant it to us any longer we do by these presents resign. Farewell." Boulain- villiei-s, " Life of Mahomet," p. 3. ^ Humphreys " Coin Manual," p. 529. ^ " Money and Civilisation," p. 294. * See the Flateyarbok and the Faerynga and Olaf Trvgvaeson sagas (oh. v). HISTORY OF MONEY IN SAXONY AND SCANDINAVIA. 301 native coins ascribed to this period appear iu the public collections^ at all events, not in those of Christiania, Paris, or London. About the date of the battle of Brunanburgh, Ethelstan, or Etheh-ed, is said to have offered Olaf a skilling for every plough in his kingdom, if he would make peace. ^ This skilling I take to have been the quarter-dinar of about 16 grains. There are no Christian coins of Norway until Hakon Jarl, who appears to have conveyed the plunder of Upsala to England, for the " pennies '^ which he struck from it, and of which Rome received its share as Peter's pence, bear the names of Anglo-Saxon moneyei-s." Nor, as before stated, are there any native Christian coins until Harold Hardrade. These circumstances offer an emphatic contradiction to the monkish story of the con- version of Norway by Olaf Trygvaeson, for the Roman religion and monetary system always went hand in hand. It is not denied that Olaf himself may have beeu con- verted, nor that he committed the cruelties with which he is said to have punished those who refused to accept his new religion ; but it is held that the evidence of the coins and the nomenclature of moneys both go to prove that paganism was still the religion of the people. This numismatic evidence is supported by other circumstances. Olaf's son, Olaf II, was expelled from the kingdom by ^ Egil saga. The period of this transaction was about that of the battle of Brunanburgh (Northumberland), A.D. 937. Tlie skilling here mentioned was probably the quarter-dinar of 16J grains. This same Ethelred paid more than 167,000 "pounds o£ silver" as danegeld (Du Chaillu, ii, p. 222). Some commentators regard this to mean 167,000 pounds weight of silver bullion. Dr. Henry (Notes, 18), with more reason, makes it £167,000 money. But it is useless to conjecture what it means until we know the date when (assuming the statement to be true) the phrase "pounds of silver" was translated from its original terms. - Greijer. The Ynlinga saga informs us that for a time the tax of Rome scat was collected from the people " for Odin." Very likely. But it is pretty safe to conclude that, unless he lived in Rome, Odin never got any of it. 302 HISTOEY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. Canute in 1028 and killed in 1030. After Olaf s expulsion Canute reigned until 1029, and after him reigned his son Sveyn^ 1030-35, both of them christian but anti-papal kings. In 1036 Magnus I, the natural son of Olaf II, and a protege of Rome, was awarded the kingdom of Denmark and Norway by the Papal See. In 1046 Harold Hardrade took the kingdom, invaded England, and entered York. After Harold^s defeat at Stanford Bridge in 1066 his son, Olaf III, with Magnus II, became joint kings of Norway, and in the following year Hakon became king of Sweden. In 1069 Olaf III, became sole king of Norway, and it was not until the reign of his contemporary, Ingo I, of Sweden, that the great pagan temple at Upsala was destroyed, about 1075, and Christianity definitely though not yet universally established in that country.^ Nor was it until 1152 that, taking advantage of the dissentions between Magnus lY, and Harold, the Papal See succeeded in establishing an arch-bishopric at Trondheim in Norway. Nor again was it until after two centuries of civil wars, during which the history of that country is written only with the sword, the bludgeon, and the torch, that Christianity was universally established under Magnus YI, the Legisla- tor. The intimate racial, religious, political, and dynastic connection between the states of the Gothic peninsular, render it highly improbable that either of them adopted the new religion much before the other. Sweden could not have been entirely evangelised, whilst Norway was shedding its blood in the played-out cause of Odin; nor Norway have been a Christian state, so long as pagan sacrifices smoked upon the polluted altars of Upsala." In the ninth century the Scandinavian mark of money contained 240 grains of gold, or 1920 grains of silver; in ^ " Ancient Britain," xiv, p. 5. Adam of Bremen described the temple of Upsala as being roofed with gold and filled with the greatest riches (Du ChaiUu). 2 During the pagan era Upsala was the name for all Sweden. It sounds curiously like the Ober-saala or Ober-icssel of the Low Countries. HISTORY OP MONET IN SAXONY AND SCANDINAVIA. 303 the thirteentli century, reign of Magnus YI, there were no gold marks, whilst the silver mark only contained about 1200 grains. At the ratio which prevailed on the Con- tinent these were worth 100 grains, whilst in Scandinavia they were valued at 150 grains, of gold. In the reign of Magnus VII (Smek), 1819-43, a mark weight of silver was coined into five marks of money, and half-a-mark was deducted for seigniorage. If this was fine silver, each mark contained 720 grains, or about the quantity in two American or Mexican dollars of the present day ; but I am inclined to believe that all these quantities were of standard metal. During this reign copper coins were first employed in Norway, and toward the close of it even leather money was introduced, each piece studded with a silver rivet. The device of leather money had been carried from Novgorod to England, where Edgar of Wessex, 959-75, made use of it ; from England to Norway, where it was employed in 988 by Olaf I ; from Norway to France, where it was used by Philip I, 1060- 1108 ; and from France to Sicily, where similar money was issued by "William the Bad, 1154-66. It now again served to sustain for a time the feeble resources of Norway : " Coriaria pecunia certis argenteis punctis quibis valor in pondere et numero pensavetur variata.'^ ^ But the State was exhausted and nothing could at present revive it. In 1379 Norway struck her last coin.^ Then she lost her national autonomy, and dropped into the lap of Margaret, queen of Denmark. From this time forward until the epoch of Gustavus Vasa, Norway .ceased to be an independent state. I The early history of the coinage of Sweden differs but little from that of Norway. Both of these states were erected by " Saxons,'^ who sought a refuge from the \ ' Olaus Magnus, vii (?), ch. xii, in Greijer's " History of Sweden," ,p. 103. ' Humptreys. 304 HISTOKY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. exterminating wars of Cliarlemagne ; both of them had thriven upon the profits of the Hansa, and both of them declined when the Hansa fell under the control of Rome. As if to render this decline the more rapid, both countries were overrun with a horde of Roman priests, who fastened themselves like vampires upon every source of revenue, including the silver mines. They reduced the bondr to slavery,^ worked them in the mines,^ incited the leudrmen to civil war, usurped their estates, and amused themselves by destroying or defacing the runic monumeats, altering the sagas, and inventing a fabulous history for the country which had so generously filled their stomachs and wallets. For venturing to question the right of the Roman priesthood to the estates which they had stolen from the lords, their elected king, Charles VIII (Canutson), was solemnly excommunicated at high mass by John, Archbishop of Upsala, assisted by six Swedish bishops and the rest of the clergy. " Then they went out of the church to commence a civil war, which lasted seven years," and which ended with the defeat of Charles and the triumph of their champion, John of Denmark.^ In 1396, during the reign of Margaret, the mark of money was equal in value to 45 Lubeck skillings,* each of which contained about 9*43 grains fine silver, a proof that the mark weight of Denmark was coined during this reign into 8^ marks of money. As to the Christian talent of Scandinavia which seems to have originated at this period, it was identical with the money mark, and like that coin it contained about 424| grains of fine silver. It was divided into 48 shillings each of 12 pennies. Each skilling there- fore contained about 8*843 grains of fine silver. Under Eric YII (the Pomeranian), king of Denmark, also known as Eric XIII, of Sweden (a.d. 1434), the mark weight continued to be coined into 8^ marks of money. In 1470 what Humphreys regards as half-pennies of silver were first 1 Voltau-e. 2 Greijer. ^ Voltaire. * Greiger, p. 61, n. HISTOEY OF MONEY IN SAXONY AND SCANDINAVIA. 305 coined, but it is not safe to accept the denomination of these coins from an authoi- so unfamiliar with Scandinavian monetary law. During the reign of John II (Hans), of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden (1481—1513), were struck the first gold coins since the pagan era. These were of 240, 120, 60, and 30 grains, and were apparently intended to pass for 8, 4, 2, and 1 marks each respectively. They were of the same type (an armed man standing in the waist of a ship) as the gold coins of Edward III, of England. The writer found several specimens of them in the Christiana collection, one in Paris, but none in the London collection. As in 1509, according to Greijer, a mark weight of silver was coined into 12^ marks of money, there were about 288| grains to the mark. If this conclusion be well founded, and the gold coins were pure, the ratio was 9'6 for one, thus 288^ -r 30 = 9*6 ; but, as coinage metal was used in both cases, and as the gold and silver standards differed, the ratio was intended to be 10 for 1. This agrees with the prevailing ratio of the period in northern Europe generally. I have met with a statement elsewhere that the mark weight of silver in 1509 was coined into 5 marks of money, but I can neither reconcile this with Greijer^s statement nor with probability. We now enter upon a period of great interest in the monetary history of Scandinavia — the period of Gustavus Yasa, the liberator of his country, and the political founder of the Protestant religion. The reign of Christian II. had been signalised by the greatest atrocities. Denmark and Sweden were the earliest to accept the religion of Luther (1517), which at that period consisted of little more than a protest against the avidity, the tyranny, and the impious sacraments (so they were regarded) of Rome ; and in 1517 the senate of Sweden, wearied with the exactions and tyranny of Troll, the Roman archbishop of Upsala and the primate of the kingdom, passed a resolution recom- mending his retirement to a monastery. Whereupon Troll 20 306 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. obtained a bull from the Pope forbidding the execution of their recommendation and annulling their decrees. Not content with this, the vindictive primate prepared, for them a fearful vengeance. At his instigation, King Christian, in 1520, invited two bishops, the whole senate] of Stockholm, and ninety-four lords, to sup with him at his palace. There, with the Pope's bull in his hand. Troll caused] the whole company to be butchered, and the grand prior of j St. John of Jerusalem to be ripped open and his heart! plucked out. The two monsters (Christian and Troll) concluded their entertainment by ordering a general massacre of the Lutherans without distinction of rank,! age, or sex.^ This abominable act summoned the entire] nation to arms, and for a leader and king they electee Gustavus Vasa, the nephew of Charles VIII (Canutson). At that period the Pope's legate in Denmark was anj Italian named Arcemboldi. Such was his avidity that,J by the sale of indulgences and other artifices, he managec to squeeze out of the poorest country in Europe nearly! " two millions of florins," and was on the point of remit* ting this plunder to Rome when Christian seized it upoi the pretext of needing it to subdue his excommunicatec siibjects.^ A further measure of this exemplary monarcl was the emission of certain base silver pieces, composec chiefly of copper, and cut with a shears, from which the] derived the vulgar name of " Christian's klippings." Oi the one side was the impress of an armed man, on th^ ■other three crowns.^ ■It was at this juncture that Gustavus Vasa appearec upon the scene. The people were impoverished ; thej were unorganised ; they had no firearms ; * but Chi-istiai (who was a tyrant as well as a zealot) and his minister (whc was little better than a wild beast) had combined to offei them the grossest indignities and inflJct upon them th€ greatest injuries. These had fired the Gothic blood. li 1 Voltaire, iv, p. 65. 5 Greijer, p. 103. - - Voltaire, lii, p. 185. * Voltaire, iii, p. 186. HISTORY OF MONEY IN SAXONY AND SCANDINAVIA, 307 was not merely Norway and Sweden tliat rose up to throw off the shackles of Eome, it was all Scandinavia. Lubeck supplied troops and firearms, and the Chersonesus Cimbrica — that is to say, Jutland, or, as it was now called, the Duchy of Schleswick — transmitted to the tyrant of Denmark a demand of deposition which was read to him by a single unarmed man, the chief magistrate of the Jutes, whose act should never be permitted to fall into oblivion. This hero's name was Mons, and it deserves to be written over the gateway of every oppressor. The unlooked-for result of Mons's brave act was the abdica- tion and flight of the cowardly Christian, His uncle Frederick was chosen in his place, and became king of Denmark and Norway j but the real sovereign of Scan- dinavia was Gustavus Yasa, Him the Swedish senate had elected king ; and thenceforth Sweden became au inde- pendent kingdom and the centre of Scandinavian political activity. In conducting the revolution, which was crowned with the liberation of Scandinavia and the establishment of the Protestant religion, Gustavus made avail of the monetary de^"ice instituted by Christian, The latter had introduced the klippings for the sake of personal profit ; Gustavus issued them for the benefit of his country. Christian issued his klippings in the place of the silver coins of the kingdom, which he obtained by taxation, melted down, and sold to foreigners for his own emolument; Gustavus issued his klippings to sustain the cause of liberty. And let it be remarked that I am not here advo- cating a policy, but chronicling an historical fact ; all the great enfranchisements of society have been accom- plished with the aid of fiduciary money. The Spartans won their liberties with the iron discs of Lycurgus ; the Athenians, before the Alexandrian period, rehabilitated the republic with '' nomisma,'' a highly overvalued copper issue ; the Romans overthrew their kings with the aid of overvalued " nummi/' whose emissions were controlled 308 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN YAEIOUS STATES. and regulated by tlie State^ ex senatus consulto. The earliest republic in Europe which had the courage to defy the moribund hierarchy of Csesar was that of Novgorod, whose money was impressed upon leather and, doubtless, issued by the State ; the money of the Scandinavian revolution was the " klippings " of Gustavus Yasa, which were issued by the State ; the money by the aid of which Gustavus Adolphus saved the Protestant religion from being stamped out by Ferdinand the Catholic was overvalued copper " rundstyks/' issued by the State ; the money of the Dutch revolution was the pasteboard " dollars '' issued by the city of Leyden ; of the American revolution, the paper notes issued by the colonial govern- ments ; of the French revolution, the " assignats " and " mandats '' issued by the National Assembly ; and of the anti-slavery war in the United States, " greenbacks/' All these moneys were issued and the emissions were controlled by the State. They were not individual notes, nor private bank notes, but essentially State notes. Indeed, the issuance of fiduciary moneys by the State has so commonly attended all social enfranchise- ments, that the occurrence of one of these events is almost a certain indication of the other. There is a reason for this, a reason that lies upon the surface. When the people take the government of a country into their own hands wealth naturally hides itself, and the first form of wealth to disappear is the precious metals. The moment a revolution or a civil war is de- clared gold and silver disappear. Thereupon the emission of fudiciary money by the State becomes imperative, or else the revolution runs the risk of immediate failure, for money is needed to purchase subsistence and arms, to pay troops, and generally to carry on the new government. Such were the klippings of Gustavus Yasa. Greijer says that they were valued in the laws at four times their metallic worth. They were fabricated at Hedemora in 1520, and after having served the objects of the revolu- HISTORY OF MONEY IN SAXONY AND SCANDINAVIA. 309 tion were decried or repudiated in 1524 witliout any complaint from the people. Indeed, with these klippings, as with the pasteboard dollars of Leyden, the people preserved them in grateful memory of their liberation. Before going any further, it becomes necessary for a clear understanding of what follows to trace the mark weight, the mark of money, and the riksdaler, reichthaler, or imperial dollar, from the period of the conjectural Novgorod table to the latest times. In a table printed below, the mark of Knric is given at 3600 grains. This is adopted because it is an even figure, and agrees with the Anglo-Saxon mark brought to England ; but it is more than probable that the mark of this period was, in fact, made to agree with the weights of the Arabian coins, which at that time formed the principal currency of the Baltic, and, therefore, that it weighed some multiple of the dirhem. The Danish and Norwegian common mark is given at 3631*139 grains, and the Danish and Norwegian mint mark at 3607-77455 grains, both by Schmidt's (Tate's) Cambist. The mark of Stockholm is given by Kelly at 4384 Swedish iesen, or 3252 English grains. In tlie former case I have adopted 3607| grains, and in the latter 3250 grains, as sufficiently exact for the mint mark. In the numerous changes of government which have occurred to the Scandinavian States, it is not always easy to determine what weights were used by the mints. In selecting the mark believed to have been used for coinage I have sometimes been guided by the nationality of the issuing sovereign, sometimes by the place of mintage, and sometimes by the actual weights of extant coins ; but as these were often of irregular alliage, I am not confident of having been always successful. However, for the purposes of the table referred to, the difference is not important. The silver talent, or thaler, as shown in the chapter of this work on the Moneys of Germany, was the Roman equivalent in value of a gold solidus, afterwards known as 310 HISTOEY OF MONETAEY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. a ducat. Hence, during the Renaissance, wlien tlie ducat contained about 56^ grains, and in the Ecclesiastical States, where the ratio was 12 for 1, the talent contained about 678 grains, whilst in the Italian Republics (ratio 10 for 1) it contained 565^ grains fine. Such was originally the contents of the croisat, the scudo, the ducatone, etc., these names and others meaning the same broad piece as the talent. In the Scandinavian States during the fourteenth centuiy, where the ratio was still 8 for 1, the mark of money contained about 450 grains. After the firm estab- lishment of Christianity every effort was made by the Chui'ch to eradicate pagan customs and reminiscences. The use of runic letters was forbidden, the names of pagan kings were suppressed, the pagan sagas were revised, and even the popular use of pagan names for moneys discouraged. Hence sild, saicca, styca, thveit, thrimsa, scat, ortugar, and mark successively fell into disuse, or were changed to Christian denominations. It was in this way that the saicca became the penny, the ora was changed into the shilling, and the mark was metamor- phosed into the talent. Notwithstanding these measures, it proved so difficult to change the popular names that the word " mark " continued to be stamped on coins so late as the reign of Adolphus Frederick. However, the plan succeeded far enough to destroy the ancient value of all pagan contracts, rentals, revenues, etc., and this indeed may have been the more practical object in view. Assuming that the substitution of the name " talent " for the " mark " of money was attempted at least as early as the reign of Margaret, it follows that the former con- tained at that period 452| grains gross, or 424^ gi'ains fine I for, as already shown, such were the contents of the money mark. From that period, until it acquired the name of " riksdaler,'^ the talent can be traced with great precision. Nearly all the weights in the following table were obtained from coins in the Paris collection, kindly weighed in my presence by M. Casanova. With few HISTORY OP MONEY IN SAXONY AND SCANDINAVIA. 311 exceptions they were all very base, many of them showing a heavy alloy of copper. Where net weights are given they are mostly from Greijer and from the appearance of the coins. Greijer^s weights seem too high. I fancy that the standard was often much lower than the historian assumed. It will be observed that in the reign of Eric XIV, the talent suddenly rises from about 450 to 560 grains. This was occasioned by changing the ratio from 8 to 10 for 1. After having thus strangely but unmis- takably asserted its identity with the ancient mark of money, the (heavy) talent disappeared altogether, and in the succeeding years of the same reign it was replaced by the lighter and more serviceable riksdaler of about 400 grains, divided (now) into 8 degraded marks. Hence- forth, excepting during the reign of Charles XI, and Charles XII, and again, during the Napoleonic wars, the riksdaler kept its weight pretty well ; whilst the mark of money, which had anciently contained 1920 grains of silver, was so often degraded, that in the seventeenth century it contained less than 30 grains. It was then raised a little and finally destroyed altogether. It is noticeable that both the talent and riksdaler, like the later solidi of the Byzantine empire, commonly bore the effigy of Jesus Christ. This was afterwards changed to Jehovah, in Hebrew letters, 7^^Tl^ surrounded by a circle of flames. A later form of this type was the legend, " Got heppel," on a very much degraded daler of 1694. 312 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. «3 5£ o C be S -^ |a c Issue ( ortugi s is coi 9 1" H=o S ii d O 71 O o PrH o ^ "^ o »0 O "^ 00 ^ (M be ® a" ^•3 ^ :0 :0 " 00 -^ 2 S p p I I \k I o o c 00 00 »o (N IN . It>.t>.!boooioct~t^-^>boo3i>b p? 1— ( I— I 1—1 1— I 1— 1 " so-^oscot^(MffO-^t>.Ci?Ot— i~ico:ooo^»ffl:0':it^O'-t'-t C5COO(M'N'*'^-^kOira-^?oto:o:Owt>.i>.t>.t»oo3535i^ CO-^kOkaiCiiOifflOKtiiOiOO'.OiOt.OiOiCiitiiOiOiOiO'O'O HISTORY OF MONEY IN SAXONY AND SCANDINAVIA. 313 a a c3 eS Si) . SdS". -. -^^ SV "* & t^'bcr be .bf^£ = ^rHg g gS-. &= C ^-g§-H^^^-H ^ _ Or- — o o ?f J^ S"? 0} =« c " C fl 2 2 g o o o o aj.o O "^ O t- O _ f^ ^ 12; tl •-• -^ f= i; g ._ i^ :: 'ts s o 60 do 60 00 05 Ci 05 05 CO CC CC CO I I I I I I I 000000 00000 (M --H lOiOiOO'C^ G000»pi?|iO|'^| I I I , -^ t>it^t>.6ot^t^I'-i'— it^oot^lt^l ! I I l"^ ■f5^CO-^ 00 »o ^ ■^ "^ CO ''^^ ^ "^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ iiccoQajcccciaQajccccccajQOJKajoQ m mxnmm McococcajJKcocQ icucv. 3^ J r -:; = :; :;^ .5 cb « =» .2 o5T; " ' - "'S .5? be _5 2 ^ 5 ^ ^ »f»o 6 000 o ^OOOSC^COCO-PCOt^OOOiOCOOOt-Ni t^ 00OiO(M (M-*i— I.H^DO-'JOS OSOSOiOOOOOOOOi— li— li— liM (M (M(MCOCO COiO^Ot^OOOSOSOS kOlO»0?DCOCOtOCO?OtDCOCD?OCC>0 CO COCOtOCO i:D^tDCD?0^^?D 314 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. n3 o -d s> tB ^ 'o -*3 c i K a5 a: y; • c P ¥ « i. i- S r« be fcc £ ^ ■ - ic ca « :^- ' • . :; ns tc cc ^ £ -d • ^ -f ^ OC ?. ^'o CO * ». ® -J 'rt © M " coin, w M " coin, w n's " Encyc. M " coin, w Cambist." 2| Riksdalo Cambist." t assays. ialer," value 11 le;^al-tend fc;^;^PHfe MpnW;= 2 §1 rr'-r^^-^Tjirei 1 1 1 1 I 1 1 15 =3 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 >m ■ cc CC CO CO CO ■— 1 I ct 1 1 1 1 lb 1 -0 ■?? -^ -^ 1 \ n ] 1 « 1 1 1 1 c: 1 c: ci ci C5 1 1 0: CO CO Ct CC CO CO CO p&l . ^ -g Sd oi xoc^ ^ S2p ^ "^ CO «3 o i2 1 c ci r-i Ci 1 oq 1 ilo >b >lo 1 -^ 1 ^ ti -^ 'e >-o iM IN oi O'l ; Eh S r: CO T? T? -^ TT 1.0 10 LO : O OQQQQQCQQQGQOQGOGQCQGiaOQOQGQCQ 'd ^ r^ 2 5SX! X„ « J:=3 'g-Ejij^^.'^it '^ *.— r3 '^ "^"^ " •^ " ^'^ 3 Q £3 fe• t>. t^ t^ t>. t^ t^ 00 X 00 00 00 00 00 o OJ '5 ^ ^ -p "rt 5 . ^ 5 > "S o «: 9 i .ti s ? fe g 6 ^ ^ -7. - S -'^;Si ■;: 's r. ^ f « J ^ O *- S S -^ • C =S a; qS 2 G 1, j£ «^ t _ -^ § ® ^ -^ .-§ aj ic o - ^ 1^ 5 = ^. c ^. O ^ -c o " o - - = o-~ bc-- ■^ -rr • _= ? o * 25 ■= ^^^ . =^ • G • J 35 -3 r— "c -^ .5 ■«•? '-^ C^ ^'d -'S CO cc _o J2 rH 3^ -^ U « rf t- '-' -2 .i ^ C S - «c -»J S ^ 5 ^ c 5- CS .(J ■'^ ;>H ic s o ^ § ^ - o • .= C rt .=^ S3 S S 9 ?; a o o c be ;^, (» .2 -■-- 'd j; c -d .S *^ :_ ?•) ?~ r3 •-" -— • g.- ^ S =£ > O 5 cii--^ , HISTORY OP MONEY IN SAXONY AND SCANDINAVIA. 315 The Maek weight and the Silvee Maek of Monet. The following table shows the number of marks of money struck from the mark iceight of standard silver and the number of English grains of standard silver in each mark of money. The mark iveight ofEuric has been reckoned at 3600, of Denmark and Norwaij at 36071 and of Sweden at 3250 grains. Marks in Mark. Year. Eeign. mark wght. Grains. 9 cent. Euric . . . . OA 1920-00 1290 Magnus VI 3 1202-59 1319 Magnus VII 5 721-55 1348 Hakon V 5 721-55 1396 Margaret Sh 424-50 1434 Eric VII 8i 424-50 1509 John 12i t288-33 1523 Gustavus Vasa 22i *144-44 1527 ,j 19i 166-67 1543 j> 28| 112-63 1557 5> 264 122-40 1559 26* *122-40 1546 Christa'i'n III 27^ 132-90 1568 Eric XIV 65 50-00 1571 John III 32* *ioo-oo 1575 ,, 30' *108-33 1579 J, 30 *108-33 1590 jj 344 *94-20 1591 )> 34| *94-20 1603 Sigismund 45 *72-22 1604 Charles IX 36f *88-50 : 1606 » 33* *97-00 1613 Gustavus Adolphus 30' *l08-33 : 1628 ,^ 53 *61-33 ' 1629 ,, Sli *39-85 1630 99 114 *28-50 1632 JJ 48| *66-50 1671 Charles XI 45 *72-22 1690 ,, 40 *81-25 1694 „ 230 *1400 1699 Charles XII 40 *81-25 ■ 1711 ,, 40 *81-25 : 1719 Ulrica 43 *77-40 : 1750 Frederick 29 *1 12-00 1755 Adolphus Frederick 28f *112-63 : 1762 i )> 321 99-00 I Notes to the Table. * Deduced from the gross weight of coins in :he Paris collection. As these coins are greatly and variously debased ;he deductions, so far as net contents are concerned, are only Approximative. , t Gross weight. 316 HISTORY OP MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. It will be observed that in the ninth century the mark of money contained y\ of a mark weight of silver ; in the thirteenth century the mark weight was coined into 3 marks of money ; toward the middle of the fourteenth century into 5 marks ; toward the end of the same century into 8| marks ; in the sixteenth century from 12^ to 65 marks ; and in the seventeenth century from 30 to 230 marks. Al- though a restoration of the coinage appears to have taken place in 1762 it is probable that the silver mark of money, except as hereinafter mentioned^ disappeared at that period altogether. If we turn from the silver to the gold moneys of Scan- dinavia, the information supplied to us by historical works and coin collections, though scant enough as to one, becomes still more scant with respect of the other ; and the following table is submitted to the reader not without some misgiving as to its entire correctness. However, it is the best that can now be made of the subject. T^e « scale of equivalents down to the sixteenth century was 32 ortugars (afterwards called shillings) to the money mark ; for example, in the reign of John, 1481-1512, there appear to have been always 32 ortugars to the money mark, but in the reign of Gustavus Vasa, the money mark was divided into 24 ortugars. At this point the gold money mark disappeared, and marks were henceforth made of debasec silver. In 1604, according to Grreijer, there were but 24 ortugars to the mark ; thus, 16 Gotland or 8 Swedish pennies = 1 ortugar ; 3 ortugars = 1 ore ; 8 ore = mark. As both the value of silver to gold, and the number of silver coins to the mark, were continually lowerec by legislation, it follows that the contents of the golc mark diminished with great rapidity, a fact which accounts for its disappearance. The ratio of silver to gold from the earliest period to the Renaissance was 8 for 1 ; during the Renaissance 10 for 1 ; after the Dutch revolutiou about 13 for 1 ; in the eighteenth century (1777) 14-82 for 1 ; and since that time, more or less, the same as in the Netherlands. HISTOEY OF MONET IN SAXONY AND SCANDINAVIA. 317 1 ^- e3._ o ^ Q> » Iffl C _^ 1 S « >. Id's" - . ce -: ■ 6 <7^ .=■ S "" .- 6 £' w ^ :5 < ooxxxxxccr: 1 I S " S 5 s ^ri— I X rj I I cccf^f:.^cxct^xc^:^di^?t'>3'^'— I"— ixri I T?-^'i X X -5 §S 5^ -Z: - ' O S<'-5 3 _~ ^ '^ 05 _ _ S S 3. c3 > .>^ '^"^•SioO'r^J^*^:;^ a c> ^1 p^iJ^i^P 3 3 ■;> ■ • X X ^ X X OQOO O ^ 1— I ■r' j>. c t r :; s srH--'7''e^?^o?rxt>.c:OCt^xox'M?-i o xxLeo^T-i,(N^uot^t^'Mr:cosciot2t^t^ O ■^Tr^wXJ.~-^J^'>'t^t-XXXXXXXX .5 o --C^M 13S d H^ •= o r-i ^'-i- - o ci .— t) J o :: 3- -^ l.i^ X ^ tJ X c3 o p S HH c IS * O s S >^ 2 o o -*^ >> be C o r/1 lii ^ o h~ M -^ "^ +- .s 318 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. We are now pi'epared to trace tlie copper system of Scandinavia, wliich, as with Russia before the present centurj^j was of more importance than either the gold or silver coins. The copper klippings of Christian and Gustavus Vasa were followed in 1569 by a third issue of the same character. These were the klippings of John III, In 1575 this issue was retired, and the country was relieved from klippings until 1589, when John introduced another issue of them.-^ Meanwhile the revolution had broken out in the Nethei-lands, and the burghers had taken the monetary system into their own hands by establishing private or individual coinage. It was now no longer Charles V, nor the counts of Holland who determined how many gold ducats, or silver dollars, or florins, should be coined and added to the circulation, but the burghers of Leyden, Deventer, and Amsterdam. This legislation had been followed by an extraordinary influx of the precious metals into the Dutch ports. The example and good fortune of Holland was not lost upon the Swedes, who perhaps fancied that by copying the leglislation of the United Provinces they would promote a like influx of silver into Stockholm. But they were mistaken. It was not individual coinage which had filled the Dutch ports with gold and silver, but the Dutch fleets and buccaneers of the East and West Indies, and the Dutch traders in Japan. However, the Swedes, as yet unconscious or heedless of these circumstances, went on with their second- hand legislation. In 1604, by the statute of Nordchepiug, it was enacted that half an ounce (say 203 grains) of standard silver should pass for 16 ore, also that a rix- daler (398^ grains standard) should pass for 36 ore. This decree gave an advantage to coins over metal of about 15 per cent., a pretty heavy seigniorage, the whole of which it was practical to evade by sending the silver to Amsterdam and there having it coined into florins and 1 Greijer, p. 178. HISTORY OF MONEY IN SAXONY AND SCANDINAVIA. 319 exchanged for Dutch wares aud products for shipment to Stockholm. As for the monetary function, which this decree conferred upon bullion, it was wholly ineffective. Nobody wanted bullion. Even although he got 15 per cent, more metal in the same sum, he preferred dalers. In 1607, the king (Charles IX)^ tried a new experi- ,ment in money. He decreed that whosoever brought to the mint 4 riksdalers (1594 English grains of silver), or who brought 4^ ounces of silver (1828|- grains), should receive 4^ curi-eucy dalers.^ I have not the text of this act before me, and cannot give either the contents or value of these new dalers. They should contain about i350 grains each, but I have found no such coin of this date in the Pai-is collection. As no limits were placed upon the deposits of silvei', and as the right of the de- positor to demand coined dalers for his metal was not restricted, this decree was called a " Patent of Free Coinage.^' It should have been termed " An act enabling the king to grant to the burghers one of the chief preroga- tives of State.'' That prerogative was the right and the power to increase the currency by employing the mint to turn metal into coins, and the right to diminish the currency by melting these coins down to metal. With such a see-saw as this in hand the burghers were armed with a terrible oower over tlie fortunes of their fellow-subjects. For- ibunately for the pi'osperity of Sweden the Dutch system did not woi'k successfully in that country. Sweden was ooor ; no vikings now entered its ports laden with the jplunder of other lands, and very little silver was in iirculation. In 1613, after the peace with Denmai^k, a legraded currency daler was in circulation which could not lave contained more than about 266 grains, for it required )ne and a half of them to equal in value one riksdaler." In he same year the ransom of Elfsborg was agreed to be )aid in four years, whereas, in fact, it was not paid until he end of six years. It was collected by a tax on the ^ Patent of January 7th, 1607. ^ Greijer, p. 221. 320 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. people, levied according to class, and made payable in i coins, silver bullion, copper, iron, rye, or malt, the mer- chandise at fixed prices.^ Perhaps the best proof of the '' scarcity of money consists in the fact that in 1613 the inevitable over-valued coppers, noAv no longer called y klippings but '' rundstyks," again made their appearance " in the circulation. This was followed by another emission in 1625, and the following paraphrase from Mr. Bryce's 'Holy Koman Empire' informs us to what a memorable use this issue was put to by the king. ''In 1619 Ferdinand II. ascended the imperial throne of Germany. The arrangements of Augsburg, like most treaties on the basis of uti possidetis, were no better than a hollow truce, satisfying no one, and conscientiously made to be broken. The Church lands which the Protestants had seized and Jesuit confessors had urged the Catholic princes to reclaim, furnished unceasing ground of quarrel; and the smouldering hate of both parties was kindled by the i troubles of Bohemia in the Thirty Years' War. Jealous, i bigoted, implacable, skilful in forming and masking his plans, and resolute in carrying them to completion, this ' champion of Kome had as nearly destroyed the Protestant religion of Europe as Charlemagne had destroyed the Arrian Christianity of the Lombards and the ancient worship of the Gothic races. Leagued with Spain, < backed by the Catholics of Germany, and served by such i a leader as Wallenstein, Ferdinand proposed nothing less ' than the extension of the empire to its ancient limits, and the recovery of its suzerainty over all the Christian states. Denmark and Holland were to be attacked by sea and land ; Italy to be re-conquered by the help of Spain ; and ' Maximilian of Bavaria and Wallenstein were to be rewarded with principalities in the ancient Gothic provinces of Mecklenburgh and Pomerania. The last-named general t was all but master of the northern lands, when the i successful resistance of Stralsund and an unexpected ^ Greijer, p. 221 n. HISTOEY OF MONET IN SAXONY AND SCANDINAVIA. 321 event of still greater importance turned the waverino- balance of tlie war. In 1630 the Goths once more crossed the Baltic, and turned their arms against Rome. Ferdi- nand had required the restitution of all Church property- occupied since 1555. The Protestants -svere helpless, and Europe was on the point of being again subjected to the murderous vengeance of Rome, when it was saved by the Gothic king. In four campaigns he destroyed the arms and prestige of the Catholic emperor, ravaged his lands,, emptied his treasury, and left him at last so enfeebled, that no subsequent success could make him or his cause again formidable.'^ The rundstyks of Gustavus are noteworthy for another •eason ; they gave rise to one of the most interesting nonetary experiments known to the history of the north. iFhe modern sciolists of money are never tired of chanting he sing-song of the dialecticians that money is a com- .Qiodity — that it is subject to the economic laws pertain- ng to commodities, among which is '^ supply and demand, "^ ind that its value must necessarily conform to the cost of he production of this commodity. If this be true it can nake no essential difference of what commodity money is nade provided that it is valuable, imperishable, susceptible if being readily coined, etc., nor how much or little of it is oined. We are now about to see a monetary system 'ased on this delusion. The overvalued copper money of iweden, issued by the Crown, reached such vast propor- ions that by the middle of the century it had fallen to ,r near its value as metal. Thus, at a period when the )utch and English ports were enriched with the plun- ered treasures of India and America, the Gothic de- enders of a faith, which enabled the nobles and burghers f those lands to enjoy this wealth in peace, were en- uring the bitterness of poverty and putting up with the iconvenience of a copper currency. A remarkable document, of which a copy exists in the Torden collections, delivered by Axel Oxenstiern ta 21 V 322 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. Gustavus Adolphus, bears this title : " According to his inajesty^s gracious command this is my humble opinion touching the copper trade and copper coinage/' *' So long as copper was at a good value, and the coinage •was limited in amount, so that it only supplied the wants of the community, and answered to their requirements, and was so kept within bounds that he who wished to have silver could obtain it, one coinage was as good as another ; but after the value of copper fell it drew down the coinage with it and diminished its value, so that we may indeed suffer and be silent on account of the prince's edict, but that does not alter the opinion and common sense of men." He then advises that the copper mines should be thrown open to individual enterprise — the sooner the better — with other advice concerning the copper mines and the old Copper Company.^ After the death of Gustavus the embarrassments of the treasury compelled his daughter Christina to issue, in 1644, a sort of exchequer-bill, known by the name of i ^' assignats " or " assignations," which appear to have circulated as money. Turning, in this extremity, to Holland for a suitable financial expedient, Sweden found one in the Wissel Bank of Amsterdam, and in 1656 a private institution, on much the same plan, was esta- blished in Stockholm by a man named Palmstruck. This ■ bank received deposits of coin, bullion, and rundstyks, ' for which it granted credits, and in 1658 issued receipts known as " transport-notes," which, from their superior convenience, soon drove the copper rundstyks into the vaults of the bank and usurped their place in the cir- culation. This plan worked so well that in 1668 the ^ Greijer, p. 295 n. The Copper Company was, in 1629, obliged to Testore the copper trade to the Crown, having made vain attempts to keep up the price. The copper coinage, first introduced into Sweden in 1625, formed part of this system (Ibid., p. 222). Compare the treatise on , the old Copper Company and copper coinage in the time of Gustavus ^ Adolphus, by Master Wingquist, " Scandia," vol. iv (Ibid., p. 227 n.). HISTORY OP MONET IN SAXONV AND SCANDINAVIA. 323 government took over Palmstruck's bank^ which it char- tered in that year as the Riks-Bank, or Royal, or National Bank of Sweden, and embarked, without fur- ther reserve, in a monetary system based upon copper metal. It cut large plates of hammered copper into squares and oblongs, some of them weighing thirteen or (fourteen pounds,^ and, stamping them with an appropriate device and their value (that of the metal) in each corner, issued them as money. Upon the theory of the schools there could be no prac- tical objection to this money nor to the "free coinage" of it, except its bulk and weight, and as to bulk and Iweight, there was the bank ready to receive it on deposit, and to issue in its place transport-notes payable in copper- plates. But soon a diflSculty arose, for which no provision had been made, and which the schoolmen had not foreseen : the value of copper continued to fall, and with it fell the purchasing-power of the copper-plates, and of the notes that repi'esented them. It was then perceived that gold and silver made a superior metallic money, not because they cost more than copper to pi'oduce, but be- 'oause they possess an attribute which is possessed neither by copper nor any other commodity. There is a vast 'accumulation of gold and silver in the world saved up from distant ag-es. Hence their value — which is not that of their cost of production, but (with open mints) that of bheir numbers and function as coins — is slow to obey any change, however great, in the cost of producing new 'metal. As there was no like accumulation of copper, every shipload that came in from Amsterdam further and further owered its value, and every withdrawal for the arts 3nhanced it. At length, on account of the fluctuations Which occurred in its value, it became entirely useless for none J. ' One of these plates, formerly in my possession, was 10 inches square, bree eighths of an inch thick, and weighed 6 lbs. 13 oz. avoirdupois 3ut I have seen them of double this size and weight in the Paris col- ection. 324 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. During the Regency of Christina (1633—45) it was | resolved that, '^ Instead of the copper coinage which his late Majesty had determined to let fall of itself, as it had already mostly disappeared, a good and sterling coinage, yet somewhat under the standard, should be issued.'^ ^ There is no sterling coinage of this period in the public collections. " The copper cross-pieces, struck and issued by order of Gustavus, seem to have had no currency. The Swedish agent in Holland, Eric Laurencson, offers to send them back again (Letter of the Council to the Chancellor, January 14, 1633). The government was constrained to order that debts which had been contracted in copper money should be paid according to the value which the riksdaler bore at tbe time, namely, until 1628, Q\ marks to the riksdaler ; 1629, 10 marks, and afterwards 14 marks, as ascertained by the Crown receipts. Thenceforth the riksdaler was to be worth 6 marks, or 48 ore, but the copper ore, or rundstyks, in circulation were at the same time depreciated to half their value, and the government undertook to cause silver coins to be struck."" The failure of the copper ingot system gave rise to another monetary experiment, this time with a tragic ending. After the defeat of Charles XII. at Pultowa and his return from captivity money was scarce and credit low in Sweden, but the genius of his financial adviser. Baron Goertz, saw a way to remove every difiiculty. George Heinricb de Goertz, Baron von Schlitz, was born of a noble family in Holstein. He joined Charles XII. at Stralsund on his return from Turkey, and through his activity and in- telligence was soon placed at the head of affairs. His scheme for establishing the currency was to issue not copper ingots but copper dollars, which, as they bore the king's stamp, were made full legal tenders, and were light and adapted for tbe pocket, he imagined would circulate at their nominal value without difficulty. This they would 1 Greijer, p. 295 n. ' Ibid. [ HISTORY OF MONEY IN SAXONY AND SCANDINAVIA. 325 liave done but for several circumstances, none of which ' appear to have been sufficiently considered by this other- wise excellent and conscientious minister. First, the government was too prostrate and weak to sustain a ' fiduciary money. Second, Goertz did not place any limitation upon the coinage. This (limitation) is the main principle and essence of money, without which — no matter of what substance the symbols are made, whether of gold, silver, i copper, or paper — it must fail to discharge its function equitably. Third, the copper dollars which he struck, i unlike the exquisitely finished sesterces of the Roman : Republic, were rudely made and therefore easily counter- :feited. Fourth, he seemed indifferent to the rights or i prejudices of the ecclesiastical, noble, and burgher classes, ■ whose rents and other sources of income were grossly and ■inequitably reduced through his neglect to secure the overvalued dollars from depreciation. He caused to be struck upon these dollars, not the images of the ancient Gothic gods, as some authors allege, but of Jupiter, Mars, Phoebus, Saturn, etc., and this, too, was deemed an offence to those who were injured by the depreciation which occurred. The pieces were of about the same size as a silver shilling of to-day, and were stamped '' 4 daler silf . mynt," being overvalued nearly a hundred times. Finally, as if to render these coins as odious as possible, it was asserted and believed that after an interval the tax officers would be instructed to refuse them in payment of taxes from the peasants,^ but such inequity and rashness seems incredible. This system, coupled with issues of base silver coins, heavy copper plates, and paper notes, to neither of which were any limits prescribed or observed, continued in force during the life of the king ; but the ■moment his death occurred, in 1718, and his sister Ulrica •Elenora mounted the throne, a declaration was promul- gated whereby the paper notes were wholly abolished, and the copper dalers were reduced by several successive steps 1 Ibid. 326 HISTOEY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. to something near their metallic value. The next measures taken by the princess royal and her council are thus described.^ " A charge was drawn up against Goertz, who was accused of peculation, of having ruined public credit by imaginary money, of having formed a design to destroy the king and army by advising him to a ruinous campaign in the inhospitable kingdom of Norway, and so on. . . . Goertz, to whom the assistance of counsel was refused, defended himself with great ability, and clearly invalidated almost every article of the impeachment. His straight- ened circumstances were a proof that he had applied none of the public money to his own use ; the necessity of the times apologised for his substituting over-valued money to satisfy the wants of the treasury, and possibly such a measure might have proved of national advantage had it been pursued with more discretion. Notwithstanding Goertz's defence was clear and irrefragable, the case went on without regard to formality or perhaps to equity. The court and the citizens seemed equally determined to hound him to death, . . . He was condemned to lose his head, and at a place appointed for the execution of thieves and felons. ^^" This cruel sentence was enforced March 3, 1719. The insertion of a design to " ruin public credit with imaginary money " in the indictment against Goertz reads very much like the apology of the regicides for their murder of the Mongol ruler of Persia in 1294, that he had criminally substituted paper for metallic money. Indeed, one indictment may have been borrowed from the other.* Voltaire, citing the memoires of Bassevitz, gives an en- tirely different version of the Goertz affair. He does not say that the primate was executed either for circulating copper dollars in Sweden or advising a campaign in Norway, but for the abortive plots and intrigues which 1 " Modern Univers. Hist.," xxx, pj). 284f-8o. "^ Ibid., p. 288. 3 Wright's " Marco Polo," p. 217. \ ■ HISTORY OF MONEY IN SAXONY AND SCANDINAVIA. 327 he set afoot for tlie recoveiy of the Baltic provinces.^ 1 This seems very much more likely. Besides the Goertz dollars, the base silver coins, and the paper currency of Charles XII, there were in circulation some of the old copper plates and the transport-notes of the Eiksbank ; indeed, this continued down to 1763, so ; that from first to last the copper plates enjoyed a circu- lation of more than acentury. In addition to these strange elements of money in Sweden, there was a copper plate sys- : tern in Wismar. By the treaty of Westphalia, 1648, the city of Wismar, in Mecklenburg-Schwerin, had been ceded to i Sweden, which established there a court of appeals for its possessions in Germany. In 1715, during the prevalence of the copper plate bank notes and copper dollar system of 1 Sweden, copper ingots or plates were issued in Wismar of ; the denominations 4, 8, and 16 shillings, and the sizes 2, 1 2^, and 3f inches square. Facsimiles of these pieces, which : are now very rare, are published in Maillet's '^ Monnais , Obsidionales et de Necessite," Bruxelles, 1868. They are i all dated 1715, and soon after this date they disappeared , from circulation, and found their way to the Eiksbank of ; Stockholm." i During the last half of the eighteenth and first quarter I of the nineteenth century the currency of Sweden was ': nominally based on silver dalers, but, owing to the wars in which the State was involved, it really consisted of i somewhat depreciated bank-notes and greatly depreciated government notes, both of which, it is perhaps needless to say, were inconvertible. This depreciation, and the desire to resume coin payments, gave rise to the coinage I ^ Voltaire, " L'Empire de Eussie," ii, 8. It is a curious fact that the ' Goertz dalers were called Mynt-saicen, a retention of the ancient deno- mination of the saicca, saiga, sicca, or shekel, for the meaning of which ; so many metrologists and numismatists have searched in vain (De Vienne, " Livre d'Argent ; " Brucker, in Hildehrand's " Jahrbok," 1864, i,p. 161). - Consult my " History of Money, Ancient," p. 199. 328 HISTOEY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. of new silver dalers, designed to exactly equal tlie value of the depreciated notes, for whidi^ it was expected, they would become interchangeable. It will be remem- bered that the old specie riksdaler (in which these notes were payable) contained about 390 English grains fine silver. The new coins were the riksdaler-banco, contain- ing about 146|: grains fine, or three-eighths of the specie daler, and the riksgald (royal debts) daler, containing about 97^ grains fine, or one-fourth of the specie daler. The former represented the value of the bank-note, the latter that of the government note. Each of these dalers were subdivided into 48 skillings, each of 12 rundstyks.^ As, by the Eoyal Ordinance of October 26th, 1829, the government notes were made legal-tender for riksgald dalers, and no adequate provision was made for their retirement, the new coins, when not exported, were added to the circulation, and they still further lowered the value of all the dalers, including themselves. Upon observing this, the government hastened its arrange- ments for the retirement of its notes, and the operation was eventually concluded satisfactorily, not, however, until the confusion caused by the presence of three dif- ferent classes of metallic dalers, skillings, and rundstyks had led to great annoyance.' By the legislation of 1854, the old specie riksdaler and the new riksdaler-banco were abolished, leaving the riksgald daler the sole ^' unit of circulation '' (a much better term than the misleading ^' unit of value " of the ^ Consult table of the Talent or Riksdaler in the test. - Lieut. -Colonel F. S. Terry, in two pamphlets, "The Great Currency Problem" and "Independent Standards," London, 1893, proposed to " restore silver " by introducing into other states a like system of two metallic moneys, the one silver, the other gold, both open to " free coin- age," and both without limit, in either of which moneys people would be free to make their bargains. The Dutch authors of the Act of Charles n. gave us one illimitable and ever-varying measure of value ; Colonel Terry's plan would give us two. HISTORY OP MONEY IN SAXONY AND SCANDINAVIA. 329 American statutes) . The riksgald daler was now termed the riksmynt daler, its subdivisions of skillings and rundstycks were abrogated, and it was subdivided anew into 100 ore.^ This legislation went into effect January 1st, 1858. The religious fanaticism of Chi-istian II, which had arrayed against him both the nobles and the commons of Sweden, also occasioned the secession of Norway from the Scandinavian union. The election of Frederick I, by the Danes, though it failed to conciliate the multitude who supported the standard of Gustavus Vasa, appears to have satisfied both the peoples of Norway and Den- mark, whereupon, in 1523, these two States were joined under one government, and they so remained until 1813—14, when Norway again united with Sweden. The monetary history of Denmark and Norway during most of this interval has been already sufficiently illus- trated. Previous to 1813 the Danish monetary valuations were 1 specie i-iksdaler equalled l^ sletdalers, 4 orts, 6 jmarks, 96 skillings, 192 fyrkes, 288 witten, or 1152 ipfennings Danish ; or one half of the like denominations :in Hamburg, or Lubeck, or Schleswig-Holstein money. :Thus the Danish specie riksdaler equalled 3 marks, or 48 skillings '' Lubs,'^ etc. In other words, the mark or skilling of Lubeck, etc., was worth twice as much as the mark or skilling Danish. There were at this period no less than five different ikinds of money used in Denmark. These were as follows : — 1. " Specie." The basis of this money was the " specie " or " effective " riksdaler of 390 down to 375 lEnglish grains fine, valued in law at 6 marks, or 96 skillings, etc., as above stated. 2. " Currency.-" This money consisted of suspended |bank or government notes, and, according to Dr. Kelly, was 2211 per cent, worse than " specie." This is pre- ' Appleton's " Encyc," xv, p. 217. 330 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. sumed to mean in the year 1821, when the author wrote> but of course the relation -was variable. The books of merchants^ tradesmen, and others (except those of the bank of Aitona, which adhered to " specie ") were kept, in "cm-rency." "Specie" and "currency" were the two principal moneys. Besides these, there were : 3. " Suudish specie," in which Sound dues were levied on foreigners. This was 2% per cent, worse than " specie." 4. " Crown money/' in which Sound dues were levied on native vessels. This was lo|-f- per cent, worse than " specie." To enhance this confusion of moneys, the silver " specie " coins were struck by the Danish mint mark or about 3607| grains, while the gold coins and the " cur- rency " and " Crown " silver coins were struck by the Cologne mark of 3608 grains. The difference was small, yet it was sufficient to occasion annoyance in the com- putation and value of large sums. This dissonance of mint-weights arose out of the fact that the king of Denmark was also the duke of Holstein, and, as such, his coins had to agree in some sort with those of the empire. The " specie " ducat of Denmark contained 52-6, and the " current " ducat 42-2, grains fine gold. The " Christian " contained 93-6, and the " Frederick " of 1813-39 contained 91^, grains fine gold. The gold coins were not legal-tender, and they fluctuated in value, from day to day, in silver coins. Bargains (special con- tracts) could be made in gold coins, but, as silver coins formed the basis of the monetary system, such bargains were rarely made, and the gold coinage constituted an expense to the government, for which the charge of f of 1 per cent, seigniorage was deemed an inadequate com- pensation. The gold coins were commonly exported to Germany, where they were hoarded by the peasants. 1 All thefie details will be found in the communication of G. Strachey, HISTOEY OF MONEY JN SAXONY AND SCANDINAVIA. 831 ; A further source of confusion in the monetary system of ; Denmark arose from the circumstance that, whilst in Bergen the system of money was based on the Danish ; riksdaler of 6 marks, or 96 skillings, in Christiania, ; Drontheira, Larwigen, Kopperwic, and other places in Norway, a riksdaler was employed of 4 orts, or 24 skil- i lings Danish.^ A final coufusiou was occasioned by the I fluctuations of the Danish paper currency, which, being ; continually increased in amount, varied in Danish I "specie" or silver riksdalers, a subject which will be i explained after disposing of the specie system introduced in 1813. , In this new system one of the old riksdalers was coined I into two ; in other words, 18| new Riksbank dalers — as ■ they were called — were struck from a Cologne mark of : silver, so that each one contained 195 English grains fine. This daler was divided into 6 marks or 96 skil- . lings, like the old riksdaler " specie," therefore both the [ dalers, marks, and skillings, since there was no limit to ! their coinage, were worth only half as much as the former , ones. i '' The bank of Copenhagen has undergone many essen- I tial changes since its first establishment, and, in order to understand its present state, it may be necessary to take i a general view of those alterations. It was originally I founded, in 1 736, as a bank both of deposit and of cir- ' culation. In 1745 it was released from the obligation of ' discharging its notes in coin, and it continued still to 1 make advances to the State and to individuals in paper, [ by which shares became greatly enhanced in their value. " This bank had issued paper to the amount of eleven I millions of riksdalers, when the king returned their deposits to the shareholders and became himself the sole Esq., to the Bntish Foreign Office, printed in the " Eepoi-t of the Royal Commission on Coinage," 1868, p. 234. 1 Schmidt's (Tate's) " Cambist," p. 86, also mentions a Norwegian ■ daler of 120 skillings ; but I have not been able to identify it. 332 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. proprietor. The paper issued was twenty times the amount I of the capital, in consequence of which specie disappeared, and notes were fixed as low as 1 riks dollar. "To remedy this inconvenience, in 1791, all further emission of notes was forbidden, and a progressive liquida- tion of the paper was ordered. A new bank, called the Specie Bank, was created, which was to be independent of the government. The money deposited might be drawn out at pleasure, or transferred by assignment, and its issue of paper was limited to a certain extent. In 1804 the new notes lost 25 per cent, in exchange with the currency in which they were payable, and the deprecia- tion continued to increase until 1812, when it became excessive. " In 181 o a new bank was established under the direction « of the king, and, therefore, entitled the Royal Bank of Denmark. Its chief object was to reduce the paper then in circulation, which was depreciated to one-sixth of its nominal value ; and in a new issue the dollar was equiva- lent to five-eighths of the old paper dollar, which reduced the composition to ^^y^. In 1817 this bank was converted into a National Bank, by making a certain proportion of the property of the kingdom a guarantee for the liquida- tion of its paper. " For this purpose all property was to pay 6 per cent, to the bank, and until the capital is paid the interest charged for each deficiency is 6| per cent, per annum. Valuation of property in this case is regulated by the public taxes, and all the payments are to be made in silver or in paper of the full value of silver, according to a certain rate of exchange, which is fixed quarterly ; but as this institution engages to pay off seven millions of j riksbank dollars annually, persons paying in their quota i at the bank are allowed a drawback of five- sixths of the . taxes. " This bank issues its own notes, which are gradually paid off ; and it is intended, when the new paper is , HISTOET OF MONEY IN SAXONY AND SCANDINAVIA. 333 entirely reduced, to issue notes payable to bearer on demand. All revenues and great transactions are paid in this paper, according to the rate of exchange. This rate is called riksbank silver value, which may be some- times moi-e and sometimes less than the riksbank dollar. All private contracts and current transactions are under- stood to be settled in such paper, unless real silver is stipulated for ; likewise all payments of public actuaries and to the army ; but custom-house duties are settled in real silver. "In January, 1821, the debts of the bank were com- puted as follows : — 1. Seven millions of riksbank dollars of public stock, which it has undertaken to pay. 2. Seven millions of bonds for the redemption of the former paper money of Holstein, etc. 3. A debt of seven millions, lately contracted, for the diminution of the bank-notes in circulation. 4. The bank-notes in circulation, which are computed at twenty-two millions. " The capital ■ is estimated at thirty-three millions of riksbank dollars, and the bank is besides computed to possess about three millions in silver and in buildings. The surplus of its annual revenue, the principal part of which arises from the interest of its security on real estates, is employed in the reduction of the bank-notes in circulation. The contributors of 6 per cent, from estates, as well as voluntary contributors, are shareholders, and are equally entitled to interest, etc."^ This system was modified in 1839, by further pro- visions for the retirement of the paper money, similar to . those of Sweden, already described, except that in the , case of Denmark, the riksbank silver daler of 195 grains fine remained the '' unit of circulation." It was, therefore, worth a trifle more than two Swedish riksgald, or riksmynt, dalers. On September 20, 1872, a convention of the three Scandinavian States Avas concluded at Copenhagen, which 1 KeUy's " Cambist," ed. 1821, i, p. 79. 334 HISTOEY OF MONETARY SYSTKMS IN VARIOUS STATES. } 1 was ratified afc Stockholm on December 18, 1872.^ It I provided for a common system of coinage, based on the : gold kroner (crown) of 6*22 English grains fine, divided into 100 ore. This coin, or i-ather its multiples (four kroner being the smallest piece), was made full legal tender in all the States, and was opened to '' individual coinage ;" in other words, the State is obliged to coin anybody's gold bullion substantially free of expense, the seigniorage only amounting to from ^ to ^ of 1 per cent, ad valorem. •The silver coins were limited in legal-tender function to five specie riksdalei'S, equal (nominally) to twenty kroner, and their coinage was reserved to the State. In a word, the Scandinavian States practically demonetised silver, and adopted gold coins and " open mintage '^ as the basis of their monetary systems. Each State retained its own paper money system. The notes, so long as they continue to be redeemed in gold coins, are full legal tender within the State of issue — an attribute of which they are to become divested whenever redemption fails. " In the transcription of obligations contracted in the earlier money, the basis of conversion adopted was the proportion of silver to gold of 15*08 for 1." This simply means that obligations contracted in specie riksdalers of practically 375^ grains silver are now payable with four kroner, con- taining 24*9 grains of gold. " The ratio of transcription" in Denmark was 15*675 for 1. Both the gold and silver coins of each State are accorded legal course in the others, subject, as to silver coins, to certain internal arrange- ments. These provisions were adopted in the Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian laws of May 23, 1873, May 30, 1878, and June 4, 1873, and by the treaties of May 27, 1873, and October 16, 1875, which went into effect April 1, 1876, and were rendered obligatory from Januai-y 1, 1877. ' The text of this convention will be found in the " Report of the U.S. Monetary Commission" of 1876, part I, p. 71. CHAPTER XVII. THE NETHERLANDS. Ancient Saxony — Origin of the Dutch — Their maritime character' — Early moneys— The pagan lesterling, Engel, and Guilder — Trade with 'Saracenic Spain — Moslem and Esterling ratios — Pepin, the Short — The Christian ratio — Compromise ratio of the Baltic — The Saiga — Fall of ;the Eastern Empire — Coinages of the Renaissance — The Ducat, or Florin j — Proposed Anglo-Flemish Convention — Florins and Nobles of Edward III — Disagreement respecting the ratio — Burgundian ratios — The Ducaton, or Thaler — the Stiver — Causes of the Dutch revolution — Religion and Money — The right of coinage — Corruptions of money during the Renaissance — Sudden enhancement of gold by Charles V — ■Revolt of the Netherlands — Demonetisation of gold — Paper money of jLeyden — the Wissel Bank — The Bank of Amsterdam — Sols banco — Burgher coinage — It destroys money and substitutes metal — Selfish .policy of Spain — The Buccaneers — Plunder of the Spanish galleons — Opening of the sea route to the Orient — The Dutch colony of New Amsterdam (New York) — The English follow the Dutch in all these ;measures — Sir Thomas Gresham — Dutch coinage ratios from the earliest .times to the present — The Mark — Hanseatic money — Successive monetary systems of the Burghers from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century — Gold and silver alternately demonetised — Bank issues and insolvency — Recent demonetisation of silver — Present currency of the Netherlands ' — Importance of the ratio as a guide to history — Urgent necessity for [reform of the Dutch monetary system — The Future. ^ I ^HE early history of money in the Netherlands is -*- included in that of ancient Saxony^ of which an .outline appear.s in my " Ancient Britain." The present ;treatise begins substantially with the Carlovingian or [Mediaeval empire, under which the various lordships, which afterwards constituted the provinces of the Netherlands, were held in vassalage. These were Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelderland, Groningen, Over-iesel, or Overyssel, 336 HISTOEY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. and Friesland ; afterwards called the Seven United Pro- ! vinces. These, with three other provinces, carved out of the i Generality governed by the States-General, make the pre-! sent kingdom of Holland. The eight remaining provinces of the Netherlands now make the kingdom of Belgium. It will conduce to a better understanding of the Dutch i monetary systems to explain, at the outset, that the ancient ■ Batavians were not descended from the people of the highlands, or Germany, and shared neither their customs nor religion. The Batavians were a portion of that martial and amphibious race who carried the worship of the Sun and the art of navigation from the Gulf of Fin- land to the British Channel ; and were so mingled with the Iesthonians,Veneti,and Norsemen, that no ethnological nor philological theory has ever satisfactorily traced their genealogy, or accounted for their early history. Their rivers, provinces, and towns, as lessel, Ober-Iessel, and les-la-Chapelle, afterwards Aix-la-Chapelle, were named after the sun-god ; they were fishermen, traders, and pirates ; and so were their neighbours and kinsmen, the Yeneti and Norsemen ; and that is about all we know of them, until Charlemagne, including them among the ! pagans of Saxony, drove his pious sword through some of their obdurate hearts and obliterated their genealogy, by introducing German blood into the remainder. The conquest of the Veneti and Batavians by Caesar, the allusion to them in the " Germany '^ of Tacitus, the revolt of the Frisians against the exacting rule of Tiberius, the rise of Carausius the Menapian, the subjection of the Low Countries to the Western and Carlovingian empires, and the history of the Pagan Hansa, all of which subjects are treated either in the work above alluded to, or else in my ! " Middle Ages Eevisited," may interest the student of a \ larger history ; but cannot, in the present state of his- torical knowledge, lead to any more satisfactory infor- mation concerning the origin of the Dutch people. The oldest Dutch coins are attributed to Arnold II, count I THE NETHERLANDS. 337 ;of Flanders, 964-89. The oldest Dutch coins in the British IMuseum are some small thin silver pieces of Bruno III, count of Frisia, A.D. 1038-57, a vassal of the emperors Henry III. and Henry IV. These pieces, which are in I fairly good condition, weigh from 10-2 to 10-4 "English 1 grains each. I shall revert to them further on ; mean- ; while it is necessary to observe that, although they are lamong the oldest Dutch coins, they are not among the boldest Dutch moneys. These were ieschen (corrupted to eschen, and falsely traced to the Eoman ace or as, which last was unknown in the Netherlands), iesterlings or engels, and gulden. The first and second of these names, like those attached to the sacred coins of China, India, jGreece, and Eome, are evidently derived from that ■of the sun-god. Engel is probably derived from an effigy on the iesterliug. The last belongs also to a pagan era, for although now it is that of a silver coin, the name evidently belongs to a time when it was a gold one, and therefore to a pagan period ; because under the Christian empire no gold coins were permitted to be struck except by the sovereign-pontiff in Byzantium. The gulden was ■probably the maravedi of about 40 grains weight. From near the beginning of the eighth to the close of the tenth centuries — when, as attested by the numerous inds of moslem coins in Esthonia, Julin, Gotland, Frisia, tc, an active trade was conducted in the Baltic and N'orth Seas and coastwise down to Saracenic Spain, by ;he Norsemen, Dutchmen and moslem — moslem coins and valuations must have been familiar to the maritime pro- /inces of northern and western Europe. The influence of :he moslem ratio of value between gold and silver is especially noticeable. The ratio in the Roman and Christian systems was, until the thirteenth century, always 12 for 1 ; -.hat in the Indian and moslem systems, 6^- for 1. This •adical difference in the relative coinage value of the precious metals, maintained on both sides for centuries ivith little attempt at compromise or reconcilement, enables 22 328 HISTOEY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. I of new silver dalers, designed to exactly equal tlie value of the depi-eciated notes, for whicli, it was expected, tHey would become interchangeable. It will be remem- bered that the old specie riksdaler (in which these notes were payable) contained about 390 English grains fine silver. The new coins were the riksdaler-banco, contain- ing about 146j grains fine, or three-eighths of the specie daler, and the riksgald (royal debts) daler, containing about 97^ grains fine, or one-fourth of the specie daler. The former represented the value of the bank-note, the latter that of the government note. Each of these dalers were subdivided into 48 skillings, each of 12 rundstyks.^ As, by the Eoyal Ordinance of October 26th, 1829, the government notes were made legal-tender for riksgald dalers, and no adequate provision was made for their retirement, the new coins, when not exported, were added to the circulation, and they still further lowered the value of all the dalers, including themselves. Upon observing this, the government hastened its arrange- ments for the retirement of its notes, and the operation was eventually concluded satisfactorily, not, however, until the confusion caused by the presence of three dif- ferent classes of metallic dalers, skillings, and rundstyks had led to great annoyance." By the legislation of 1854, the old specie riksdaler and the new riksdaler-banco were abolished, leaving the riksgald daler the sole "' unit of circulation ^' (a much better term than the misleading " unit of value ^' of the ^ Consult table of the Talent or Riksdaler in the text. 2 Lieut. -Colonel F. S. Terry, in two pamphlets, " The Great Currency Problem" and "Independent Standards," London, 1893, proposed to " restore silver " by introducing into other states a like system of two metallic moneys, the one silver, the other gold, both open to " free coin- age," and both without limit, in either of which moneys people would be free to make their bargains. The Dutch authors of the Act of Charles II. gave us one illimitable and ever-varying measure of value ; Colonel Terry's plan would give us two. HISTORY OF MONEY IX SAXONY AND SCANDINAVIA. 329 American statutes) . The riksgald daler was now termed the riksmynt daler, its subdivisions of skillings and rundstycks were abrogated, and it was subdivided anew into 100 ore.^ This legislation went into effect January 1st, 1858. The religious fanaticism of Christian II, which had arrayed against him both the nobles and the commons of Sweden, also occasioned the secession of Norway from the Scandinavian union. The election of Frederick I, by the Danes, though it failed to conciliate the multitude who supported the standard of Gustavus Vasa, appears to have satisfied both the peoples of Norway and Den- mark, whereupon, in 1523, these two States were joined under one government, and they so remained until 1813—14, "when Norway again united with Sweden. The monetary history of Denmark and Norway during most of this interval has been already sufficiently illus- trated. Previous to 1813 the Danish monetary valuations were 1 specie riksdaler equalled Ih sletdalers, 4 orts, 6 marks, 96 skillings, 192 fyrkes, 288 witten, or 1152 pfennings Danish ; or one half of the like denominations in Hamburg, or Lubeck, or Schleswig-Holstein money. Thus the Danish specie riksdaler equalled 3 marks, or 48 skillings " Lubs," etc. In other words, the mark or skilling of Lubeck, etc., was worth twice as much as the mark or skilling Danish. There were at this period no less than five different kinds of money used in Denmark. These were as follows : — 1. "Specie." The basis of this money was the " specie " or " effective " riksdaler of 390 down to 375 English grains fine, valued in law at 6 marks, or 96 skillings, etc., as above stated. 2, " Currency.'" This money consisted of suspended bank or government notes, and, according to Dr. Kelly, was 22|4- per cent, worse than " specie." This is pre- ' Appleton's " Encyc," xv, p. 217. 340 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. centuries, when nioslem coins and valuations were current in the Baltic, the gold shilling ceased to be coined, and was superseded by parts of the gold dinar of 63|- grains! fine. The silver dirhem of 41^ grains fine, of which ten went to the dinar (a ratio of 6^ for 1), was also in circu- lation among the Dutch ; a fact attested by the immense numbers of them found in recent years on the coasts of the Baltic and North Seas. From these circumstances regard the silver pieces of Friesland, mentioned above, as typically quarter-dirhems. It is of no practical con- sequence whether they are regarded tis quarter-dirhems or half-deniers ; only, if as half-deniers, they should bear a ratio of 12 to the gold shilling of the empire,which they dd not ; whereas, if as quarter-dirhems, they should bear a ratio* of 6ito the quarter-dinars of Saracenic Spain, which they do. There is no evidence that the ratio of 12 was employed in Holland, except at sporadic intervals, that is to sajj under Pepin, and possibly for a brief period under Charl© magne ; for the latter struck few or no gold coins probably none. It may have been again employed in the earlier Hapsburgh coinages of the fifteenth century. At al other periods, as is shown in a table further on, the ratio ii Dutch coinage and mint valuations, from the Carlovingiarj period down to the year 1524, varied from 8 to 10 for 1. From the date of their earliest coinages, down to the fifteenth century, the coins of the Netherlands which have fallen under my observation present no features of especial interest. The collection in the British Museum is not only wanting as to several provinces and numerous reigns of the Dutch princes, but many of the coins are in bac condition — clipped, bent, perforated with holes, or other- wise mutilated. Among the best specimens are a small silver coin of the count of Nassau, 1229—71, and anothei of Reynaud II, 1326—43 — both of the quarter-dirhed type. Another of Philip le Beau, dux Geldria, weighs 41 i grains gross, and is evidently intended for a dirhem! The earliest gold coin in this collection is one of Charlesl THE NETHERLANDS. 341 Egmout, duke of Gueldria^ 1492—1538. It is stamped with the figure of a saiut, who is styled the "patron of Gueldria/^ weighs 50" 6 grains gross, and is apparently of about 22 carats fine. An earlier one, struck by Charles of Flanders, 1467—77, also stamped with the efiigy of a saint, .and weighing 51 grains gross, is in the possession of Mr. Lincoln, the London numismatist. These coins are ducats. There are no ducats of the fourteenth century in the Museum collection, yet that is the period when they .possess the highest interest ; for they were then connected with the history of England. In 1343, after Edward III. had been authorised by the emperor to coin gold, and whilst he was making preparations to exercise this pre- ■rogative, it was intimated that the Flemings sold their wares only for Flemish gold florins (ducats), which were valued so highly in English silver coins as to render .payment in the latter unprofitable to English merchants. In other words, by paying gold ducats with silver coins, the islanders are represented to have suffered a disadvan- itage j whereupon the crown resolved that they should be enabled to pay with gold ones. Hence the issue of English double ducats of the year 1344. But as these ; were valued at six shillings, or 12 times their w^eight of , silver, whilst the Flemish ratio was probably 10 for 1, the i Flemings declined to accept them ; whereupon they were ' decried and withdrawn from circulation within the year. ; Still bent upon issuing a gold coin that should not only retain its place in the home circulation, but also obtain I some currency abroad, Edward next (within the same •year) issued the noble at six shillings and eight pence, a ! ratio of 11 "06 for 1 ; the seigniorage being 9 per cent. But this coin the Flemings also objected to unless they were to be struck (under Edward's letter of authority) in ; Flanders, and also unless an amicable division could be ■ made of the profits arising from their coinage. For this purpose commissioners were sent to Ghent, Bruges, and : Ipre; but nothing came of the negotiations. The ratio S42 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. which ruled in the Netherlands must have compelled the Flemings to demand either a re-valuation of the noble, or an entire abandonment of the seigniorage conditions to which the English envoys were not authorisec to assent. Fi'oissart and Grafton both assert that a gol( coin with the name of Edward was struck in Antwerp ai this period ; but no such coin has ever been found. ^ In 1436 Holland was annexed to Gothic Burgundy, anc in 1477 to Austria,^ which governed it until 1506, when it was inherited by Charles Y, of Germany, or Charles I, of Spain, himself a native of Ghent. During the Bur- gundian period, some of the Dutch ducats now called! double ducats weighed 67 grains (British Museum ducatS of Utrecht), and were 23 carats 3^ grains fine (Budelius, p. 249, " Old Double Ducat "). Hence they contained 56J grains fine — substantially the same as the Venetian sequim of the thirteenth century. The halves were called gulden. The coinage ratio was 9 for 1, an inference derived! from the silver ducat or ducaton, whose weight at this period varied from 513 to 507^ grains gross. It wasj valued equally with the heavier ducat or double gulden. None of these broad ducaton pieces are in the collection of the British Museum, but they are frequently mentioned by Budelius, where their weights and finenesses are given with great minuteness. They varied from 0*936 to 0"916|-| fine, and were variously called ducatons, riders, talents,i king's-thalers, and Netherlands pennies. They werej commonly struck down to the reign of Philip II, and| occasionally down to the present century; but their value,, as related to the gold coins, was seriously impaired, as ^ Del Mar's " Middle Ages Eevisited," chap. xix. The " dubble-ies ' was in use during the present century (" Tour in Holland," by Wm. Chambers, 1842). ^ The Austrian mint ordinance relating to the Netherlands was issued by Maximillian at Breda, December 14th, 1489. It provided for a gold florin 39f English grains fine, valued at 12 times its weight in fine silver, a provision that practically nullified the ordinance and discredited; the florins. THE NETHERLANDS. 343 will be presently related, by the arbitrary legislation of •Charles V. There was also a silver dollar of about two- thirds the same contents, which was valued at a gulden — a ratio of 9 for 1. This piece was the prototype of the existing German thaler, the old Turkish grouch, and many other coins. If it seems difficult to believe that gold stood at so low a ratio to silver in the fifteenth century, perhaps the following ratios, taken from the coinages of France during that century, will reader our deduction more credible :— Year 1403— ratios, 7'31, 7-84, and 7-87; 1411—6-64 and 6-85; 1417—9-60 and 6-40; 1418—6-67; 1419_7-30; 14-21- 9-49; 1423 (2nd Charles VII)— 10-22; 1425—10-94 ; 1428—7-45 ; 1435—12-59 ; 1437-7-97 ; ^1447_10-93; 1456—10-79; 1473 (13th Louis XI)— 10-94 ; and 1475—10-98.^ It was during the thirteenth or fourteenth century that the stiver was added to the Dutch denominations of money. The ancient Roman libra of account had consisted of five solidi, or twenty quarter-solidi, or gold shillings. In like manner the Arabian maravedi (the Dutch gulden) was divided in Holland into twenty stivers. At a later period the Dutch talent, or silver ducaton,was divided into twenty stivers, each of about 25 grains of silver ; the talent and gulden were therefore of the same value. When, in still later times, the ducaton, talent, thaler, or dollar, was lowered in weight, the stiver became a bronze or copper coin." The printing-press, the discovery of America, and the teachings of Erasmus — the Dutch leader of the Reforma- 1 Del Mar's " Money and Civilisation," p. 202. - In Locke's essay on " Money " it is stated that the Dutch ducaton hove a premium in Holland of l^ per cent, over the newer and less valuable silver coins of the same denominational value, and that the , ducaton passed for 3 guilders and 3 stivei^s. Locke was in Holland in 1682, and must have been thoroughly familiar with this subject; yet I cannot make these statements agree. [ 344 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. tion — all of which influences made themselves felt at| about the same time, have been vai'iously put forward by! historians as the motive for the Revolt of the Netherlands. I No doubt that all of these influences contributed to bring | about the end ; no doubt that religion was the most powerful of them all, and that the proceedings of the Councils of Trent, E-atisbon, and Worms, and the sudden! and sinister alliance between the pope and the emperor^ i who down to this time had made numerous concessions to the Protestants, which now the emperor revoked, were among the immediate provocations to the rebellion. Buti there was still another motive behind this revolution. The learned Abbe Eaynal disclosed this motive, in alluding! to the disgust of the Netherlands with that edict of| Ferdinand which had foi'bidden them to take part in the gainful commerce of the East and West Indies, by re- stricting it to " subjects of Castile.''^ Religion may havei swayed the noble and even the common people ; it was 1 commerce that swayed the burghers." This is proved by the revolt of Ghent in 1539, the ground for which wasi that the emperor's quarrels with Francis debarred the! citizens of the town from the rich trade with France, and loaded them with taxes which they protested they could not afi^ord to pay. It is also proved by the relative importance of the demands which were made by Prince Maurice, upon the conclusion of his campaign against' Charles. After providing for the liberation of the im-; prisoned Elector, these demands were, first, that the grievances in the civil government should be redressed ; ; and, last, that the Protestants should be allowed the free i exercise of their religion.^ Among these civil grievances none could have been | ' Raynal, 12mo ed., i, p. 138. - " The parliament and the people, in their addresses to Queen Eliza- beth, always mentioned the reformation of the coin, after that of religion, as one of the principal events of the reign " (Lord Liverpool's "Letter to the King," ed. 1880, p. 111). ^ Robertson's " Life of Charles V," iii, p. 252. THE NETHERLANDS. 345 ikiore heavily felt in Holland than the monetary decrees iof Charles V. In 1524 this monarch had raised the value of his gold coins in the Netherlands from 9 or 10 to llf ; times their weight in silver coins. This occasionecl so imucli dissatisfaction that in 1542 he returned to a ratio of 10 for 1 by degrading his silver dollars — a mode of I reparation hardly more satisfactory than had been the original offence. But the worst- was to come. In 1546 Charles suddenly enhanced the value of his gold coins to lo| times their weight in silver ones. In effect, this edict reduced the circulating medium of the Netherlands, which consisted substantially of silver coins, to scarcely more than two-thirds of its value previous to the year 1524. It was a blow that everybody felt, and felt at once ; and it probably exercised no little influence to support both the operations of Maurice against Charles land the subsequent and more important operations which William of Orange directed against Philip. To justly estimate the onerous chai'acter of this last monetary ordinance of Charles, it should be explained, for ! example, that it reduced the silver ducaton to two-thirds iof its former value, or, which is the same thing, it raised ithe value of gold nearly 50 per cent., by substituting a ' debased ducat, first of about 37 grains, and next of about ■ 35 grains fine, in place of the old ones of about 54 graius fine. Budelius (p. 249) mentions a ducat of Deventer on ■the lessel, of 67 eschen, or 49*7 grains, which was only 17| carats fine, and therefore contained but 36^ grains fine, and a " kaiser's ducat," evidently of Charles V, only 14 carats fine, and containing (if of the same gross weight as the former) only 29 grains fine; whilst the ducats of Philip, of the same gross weight, were only 16 ; carats fine, and therefore contained but 33g^ grains of gold. ' Such a violent and sudden alteration of the value of money amongst a commercial people produced the greatest J distress and commotion ; and in view of the insurrections ■ which have followed close upon the heels of arbitrary 346 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. monetary decrees in otlier States, it cannot be doubtec^j that this measure was at least one of the causes thafei contributed to the revolution of 1572. From this date, indeed, commenced a new era, not! only in the monetary system of the Netherlands, but alsQ in all the other states of the Western world. To under^, stand its significance we must make a brief retrospecti concerning the riglit of coinage. • ,| In the imperial monetary system, wbicli was planneid by Julius Cfesar, matured by Augustus, and retained with more or less constancy down to the fall of Byzantium in 1204, the only full legal-tender money having a forced circulation in all parts of the Empire consisted of the gold coins struck by the emperor at Rome or Byzantium. The Emperor (in another capacity) also struck silver coins ; so also did the proconsuls, the subject kings, and tha. municipalities,^ but as these coins had only a local course^ and in some cases were entirely destitute of legal-tender function, and as the imperial taxes and tributes were payable only in imperial gold coins, or else in exactly twelve times their weight in silver ones (purity for purity), it mattered but little to the Imperial fisc what variations took place in the coinages of the latter. The Senate^ which after the Augustan period was the mere creature of the Sovereign, enjoyed the monopoly of the bronze- coinage. The lost Treaty of Seltz, which was made- between Charlemagne and Nicephorus, not only necesr sarily defined the boundaries of the Eastern and Westerij empires, it must have contained a provision securing the- monopoly of the gold coinage to the Basileus ; for, as a- matter of fact, no gold coins were ever struck by any other Christian prince until after the fall of Byzantium^. For the Netherlands, this covers the entire period from Charlemagne to Frederick II. ' Adam Smith (i, p. 320, Hartford ed., 1804) talks of the " allodial T right of coinage. This is sheer nonsense, and bespeaks a fundamenta^l misconception as to the nature and function of money. I ^ THE NETHERLANDS. 347 . The Imperial system, therefore^ consisted of something- like what is now being proposed by currency doctors — an "universal money for the whole European world, but with ; this essential difference : the Basileus alone struck such universal money, and therefore possessed the power to regulate its volume ; whereas, according to the plan which is now being matured, each State — and especially if it permits unlimited coinage, subject to the demands of 1 private individuals — will sti'ike such money for itself, land there will be no united control of the volume. ("Whether such money be made of one metal or two imetals will be of no consequence ; it can never become 'an equitable or stable measure of value. From the fall of the Greek capital to the revolt of the Spanish Netherlands, a totally different system of money ! prevailed in the states of Europe. Every kmg hastened ,to strike his own gold coins : Frederick of Germany, Alfonso of Leon, and Sancho of Portugal, in 1225 ; Louis of France, in 1250 ; the Republic of Florence, in 1252 ; aod Henry III. of England, in 1257. Silver coins were .also struck by these powers, and also by the barolis and ^prelates subject to their authority ; and both gold and isilver coins were commonly made full legal-tenders, at the iratio of value fixed by each State. The supreme right of 'coinage, which previously was always Avielded and but (rarely abused by the Basileus, was now both exercised and abused by every petty prince in Europe. During the Empire the gold coins had been stamped with sacred images and devices, a plan which, in a superstitious age, sufficed to preserve them from abuse. >After the fall of Byzantium this restraint was relaxed ; like sacred images disappeared from the gold coins, and both these and the silver coins were altered so , often and so suddenly that it is difficult to follow either 'their composition or value. Edward II, of England, PhiKp le Bel, of France, and Charles I, of Spain, were only types of the mediasvai adulterer of coins. The 348 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. practice was continued down to the beginning of the seventeenth century ; and notwithstanding the apologetic theories or protestations of patriotic writers, no sovereign of this period was guiltless of it. Some of the alterations were no doubt rendered necessary by the dwindling stock and uncertain supplies of the precious metals, or were made for other good reasons ; for, as Mr. Hallam has remarked, no ill results appear to have followed them. But others, as attested by their evil consequences, were evidently made for private profit to the king, or else resorted to as a ready means to fill an exhausted treasury.^ In 1524 and 1546 Charles V. suddenly raised by pro- clamation the legal value of his gold coins in Holland from 9 or 10 to 13^ times their weight in silver coins ; and by this imprudent device managed to temporarily replenish his barren coffers. This was the straw that broke the patience of his long-suffering subjects. The Netherlands showed signs of revolt; even Spanish America remonstrated, and eventually (in 1608) the latter secured a notable concession of the regaliau prerogative of money. Meanwhile, and during the reign of Charles, the revolutionary tendency in Holland was checked ; but with the accession of Philip the Bigot it burst into fierce flames. The '' Confederation of Beggars" was formed in 1566; the revolution was proclaimed in 1572 ; paper money was issued in 1574; the Jews of Amsterdam organised a sort of Wissel bank in 1 607 ; and the bank of Amsterdam, which, under the authority of the city, imitated and then destroyed the AVissel bank and forbade the Jews from dealing in exchange, was established in 1609. " Free," or properly speaking, "individual" coinage, as it is still called by the Dutch, had long been permitted by the degenerate moslem governments of India, where Albuquerque found and Mascarenhas copied it (1555). From the Portuguese the evil institute w^as inherited by the Dutch East Indians, and ' Of this character were the coinages of Edward VI, of England. THE NETHERLANDS. 349 iby them it was brouglit to Holland. It was among the first measures resorted to by the revolutionary government, who, however, limited their legal-tender coins to silver, which was coined into "guilders," or florins, of 160| grains fine. The operation of this system was promoted by the exchange transactions of the Jews, and the guarantee which their individual Credit afforded to importations and deposits of bullion. It was further stimulated by the ex- tension of Dutch commerce and by the superior credit of the bank of Amsterdam,\ with whose transactions sub- ,stantially commenced the present system of individual money. In this connection it will be interesting to observe that ■ two years after the first edict of Charles V, to wit, in 1526, Henry YIII. of England felt obliged (in consequence of that edict, " forasmuch as coins of . . . gold ... be of late days raised ... in the emperor's low countries," land because there was an active trade with Flanders) to I raise the value of the angel-noble of 80 grains gross, from 6s. 8d. to 7s. 4d., and two months later to 7s. 6d., in silver coins. Following is the text of the ordinance : I " Henry the Eighth, by the grace of God, King of England and France, defender of the Faith, lord of Ireland, to the most reverend Father in God, our most trusty and most entirely beloved councillor the lord Thomas, cardinal of York, archbishop, legat de Leicestre of the See Apostolic, primate of England, and our chan- ' cellor of the same, greeting. Forasmuch as coins of ; money, as well of gold as of silver, be of late days raised ! and enhanced both in the realm of France, as also in the emperor's Low Countries, and in other parts, unto higher : prices than the very poise weight and fineness and valua- tion of the same, and otherwise, than they were accustomed to be current ; by means whereof, the money of this our realm is daily, and of long season hath been, by sundry persons (as well our subjects as strangers, for their par- ticular gain and lucre) conveyed out of this realm into the •350 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. \ parts beyond the seas, and so is likely to continue more' and more, to tlie great hindrance of the generality of our •subjects and people, and to the no little impoverishing of our said realm, if the same be not speedily remedied and foreseen : We, after long debating of the matter with you and sundry other of our council, and after remission made unto outward princes for reformation thereof, finding finally no manner of remedy to be had at their hands, have, by mature deliberation, determined that our coins and moneys (as well of gold as of silver) shall be, by our ofiicer of our mint, from henceforth made of such fineness, lay (alloy), standard, and value, as may be equivalent, correspondent, and agreeable to the rates of the valuations enhanced and raised in outward parts, as is afore specified.'^ It will be recollected that during the Empire the supreme right of coinage was vested in the Augustus, or Basileus-, who, in fact, never permitted the gold, or full legal-tender, ' •coinage to go out of his hands; and that during the mediasval period (after a.d. 1204) it fell to the various princes and prelates who had inherited the prerogatives of the dead I Empire. We shall next see it fall under the control of /the Dutch and English merchants. Under the private coinage law of the republic, the bank ■of Amsterdam, a private institution, received deposits of ! any kind of silver coins, giving credit only for the fine metal contained in them, and measuring its value in sols banco of twenty to the Dutch florin. Its payments were made upon the same basis. The bank also received gold coins on deposit, valuing them (in sols banco) at what they actually fetched in the mart of Amsterdam. This system deprived the gold and silver coins of Holland of such part of their value as they had previously de- rived from royal seal, proclamation, and seigniorage. It swept away alike the sacred effigies of Eome and Byzantium, the heretical inscriptions of Julin and j \Bardewic, the unjust valuations of Madrid and Sevilla, I . THE NETHERLANDS. 351 and tlie temptation everywhere to tamper with any money destined for use in Holland. Indeed, it destroyed money altogether; it made a market value for the : precious metals, a thing hitherto unknown; it practi- cally established unlimited coinage, and thus substituted metal, in place of money, as the measure of value. These revolutionary acts met with such immediate and marked success that they soon afterwards influenced the legislation of other States. Hitherto the precious metals .obtained in Amei-ica had vainly sought to evade the coinage exactions of the European princes ; now the door of escape was open; they had only to be sent to Holland, turned into guilders and ducats, and credited as silver metal under the name of sols banco. But as the Spaniards and Portuguese still controlled the American mines, and jealously conveyed their precious products to the mints of the mother country, how were they to be practically diverted to Holland ? The Dutch fleets and their allies, the buccaneers of the West Indies, at once answered this question, and the early settlers of New I Amsterdam could have told many a tale as to how the I plunder was safely transported to Holland. At a later 'period, when the English took New York, this class of •bullion was quietly removed into Massachusetts, and there : converted into honest "pine-tree" shillings. Under the stimulus of " free " coinage, an immense quantity of the precious metals now found their way to Holland, and a local rise of prices ensued, which found one form of expression in the curious mania of buying tulips at prices often exceeding that of the ground on which they were grown. So rapidly did the influence of Dutch "free" coinage extend, that it induced the king of Spain to concede to his American colonies a right which had descended from the pagan gods to the pagan emperors, and from the pagan and Christian emperors to the inde- pendent princes who had seized the fragments of the Empire, but which had never yet been conferred upon a 352 HISTOEY OF JUONETART SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. Christian vassal or vassal state.^ This was the right to coin gold, a right which was conceded to the American viceroys b}^ the royal ordinance of 1608. But we have not yet done with the tulip mania. In 1648, when the Peace of Westphalia acknowledged the independence of the Dutch republic, the latter stopped the " free " coinage of silver florins and only permitted it for gold ducats, which in Holland had no legal value. This legislation discouraged the imports of silver bullion, checked the rise of prices, and put an end to the tulip mania." How- ever, it had other and far more important results. During the wars which ensued between Holland and England, the Jatter found so many reasons for admiring the government and administration of its rival, that it commenced to copy them in every detail, in some cases where the advantages of imitation were doubtful, or had passed away. The English deposed their king and established a i-epublic in 1653 : they planted colonies in America to rival those of the Dutch ; they chartered their East India company on the same lines as the Dutch ; they encouraged Morgan and other buccaneers to pillage the Spanish plate-ships and settlements ; and they adopted '' free " coinage. The English commercial literature of this period — for example, the works of Sir Josiah Child, Andrew Yarranton, and others — is filled with suggestions to follow the policy of the Dutch, whether as to colonies, navigation, banking, interest laws, coinage, warehouses, or land registries ; and all of these measures were soon afterwards enacted in England, except the last one, which still hangs fire. Holland had dropped '^free^' mintage > The emperor Charles IV, of Germany, 1347-78, " gave to all the members of the empire the privilege of issuing gold coins with any stamp they choose " (Partington, on the ducat). This was quite super- fluous, for in fact most of the members of the empire had usui-ped this privilege a century previously. - This mania had already been discouraged by a resolution of the States-General, dated April 27th, 1637, which threw some difficulties in the way of enforcing time-bargains in tulips. THE NETHERLANDS. 353 for legal-tender coins in 1648 ; even France afterwards ,tried it in 1679, only to drop it in 1689. England, under the influence of its favoured classes, adopted it in 1666, and held on to it until, through other means, she had gained the commercial supremacy of the world, and was enabled (chiefly during the last and present centuries) to urge it upon other states. Then she dropped silver. The monetary system of the Netherlands, which began with the Eepublic, consisted, first, of demonetising gold — .an act in which can be perceived more of resentment ;against the arbitrary decrees of the Spanish monarch than wisdom in laying the foundations of a state. Second, it ■consisted of pasteboard dollars, which were issued in 1574, iduring the siege of Leyden, and of which some half-a- dozen specimens are now in the British Museum collection. These " greenbacks '' of the revolution the Hollanders preferred to keep, rather than exchange for coins — ad perpetuam liherationis divinse memoriam — in perpetual memory of their divine liberation from tyranny.^ That jthey circulated beyond the precincts of Leyden, and effected an important augmentation of the currency and a rise of prices, is attested by the following quotations from jBudelius (p. 269) : The gold real, 1579, 45 stivers ; 1580, 46 ; 1583, 47^ ; 1586, 52 ; and 1590, 53 stivers. The Philips silver thaler, 1579, 43 stivers ; 1580, 45 ; 1583, 47 ; and 1586, 50 stivers. Here we see a gradual rise in the value of both gold and silver coins. In what ? Certainly not in either gold or silver stivers, but in cur- ' Borniti, de Xummis, ed. 1605, i, p. 15. The revolutionaiy moneys of Leyden were of white pasteboard, round, about If inches in diameter and stamped or embossed to resemble a coin. They took their origin in the first, but were perfected during the second, siege — that of 1574. Their denominations were 24 and 40 stivei-s. The former bore on one side, "Haec. liberatis ergo," on the other " Godt behoede Leyden," or God protect Leyden. The latter had the city arms on one side, and " Pugno propatria " on the other (Davies' " Hist. Holland," London, 1842, ii, pp. 9, 10). Silver pieces of the same stamp as the pasteboard ones were also issued (" Catalogue Schulthess-Eechberg," 7048). 23 354 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. rency, and that currency necessarily of something else. Under the circumstances that something else could only liave been wholly or partly of paper. Thirdly, the Dutch system consisted of silver coins struck by the State, both, on its own account and for the account of individuals ("free" coinage), and therefore without limit as to numbers. These coins — guilders and their multiples, namely, the ducatou, the reichsthaler, etc. — were legal- tendei'S to any amount. There was also " free '^ or individual coinage of gold ; but as coins of this metal were no longer legal-tender in Holland, they were struck for circulation in other states, who, in using them, escaped the seigniorage and other coinage exactions of their sovereigns. Fourthly, subsidiary coins of silver and copper, which the Dutch State struck only for itself. Fifthly, the banking system, already described. At the period when the decrees of Charles V, so greatly and suddenly raised the value of gold coins, Thomas Gresham, an English mercer and financier, was applied to by the ministers of Edward VI. of England for a loan of money. In the third year of his reign this boy king had arbitrarily raised the value of his silver coins to a ratio of 5" 15 for 1 of gold ; in his fourth year to 4*82 for 1 ; and in his fifth year to 2*41 for 1.-^ The profit made by the king in these transactions was, in the first instance, 113^ per cent. ; in the second, 128 per cent. ; and in the third, 356 per cent." Gresham w^as unable to comply with the ministers' request, but said he thought he could raise the money in Antwerp. Accordingly, he was com- missioned to proceed thither and effect the loan. He remained in Antwerp until after the death of the king and fall of the ministry, meanwhile advising them, what he had not ventured to set forth in London, namely, that a bad money will drive away good ; and that before he could procure the needful loan in Holland, it was necessary for Edward to reform his monetary system. This cor- \Lovd Liverpool, p. 101. ^ ib^d., pp. 101, 102. • , THE NETHERLANDS. 355 frespondence lias been lauded by Mi-. Henry Dunning MacLeod with fulsome praise, and the first portion of it formulated into what he has called '' the Gresham law." iThat bad money, when made lawful, will drive away good, by causing the latter to be hoarded, is a law or principle of money which will be found in the '' Frogs " of Aristo- Iphanes andthe "Maxims" of Theognis written some eighteen or twenty centuries before Gresham's time; a principle that every tradesman in the interval had learnt by 'heart. ^ For example, in 1341, after the emission of black money |by Edward III, a great mass of sterlings and silver plate twas collected in London and Boston, for private convey- ■ance to the Continent; in other words, the bad money drove (out the good ; and everybody knew it.^ This law applies equally to cabbages. It is not a law of money, but a truism that applies to all things. However, Gresham's pmarks, perhaps, had the effect to bring about that 'permanence of the English monetary system, for which Elizabeth afterwards received so much credit ; that prin- bess having merely " completed the plan of reform which 'Edward had projected (or assented to) and had begun to barry into execution."^ Gresham successively served Mary and Elizabeth ; and oy the latter was honoured with knighthood. But did he 5erve the English people ; did he serve the interests of :he State ? Not at all. He was faithful only to his >wn class, the money-lenders of London. Not a word ippears in his correspondence of the tremendous monetary •evolution that was then brewing in Holland; not a word )f the imperial edicts that had raised the value of mperial gold from 9 or 10 to 11|, and from llf to 13^ ; lot a word of the resistance to these unjust decrees, or of 1 " Maxims of Theognis," line 21 : " Nov will any one take in exchange rorse when better is to be had." - " Middle Ages Revisited," chap. xix. ^ Lord Liverpool, p. 104. 356 HISTORY or MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. the fact that tlie regalian prerogative, which jurisconsults and statesmen in all ages had shown to be indispensable to the exercise of independent sovereignty, was in jeo- pardy of falling into the hands of Dutch monopolists, and might afterwards fall, as it did fall, into the hands of English ones. This was the prerogative of coinage. Gresham was silent on this subject , and his silence on such a subject far outweighs the merits of that "discovery" for which his admirers have claimed him so much credit.^ But, indeed, who has properly written the history of Gresham's times ; who has dived into this supernal but obscure subject of money, except men of the very same class who profited in pocket by the Dutch Revolution, its institution of private coinage and the subsequent private control of bank issues ? Nobody. Is it yet clearly understood that whatever degradation of money was committed by the emperors, whatever debasement was afterwards committed by the kings, these have since been vastly exceeded by the dishonest use made of ''individual'' coinage and the control of bank issues ? Not at all. The Emperors of Rome controlled the emissions of European money for thirteen centuries, and the kings and dukes foi nearly four centuries afterwards ; whilst the userers have held it, to the present time, for about two centuries. It is not too much to say that during these two centuries greater monetary changes have been made and more losses have been occasioned to the industrial classes oJ the European world than were made by all the degrada- tions and debasements of the Imperial and regal periods put together. Monetary systems have been changed fron gold to silver, from silver to gold, and from both silvei ^ Gresham remained in Antwerp until 1553. In 1553 Mary, and ii 1558 Elizabeth, ascended the throne. In the last-named year Greshan was sent as ambassador to Parma, and in 1559 he was knighted (T. F' Burgon, "Life and Times of Sir Thomas Gresham," London, 1839, ' vols, 8vo ; Ward's " Lives of the Gresham Professors," p. 8). THE NETHEELANDS. 357 and gold to paper ; tens of tliousands of worthless banks have been erected, thousands of millions of worthless notes have been issued, and the entire products of industry have been seized and perverted to the enrichment of a class, who know only how to scheme, to undermine, and to appropriate the eaimings of mankind. The right to issue money needs a radical reform ; and the State which reforms it first will secure for its citizens far greater advantages than can be derived from Zollvereins, tariff bills, or any other kind of commercial legislation. " The control of money," says an eloquent writer on the subject, ^'is the ground upon which an international or cosmo- politan combination ' finances ' the world and •' farms ' humanity.'^ ^ Writing in 1776, Adam Smith was at great pains to inform us what a strong institution was the '' burghers," Bank of Amsterdam, how " for every guilder in gold or silver to circulate as bank money, there is a correspondent guilder in gold or silver to be found in the bank. The City is guarantee that it should be so. The bank is under the direction of the four reigning burgomasters, who are changed every year. Each new set of burgomasters visits the treasure, compares it with the books, receives it upon oath and delivers it over with the same awful solemnity to the set which succeeds ; and in that sober and religious country oaths are not yet disregarded. A rotation of this kind seems alone a sufficient security against any practices which cannot be avowed. Amidst all the revo- lutions which faction has ever occasioned in the govern- ment of Amsterdam, the prevailing party has at no time accused their predecessors of infidelity in the administra- tion of the bank. Xo accusation could have affected more deeply the reputation and fortune of the disgi*aced party ; and if such accusation could have been supported, we may be assured that it would have been brought. In ^ Reginald Fenton, Esq., formerly of Kimberly, South Africa, now of San Diego, California. 358 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. 1672, when tlie Frencli king was at Utrecht^ tlie Bank of: Amsterdam paid so readily, as left no doubt of the fidelity with which it had observed its engagements. Public utilit}^ and not revenue was the original object of this institution.'^ Alas, for Dutch burgher patriotism, and the credulity of our great Scotch sophist ! When, four- teen years later, that is to say, in 1790, the French again invaded Holland, they found the bank empty and insolvent. Even whilst Adam Smith was penning his panegyrics, it was secretly loaning away bullion which belonged to its depositors and noteholders. Its pious burgomasters were forsworn, the City was dishonoured, and the world received its hundredth useless lesson on the folly of trusting? to the stability of a monetary system which is not absolutely under the thumb of the State. Coinage Ratios in the Low Countries (after 1579 in Holland only). Period, A.D. Eatio. 30 286 Saxon 8 Remarks. Revolt of the Frisians against fiscal exactions of the Romans. The Roman imperial ratio was always 12 silver =: 1 gold ; but silver bore a higher value in the Eastern trade of the Baltic, and the Frisians (possibly from choice) paid their tributes in ox-hides (" Tac. Ann.," iv, c. 72). The prevalent ratio of the Baltic was 8 for 1 (" Anc. Brit.," chap. xvii). Revolt of Carausius the Menapian. The mark of silver coins was in use as early, at least, as this date (vide Agricola, writing about 1550). Its substitution for the Roman libra of account, which now consisted of 5 gold solidi, each of about 90 grains fine, or else 12 times their weight in silver, implies a local ratio of 8 for 1. In the pagan coinages of Friesland, Jutland, etc., there were 8 silver siccals, saigas ' or ^ According to the German law, vi, 3, " the siiiga (or sjiica) is the foui-thi part of the tremissis ; it is one denarius, and two saigas are two denarii. THE NETHERLANDS. 359 Period, A.D. Ratio. Remarks. 752 753 754 779 813 814 10 11 12 12 12 12 iesterlings, each of about ISi grains fine, to the gull siccal, or skillingar, of the same weight : a ratio of 8 for 1. Foi-ty silver deniers, each of 171 grains fine (300 to the livre weight) equal 1 imperial solidus (now) of about 70 grains fine : a ratio of 10 for 1 " Anon. Chron. Aqui- taine," written in 843 and alluding to the period previous to Pepin's monetary reform of AD. 754-68. Same authority, for same period, gives 25, instead of the ancient 20, quarter-solidi to the livre of account; lead- ing to an inference that the Basileus struck light gold shillings to compensate for the heretical ratios of the North. De Vienne, " Livre d' Argent," p. 23. Pepin struck 264 deniers from the Roman pound weight and valued them at 40 to the solidus (now) of 66^ grains fine : a ratio of 12. The gold shillings were valued at 22 to the livre of account, of which the mint- master took one for himself, a proof that they were still light (DeVienne,pp.20, 21). Decretale precum. Charlemagne, in this de- cree, re-established the value of the gold shilling at 20 to the libra : he afterwards attempted to raise the value of these pieces by valuing them at 16 to the libra ; but judging from the equivalents given in the Saxon and Frisian Codes, which he altered at this period, the attempt failed (De Vienne, p. 42). Last year of Charlemagne. Petition of Council of Rheims against light solidi, which would not pass for 40 deniers (De Vienne, p. 36). Imaginary scheme of international money (ibid.). Unique solidus of Louis Debonnaire of sus- piciously fine execution, in Paris collection. Were this srenuine it would be the last gold A tremissis is the third part of a solidus and equals four denarii." The manuscript which gives this valuation is of rather a low date. The Bavarian law of a much earlier period accords to the saica the value of three denarii : " Si una saica, id est tres denarios furaverit. ... Si duas id est sex denarios " (Tit. ix. Art. 3, 4). There can be little doubt that, still more anciently, the saica was the sicca of the Orient which found its way through Tartary to the Baltic and there became degraded. 360 HISTOEY OF MONETAET SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. ^^"«'^' Ratio. A.D. 864 922 1090 12tliCent. 1204 1220 13th Cent. 10 Remarks. 1344 1437 1477 1489 1511 1519 1524 1529 10 10 9 9@10 12 9(S10 9@ 10 11# 111 coin struck by any Christian prince, except the Basileus, until a.d. 1225. Charles the Bald : Edict of Pistes. Inferential valuation of the besant in the ducal silver coins of Holland, Flanders, Brabant, etc. Poid de marc, a weight derived from marks (coins) introduced into France under Philip I. Down to this time it was only used in the Netherlands and England. Du Cange ; Saigey ; De Vienne, 58. Hanseatic money. The ratio under the pagan Hansa was probably 8 for 1 : under the Christian Hansa, at first, probably 10 for 1 ("Anc. Britain"). Fall of Constantinople : end of the pontifico- imperial monopoly of coining gold for the Roman world. Jutland Code of 13th century. Xumerous changes of the ducal mint-laws during this and the two following centuries, the prevailing ratios being 8 to 10 silver for 1 gold. In 1284 the earl of Holland and Zealand purchased silver in England (Andei'son's " Hist, of Commerce," sub anno). From valuation of the gold noble of Edward III. of England, in the ports of Flandei-s (" Middle Ages Revisited "). Burgundian period of Flandei-s 1384 to 1477. The prevailing ratio was, however, 10 silver for 1 gold Earlier coinages under the German imperial house of Hapsburg. The ratio in England (4 Edward IV.), year 1464, was 10| for 1. Later Hapsburg coinages. Edict of Breda by Masimillian, Dec. 14th. Abortive attempt to re-establish the Caesarian ratio. Gold nobles (half-marks) and silver groots of Flanders, Lorrain, Bar, etc., ratio 10 ; ducat on, ratio 9 for 1. Charles V. : earlier coinages. Charles V. Edict of Esslingen, June 19th, rais- ing the value of bis gold coins. Charles V. The Holland mark-weight of 3797"2 English grains was this year offi- cially compared with the Paris mark of 3777'5 English grains ; and the former THE NETHERLANDS. 361 Period, A.D. 1542 1546 1552 1556 1566 1572 1574 1579 1581 I 1589 1598 1607 1609 1609 to 1624 1628 Remarks. 10 13i 13J 13i found to be 19'7 grains heavier (Boissard, p. 259). If the mark-weight developed from the mark of coins (" Anc. Brit.," ch. xvii), the superior weight of the Holland over the Saxony mark-weight probably arose when Pepin compelled 12 instead of 11 esterlings to be paid for a gull skil- lingar. The Amsterdam mark-weight was 3798 English grains. Edict of Esslingen by Charles V. Degraded Carolus dollars 354^ grains gross, or 3021 grains fine silver, valued at 20 stivers or one gulden of about 30 grains fine gold. Edict of Charles V, again raising the value of his gold coins. Thomas Gresham at Antwerp (Spanish go- vernment begins, 1555). Abdication of Charles V. Confederation of Dutch leaders against Spanish government. Revolution. Mercantile system of indi- vidual or " free " coinage. Gold demo- netised. Pasteboard revolutionary money of Leyden. Union of Utrecht: separation of Belgium. The right of coinage, previously conferred by imperial authority upon the counts of Holland, transferred to the Spanish crown by Philip II, king of Spain and heredi- tary covint of Holland ; an act that further incensed the Hollanders. "Market" or conflict ratio of 114 (Desro- tours). Philip III, of Spain, cedes the Netherlands to Albert of Austria and the Infanta Isabella. Wissel Bank of Amsterdam. After the Edict of Esslingen the coins were greatly clipped, and both the Wissel Bank and the Bank of Amsterdam, which this year superseded it, were established, among other objects, to remedy this evil. Rise of the Buccaneers ; numerous captures of plate ; and opening of Dutch oriental trade by sea. Immense sums of gold and silver obtained from Japan. Spanish plate-galleons captured nearMatanzas with several million livres in gold and silver (Van Loon). 362 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. 1640 1648 1672 1717 14'4o 14-45 14-45 14-45 1734 1785 1791 1806 1816 14-45 14-45 14-45 15-20 15-87 Remarks. "Market" or conflict ratio 12A for 1 (Desro- toiirs, 1785 ; Gaudin, 1803). Independence of Holland recognised by Spain. Individual coinage limited to gold, which, however, at the mint ratio of 14-45, is undervalued as compared with foreign mints. (The Spanish mint ratio of 1650 was 15 for 1.) Most of the gold ducats of the German states now struck in Holland for individual ac- count. Newton's repoi-t gives the ducat or 5 -florin gold piece, stamped " Legem Imperii," at 52"39 grains fine, and the silver florin at 148-9 grains fine ; a ratio of 14-31 (Kelly, ii, p. 153, hints at Inexact Assays : this might account for the discrepancy). Newton also says the ducats were current in Holland for 5^ guilders. This is evi- dently correct, and indicates a " mint- conflict " ratio, or so-called " market " ratio, of 14-92. The imports of gold noticed by him were due in some measure to the large foreign coinage of ducats in Holland. Desrotours says 14-45 ; Dutot says 14-67 ; which last is incorrect. Desrotours. Hamilton's Report of this year says 14-90 ; evidently the "conflict," not the "coin- age," ratio. Gold coins being now greatly undervalued, as compared with foreign mints, they cease to circulate in Holland. Law of December 15th. " Double standard " under Louis, king of Holland. Gold 400- stiver piece 193-4 grains fine. Silver 50- stivers should contain 406f grains fine ; actual contents (Kelly) 367'9 grains fine: ratio 15-2 for 1. Union with Belgium. Mint Act, September 28th, 1816. The " William " of 10 florins was to contain 93-465 grains fine gold ; the florin 148-39 grains fine silver: legal ratio 15-8765. The assays of Eckfeldt and Du Bois gave but 46-52 grains fine to the ducat, and 14874 grains fine to the florin : actual coinage ratio 15-98. Gold coinage for individuals stopped. Silver coinage for individuals (one and three-florin pieces) THE NETHERLANDS. 363 Period, A.D. Eatio. Eemarks. 1830 1839 1847 1850 1857 1873 1875 1877 1884 1893 15-87 15-60 15-60 15-60 15-60 15-60 15| lof 151 again permitted. Chevalier, p. 155, savs that there was no gold in circulation until 1839. Foundation of New (present) Bank of the Netherlands, 1814. Separation of Belgium. Gold coins again circulate in Holland (Cheva- lier ; Yrolik). Eussian gold " scare." Mint Act, September 26th, 1847. Gold demonetised. _ The silver florin lowered to 145-85 grains fine (Schmidt's " Tate's Cambist ;" Del. Mar's "Money and Civilisation," p. 17). Gold coins melted and sold at a loss of ten million florins (Vrolik). Gold coins again cease to circulate in Holland (Chevalier, pp. 78, 149). Nevada silver " scare." In accordance with an Act of the previous year the individual coinage of silver was this year suspended. Mint Act, June 6th. Ten-florin gold coins to contain 93-334 grains fine, and open to individual coinage. Mint still closed to individual coinage of silver. Old silver coins not demonetised ("Etalon boiteux," Greven). Same provisions extended to Colonial coinage (Greven). A poi-tion of the circulating silver aiithorised to be melted and sold, in order to buy gold for bank payments. The money of Holland now consists chiefly of paper notes, about £16,000,000, secured by a " reserve " in gold and supplemented by a subsidiary silver circulation. Population about 4i millions, exclusive of Colonies. The home circulation fluctuates between £3 and £4 per capita, coins and paper com- bined. From this table it ^ill be observed that the ratio in the Netherlands, from the earliest times nearly to the reign of Pepin, was 8 for 1 ; in the early part of the Carlo- vingian era, about 12 for 1 ; between that period and the fall of Constantinople, from 8 to 10 for 1 ; during the 364 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IX VARIOUS STATES. ducal period about 10 for 1 ; and that it was fixed by- Charles V. at 134-, whereupon gold was demonetised through the influence of the East Indian traders and the burghers. Since that time the ratio in Holland has fol- lowed that of Spain and France.^ In Holland the history of the ratio is almost the whole- ' history of money. It was the ratio that distinguished its earlier monetary systems from that of Rome ; it was the ratio that, until the Carlovingian era^ marked it a pagan State, allied, by commerce, with the pagan cities of the Baltic and the great pagan Hansa, whose fleets transacted the maritime commerce of all northern and western. Europe ; it was the ratio that proclaimed the monetary systems of its ducal masters a cross between that of a struggling nationality and Imperial Eome ; it was the ratio that fanned into a flame the embers of that resist- ance to Imperial authority which had been crushed under foot, but had never wholly lost their fire ; it was the ratio by means of which the traders and money-lenders first asserted their undue importance in the State ; and it was the ratio, snatched by their strong hands from the pre- - rogatives of the Crown, that has enabled them to rule the i State and make Holland " a nation of usurers." "When \ they wrested from the Empire what is virtually the pre- ^ rogative of coinage, they demonetised gold and declared ^ silver coins alone fit for the high function of legal-tender j when the mqnarchy of 1816 was erected, they submitted to a system of gold and silver coins ; but no sooner did the lapse of time strengthen their hands, and the great yield of the Russian gold mines afford them a pretext, than they \ agitated and brought about that reliance upon a single metal (at a time) which constitutes the fulcrum of the ' mercantile system. Here the real character of the burgher ^ The ratios in Holland which appear in Dr. Adolf Soetbeer's works are purely hypothetical, and were probably not intended to be regarded as the results of any examination of the coinage laws or coinages of that i country. THK NETHEELANDS. 365 class discloses itself. Their patriotism was not for Holland, but for the burghers. Dr. Vrolik has in vain endeavoured to defend them from this imputation, by alleging that the . " silver standard ^' was not adopted after the discovery of gold in Califoi-nia, but before it.^ But he has adroitly omitted to mention that it occurred upon the heels of the great discoveries of gold in the Ural, and that it is dis- tinctly traceable to that event. Leon Faucher very correctly attributed to this unpatriotic class an " insurrec- tion of fear.'^ It was fear for their beloved securities that superinduced this measure, which cost the State ten millions of florins and the Dutch people ten thousand millions ; and it was the same craven fear that in 1873 induced this class to clamour for that " gold standard " which now sustains their investments, but which lowers their claims of patriotism to the sordid level of their breeches pockets. The existing Bank of the Nethei'lands was established at Amsterdam in 1814, neai'ly on the plan of the Bank of England. Its original capital, of which the king was always to hold one-tenth, was five million florins. This capital was doubled in 1819, and has since been increased to twenty million florins. The bank has the right to strike coins for the State, to issue circulating notes, discount bills, lend money, and deal in bullion and foreign coins. It was this institution which, in opposition to Lord Liverpool, furnished the reasons for monetising gold, and for establishing the '' double standard^' in 1816; which showed in 1847 (the Russian gold mines were then very productive) that gold was unfit for legal-tender money ; which in 1873 (zenith of the Comstock Lode) proved, with equal facility, that silver was useless, and gold the only proper metal for money ; and which doubtless stands ready, whenever the relative production of silver shall decline, to furnish equally pliant arguments against more plentiful gold, and in favour of scarce silver. In a paper ^ Speech of Dr. Vrolik in " Eep. Inter. Monetary Conference, 1881." 366 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. read by Professor H. B. Graven, of Leyden, before the British Association at Manchester, September 7th, 1887, it is stated that in 1881—82 the Bank's stock of gold fell to £600,000, and that, to provide against a recurrence of such a calamity, an Act was passed in April, 1884, which empowered it " to sell at market prices a quantity of twenty-five millions silver florins, when the state of the currency required it." According to this authority, the regulation of the currency of Holland lies between the Bank and the bullion-brokers. It is a healthy national constitution that can survive such a combination. CHAPTER XYIII. GERMANY. Until A.D. 1204 the right to coin gold in Germany '"'as a pontifico- imperial prerogative — It then practically became a regalian right, which in great measure was absorbed by the two principal German states — Legalised as a regalian right by the Golden Bull — Exercised as such by numerous princes and by the burghers, until 1871, when it was acquired for North Germany by the New Empire — Thereupon it was almost immediately abandoned to the burghers — Monetary systems of Germany during the regal period — French forgers of the sixteenth century — Earliest monetary conventions — Sudden enhancement of gold by Charles V — The German states and burghers demonetise gold — Silver becomes the sole material of legal-tender money — Monetary systems of Noiih Germany — Conventions of sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth cen- turies — The ratio — The banks — Paper money — Plunder of Napoleon — His downfall — Confederation of the Rhine — New system — Weights — Origin of the ducat, skilling, and thaler — Constitution, convention, and currency thalers — Later monetary conventions — Quantity of money cir- culating in Germany — History of the ratio — Burgher or "free" coin- age — The California scare — Treaty of 1857 tabooing gold coins — The Nevada scare — Legislation of 1871-73, demonetising silver coins — French War Indemnity — Great increase of paper money — Efflux of gold in 1873-74 — Operation of the new mint laws — Gold and silver produc- tion of Germany — Dr. Soetbeer, the evil genius of German monetary policy — The future. T^HE history of money and monetary systems in -'- Germany springs from the monetary laws of the ' Roman Empire, a snbject which has beeli treated at length elsewhere. Briefly, the right to strike gold coins was vested exclusively in the Sovereign-pontiff, who usually resided, and exercised this function, in Rome or Byzantium. Such coins were unlimited legal-tenders in all parts of the Empire. The principal gold coin was the solidus, or 368 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. besant, of 72 down to 60 grains line.^ Five of these made the libra of account." The striking- of silver coins was shared between the Emperors and the subject princes, prelates, and municipalities of the empire. The Imperial silver coins were legal-tender in the " Imperial/' not in the " Senatorial " provinces ; the other silver coins had only a local course. The striking of bronze coins was reserved to the Senate. The Imperial tributes were collected in gold coins, or else in silver coins containing exactly twelve times as much fine metal as the gold ones. Hence, for a solidus of gold, was demanded a talent of silver. Substantially, this system continued unchanged until after the fall of Constantinople, in 1204, when all the princes of Europe commenced to strike gold coins for*^ themselves ; and the Roman Imperial system fell, to rise no more. With the exception of a certain unique and very doubtful gold piece attributed to Louis de De- bonnaire, no Christian prince of Germany ever struck a gold coin until Frederick II, in 1225, issued his magnifi- cent angustals. Instead of making their weight conform to the besant of his day, Frederick put in these coins nearly 82 grains fine gold, the weight of a double maravedi or dobla of the Saracens : — a fact, which, when added to other circumstances, sufficed in brief time to consign them to the melting-pot. Although the right to strike gold coins was not legally acquired by the German princes until it was conferred, together with the working of mines, by the Golden Bull of Charles lY, December 25thj 1356, yet practically these princes were governed by the ^ The solidus descended from the aureus of 131-|- grains, and in the thirteenth century was lost in the ducat of 56 grains. This again was in the sixteenth centuiy degraded to the gulden o£ 37^ grains. There it ex- pired, and became a silver coin. The weights of the solidus given in the text are those which prevailed duringthe Roman Imperial monetary system.j 2 Theodosian Code, lib. xiii, tit. ii, 11 ; " Ita ut pro singulis librif' argenti quinos solidos inferat." Argenti here means money, not silver. ■ ■ GERMANY. 369 example of Frederick, and as a matter of fact many of them had issued gold coins before the date of the im- perial ordinance.-^ This closes the first period of German monetary systems. The palsied hand of Rome had reluctantly dropped the prerogative of gold, and a host of independent cities and princes had purchased or picked it up. We shall presently see what they did with it. From the fall of Constantinople to the discovery of America is a period of great confusion in the monetary history of Germany. Although the Roman empire had lost its control of money, it had still enough vitality to split Germany into two great parties, whose perpetual antagonism and undying hatred served to keep the country always embroiled in civil wars. The ensuing political chaos is faithfully reflected in the coinages. They exhibit every kind of corruption, deceit, degradation, debasement, and even forgery. To crown all, the ratio of gold to silver, which the Roman and Byzantine monarchs, through- out all their vicissitudes, had kept constant for nearly thirteen centuries, was now changed almost every da}-, bv some one or other of the numerous princes who divided, distracted, and misruled the splendid empire of Charle- magne. Whether their motives were governed by the interests of their principalities or by the desire of private gain, is hardly worth discussing. Their monetary experi- ments were too trivial to furnish the basis of monetary principles, and they yield scarcely more than a single lesson of any value to postei-ity. It is this : that the right of coinage, which during this period fell from the Basileus into the hands of kings, princes, prelates, and burghers, was abused by the latter, not because they were rulers, but because they were petty ones, so petty that their private interests were scarcely less important than those of the State, and, indeed, cannot always be distin- ' Edward III. of England was authorised to coin gold in 1337, but Henry III. in 1257 had coined gold ■without authority (" Middle Ages Revisited," oh. xxx). 24 370 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. guished from them. In other words, it was not the States, but the petty rulers of the Renaissant period who tampered with money. These corruptions of money, the pet theme of politico- economical pedantry, were in many cases a necessity of the times. It was the period of the First Renaissance. Europe, enthralled for thirteen centuries by the pontiffs of Rome, had recently thrown off its shackles and begun its march of pi'ogress. On Midsummer Day in 1237, the emperor Frederick assembled at Vaucouvers the first secular council of nations ever held in Europe ; in 1241 he wrote to Henry III, that the affairs of the world were no longer to be monopolised by the priesthood ; whilst the magnificent eagles which he stamped upon the imperial coins in place of the agonised saints of a previous period, were no less significant than his resolute defiance of pon- tifical tyranny. With the inauguration of this progressive era commenced a great increase of industry, of wealth, and of population. Mines of gold and silver can neither be discovered nor rendered productive at pleasure. They are not amenable to man's control, but are the subjects of adventitious discovery and fortunate development. Hence in progressive eras supplies of the precious metals fail to keep pace with the demands of society. During the Re- naissance felted paper was a novelty and printing was unknown. How was a measure of value to be supplied sufficiently ample to sustain prices? The people answered this question by clipping the coins, and the princes of Germany tacitly supported the action of the people by degrading and debasing their subsequent issues. It is scarcely to be expected that these multiplications of money should have kept even pace with the demand for its use. The clippings probably failed to supply the additional requirement for money ; the legal degradations and debasements probably exceeded it. Because princes sometimes took advantage of the public necessity for increased money to make some profit for the State by GERMANY. 371 debasing it, is no just warrant for condemning either their honesty or wisdom, especially at this late day, when the circumstances of the times are unknown or forgotten. They probably did the best they could do under the circumstances. As the stock of gold and silver relatively diminished, these metals increased in value. Eents and other fixed payments running through long terms became unjustly and oppressively augmented. To have refrained from debasing the coins would have been to increase the burdens of the people until they found relief in revolt and the overthrow of the State. Debasement of the coinage during the period of the Renaissance, was in fact commonly inaugurated not by the prince, but the people. It was done by clipping, sweating, or otherwise diminishing the quantity of fine metal in the coins ; so that, when under a subsequent edict of debasement and re-coinage they came to the mints, the princes really gained little or nothing by the transaction, and merely gave the force of law to what was already an accomplished fact. In vain were the most terrible penalties enacted against those who tampered with money — as torture, hanging, drawing and quartering. These penalties were boldly risked every day by people who had never committed any other offence, and would probably never have committed this one but for the pressure of that law of legal-tender from which the mines of this period afforded an insufficient relief. I repeat, that the monetary experiments of the Re- naissant period, whether in Germany or any other of the Western Christian states, are of little use as guides to modern legislation. A portion of them were not the experiments of States, but the financial shifts of indivi- duals ; another portion were dictated by the hampered and stationary condition of mining as compared with a growing population and commerce ; while still another portion, (changes in the ratio) were due to the loss of that central 372 HISTORY OF MONETAEY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. control whicli the Eoman imperial government, at Con- stantinople, had exercised over the coinage and the silver valuation of gold. Hence it is that among the few writers on money who have condescended to consult history on this subject, and who have a case to make against this or that kind of money, they invariably select this period of chaos for the foundation of their special pleadings. Leave out of view the Roman control of money and its loss with the fall of Constantinople, ignore the influence of the moslem and Gothic monetary systems, avoid all mention of the usurpation of the coining prerogative by the trading companies, adventurers, and monopolists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and you can prove anything you like about money, — you can even prove that money is not money at all, but merely bits of metal whose value is governed by the present economic cost of their pi'oduction in the mines ! Although the right of coinage continued to be exercised by numerous rulers in Germany, down to the period (1871), when it fell to the new empire, yet it was practically absorbed for several centuries by the Austrian and Prussian monarchies, whose extensive territories, numerous population, diversified industries, or great military re- sources, enabled their coinages to substantially fill the channels of circulation.^ The strangest circumstance is that the new empire had no sooner acquired this most important of all imperial or regalian rights, than, under the advice of Dr. Soetbeer and his Metallic School, it was immediately abandoned to the burghers. Fortunately, it is within the power of the imperial government to resume this prerogative whenever it chooses. This is a subject to which we shall revert further on. On June 8th, 1386, that is to say, shortly after the ordinance of Charles IV, the four Electors of the Rhine entered into a coinage union which had for its object the ' Foi' history of money in Austria, see "Money and Civilisation," ch.. xviii. GERMANY. 373 uniformity of the coins and theii' preservation from abuse. This was distinctly a national act, the happy precursor of that Bund which five centuries later drew all the North German states from under the mouldy and rotten canopy of Rome to that of a common Fatherland. In the six- teenth century the importance of the new supplies of gold and silver from America led to a rise of prices, which, beginning in Spain, soon spread to France and the com- mercial cities of Europe, but not yet to Germany. In that country the comparative scarcity of money was to some extent supplied by the spurious mintages of an organised band of forgers, who resided in France. The marquis of Tavannes, a representative noble, rendered his class odious and his name ridiculous by recommending the coinage of iron commodity money in place of gold and silver coins, with the selfish view to arrest the rise of prices. He assures us that many French nobles of this period retained professed forgers in their castles, dignified them with the title of " philosophers," and fraternised with them by admitting them to their tables. Because they refrained, or professed to refrain, from counterfeiting French coins, and confined their operations to German ducats, thalers, and florins, they complacently deemed themselves free from all reproach. The example set by the barons was followed by the monarch. Charles IX. (1560—74) was himself an expert foi'ger of coins, and devoted much of his leisure time to this elevating pursuit. The practice reached its climax in the reign of his successor, Henry III, when, owing perhaps to the pre- cautions taken in Germany, the art of baronial forgery fell into inferior hands and suffered a rapid decline. Salcede, who was executed for treason in 1582, had purchased a large estate from the profits of forging German coins.-^ In the same century a Correspondenz was formed ^ Tavannes, pp. 132-33; Brantome, iv, cap. Fran., p. 29, in Wraxall's "Hist. France," ed. 1795, ii, p. 334; Busbeg, Letter viii, in "Wraxall, ii, p. 438. 374 HISTOEY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN YAEIOUS STATES. between several of the German states, providing mainly for uniform coinages and a general circulation. The texts of several monetary ordinances of this period are given by Budelius.^ This century witnessed an extraordinary event in Ger- many. During the regal period — from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century — the common ratio of silver to gold in the coinages of Germany was about 10 for 1. By an imperial edict dated at Esslingen, November lOth, 1524, Charles Y. ordered the mark of gold to be coined into 89 gold guilders, -^ fine, and the mark of silver into 8 talents, or thalers, y^- fine. As this talent and guilder had the same value, this was a ratio of 11 ••38 for 1. In 1546 the emperor, who, although he struck no gold coins in Spain, monopolised the coinage of gold in Holland, Germany, Italy, and America, suddenly raised by pro- clamation the value of his gold coins to 13^ times their weight in silver of the same standard. These arbitrary acts lie at the base of the Dutch revolt, and had much to do with the subsequent history of Germany. That vast country was not yet sufficiently united for revolt, but it expressed its reprobation of this measure by boycotting gold. One after another the German rulers forbade or discouraged the tendering of gold coins in payment of debts. From this time forward the gulden was commonly paid in silver coins ; the ample ducaton, or talent, of silver, supplanting the unpopular and discredited ducat of gold. The arrest of commercial development, which followed these conflicting acts, was one of several causes which led ' The legislators who met at Xuremburg in 1438 even -went so far as to hint at private mintage as a remedy for the corruption of coins, a suggestion that was actually realised some two centuries later. Such a device, as it afterwards proved, was indeed a remedy for corrupt coins, but not for an unstable and fluctuating measure of value ; a proof, if any were needed, that coins separately and coins collectively, or a monetary system (like separate individuals and the body politic) conform to very pifEerent natural laws. GERMANY. 375 to the disturbed state of Germany during the seventeenth century. Religion has commonly been assigned as the pretext both for the revolt of the Netherlands and the Thirty Years' War. Upon a closer inspection of the circumstances which gave bii'th to these great events, the decrees of Charles V., the demonetisation of gold, the fall of prices, and the industrial depression that followed, will all be found lurking behind. But the fierce passions evoked by these wars, and the horrible scenes which characterised the last one, swept away all recollection of the causes that led to them. Though many valuable treatises on money had been written in the interval — notably those republished by Budelius — which ought to have directed public attention to the subject, they were consigned to obscurity. The Peace of Westphalia should have been accompanied by the re- habilitation of gold ; but no statesman of the period appears to have perceived the plain truth, that Germany could not share the commercial prosperity of the maritime states of Europe so long as she excluded from her legal- tender circulation one-half of the world's accumulations of the precious metals. The German monetary systems of this era were almost universally based upon silver coins. In Prussia, for example, the circulation (not to mention base silver coins and coppers) was filled chiefly by the currency-thaler, legally of 257J English grains fine silver, actually 252'6 grains fine, and the gold ducat, of legally 53-14, actually 52-6 grains fine, each ducat being nominally valued at 2| currency-thalers. This was a nominal ratio of 13^, and a coinage one of 134- for 1 ; thus— 2| x 257-75 =708-8125 ^53-14 = 13i; or, 2fx 252-15 = 694-25 -r52-t) = 13i. But gold coins were not legal-tender ; people accepted or refused them at pleasure, and virtually their coinage was relinquished to individuals who deposited their bullion in the mints of Holland or England, where it was coined 1 Bayard Taylor's " Hist. Germany," pp. 409-10. 376 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. into ducats or nobles that had no permanent legal value in Germany. In short, the Prussian system of money stood essentially in the same attitude that it did when Germany refused the gold coins of Charles V. Beyond the so-called empire, the effects of the ill-timed ordinance of 1546, though of an entirely different character, were fully as eventful. That command of the i*atio which Rome had so long maintained by the force of pontifical law, Spain had acquired through her practical monopoly of the supplies of the coinage-metals from America. The edict of Charles Y. flung this advantage away. It taught the kings of Spain (for Charles was king of Spain as well as emperor of Germany) a new device whereby to replenish • their treasuries. In 1641 they raised the value of their gold coins to 14 times that of silver ; in 1650, to 15 ; and in 1690 to 16 times. Here this strained device broke down, and Spain lost the hegemony of the ratio. The abandonment of the coinage of both the precious metals in Holland and England to individuals, and the virtual demonetisation of gold in Germany, had erected, for the first time in the history of the European world, a conflict price, or international mint ratio of value, between the precious metals, which at the last-named period stood at about 14^ for 1. Measured by the conflict-ratio, that in Spain was too high; in Prussia too low. In deference to the new arbiter of mint ratios, the crown of Spain has- tened, in 1760, to lower the value of its gold to 14^, and in 1775 to raise it to 15|. The imperturbable Prussians simply varied the premium on gold ducats.^ Returning from this digression to an account of German monetary conventions ; in 1667 was effected the coinage agreement (Recess) of Zinna, to which the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg and the house of Brunswick- Luneburg were substantially parties. Passing over some minor ordinances of 1669 and 1680, in 1690 a coinage union, based on the Lubeck system, and establishing a 1 Kelly's " Cambist." I or THr UNJVERSi. GERMANY. *• " ' ""'^ 377 common coinage rate^ was effected at Leipsig between the same parties. This rate was made common throughout the now shadowy empire by the decree of September 10th, 1738.^ On September 21st, 1753, a coinage treaty was effected between Austria and the electorate of Bavaria, to which in the following year several other German States acceded. The table below shows that under this treaty was struck a convention-thaler of 353f grains fine silver. In 1 763 an imperial decree — which, however, excepted Prussia, Hanover, Liege, Swedish Pomerania, Hamburg, Lubeck, and Holstein ; that is to say, the kernel of the future North German Bund — established a convention coinage rate of 20 florins, or 13^ riks thalers currency, or lOriks thalers effective, to the mark of fine silver. This gives 1S0"4 grains fine silver to the j florin, 270*6 grains fine silver to the riks thaler currency, ' and 360'8 grains fine silver to the riks thaler effective. The table below shows that the Austrian '^ effectives " [struck under this convention actually contained but 353*7 ; grains, and that Saltzburg alone struck them of full weight. On February 22nd, 1765, and January 19th, 1766, 1 coinage unions were effected at Frankfort and Worms ' between the Electors of Mainz and Treves, the palatinate Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt and the free city of i Frankfort ; and in 1772 these conventions were modified. Meanwhile the fluctuations of gold and the unsatisfac- tory condition of all monetary institutes, occasioned by the arbitrary mint laws of Spain and the surrender of the coinage in Holland and England to individuals (called "free coinage ''), promoted the foundation of the banks of Berlin and Breslau in 1765, and suggested the Prussian royal ordinance of 1766. This ordinance extended to the banks and their branches throughout the king's dominions. Following an ancient Roman precedent, the king authorised and ordered their accounts to be kept in " pounds," or " thalers banco,^' each divided into 24 banco groschen, 1 Kelly's " Cambist." 378 HISTORY or monetary systems in various states. and these into 12 banco pfennigs; hence there wen' 288 pfennigs to the '^ pound." Although Prussia did nof see fit to join with Austria in the Convention of 1753, sht nevertheless coined a silver thaler^ not indeed of precisely the weight provided by that Convention, but very close to it, and fully or more than equal in weight to the Convention thalers of the other German states. This was the so-called Prussian Convention thaler of (actually) 359 grains fine. It was alsa the ^^ pound" or "banco thaler " of Frederick the Great. We shall revert to its historical origin later on. The currency thaler of 252*6 grains fine was 29f per cent, lighter than the banco thaler. These the banks gave credit for at the rate of 31|^ per cent, worse than banco, and thus made a profit of If per cent, on all deposits of silver ''currency." ^ The gold ducats, of (nominally) 2| currency thalers each, fluctuated, in silver money price, with the conflict-ratio. During the third quai'ter of the eighteenth century the ducats and "Fredericks," or pistoles, the latter (nominally) of 5 currency thalers each, were taken by the Prussian banks at a price in silver which closely agreed with the Dutch mint ratio of 14| ; whereas towards the close of the century, and for a long time afterwards, it was dis- tinctly influenced by the combined Spanish and French ratios of 15^.^ The banks of Prussia were authorised by the decree of 1766 to issue notes of 10, 20, 50, 500, and 1000 " pounds " each, but these were not legal-tenders until a later period. The political storm which ravaged Europe towards the beginning of the present century was not without its effects on the monetary history of North Germany. The Confederation of the Rhine was established in 1806, and expired in 1813; the paper notes of Prussia were na- tionalised in 1806, and are in circulation to-day. By a decree published in 1807 they were to be taken for coined money, at a rate of exchange to be ofiicially pro- 1 Kelly's " Cambist." ^ ibj^j^ 1 GERMANY. 379 mulgated from time to time. Between December 1st, 1807, and Febi'uary 28th, 1809, the premium on silver money fluctuated between 7 and 27 per cent. ; in June, 1809, the notes stood at 36 per cent, of their nominal value ; June, 1810, at 84^ per cent.; January, 1812, 13^; De- sember, 1812, when, of eight million thalei's issued, there were believed to be only three quarters of a million in sirculation,^ the notes stood at only 44^ per cent. ; June, 1813, 264 per cent. ; July, 1813, 24^ per cent. ; Decem- ber, 1813, 49^ per cent. ; January, 1815, 88 per cent. ; January 5th, 1816, 99 per cent. ; afterwards at par.^ The Saxony treasury notes never fell below 98, and the government retired them in 1804 at an agio, which began it 9 pfennigs and ended at 1 pfennig, per thaler.'^ But Prussia was in the centre of the hurricane, and was )bliged to increase her emissions of paper, and to enforce ts circulation. In January, 1815, refusal to accept the lotes at par, except in certain cases, was made punishable by a fine of 500 to 1000 thalers, or by six to twelve months imprisonment. In April, 1815, it was ordered that the noiety of all taxes should be paid in paper money, or that, if not, 8| per cent, should be added as a penalty. In 1827 this penalty was reduced to one silver groschen ; ind although long fallen into desuetude, it was not ibolished until 1870. In 1830, 1841, and 1848 the banks sustained runs for the redemption of the paper money. [n the run of 1848 the demand did not exceed 40,000 whalers per day, nor altogether 100,000 thalers.* Previous ,:o this (1846) the amount annually presented for re- demption did not exceed four-tenths of 1 per cent. In the early part of the century the stock of the precious netals in Germany was greatly reduced by the depreda- tions of Napoleon, who sent the spoil to France, and thus * Decree of January 19th, 1813, sec. 9. 2 Roscher, i, p. 454; ii, p. 14, ^ Ibid., i, p. 448; ii, p. 5. •* Bergius, " Tubinger Zeitschrift," 1870, p. 226. 5 Eau, " Archiv," v, pp. 125, 207. 380 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. conferred upon its mints that hegemony of the ratio (thi Spanish 15^) which it held for nearly a century^ but t( which it was entitled neither by prescription, nor througl its mines, nor its commercial advantages.^ With the downfall of Napoleon, Germany resumed he wonted calm and industi'ial progression. On June 8th, 1815, the Confederation of the Rhine wa supplanted by the Germanic Confederation, which for time united not only North Germany, but also Austria Bavaria, and Wurtemburg. The monetary system of North Germany at this period is described by Dr. Kelly. It was based on the currencj thaler, which he gives at 257*78 grains fine silver. Th gold ducat of 53*14 grains fine, was valued nominally 2 J currency thalers — a nominal ratio of 13^ for 1. Th gold Frederick, or pistole, of 93*45 grains fine, was nominal! valued at 5 currency thalers — a nominal ratio of 13*8 fo 1. The first is the old Charles V. ratio ; the second modification of it. But neither of these ratios wer effective, for gold coins were not legal-tender and t' ducat commanded a premium of 20 per cent, and the pistol 15 per cent. ; making the effective ratio about 16 for 1 the same as in Spain. However, during the first quarte; of the century the premium on gold fluctuated withii limits that varied the effective ratio between the Spanis mint ratios of 15| and 16 ; a proof, if one were needed,|l that the hegemony of the ratio was not in Germany.^ The system of weights for the precious metals in Cologne during the sixteenth century is thus given by Budelius : — 32 ieschen or eisen, or moments = 1 esterling, engel, or pennyweight ; 19 engels = 1 ounce ; 8 ounces = 1 mark. The ies contained 0*74177625, say f of 1 English grain ; the esterling, 23*737 grains ; the ounce, 451 ; and the mark, 3608 grains.^ The Cologne weights 1 This subject is treated in " Money and Civilisation." 2 Kelly, i, p. 34. ^ In this system 2 ieschen were called a duisch ; 3 a trii ; 4 a quart, etc, GEEMANY. 381 of the eighteenth century are thus given by Dr. Kelly : — 17 iesclieu^ or eschen = 1 pfennig ; 4 pfennigs = 1 quintlin ; 4 quintlins = l loth ; 2 loths = l ounce ; 8 ounces = 1 mark. The ies contained 0-829045, say 0-83 of 1 English grain ; the pfennig, 14'09375 grains ; the quintlin, 56| grains ; the loth, 225^ grains ; and the ounce and inark_, the same as before. To the experienced metro- logist it is evident that both of these are hybrid systems, originating remotely in the octonary numbers and relations of the sun-worship practised in the countries of the Baltic. In the first system it takes 4864 ieschen to make a mark; in the second, it takes but 4352. The odd numbers of 19 engels to the ounce and 17 ieschen to the pfennig- taken in connection with the common use of coins in ancient times, both for weights, measures, and other .numerical relations — suggest that the basis of the system was not the mark, but the ies; a suspicion that, could it be safely established, would upset a good many current theories, both metrological aud numismatic.^ The weight system of Troy (Troyes) was as follows : — 1^ ieschen, or moments = 1 grain ; 24 grains = 1 ester- ling, or pennyweight ; 20 esterlings = 1 ounce ; 8 ounces = 1 mark of 3840 English grains. Here the ies contains exactly f of a grain." The system of Nuremburg (Noribergensis) was as .follows : — 1 pfennig = 14"336 English grains ; 4 pfennigs = 1 quintlin ; 4 quintlins = 1 loth ; 2 loths = 1 ounce ; 8 ounces = 1 mark of 3670 grains.^ It is well known that the name of the ducat is derived from dux or duke, but the significance of the name is lost in failing to observe that the coin itself is a degraded solidus^ and that it was called a ducat only after the right to coin it was lost by the Basileus and usurped by ' Some features of this subject are discussed in " Money and Civilisa- tion," chap, i, and "Ancient Britain," chap. xvii. - Budelius, p. 30, ^ The subdivisions are from Budelius, whilst the equivalents in Eng- lish grains are from Kelly. 382 HISTORr OF MOXETARY SYSTEMS IN VAEIOUS STATES. the dukes, pi'elates, or vassal princes of liis moribum empire. The last gold coins struck by the Basileus wer the solidi of the Comnenus family, toward the close o the twelfth century, containing each a trifle under 6i grains fine gold ; the first ducat was struck by Alfonso IX of Leon, in 1225, and contained 54^ grains fine gold.^ The name of the skilling is evidently derived from th oriental " sical," or cut money, whence we have alsi "sicca," " shekel,'^ '' scissors,'^ " chisel," and many othe names for cntting-instruments and their products. Cut money and knife-money were both common in the Orient and doubtless made their way, at a very remote period across the steppes of Tartary to the Baltic." In a former work I followed the voice of numismati( authority and assigned the origin of the name " thaler,' or " dollar/' to " thai," or " dol," a vale or valley, anc repeated the idle tale of Budelius about the JoachimsthaL and Count Schlick. I am now convinced that the thale: has a far more significant origin. The ancient Greel and Roman systems both included coins or sums o: money called talents, neither resembling, nor immediately connected with, the weights called talents. In the rega and ducal systems of the Renaissance, when the prevail' ing ratio was 10 silver for 1 gold,' broad silver coins were struck each containing 10 (in the Gothic States 8) times as much fine metal as a gold ducat, and known variously as a talent, ducatone, cross, scudo, ecu, or silver ducat, and valued as one gold ducat. From the thirteenth century, when it contained 565i grains fine silver, the talent, or thaler, gradually dwindled down to about 400 grains, when it was known in Germany (this was in the sixteenth century) as a Constitution thaler. During the following century the thaler lost some 30 or 40 grains ^ "Middle Ages Revisited," ch. xx. - Ibid., ch. xxxvi. ^ "Delia Decima, della Moneta e della Mercatura," Florence, 1765, shows that from 1262 to 1495 the mint ratio in Florence was always close to 10 for 1, sometimes a fraction over and sometimes under. GERMANY. 383 nore, and was called a Convention thaler. When another lundred grains were lost it was called a currency thaler. The following tables exhibit the gradual degradation of his famous coin. Taleivt or silver thaler of the Renaissance and afterwards. Engr. ofi-s. fine. Same piece, called scudo (Kelly) Scudo, Piedmont, 1770 (K) . . 490 1755 (K) . . 489 Ducaton, Holland, old (K) .... . 4741 new (K) . . 4711 „ Liege, 1671 . 465i Tuscany, 1676 .... . 460 Scudo della Croce, Venice (K) . 458J „ of Genoa, 8 lire, 1796 (K) . . 457§ „ Ligurian Republic, 1805 (K) . 4541 Ecu of Lorraine, 1710 (K) . 427 German Constitution thalers. Austria, Siglsmund, silver gulden ..... 452 Esslingen, Charles V, 1524, silver gulden . . . 423f Augsburg, „ 1551, „ ... 425 „ „ 1559, „ 60 kreutzers . 3o3i Cologne, reichs or riks thaler, 18tli century . . . 404 Nuremburg 402i Hanover 400| Austria, before 1753 390 German Convention thalers — mostly eighteenth century. Hamburg reichs-thaler, 1687 to 1850, average weigbt . 385f Frankfoi-t-on-Maine, 1772 365§ Saxony 360| Brunswick, 1753 359| Prussia, Kuremburg and Manheim .... 359 Bavaria, 1753 . 358f Saltzburg 358^ Austria, 1753 (nominally 361 gr.), actually . . . 353f Cologne 353f Hesse Cassel 353 384 HISTOET OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. Germany Currency thalers — eighteenth century (Kelly). Eug. grs. fini South Germ., riks thai. Treaty Sept. 21st, 1753, legal 270-6 Hesse Cassel, riks thaler, 1778, actual .... 270-3 1789 Poland, 1794, new riks thaler Prussia, riks thaler Auspack (Prussia) old riks . Saxe-Gotha, riks . Bareuth (Prussia) old riks 259-7 254-3 252-6 250-6 248-1 223-3 Tliese tables show the gradual degradation of the thale in Germany. In Spain and America during the eighteentl century it never fell below 371 3- grains fine^ and there i stands to-day in the coinages of the United States. Ii Spain it has since fallen to 349-17 grains fine, whilst ii North Germany, where it is still an unlimited legal tender, it contains but 257-g grains fine, and is legalh valued at three imperial marks. On the 25th of August, 1837, a monetary conventioi was concluded at Munich between several States of th( German empire.^ On the 30th July, 1838, a monetary convention was concluded at Dresden between the States of the Zollverein in which the old weight of the Cologne mark (360J English grains) was recognised as equal to 233-851 metric grammes. The mark of fine silver was agreed to b( coined into 14 thalers, or 24| florins. From 1st January 1841, the thaler above defined was to be the sole ful' legal-tender money of the Prussian States^ Saxe-Royali Electoral Hesse, Saxony, Saxe-Altenburg, Duchy of Saxe- Coburg- and Gotha, Schwartzburg-Rudolstadt, Schwartz- burg-Sonderhausen, and the Reuss States. The florir was to be the sole full legal-tender money of Bavaria. Wurtemburg, Baden, Ducal Hesse, Saxe-Meiningen, Ducal Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Nassau, Principality of Schwartz- burg-Rudolstadt, and Frankfort. Besides this, a new, coin of 2 thalers, or 3^ florins, was to be struck, 7 to the 1 MacGregor's " Statistics," i, p. 543. ! GERMANY. 385 mark fine, wliicli sliould be legal in all the States of the Zollverein.^ The coinage laws above established were ratified by the Treaty of Berlin, March 8th, 1841. Coins fabricated agreeably to these provisions were declared the legal- tenders of the Union. ^ On March 27th^ 1845, a coinage treaty was effected at Munich. On October 21st, 1845, a monetary cartel was effected at Carlsruhe, to provide for the punishment of all offences against the prerogative of coining and of issuing paper money. To this cartel, and to another one effected Feb- ruary 19th, 1853, all the States of the Zollverein were parties. The total circulation of a given State is the most im- portant feature of its monetary system, since it is that which influences prices, and can be made to exercise a most powerful influence in stimulating or retarding in- dustrial progress. Yet it is precisely that feature con- cerning which Ave commonly possess the least reliable information. The usual method of estimating the cir- culation is to add together the coinages, the paper emis- ' sions, and the imports of coins^ and to subtract the exports 'and an allowance for re-coinages, wear, tear, and loss. But this method is so defective that it can only furnish a remote approximation to the truth.^ The table below 'embraces most of the estimates which have fallen beneath the author's observation. Such estimates as were originally made in other denominations of money than German currency thalers are reduced to that denomination upon the following rough scale of equivalents : — 3 imperial marks (of 1871) = 1 currency thaler ; 1^ currency thalers = 1 convention thaler, or 1 Spanish or American dollar ; 6§ currency thalers = 1 English pound sterling. Sums of money in millions of currency thalers. ' MacGregor's " Statistics," i, p. 544. - Ibid., i, p. 507. ^ For a more ample discussion of the subject consult " Science of Money," chap. iii. 25 3S6 HISTOEY OP MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. ns P5 g ? Oi O V3 LO O Qooo pq rM ,—1 c3 c O QJ Oj q; I c4 00 -^ -^ Si. «:' 2 o CO, ; .— < cj O) (D ^<5 ; 5 g' pHr= ^ -^ . ^ S H|n-i|MHW-(lNM|^ -fNrt|isnl*n|*«i^ -lN-.|5»HKHtHti hW ce Gococo i-ir oo(M(m— lOirHoco^r- .uticooo5-*ooi.t)^^e* O ^ rH 1—1 1—1 0-1 (M I— I 01 CI CJ (M CI I— I C-l C-l r—l CI I— I CI C-1 00 S^ B 00 1—1 11 OH o o t^ •i>> e •Is s Ph P-l s?, 1 O O"^00000i050iOi— IClClCOCOCOCOCO-^^eOGOOJO • 5 OOOOOOt^CO-^1— iC10iOi-HOir^CCCC'iDOOtO»Ot» -S ^OC0Q0CDC0l>^CC105i— ICOCOCiOCOQOOt^ClOOCO e Cfl ^ -«^ '^i CO GO t^ 00 00 05 O 05 CO 05 00 00 O CX) I—I CI «D r-l I f~i I— I 1—1 ,— (r-li— 1— J hO iH|«f^l« ocieococooooicociiocoi^occcoooooo CCtOiOiOiCCDiCLCiOOCOCli— IOI>-I>-OiOI>Xi C.^i-IOOl -^-^COiOJJtHO-^kClOiOCOCOiOiOOOiCOOl^-CQ?© o I 1 --IN ^iW Cli— ICOCOCOCO-<1<0 I CO rl C5 COOCOCOCOi— II>OI> -^COCO— 'COOOCOOOO cocii— iiocio-<#05eo OC0r-l-«J. t^ t^ t^ C^ t^ t^ I^ t^ GO 05 05 ( 00000CCOO00000GO000000GO000000G0'XaO00a000( GERMANY. 387 It is evident that some of these estimates are little more than conjectures, based upon currency theories. Soetbeer's later estimates are too high in gold. A tolerably safe and approximately correct estimate of the circulation of all Germany would probably be c€l per XoTEs TO THE Table. — * Eau, ii, p. 161, says that in 1780 Berlin bank-notes commanded a premium, but he fails to say in what. Pro- ; bably in Convention thalers. - Krug, i, p. 244; Roscher, i, p. 374, 1 n. 1. The discrepancy in the population is probably due to the inclusion ; of Prussian Poland, for which, however, Krug makes no allowance in his ; estimate of the circulation. ^ This estimate (1805) was made by the t authorities of Prussia, forwarded to the government of the United States, i and published by the latter in their Annual Finance Report. ■* ZVIem- ; minger credits Wurtemburg in 1840 with a total money of about 12 cur- j rency thalers per capita (36 million gulden), whilst B. Hildebrand credits I the Electorate of Hesse in 1853 with about 8 currency thalers per capita, of which nearly one-half were paper notes (Roscher, i, p. 374, n. 2). '" In August, 1869, the various states of the Confederation (exclusive of ; Bavaria, Wu.i-temburg, and Baden) had in circulation paper money to the amount of 40,652,742 thalers (" Rep. U.S. Bu. Stat.," Sept., 1873).' « This - t revised estimate made by Soetbeer, and is probably nearer the fact : .111 his previous statements relating to this period. On January 21st, 1^70, the Bank of Prussia and its branches had in circulation 142:J million thalers, the other banks of the Confederation 70J millions, and . South Germany say 40 millions ; total, 252i millions (" U.S. Bu. Stat.," i Sept., 1873. The coin estimate (after Soetbeer) is given in Roscher, i, p. 374, n. 2. " Year 1871. In this estimate the paper money is evi- dently uudei-stated. ** Year 1873. Paper money 106 millions more i than previous year. ^ In 1873-4 a portion of the French War In- demnity gold was drawn away from Germany. In 1875 the issues of paper money were 1205 million marks (" U.S. Com. Rel.," 1875, p. 534). ''^' In 1876 the paper money was wrongly stated at 1038 million marks (•• U.S. Com. Rel," 1876, p. 304). Of this amount 4<32 millions were '"uncovered" (" U.S. Con. Rep.," 1875). " Year 1879. In Soetbeer's estimate the gold is greatly exaggerated. i- Mint Director of the I United States (Report, 1893, p. 52). The Director says : '• Uncovered . notes, 59,680,000 American dollars," equal to 89,520,000 German thalers. As "uncovered notes" involves an assumption and a theoiy wliich as applied to currency statistics may not be sound, I have in- cluded the whole issue of notes. However, its extravagant amount of • gold rendere the estimate worthless. 388 HISTORY OF MONETAEY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. capita at the beginning of the century ; something less than £2 in 1850; and about £3 10s. at the present time. The average circulation of all Europe and America in 1893 was about £3 per capita, including paper money. At the rate of £3 10s. per capita Germany has in circulation more than an -average share of tlie money of the Western world. Besides her circulating money Germany possesses a war-chest of the precious metals, which, according to Arthur Young, amounted in 1790 to £15,000,000 sterling in silver, and which at the present time is said to consist of 40,000,000 thalers in gold.^ Before taking leave of the statistics of the circulation it may be proper to observe that German monetary statis- tics are not exceptionally inflated ; that exaggeration characterises such statistics in most countries ; and that the world's commerce is in fact conducted upon a much smaller metallic basis than is commonly supposed. In a foot-note to the table given above it is held that to include in the circulation of a State only that portion of its paper money which is " uncovered " by a reserve or guarantee of coins or securities involves an assumption and a theory which may not be sound, and that for this reason all the paper money issued was included in the table. It is now in order to briefly examine this subject. The assumption referred to is that when coins or bullion are deposited as a reserve to secure the payment of notes, it is erroneous to count both the coins or bullion and the notes as portions of the circulation. The answer to this is that so far as regards bullion, it is not money, that it is not counted in the circulation at all, and that to omit to count the notes issued upon its guarantee, or assumed guarantee, would be to omit an important element 1 Arthur Young, "Travels in France," i, p. 519 ; "Eep. U.S. Bu. Stat.," Sept., 1873, p. 137 ; " Eep. Indian Curr. Com.," 1893, p. 211. The German war-fund (Act, Nov. 11th, 1871) is at Spandau entirely withdrawn from ch'culation. f GERMANY. 389 of the circulation. The same answer applies to govern- ment bonds, — indeed, to any other form of reserve except full legal-tender coins. With regard to the latter, could it always be positively ascertained what proportion of the reserve consisted of such coins, it is admitted that to count them, together with the notes issued upon their guarantee, as portions of the circulation, would be erroneous ; but such is not the case. Banking establishments do not, as a rule, specify what proportions of their reserves con- sist of full legal-tender coins. For example, the Bank of England has the right under the Act of 1844 to hold one-fifth of its reserve in silver, which, whether coined or uncoined, is not full legal-tender. But it is not : required to, and in fact does not, inform the public how ; much of its reserves consists of such silver. I am pri- I vately informed that at the present time no portion of its I reserve consists of silver. According to Professor Greven the Bank of the Netherlands enjoys a similar privilege, [ the proportion of silver being not merely one-fifth, but whatever the Bank deems proper. Says that authority : " Every banker knows that when he needs gold for I export, and the Bank (of the Netherlands) cannot pay in i gold, it will give him so much silver as will enable him to ; buy a quantity of gold equal in value to so many gold I coins as the notes offered for payment represent." In I the United States the same bag of coins often masquerades j now as the reserve of one bank, and now of another. How I far similar subterfuges are employed in the various private ' banking establishments of Germany is not known, and in , the absence of such knowledge it is deemed safer to include the entire paper issues in the circulation. This at least is a known quantity; the " reserves," as ex- perience has too often and too sadly proved, may only exist in the playful imagination of that fortunate class who : have secured the prerogative to issue bank money. So ■ much for the assumption that the value of bank reserves 390 HISTOEY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VAEIOUS STATES. should be deducted from the sum of coins and notes. Now for the theory of " uncovered paper.^' According to this theory the privilege to issue paper money is justified if the issuer retains a reserve, let us say, in full legal-tender coins, sufficient, under ordinary circumstances, to meet the demands for the payment of his issues. This is a very disingenuous presentation of the case ; and the economists, never suspecting its artful- ness, have been content to discuss the amplitude of re- serves and other details of a like character, wholly neglecting- to inquire whether there is not another aspect of the reserve theory which is of superior importance to the State, than security for payment of the notes. That superior aspect is the absence of any guarantee that the notes shall remain in the circulation — a guarantee that has never been demanded bv governments and never offered by private banks of issue, from the fatal day when they were first chartered to the present. And yet it needs but little reflection to perceive that the interests of the State, of society, of industry, of commerce, and the arts, are jeopardised a thousand times more by a contraction of the currency, than b}' the losses which A, B, or C may sustain in failing to receive payment for the notes they may hold of the banks. Such losses are the misfortunes of individuals, and are soon repaired ; but contraction of the currency is a wound inflicted upon the State — or in other words, upon the active forces which constitute its strength, — and against such a wound, bank reserves offer no defence whatever. Some particulars of the history of the ratio in Germany have already been given. The following remarks and table will render this account more complete and continuous. Down to the thirteenth century the ratio in the coinages of the northern states of Germany, including Lubeck and Hamburg, varied but slightly from the Eoman pontifico- imperial ratio of 12 for 1. During the thirteenth century the influence of the Eoman ratio for the first time GERMANY. 891 exhibited signs o£ decline. Less silver and more gold was now put into the coins of the various Christian states or provinces, and still less into those which, like .Pome- rania and the Baltic provinces, had been but recently converted to Christianity, and had previously coined at the Gothic pagan ratio of 8 for 1. For example, the talent of 1484 only contained 451 gi^ains, a ratio of 8 for 1 ; while in the coinage of the Teutonic monk-knights during the last thirty years of the fifteenth century the ratio was 9 for 1. The enhanced value accorded to silver in the German states during the Renaissant period is shown in the following valuations derived from the average of pur- chases (not the issues) of the Lubeck mint: — a.d. 1411, average for eight years past 12 for 1 ; 1451, average for forty years past 11*7 for 1 ; 1463, average for twelve years past 11 '6 for 1 ; 1475, average of several North German coinages for one year 11 for 1. Speaking generally, the coinages of the Renaissance exhibit a ratio of about 10 for 1 ; but the exceptions were numerous. However, the ratio never exceeded 12 for 1 ; and silver was sometimes raised to a fourth, a third, and even to half the value of gold, weight for weight. With the discovery of America commenced a new order of affairs. The control of the ratio, which Rome had lost and the Christian princes of Europe had acquired, was now monopolised by Spain, through its command of the new supplies and its comparatively vast coinages of the precious metals. We have seen how these advantages were abused by Charles V, and our table will therefore commence with the ratios established by that monarch. 392 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. The ratio between silver and gold in Germany. Prussian German Year. • legal conflict Remarks. ratio. ratio. 1524 Ill 10-00 Edict Chas. V. at Esslingen. 1546 m 1000 Edict Clias. V. Gold boycotted by the Germans. 1551 13i- ' 1117 Deduced from coinages of Upper Ger- many. 1559 13i 11-44 Deduced from coinages of Ferdi- nand I. 1623 13i 11-74 Deduced from coinages of Ferdi- nand II. 1 1641 13i 1200 Desrotours ; the empire generally. i 1667 13i 1415 Deduced from coinages of Upper Ger- \ many. Leopold I. 1669 13i 1511 Deduced from coinages of Upper Ger- many. Leopold I. \ 1690 13i 14-50 Deduced from quotations in Berlin " banco." 1753 13i 14-50 Coinage Convention of Vienna, Sep- tember 21st. 1766 13i 14-50 Deduced from quotations in Berlin " banco." 1780 13i 15-00 Deduced from quotations in Berlin " banco." 1790 13i 1550 Deduced from quotations in Berlin "banco." 1821 140 15-50 Law, September 30th. Frederick d'or 103-1 grains:=o thalers of (nomi- nally) 25"! grains each. "1 r 1 Hamburg (only). The gold ducat varied from 51^ to 52J, average 1687 14-50 52g- grains fine, but was not legal- 1 to !> 14-8 i to tender. Average Convention thaler 1 3So5 grains fine ; legal value, half 1 1850 15-50 1 a ducat ; ratio 14-8 ; thus. oSo'To X 2 = 771-50-;- 52-125= 14-8 (Xew- J L ton ; Kelly). 1851 — 15-50 Various conflict ratios, 15-21 to 1559.^ 1866 15§ 15-50 North Gei-man Bund. 1871 15* 1550 New Empire. Gold coin system adopted.- Notes to Table. — ^ During the years 1851-65 gold was highest in 1851, and lowest in 1854. In other yeai-s the ratio fell between these extremes (" Eep. U.S. I\Ion. Com.," 1876, i, p. 192. " One hundred and fifty million currency thalers retained in the circulation ; but the legal-tender of all other silver coins limited to 20 marks, or 6| thalers, in any one payment. GERMANY. 393 It must be remembered that for a great portion of the period embraced in this table we are dealing not -with one government and one law, but with many governments and '. many laws, and it should be read with allowances. The legal or mint ratios shown in the first column are mainly those of Prussia and the North German Bund ; the first ones (llf and 13^ fori) were fixed by Charles V, and the second (15i for 1) by the mint laws of the Bund in 1865. During the interval 1790 to 18G6 there appears to have • been no legal ratio in Prussia, and the value of gold ' followed the conflict ratio, which, however, was mainly governed by the Spanish and French mint ratios of 15^, established in 1775, 1785, and 1803, The Hamburg (and approximately the Lubeck) mint ratio during most of this period was 14"8 for 1 ; but as gokl coins were not legal- tender, they followed the conflict which resulted fi-om the mint ratios adopted by the principal coining states of the period, namely, Spain, England, and France. The conflict ratios shown in the table are approximate quotations intended to cover all North Germany; but as, during the period it embraces, Germany held no control of the ratio, ; these quotations are little more than reflections of the prices paid for gold (in silver) at the mints of the principal foreign coining states. I We are now prepai'ed to continue our account of those monetarv conventions which have done so much to brinsf the German states under a united and powerful rule. On January 24th, 1857, was effected the important coin- age treaty of Vienna. At this period the commercial world was agitated by a strange disease ; the fear that so much gold would be produced from the mines and pass into the form of money, that a disastrous rise of prices — . that is, disastrous to millionaires — would ensue sufficient jTto shake the foundations of society. In vain had Vou Humboldt, whose familiarity with history and whose acquaintance with mining should have entitled him to speak with some authority on the subject — in vain had 394 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. this most illustrious of Germans and of savants assured the world that the vast disparity between the world^s stock of coins of the precious metals, compared with any additions that might be made to it, rendered the latter a very trifling* factor in the account ; in vain had he shown that but a small proportion of the mining product of gold and silver Avas fabricated into money ; in vain did he advert to the increasing needs of an augmenting popula- tion.^ In vain had Hume and other able writers shown that rises of prices occasioned by an increase of metallic money had benefited not only the poor, but the rich as well. The individuals who had controlled the coinage of money, and augmented or restricted its volume at pleasure, the money-lenders and usurers of Frankfort and Amsterdam, knew better. Yon Humboldt's book, " The Fluctuations of Gold," was consigned to oblivion, and the essays of the Metallic School were hailed with applause, translated into all languages^ and published in every country of Europe and America. This school taught the luminous doctrines that value is both a noun and an adverb ; it is both a thing, an atti'ibute, and a relation ; it is and it is not the same as price : " price is value in relation to a substance ; " money is both a noun and an adverb ; it is a thing and an attribute of a thing ; it is a commodity; it is a measurer of commodities; it is also an attribute conferred upon a commodity ; standard is the material of which legal-tender coins are made ; it is a certain weight of a certain metal ; and it is a certain degree of fineness of any metal ; the unit of money is both the whole volume of money and each indivisible fraction of it ; money is metal, and metal is money ; finally, the national honour is subject to the comparative ^ " Any increase in the production which our imagination could call into existence would appear infinitely trifling compared with the accumu- lation of thousands of years now in circulation, especially when we con- sider the small proportion coined into money and the large proportion absorbed in the arts" (Von Humboldt's "Fluctuations of Gold," Berlin, 1838). GERMANY. 395 output of the gold and silver mines ! All these and many other sophistries will be found in the essays of Harris, Chevalier and Lord Liverpool.^ It is easy to perceive that they may be made to lead to any conclusion. Accordingly, in England, they led Mr. Maclaren to advocate life assurance on a silver basis, and Mr. Cobden to recommend corn rents and payments in kind. In Germany this school of muddled logic and easy principles loudly demanded the retention of silver ' coins for the sole money of the Fathei'land ; and it was ■ in the midst of this patriotic vociferation that the Treaty of Vienna was drafted and signed. It was declared to be enacted in pursuance of article ix of the Treaty of Carlsruhe, July 19th, 1853, between I Austria, the principality of Lichtenstein and the States •which were parties to the Treaty of Dresden, July 30th, 1838. Thus the Coinage Treaty of 1857 embraced Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover, "Wurtemburg, Baden, Electoral Hesse, Ducal Hesse, Ducal Saxony, Oldenburg, Saxe-Meiningen, Saxe-Coburg Gotha, Saxe- Altenburg, Brunswick, Nassau, Anhalt-Dessau, Cothen, Anhalt-Bemburg, Schwarzburg-Sondenhausen, Schwai'z- burg-Rudolstadt, Lichtenstein, Waldeck, Pyrmont, the Eeusses, the Lippes, Landgraviate Hesse, and the City of Frankfort. The right of coinage as to full legal-tender silver (vereinsmunze), and as to gold coins, was conferred upon private individuals. The drudgery of striking the coins was to be done by the States. No limits were assigned to the coinage of silver thalers or gold pieces, and only temporary ones to that of florins. Gold coins were forbidden to be made legal-tenders in any of the States. ■The full legal-tender coins were : first, currency thalers, of ^ Chevalier's essays were published in the "Eevue des Deux Mondes " .shortly after the opening of California. Most of the sophistries enume- rated in the text will be found in the first chapter of his subsequent work, '• The Fall in the Value of Gold," translated by Cobden. 396 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. which thirty were to be struck from 500 metrical grammes, or one zollpfund of 7716'1745 Eng-lish grains, hence each of 257-2 grains fine ; second, Austrian florins, of 45 to the zollpfund, or each of 171*47 grains fine ; and third. South German florins, of 52 1 to the zollpfund, or each of about 147 grains fine. The thalers were to pass for 1| Austrian, or If South German florins ; and all of these coins were to be full legal-tender in all the States. The alloy to be added was such as to make them all of the metrical standard, or nine-tenths fine. The gold coins were to be crowns of 50 to the zollpfund of fine gold, hence each of 154J grains fine. Austria alone might continue to strike ducats until the end of 1865. The right of coining the subsidiary silver coins, scheidemunze, was reserved to the States. The smallest pieces were to be one-sixth of a thaler, or one-fourth of an Austrian florin. The zwanzeiger, or twenty-creutzer, or one-third florin piece, was abolished. The entire emission of subsidiary silver coins (this was reserved to the States) was limited to five-sixths of a thaler per capita ; and offices were to be assigned for their redemption in full legal-tender coins. Gold coins might be received at the State treasuries at a price in silver coins to be fixed for a period not exceeding six months at a time. The position of the gold coins was that of mere bullion ; and as such they ceased to circulate, and soon found their way to the melting pot.'^ The paper-money and bank-notes of each State were pei'mitted to circulate in the other States so long as ' We have no data of the gold coinage from 1857 ; but of 175 million thalers, net, of gold coined during the years below there were esti- mated to have remained in existence down to 1867 not more than 15 or 20 millions. Gold coinage in millions of thalers : Old Prussia, 1764 to 1867, 85"7; New Prussia (Hanover, Electoral Hesse and Frankfort), 1834 to 1867, 37-3; Brunswick, 1764 to 1867, oQ-O ; Hamburg and Lubeck, 1790 to 1867, 19 ; Saxony, 1839 to 1867, and Ducal Hesse, 1819 to 1855 (together) 0-9; Bavaria, Wurtemburg, and Baden, 1837 to 1867, 1"6 : total, 177'4 ; less re-coinages, 2'5 ; net issues, 174'9 (" Rep. Bu. Stat.,"' Sept., 1873, p. 143). See also Prof. Wagner in " Rep. U.S. Mon. Com.," 1876, i, p. 191. GERMANY. 397 " adequate " provision was made for their redemption in full legal-tender silver coins. In the case of the Bank of ' Prussia^ which in 1872 issued two-thirds of all the paper money circulating in Germany, and in that of the other most important banks, this was legally one-third and (for a time) actually two-thirds, in thalers or florins. An ' exception was made with respect to Austria, whose circu- lation was almost entirely of paper ; but such exception did not extend beyond January 1st, 1859. However, ' Austria soon afterwards seceded from the convention altogether.^ No provision was made against a contrac- tion of the currency by the melting or export of coins, or by the retirement of bank issues. In this convention we perceive the mediate germs of the Latin Union of 18(35, and the Scandinavian Union of 1872 ; but of far more significance is the fact, which can scarcely be doubted, that it helped to pave the way to the North German Bund of 1866 and the Empire of 1871. Never- theless much remained yet to be done in unifying the '' monetary systems of Germany. At the conclusion of the • war of 1866 there still remained no less than ten different ' systems of German moneys : First, the Prussian system of the currency thaler, divided , into 30 groschen of 12 pfennigs each. Second, the system of Royal Saxony, Ducal Saxe- , Gotha, Saxe-Altenburg, and Brunswick, which divided 'the currency thaler into 30 groschen of 10 pfennigs each. • Third, the duchies of Mecklenburg- Schwerin, Meck- ' lenburg-Strelitz, and Lauenburg, which divided the ' currency thaler into 48 skillings of 12 pfennigs each. Fourth, the free cities of Hamburg and Bremen, . which divided the currency thaler into two-and-a-half ' marks current, or into 40 skillings of 12 pfennigs each. Fifth, the system of marks banco of the free cities j of Hamburg and Altona and the vicinity. ' Some other provisions of this treaty will be found in " Money and . Civilisation," p. 339. 398 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. Sixth, the gold coin system of the free city of Altona. This was based on the louis d'or, or pistole, of l-84tli of a pfund, say 92 grains of fine gold, valued at 5 currency thalers — a ratio of aVjout 14 for 1. Here the thalers were divided into 72 groschen. Seventh, the talent {" specie-thaler ") of Schleswig- Holstein, of 9j talents to the Cologne mark of fine silver, say 390 grains each, subdivided into 60 skillings current. Eighth, the subdivisions of the South German florin system^ which not only prevailed in Bavaria, Wurtemburg, Baden, and Hesse-Darmstadt, but also in Frankfort-on- the-Main, Nassau, Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, Saxe-Mein- ingen, and Saxe-Coburg. Ninth, the gold coinage system of the free city of Bremen. Tenth, the '^ banco " system of Prussia. In recounting the steps by which these diverse systems of money — the remains of the chaotic monetary period 1204 to 1624 — were brought into harmony, I am compelled to copy the word " standard " in a perverted sense. Standard properly means alliage, or fineness ; as when we say sterling standard, which means for silver 0'925 fine, or metrical standard, 0'900 fine. A new and wholly unwari'anted meaning was conferred upon this word by .Harris (1757) ; and this has since passed into all the literature on the subject of money. Standard was by him and is now used to mean the material of which the full legal-tender coins of a state are made. Thus England is said to employ the gold standard, India the silver stand- ard, &c. But in this sense it is misleading, because it assumes that the money of England consists of gold, the money of India of silver, &c. ; whereas in fact the money of England consists of gold coins and bank notes, both of which (except the bank notes as from the bank) are full legal tender ; whilst the money of India consists not of silver, but of silver coins. In like manner has the phrase " unit of money " been perverted. The unit of GERMANY. 399 mouey properly means all tlie money in a given state ; and, as shown in my " Science of Money," chap, i, it cannot properly or distinctively have any other meaning. But unit of mouey, or monetary unit, or unit coin, has acquired the meaning of the principal denomination of money, as the sovereign in England, the franc in France, the imperial mark in Germany, &c. This is misleading, because it assumes that the value of money is determined by the quantity of metal contained in the so-called unit; whereas it is in point of fact determined by the arith- metical denominations and aggregate volume of all the '' units," including paper notes, no matter how much or how little metal the former may contain. This principle is admitted, but often forgotten, by all the leading econo- mists and writers on money. With these explanations we are ready to proceed with our history. The various steps taken or proposed by the German government of 1866 toward further unifying the coinage are recounted at length in the '' United States Commercial Eelations," 1867, p. 447. The most important of the pro- posed steps was an entire re-coinage for the whole of Germany, and the substitution of gold for silver as the material of the full legal-tender coins. These great measui'es relating to the monetary system of Germany have since been actually realised ; and, as usual with all great events, they have been ascribed to a wrong origin. They are attributed to the Franco-Prussian war and the Indemnity provided by the treaty of Frankfort ; whereas in point of fact they constituted, together with the right of individual coinage and the privilege of issuing bank notes, a political move, intended to allay any opposition which the aristocratic and monied classes of Germany might be disposed to evince toward that Unification in which their importance was otherwise sooner or later destined to be obliterated. In a word, the " gold standard " was part of the price of German liberty. Its origin, though not its motive, is very distinctly set forth 400 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. in the following official communication from Consul-General Murphy to the State Department of' the United States, dated Frankfort, August 13th, 1867, and printed in the volume of Commercial Relations above cited : — " As there have been made already several proposals in regard to the establishment of a unit coin for the whole of G-ermany, which will be discussed as soon as the North German parliament will have appointed a committee to deliberate on the subject of a joint measure, weight and coin, I beg to furnish a few remarks taken from a treatise of a privy councillor of the Prussian government. ... It is also proposed that the German states should change the silver standard into the gold standard." To trace the origin of this movement it is necessary to observe that the claim of individuals to have their bullion coined into money at their own pleasure was no sooner asserted in Holland, Germany, and England, than it led to another claim in behalf of the class to which such individuals belonged. This was that the money so coined should pass current, not merely in the State of which they were subjects, but in all States, — a claim that took form in the organisation of societies for the promotion of so-called International Coinage. An organisation of this character was formed so eai'ly as the beginning of the seventeenth centui'y, since which time numerous others have emerged into existence, all of them supported by men of the highest respectability, intelligence, and wealth. Several of these organisations, still in existence, date back to the middle of the present century ; and it is to their efforts, more than to any other agency, that is to be ascribed, first, that demonetisation of gold which was so distinctly ratified and confirmed by the treaty of 1857, and that subsequent demonetisation of silver which was planned before 1867, and effected in 1871-3. Thus, in the International Monetary Conference held in Paris in 1866, Privy Councillor Meinecke, the Prussian commissioner, declared that in the interest of international GEEMANY. 401 circulation (a sophistical phrase that disclosed the motive power behind him) his government might be willing to abandon its " silver standard " in favour of a '' gold stand- ard ;" but first they had to come to an understanding on the matter with the other states of the North German Confedera- tion as well as with those of South Germany, who had signed with them the mint treaty of 1857.^ That the motive power behind Meinecke was not the interests of the Prussian government is evinced by the arguments advanced in John G. Fichte's well-known work in favour of a dis- tinctive national money, and from the declaration of Yon Schultz, that to sign away the independence of the State in reference to money would constitute an act of treason." The Franco-Prussian war of 1870 furnished an oppor- tunity for furthering the interests of individual coinage. The world's production of gold, which in 1852 amounted to £38,740,000, had gradually fallen in 1868 to£21,940,000, and in 1869 to £21,240,000; and it was foreseen that, at least for some years, it would fall, as it did fall, still lower. On the other hand, the world's production of silver^ which in 1852, and for many years before and afterward, stood at about £8,000,000 per annum, sud- denly jumped during the years 1864-9 to £10,000,000 per annum, and with, the practical opening of the great Comstock lode bade fair to reach, as it did reach, a much higher total. '^ We have seen that the Treaty of Vienna was dominated by the California scare of cheap gold. It is quite evident that the monetary provisions of the Treaty of Frankfort were equally dominated by the Nevada scare of cheap silver. These provisions are set forth in another work.* In effect, they stipulated that the five milliards (£200,000,000) war indemnity to be 1 " Commercial Relations," 1867, pp. 448-9. 2 "Science of Money," p. 47, note 1; "Money and Civilisation," p. 288, note 1; " Int. Conf.," 1878; "Int. Conf.," 1881, p. 9; London " Times," Feb., 1886. 3 " Hist. Prec. Met.," oh. xxii. * " Mon. and Civ.," ch. xvi. 26 402 HISTOEY OP MONETARY SYSTEMS IN VARIOUS STATES. paid by France should be paid in gold coins or tbeir equivalent. The indemnity, together with interest and other charges, amounted in fact to about £234,512,292. It was paid during the interval between May 10th, 1871, and December 4th, 1874, and, according to M. Leon Say, with only £20,491,797 in coins, of which nearly one-half were silver, the balance being liquidated by bills of ex- change for French credits in foreign countries. Accord- ing to another account, France lost £40,000,000 in gold, and gained £2^600,000 in silver, while Germany gained £33,540,000 in gold, and lost £2,600,000 in silver, the difference between the forty millions of gold lost by France and the thirty-three and a half millions of gold gained by Germany having gone to other countries.^ It was with this promised accession of gold that Ger- many adopted the Mint laws of 1871—3, and authorised those increased emissions of paper money Avhich brought upon her a panic in the midst of a plethora. So long as a State resigns its prerogative of coinage and the issuance of circulating notes into the hands of individuals, so long is it exposed to monetary crises. These phenomena were unknown previous to 1572 in Holland, and 1666 in England ; they will never cease until the fatal legislation of those years is repealed — in short, not until the State assumes the control of its own mints and paper emissions. The laws of 1871—3 had for their object. First, the crea- tion of a new and uniform coin for the whole German empire. This was the imperial mark, of which 1395 went to the zollpfund weight of fine gold. Each mark would therefore contain 0'35842 metrical gramme, or 5*532 English grains fine gold. This money (in pieces of 5, 10, and 20 marks) was to be full legal-tender. Second, except as to the old currency thaler, of which there were supposed to be from 135 to 150 millions still in circula- tion, and whose full legal-tender function was retained 1 " Mon. and Civ.," cli. xvi. GERMANY. 403 for tlie present, no silver coins were tlieuceforth to be legal-tender for more than 20 marks. These provisions entirely reversed the policy of 1857 ; then gold was demonetised, now it was silver. Third, new subsidiary silver coins were provided for (called silver marks), of which 100 were to be struck from a zollpfund of fine silver; hence each mark contained 5 grammes, or 77*15 grains, fine. The emission, until further notice, was limited to 10 marks per head of population. These coins were made redeemable at the imperial and state treasuries with full legal-tender coins. Fourth, " whenever the mints should not be engaged in coining for the govern- ment they were free to coin (only) twenty-mark gold pieces on private account, on payment of a seigniorage not to exceed 7 marks per pfund of pui'e gold." This substantially surrendered the gold coinage to individuals, yet wisely left the mint gates in keeping of the Crown. Fifth, provision was made for calling in all the old silver coins except the thalers above mentioned, recoin- ing them into imperial silver mai'ks, and selling the surplus silver if any. This surplus, as the event proved, amounted nominally to about 200,000,000 thalers, and it was the German demonetisation of silver and the sale of this vast amount of bullion in the London and other markets that precipitated the fall in silver which occui'red soon after. Sixth, all paper money issued by the states was to be withdrawn by January 1st, 1876, and replaced by imperial paper money. This excellent provision was not extended to the issues of private banks. The legal equivalents between the old and new money were — 1 currency thaler = 3 marks, and the other pieces in proportion. The ratio of silver in the thalers to gold 'in the marks is 15| for 1 ; and as at present (there is now a " market price '^ of silver) there is a profit of about 100 per cent, in coining the thalers, it is natural to expect that a good many surreptitious silver coins of full weight and fineness will find their way into the circulation. 404 HISTORY OF MONETARY SYSTEMS liV VARIOUS STATES. This is a danger which invites the solicitude of the German imperial government. The table relating to the circulation, however faulty- many of its details, furnishes the best guide as to the manner in which these various provisions were actually- carried into execution. In 1870 the silver circulating in Germany probably did not exceed 500,000,000 thalers ; it has since been reduced to about 300,000,000, of which probably one-half consists of thaler pieces. The gold scarcely exceeded 30,000,000 ; it has been successively increased and diminished, until now (excluding the war- chest) it amounts to about 367,000,000 to 400,000,000 thalers. The paper circulation, which before the war did not exceed 150,000,000 thalers, has since amounted to over 450,000,000 ; it was then curtailed, and is now increased to 480,000,000. The present circulation therefore consists of about 300,000,000 thalers silver, 367,000,000 gold, and 480,000,000 paper; total 1,167,000,000 to 1,200,000,000 thalers, or about 24 thalers or 72 marks per capita of population. An eminent German authority who was consulted on the subject estimated it one-sixth higher. The statistics of the reduction of gold and silver ores in Germany have been ingeniously employed to swell the estimated production of silver throughout the world. It may be stated at the outset that nearly all of the gold and most of the silver produced in Germany is from foreign refractory ores, whose metalliferous contents have already been credited to the countries of their production. These are chiefly America, Australia, and Spain. The product of gold in Germany for the year 1830 was about 10 pounds troy, chiefly in Saxony and Hanover; in 1850, 20 pounds; 1860, 70 pounds (average of three years) ; 1870, 1G7 pounds (average of three years) ; 1880, 800 pounds ; 1890, 3,600 pounds ; at the present time it is about 6,000 pounds, and valued at about £300,000 sterling. This gold is extracted in minute proportions from lead and copper GERMANY. 405 ores. The peroxide of iron obtained in roasting arsenical ores is impregnated with chlorine gas, washed with water, and the gold precipitated with sulphuretted hydro- gen. The resulting sulphide is roasted, washed with hydrochloric acid, and smelted with borax and nitre. The product of silver in 1830 was about 72,000 pounds troy; 1850, 100,000 pounds; 1860, 150,000 pounds ; ^ 1870, 240,000 pounds; 1880, 360,000 pounds; 1890, 800,000 pounds ; and at the present time about 900,000 pounds, of which about two-thirds are from foreign ores. The production of native silver, therefore, does not exceed 300,000 pounds, or in value about £450,000 ster- ling. In Dr. Soetbeer's work, translated and printed by the American government in 1887 for the guidance of statesmen (U.S. Cons. Rep., No. 87, p. 477), the pro- duction of silver in Germany is stated at more than twice this sum; and in that sciological monument, the '' Report of the Director of the Mint upon the Production of the Precious Metals in 1892,^^ it is stated at more than thrice. Both of these works were printed on the government press in vast numbers, and distributed gratis to the public. They were soon followed by the legislative cessation of full legal-tender silver coinage (repeal of the Bland and Sherman Acts), a tremendous fall in the price of securities, the insolvency of numerous credit institutions, and a general paralysis of trade. These disastrous consequences are not confined to the United States, but are common to the commercial world to-day. They are directly attributable to the selfish and unpatriotic clamour of a class of whom Cobden in England, Chevalier in France, and Soetbeer in Germany were the gifted exponents and dupes. The result is, they have killed the goose that laid the golden eggs. Their views, unhappily carried into practice, have ended in an almost ^ For 1865 the product of the Hartz was given at 28,000 pounds troy; Prussia, 68.0. oooooooooooooo UC o 1.0 yo i>- -* o o 00 -JD r- 1 o C3 rs o o ::; CI o t^ CO X CdS-lrlmCr-ClCl n-lr^r^,-lr-l 00 o I— 1 CO /- ^A^ -# Ci ica:'?S5i— ir;o50200occioo 1> lO X o ^ OGO COCCI 1-1 ceo 00 -^OOiOiOSDO co^ ^ CO 00 ;ttI I— 1 1—! CI -h 1—1 t^ X ^ ■"^ V. I— 1 ^^ ior:'*c:3;oOLOioeoccc5C50 X c,^ CSOOCCCl-^XCSOr-liOCtiOOOT? CO 1 1 30 ■^ 1— 1 1— ( d I— 1 I— 1 !>. 1 1 V-v^ 1—1 ^^ Ot^-J'OOCS-^-^OO-'TX-^ o CO o CO O i-Hi-HCCCOr-ICOCl^OOCq^'^ o t^ o t^ X CI o !>. 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"S rS A^ p ^ =c ==1 - "= § 2 s ^ '5 §-, 5 o c — .5 c3 c3 5 o C-p.C-,C-7-3<=l-^sSS-3>> j; i^ • ^ 1 c-s'E'E'-i c g's =*"; B=^-^ t<^ > c m-JwaSoc^got^^H-i^ P4 E — Oi «J — S -*^ C TT O C :- J "^ X K J ;; '^ S t; _• X Oi c '-^ br^ — 2 o ex ■ r-l _o^ a: ,-H S ," . .- H V .E S s £ :; C O Cl, s X " o - "I 2 O rH .- - _ C5 "rt 5 '"'_ ^ ■?! 2 •C -^ ^^" 5 -:^ St: S J- - X ct r.S CO ■5. h^"^ ^ h| i1 g S — C -IT N.^ .1-4 2 3= c c 2 c ^ i ^ ^ 00 : S2 l^' 2 '-3 "*" :5 r- ., c ::2 s .S c ' o js .^ .(.3 C a: „, ^ * -CM c '=^.2 '^ p C o a; t+j ,'laiid banks stopped coin payments. 1890. Baring Brothers, one of the jirincipal bankers and the largest bill-drawers in the world, stopned payment. This caused a wide-spread panic, in which numerous banking institutions fell both in England and other countries. 1891. The demands on the Bank of Ei .fland caused the public discussion of a " Restriction Order," oi- susotnision of the Bank Act. The crisis was allayed by the timely 1m u uf £3,000,000 gold from the Bank of France, influenced by the H- tliscliilds. 1891. Bank of Portugal stopped coin •>:. vients of its issues. APPENDIX C. THE GOLD MOVEMENT OP 1865-73 AND EXISTING MONETARY SYSTEMS. ITERANCE and the Latin Union. — A conference between " the four states whose monetary system rests on a numeration by francs," viz. France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy, resulted in the Latin Monetary Union of Deceuiber 23rd, 1865, taking effect August 1st, 1866. It provided for uniform coins; the unlimited priviite coinage of gold coins and of silver 5-franc pieces, both 0"90O fine, both to be full legal-tenders; and for a restricted coinage of subsidiary silver pieces 0"b35 fine with a legal-tender limit of 50 francs. " Unlimited private coinage for nothing, or at brassage, logically means one metal, and that one metal means the dearer one, on account of the higher ad valorem cost of (not the charge for) coining the cheaper one. Accordingly, when the international dele- gates met again (June 17th, 1867), although the convention was called ostensibly only to unify the coinages, it discussed the entii-e monetary question, and, as the natural result of a discussion which omitted all reference to the origin, history, and operation of the British Act of 1666, carried a resolution in favour of what is called gold monometallism." ^ This resolution was soon afterwards en- grafted upon the legislation of the States which agreed to the Latia Union, in the shape of a New Mint Code, which now (1867) included the States of the Church, Greece, and Eoumania; whilst efforts were made to popularise it in Great Britain, Germany, and the United States.^ In 1873, after the Franco-Prussian war (and, as it was pretended, in reply to the gold monometallic legislation of Germany), France and the Latin Union limited the coinage of silver five-franc pieces. In 1878 they closed their mints to the private coin- age of such pieces, without, however, limiting the legal -tender of the pieces already coined. The net result of these measures is that at the present time (1895) nearly all the gold of the various Latin Union ' "Money and Civilisation," p. 275, where a full account appears of the origin and progress of this moveoient. - Ibid., 276-7. 'i86 APPENDIX C. states is accumulated in France. There is but little in Belgium or Roumania, and none in Switzerland. Italy, or Greece ; the currency of these states consisting chiefly of paper notes and silver or subsidiary coins. On the other hand, the currency of France consists of gold and silver coins and Bank of France notes, backed by a reserve consisting of £70,000,000 gold and £50,000,000 silver, coined at 15^ to 1 gold. The gold reserves of the Bank are substantially a war-fund. Germany.— The gold movement of 1866 is described on p. -lOO. On October 20th, 1868, a commercial convention was held in Berlin, at which were represented 119 German cities. The subject of money was discussed at length ; and although not the slightest reference was made to the origin, history, or operation of Private Coinage, a resolution in favour of that measure was adopted in the following words:— "Res. 3. Monetary unity, and at the same time such a general monetary reform as befits the age, can be brought about by the simultaneous adoption by all the German States of the single standard with full application of the decimal system, in pursuance of the principles recommended by the Inter- national Monetary Conference at Paris in its Report of July 6th, 1867."' Private Coinage is involved in the term " single standard," which, like "double standard," "bimetallism." etc., implies that metal is money; whereas this can only even seemingly be the case when Private Coinage is permitted. The military events of 1870 led to the imperial federalisation of the German States, April 16th, 1871. On December 4th, 1871, an Act was passed which provi- sionally established the "double standard" at 154; stopped the further Private Coinage of full legal-tender silver, without demo- netising or retiring such of these coins (thalers) as had already been coined; ordered a new coinage of gold pieces of full legal-tender; and made provision, without setting a time, for the retirement of the thalei-s whenever the Chancellor of the Empire should see fit. By the Act of July 9th, 1873, definite provision was made for the estab- lishment of the " gold standard," not without leaving the door open to the renewal of the " double standard," should such a policy be deemed expedient. This was done by permitting the thaler silver coins to remain in circulation as full legal-tenders, at three marks each. A similar prudential measure, that of trusting the Executive with the power to alter these enactments, was incorporated in the British Monetary Law of 1816. The power granted by Congress to the American Executive — that of exercising the option to make pay- ments out of the Treasury in either gold or silver coins — is of quite a different character. The German Act of 1873 suspended the Pri- ' "Hon. and Civ.," p. 276, GOLD MOVEMENT OF 18(55-73. 487 vate Coinage of silvei-. All new silver coins were limited in tender to "20 marks. All old silver coins were called in, melted down, and sold as bullion. At the present time the currency consists of gold and silver coins and bank notes, in the proportions shown on a previous page. The gold at Spandau and a portion of the reserve held by the Bank, is substantially a war- fund. Great Britain. — In 1774 (14- George III, c. 42), in consequence of the prevalence of light or underweighted silver coins, they were limited in tender to £25. This was continued by various Acts down to 1797, in which year (38 George III, c. 59) the private coinage of silver was suspended for eleven months. The Act of 1816 (56 George III, c. 68) was passed during a suspension of coin payments (except of such minor coins as were issued or countermarked by the Bank of England, for an account of which see ante). By this Act the mints were closed to the private coinage of silver, and all silver coins, whether light or heavy, were limited in tender to 40s. In section 9 it was provided that " from and after such day as shall be named and appointed in and by any proclamation which shall be made and issued for that purpose by or on behalf of his Majesty, by and with the advice of his Majesty's Privy Council," such legislation might be revoked. Down to 1870 no such proclamation was ever issued. In that year a New Mint Code was enacted, section 11 of which provided that her Majesty, " with the advice of her Privy Council from time to time by proclamation (mayj do all or any of the following things, namely, to regulate any matters relative to the coinage and the mint witliin the present prerogative of the Crown, which are not provided for by this Act." Whether the present pre- rogative of the Crown still leaves it the power to revoke the silver demonetisation of 1816 has been questioned, but there is no mistaking the identity of that golden thread which runs through the Latin Union Mint Codes of 1865, the German proposal of 1866, followed by the Mint Code of 1871, the British Mint Code of 1870, and, as will presently be seen, the new Mint Codes of the United States and numerous other countries enacted soon afterwai'ds. It is of pre- cisely the same tissue in all of them. The present currency of Great Britain consists of gold (full tender) and silver coins (limited tender) and Bank of England notes of £5 and upward. These last are full legal-tenders, except from the Bank itself. Portugal and Brazil. — It was largely through the working of the Methuen Treaty (1703) that Portugal in 1854 copied the British system of 1816. suspended the Private Coinage of silver, limited the legal-tender of silver coins to tive milreis, and ostentatiously declared the British sovereign a full legal-tender in Portugal. These regulations should never have been made. Neither before 488 APPENDIX C. nor since theii* enactment have gold payments been customary in Portugal. This is proved by the course of exchange between Lisbon and London. The actual legal tender was called " lei,"" and it consisted of a fixed proportion of coins, chiefly silver and copper, and of paper notes.' Such few gold coins as were formerly included in " lei " have since disappeared from the country. At present legal-tender is made altogether in the inconvertible paper notes issued by the Bank of Portugal. These, together with subsidiary coins, form the actual currency of the State. The monetary situation in Brazil is somewhat similar; nor has the com- merce of either country suffered any harm in consequence. The foreign merchants of Lisbon and Rio Janeiro keep their accounts in j £'. s. d., quote the local paper money at a discount, and wear tall black hats in midsummer. Certain of these circumstances are gravely set forth in the Report of the Director of the United States Mints for 1894, as though they had to do with the monetary systems [of Portugal and Brazil. In like manner the Chinese merchants of I San Fi'ancisco keep their accounts in taels, mace, and candareen, in which they mark the fluctuations of American gold, and wear plaited pigtails all the year round. Such is their pleasure ; but as yet it has not been observed to have had any marked effect upon the monetary I system of the United States of America. '"'^ Scandinavia. — On September 20th, 1872, a monetary union was adopted by Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, which was followed by a New Mint Code, whose provisions took efi"eet in 1873 and 1875, Under this code the private coinage of silver was suspended, and the legal-tender of silver coins limited to five " specie riksdalers." At the present time the currency consists chiefly of silver coins and bank notes. Japan. — In 1872 this state adopted a New Mint Code, forbade the Private Coinage of silver, limited the legal-tender of silver yens or dollars and of all minor coins, and adopted what is known as "the gold standard." In 1878 and 1879, after " the gold standard " had duly departed from the country, the full legal-tender of silver coins was restored and Private Coinage again permitted. In 1883 a public loan issued in Japan was made specifically payable in silver coins. In 189-t the Private Coinage of silver was again suspended.- The currency is entirely of silver coins and bank notes. United States of America. — In March, 1869, Mr. Robert Schenck, better known in connection with the Emma mine and the author of a handbook on the game of " poker," secured the passage of a bill " Mon. and Civ.," p. 136. London " Times," Januarv 28tli, lS9o. GOLD M0V1<;MI':NT of 18(55-73. 489 which made the debt of the United States, at that time nominally about £600.000,000, payable in "coins," though much of it had been contracted in and all of it sold for " crreenbacks " at an average of 40 cents to the dollar or 8s. to the pound. The steps will now be described by which tbe debt was soon after practically made payable in gold "coins" only. This was done by demonetising silver. To begin with, the New Mhit Code of February 12th, 1873, c. 131, destroyed the Private Coinage of silver by indirection, in omitting the word "dollar" from the empowering clause relating to silver coins. After this, in codifying the Statutes generally, December 1st, 1873, sec. 3586, the Code Commissioners made an unauthorised and unwarranted alteration of the law by limiting the legal-tender of " all " silver coins, including the outstanding silver dollars, which, together with Spanish silver dollars, had been full legal-tenders since the foundation of the Republic. Both of these Acts (of 1873) were passed during a suspension of coin payments, and without eliciting public attention. The Monetary Commission of 1876 reported that the Mint Code of February 12th, 1873, was " not read except by title;" that President Grant, who signed it, "had no knowledge of what it really accomplished in relation to the demone- tisation of silver," as was evinced by his public letter of October 3rd, 1873 ; and that the design of demonetisation was (afterwards) completed by an obscure provision of law upon an erroneous assur- ance from the Committee on Revision of the Statutes.^ This surreptitious legislation was not discovered, nor did it attract public attention until 1875-6. In 1878 (Bland Act) the fulUegal- tender of silver dollai's was restored, but not Private Coinage. Under the rulings of the Secretary of the Treasury the legal tender of silver dollars has been so far rendered nugatory that all demands upon the Treasury have been met in gold coins. Minor silver coins (half-dollars, quarters, and dimes), coined only by and for account of the Government, had been limited in legal-tender to five dollars since 1853. With regard to the demonetisation of silver which was accomplished by the two Acts of 1873, Mr. Carlisle, since Secretary of the Treasury, said in the House of Representatives, Februar}"- 21st, 1878, " The conspiracy which seems to have been formed here and in Europe to destroy by legislation and otherwise from three-sevenths to one-half of the metallic money of the world, is the most gigantic crime of this or any other age. The consummation of such a scheme would ultimately entail more misery upon the human race than all the wars, pestilences, and famines that ever occurred in the history of the world."^ It will be observed that in every monetary Report, pp. 89-90. = Frewen, in " National Rev.," Dec, 1893. 490 APPENDIX C. convention which followed that of 1865 the professed object was the unification of money, whilst the one actually accomplished was the demonetisation of silver ; that in every case the means employed was indirection and secrecy; and that the vehicle i;?ed was always a Neio Mint Code. Mr. John Jay Knox, one of the officials who in 1870 (April 27th) lent his assistance to the preparation of the American Mint Code, when the matter was brought home to him acknow- ledged his part in it, and boasted that he was " pi'oud of his work."' No one will begrudge him the distinction it confers. The net result of this measure upon the American currency is that it now consists chiefly of silver dollars and paper notes ; gold coins, except in the mining States of the Far West, being seldom seen in circulation. The Treasury continues to pay gold money by borrowing it from time to time upon new issues of Government bonds. This is precisely the policy laid down in the British Mint Code of April -ith, 1870, section 9. Owing to the limitations placed upon the silver and paper issues of the United States, and to the readiness of the American Treasury to pay gold money on demand, gold coins command no premium. Holland. — The laws of May 21st, 1873, and Jane 6th, 1875, sus- pended the Private Coinage of silver, and limited the legal-tender of silver coins to ten florins. The currency is now chiefly of silver coins and paper notes. Italy. — Under a renewal of the Latin Monetary Union dated January 31st, 1874, and the law of July 17th, 1875, the Crown suspended the Private Coinage of silver, and limited the legal-tender of silver coins to 50 lira. To maintain those payments in gold coins to which it had committed itself, the State afterwards borrowed £16,000,000 in gold, all of which, together with what gold was pre- viously in the kingdom, has since disappeared, leaving the State pledged to pay in gold, without any gold with which to pay. The circulating mone}- of Italy now consists entirely of subsidiary silver and copper coins and of paper issues, gold commanding a premium of 5 to 10 per cent, in paper. Spain. — The Republic of 1868 (Figuerola Law, October 19th) was induced to copy the provisions of the Latin Monetary Union so far as to adopt gold coins for unlimited money, and to limit the legal- tender of silver coins. These regulations survived the Republic, the monarchy of Amadeo, 1870, the restoration of the Republic in 1874, and the restoration of the monarchy (Alfonso) in 1875. The law of August 20th, 1876, suspended the Private Coinage of silver, except as to metal produced by the mines of Spain. This last-named provision ' London '" Economist," December 26ch, 1885. GOliD MOVEMENT OP 1865-73. 491 Las since been abrogated, whilst the suspension of Private Coinage continues. But its gold having left the country, the State was obliged to reinvest the silver pesos (five-peseta or five-fi'anc pieces) with full legal-tender power, which attribute they now enjoy. The minor silver coins are limited in legal-tender to ten pesos. The currency consists entirely of silver coins and Bank of Spain notes, in which gold coins command a premium of about 20 per cent. Biissia. — The law of November 13—25, 1876, adopted gold coins as sole full legal- tenders, and reduced the legal-tender of silver coins to 5 roubles 15 copeks, no Private Coinage of silver being permitted.^ The result of these measures has been that gold coins are at a premium of 50 per cent., while the currency consists entirely of subsidiary silver coins and Bank of Russia notes. The gold held by the bank does not enter the circulation, and is substantially a war- fund. Austro- Hungary. — The decree of March, 1879, suspended the Private Coinage of silver, but did not limit the legal-tender of silver •coins." The law of 1892 ordered the discontinuance of the coinage of four and eight gulden (gold) pieces, and substituted the gold ■kroner of 304878 grammes, or 4'7 English grains fine, equal in legal value to half a florin — a nominal step toward uniformity with the franc system, because the real money of the country consists, ^and has consisted for a long period, only of subsidiary silver coins and paper notes. The Private Coinage of kroners is not permitted, :so that the State has largely resumed the prerogative of coinage. The ratio between the krouers and the silver coins is 13"69 for 1. Provision has also been made for a foreign gold loan of £40,000,000, with which it is stated to be the intention of the government to make gold payments in kroners, iis sole full legal-tenders. Turhey. — No Private Coinage is permitted in this State. In 1882 full legal-tender was limited to gold coins, but, except as to Con- :stantinople and some other large cities, and except as to customs duties, the " beshlik " system of silver coins (0"830 fine) has since been substantially restored. A full account of "beshlik" money will be found in •' Money and Civilisation," chap. xix. The present currency consists of "beshlik" silver, together with paper notes. British India. — An order in Council, dated 23rd June, 1893, suspended the Private Coinage of silver, but otherwise made no important change in the monetary system. Silver rupees therefore remain full legal-tenders for all purposes and any amount. These ' " Money and Civilisation," pp. 314, 320. - Ibid., p. 340. 492 APPENDIX C. and the note issues of the Currency Department constitute the currency of the countr3^ China. — The currency of this State consists of bronze coins. In 1834 silver was surreptitiously coined at Fukien, and a few years later in Canton, as well as in the district of Shunlik, south of Canton. These issues, however, have since disappeared. The only lawful moneys of the Empire are the familiar bronze " tchen " or " chuen." These, the sixteenth century Portuguese called sapecas, and the English now call cash. One thousand of these make, in value, a tael of (bronze) money. In a medisjval Chinese scale of equivalents a tael of money meant a tael (coin) of silver, which coin contained some- thing like what is now known as a tael weight of silver. But the tael of 1000 chuen has no longer any relation to silver. The present cash system would resemble that of the Roman nummulary system of B.C. 369 mentioned in Chap. V. but for the fact that the Roman nummi were limited and overvalued, whilst cash, at all events at present, do not command more than their value as metal. There is. another and still more important difference; the Chinese cash are open to Private Coinage, but the Roman nummi were not. The fall in value of the Chinese cash is due either to over-issues or to counter- feiting. The cash of to-day should each weigh Sil English grains. (8 to the avoirdupois ounce), and contain 54- per cent, of copper, 42f per cent, zinc, and '3j per cent, lead, but they vary in composi- tion according to the mineral or metallic resoui-ces of the various provinces in which they are cast. In the early part of the present century the annual authorised or reported issues of chuen seem to have been about 1,200,000,000, worth 1,200,000 money taels.i In 1865 the authorised or reported issues were 2,460,000,000 chuen,. worth 2,460,000 money taels,- but this may have been an exceptional year. In certain provinces, and for periods of ten, fifteen, or twenty years, the authorised issues of chuen have been entirely suspended.^- The unauthorised coinage and the counterfeiting of cash are made capital offences ; "* but none of these regulations are believed to be strictly observed. Several efforts have been made by the Imperial government to supersede the chuen system, which, since the decline of the symbols to their metallic value, has ceased to possess any merit beyond that of non-exportability. These efforts have hitherto been without success, the obstacle in the way being Private Coinage and the profit and power which it confers. 1 " H. M. A.," p. 41 ; " Chinese Repository," ii, p. 279. 2 Dr. S. W. Bushell, in "Journ. N. C. Branch of Royal Asiatic Soc," 1880, N.S., No. xv. ■' " H. M. A.," p. 40. " Ibid., p. 37. GOLD MOVEMENT OF lS(;o-73, 493 In 1845 (Opium war) tlie Emperor Taoukwtuig caused silver dollars to be cast at Haugchow and Formosa. They were called Soldiers' Pay, a name that indicates tlieir use. These were afterwards so cleverly imitated in base metal by the private coiners that they lost credit and disaj^peared from circulation. In 1S53 (Taiping Rebellion), owing to the scarcity of copper, large issues of iron cbuen were made, but these were soon rendered useless by the abundance of counter- feits, an industry in which, odd to relate, the so-called Budhist (really Taoisl) monks made themselves prominent. Popular dissatis- faction with these coins gave rise to some disturbance at Pekin in 1857. With poetic justice they are now only used for jjious offerings at Taoist shrines. During the Taiping rebellion the rebel Emperor (Hun-seu-tseun) issued silver coins, with the legend "Sacred money of the Tai'ping." ' These, of course, have disappeared. At the same time the imperial government (1852, or third year of Hieng-fung) issued two classes of paper notes : first, to represent the bi-onze chuen : second, to represent Shanghai taels of silver "bullion : the relation between them being 2000 chuen for one Shanghai tael of bullion ; in other words, two money taels of coined chuen for one tael weight of uncoined silver. For some unexplained reason (probably foreign counterfeiting) the chuen notes fell in 1S61 (first year of Toung-che) to 3 per cent, of their face value, or 97 per cent, discount. In 1880 they were only worth 10 per cent, of their face value, or 90 per cent, discount. Being receivable, as recited on their face, "'for the purchase of titles of rank," they retained some value on account of this ignoble function. The fate of the silver notes has not been related, but they probably fell from the same cause — forgery by foreigners. After these unsuccessful experiments the monetary system relapsed into its previous condition, namely, that of bronze coins, reduced by excessive issues, or else successful couterf citing, to their commodity value ; and such is the system to-day. In 1887 certain Chinese officials ordered a number of coin presses from Birmingham. These are employed at the present time (.1895) by the viceroys of Kwang-tung (Canton) and other provinces in striking silver coins for soldiers' pay ; but as yet the introduction of silver money into China has been comparatively limited. It is, however, going on at an accelerated rate. * This pretender was born at Quang-si about 1815, died by suicide at Nanking, June 30th, 186-4. " He announced himself as the restorer of the worship of the true god, Shang-ti, . . . the brother of Jesus, and the second Son of God." Besides the name of Hun-seu-tseun, he assumed that of Tien-teh, or Celestial Virtue, besides many others (Haydn). X/ 494 APPENDIX C. Lai'ge sums of money — and at tlie Treaty ports, and with or amongst foreigners, all sums — are stipulated to be paid in foreign silver coins, or in silver bullion measured by the tael weight, of which there are several local varieties, the most popular being the Shanghai " currency tael." This consists of a Shanghai or Chauping tael weight (565'7 English grains) of ingot silver, \^ fine, equal to 518'56 grains fine silver, or l'39f American silver dollars, mint value. This tael is identical in weight wath the European silver talent, thaler, or ducaton of the mediajval ages, and may have had the same origin. It is in this silver bullion (called shoo, from the shape of the ingots, and sycee, from their standard of fineness) that the recent Chinese 7 per cent, customs mortgage silver loan was effected in London and Berlin, the exchange rate paid by the sub- scribers being 3s. English gold coin per Shanghai tael. Besides the proceeds of this loan and a few million taels deposited in banking- houses or private hoards, there is no silver money or bullion avail- able for money in the Chinese empire. The seven hundred and fifty million dollars' worth of silver in China reported by the Director of the United States Mints (Report, 1894, p. 45) evinces the pro- digious fertility of this gentleman's imagination, but has not the remotest relation to fact, the metallic currency of China consisting substantially of copper symbols. Argentine Republic. — The law of September 29th, 1875, authorised the Private Coinage of gold, admitted certain foreign gold coins to full legal-tendership, limited the legal-tender of silver coins to twenty dollars, and forbade the Private Coinage of silver. Eight months afterwards (May 16th, 1876) the government bank suspended coin payments, and gold coins rose to a premium of 30 per cent., since increased to about 250 per cent. The currency of the country is entirely of inconvertible paper and minor coins. Chili. — Under the law of January 9th, 1851, the gold peso con- tained 21'1845 English grains fine, and the silver peso 347"22 grains fine metal, a ratio of about 16'4 for 1. The contents of these coins were repeated in the law of November 26th, 1892, which stopped the Private Coinage of silver, limited the legal-tender of silver pesos to 10 pesos, and (the actual money of the country consisting entirely of inconvertible notes and small change coins) provided for "resumption" on July 1st, 1896, in gold coins, at double their previous value in silver coins — a ratio of 32'8 for 1. On January 29th, 1895, the Senate passed an Act for the redemption of the paper curi-ency on June 1st, 1895. at the rate of about 18d. English gold to the paper peso ; but this Act yet awaits the approval of the Chamber of Deputies and the purchase of gold wherewith to make such payments, there being no gold coins in the country. The CORKIGENDA. 495 Britisli sovereign, formerly legal-tender for five pesos, is now legal- tender for ten pesos ; but this and all other enactments encouraging the currency olgold coins are as yet little more than dead letter. From the foregoing rtsumt it will be observed that the practical political outcome of the Gold Movement of 1865-73 has been to con- centrate the gold coins of the world in the coffers of four or five of the pnncipal States, and that the currency of the remainder consists entirely, or chiefly, of silver coins and paper notes. CORRIGENDA. PAGE LIXE 22 25 For " Chapter XX " read " Appendix A." 68 28 After " when " insert " the latter are." 77 33 Strike out the word *• of." 116 37 For " Moumeni?re " read " Moumeniu." 117 17 For " they are sueldos," read " it is a sueldo." 117 39 For " wrote " read " is responsible for." 126 30 For " contena " read " centena." 126 33 For " H. S." read " IIS." 127 22 For " argentum semper" read "' in tributo argentum." 128 6 For " scylates " read " scyphates." 130 22 For " single" read " double." 137 37 and p. 149, line 32. For " chronicttm" read "chronicoH.'* 140 20 For " onset " read " outset." 157 32 The first quotation marks should precede the word " De."^ 160 last The last quotation marks should follow " Londonise." 183 37 For " monnais" read " monnaies." 222 23 After "rounding" insert "or else to its hei-etical stamp." 228 33 After " in " insert " Moslem money or else in." 228 33 After " £. s. d." insert " or other moneys." 230 7 For " scalifm " read '• scalam." 301 Here some confusion is caused by the mingling of two memoranda in the MS. The quarter-dinar, or gold shilling of the note, is meant to be the same with that of the text, namely, 16 grains. The transaction mentioned relates to Ethelred, year 991. 353 34 For " liberatis " read " liber^atis." 353 36 Strike out " on the other." INDEX. AARLESDEN, 156, 285. Abiillaba (see Watchtowers). Abd-el-Melik, 97, 131, 164, 174, 183, 297. Abd-el-Eamnn I., 164. II., 211. III., 164, 269. Abstention from coining gold, 338. Ace, 61, 138, 246. Act of 1666 (see also Private Coin- age), 17, 247, 465. Adali, 10. Adam Smith (see Smith). Adrian (see Hadrian). Adulteration of coins (see Tamper- ings and Forgeries), 228, 234, 244, 259, 347. ^Ifric, grammarian, 211, 218. Africa, 168. Agricola cited. 159, 189, 289. Agriculture of the Argentine, 434. Akbar the Great, 12. Albata coins, 239, 242, 244, 246 n. Albuquerque, 348, 464. Alchemists, 270. Alexander the Great, 3, 23, 52. Alexandrin, 168. Alfred, king of Wessex, 193, 208, 210, 339. Alfred- Guthrum treaty, 190, 195, 210. Al-Hachem (see Hachem). Alloys of coins (see Standard), 49. Al-Mostain-Billah, 211 n. Alterations of money, 214,257,259, 356, 364, 369. Amber, 176. America (see Spanish America, &c.), 8, 16, 166, 183, 275, 373, 376. Auierican Revolution (see Revolu- tions), 275. Amsterdam, 322, 323. Anachronical moneys^ 152, 155. Anglo-Normans, 221. Anglo-Saxons, 149, 187, 221, 339. Antiquity of monev, 39. Antwerp, 342, 354'. Apotheoses, 7, 465, 493. Arabia (see Moslem), 144 », 166, 196. Arcadius and Honorins, sov. -pouts., 135, 137, 147, 150. Archaeology, 196. Argent, ai-genti, argento, argentum, &c., 30, 136, 236. Argentina, 408, 436, 443, 494. Argos, 4. Aristotle, pref., 59, 407. Arrian cited, 2, 82 n. Arrib, 14. Arsacidffi, 156. Arsura, 195. Aryandes, 121. Assays (see Pix), 249. Assignats, 308, 322. Assyria, 37. Athelred II., king of Wessex, 217. Athelstan III., king of Wessex, 193, 213, 301. Athens, 49, 447. Attila, 291. Augustus (Octavius),sov.-pont., 7, 77, 139, 140, 163, 183, 184, 346. Aurar (see Ora), 149, 286. Aureus, 6, 190. Austria, 342, 377, 396, 397, 491. Austriki (see lestia). Bacchus, 168, 245. Bahdr and Bahdrwick, 291, 295. Baldwin III., 228. Bangle (see Baug, Baugle, Rings, &c.). Bank of Amsterdam, 357, 478. Bank of England, 14, 478, 487. Bank of Stockholm, 323, 478. Bank suspensions, 478. 32 498 INDEX. Banks and bankers, 146, 322, 323, 831, 332, 349, 354, 356, 365, 377, 379, 478. Bardewic, 291, 295. Bargan, silver coin, 465. Barings, the, 446, 456. Barter, 228, 406. Base coins (see Tamperings, &c.), 237. 240, 245, 248, 249, 252, 261. Basileus, 112, 163, 233, 279, 282, 338, 346, 347, 382. Bangles (see Bangs), 154. Bangs, or ring- money, 31, 38, 43, 153, 154, 200, 285. Bawbee, 288 w. Beaumaris Castle, 249. Benefices, 83. Beornwulf, king of Mei'cia, 205. Berbers of Africa, 169. Bernard, Samuel, 453. Berthulf, king of Mercia, 205. Besant, bezant, or byzantine solidus, 143, 219, 223, 227, 242, 245, 248, 266, 277, 279, 338, 368, 446. Bills of exchange, 229, 260, 348. Black money, 264, 266, 355. Blanc silver and blanc money, 239. Boodle, 288 w. " Booms," 425, 435, 442. Boycott of gold, 374 ; of silver, 489. Bramins, laws of the, 120. Brass coins (see Copper). Brazil, 487. Bread measured by £. *. d., 137. Britain, 157; Arabian remains in, 177; coinages of, 157; moneys of, 157, 185 ; taxes on mining, 447 ; productions of, 176; Roman con- quest of, 157. British East India Companj', 465. Bronze coins (see Copper). Brunanburg, battle, 213, 301. Buccaneers, 318, 351, 352, 361. Budhism, 2, 493. Bullet money of Cochin, 154. Bullion, domestic and foreign, 263. " Bullion money," 250, 319. Bunge, 406. Burgred, king of Mercia, 193, 205, 208. Burgundy, 149 n, 342, 360. Bvzant (see Besant). Byzantium, 130, 169, 223. Caernarvon Castle, 249. Caesar, Caius Julius, 6, 76, 104, 111, 129, 130, 140, 157, 158 », 181, 277, 286, 293, 294, 336, 346, 471, 475. Calcott's " History of Spain " cited, 299, 447 n. California gold scare, 365. Caliphs, 164. Canals. 126. Canon law, 226. Canterbury, 149 n. Canute, king of Mercia, Northumbria, and Denmark, 218, 298. Canute II., king of " England," 193, 302. Caracalla. sovereign-pontiff, 79, 190, 286. Carat, or Karat, 178, 450. Carausius, joint emneror of " the West," 139, 336, 358. Carloviugian svstem, 104. Cash, 30, 492. ' Castellano, 446. Castles, 249. Caursini, 261. Celts, 157. Charlemagne, emperor of Germany, 14, 101, 144, 152 n, 189, 195, 204, 284, 292, 295, 304, 336, 339, 340, 346, 359. Charles Martel, 176. Charles the Bald, 206, 360. I., king of England, 248. II., king of England (see Act of 1666), 465. v., emperor of Germany, 342, 347, 360-61, 374. IX., king of Sweden, 319. Chevalier, Michel, cited, 395. Child, Sir Josiah, cited, 352. Childeric, 147. Chili, 494. China, 176, 229, 411, 492; popula- tion of, 411. Chital (see Dehli walla). Christ, Jesus, 98, 115, 172, 311, 493 n. Christian moneys, 143, 301, 338. Christian II., kingof Sweden, 305, 329. Christiania, 285. Christianity, 143, 168, 176, 207. ChristiuM, queen of Sweden, 324. Christnalas, 50, 127. Chronology, 5, 42, 154. Cicero cited, 125, 146, 178,229,280. Circulation, 160, 240, 254, 333, 345, 363, 386, 404, 459. Civil law (see Codex). Civilisation affected by money, 146. INDEX. 499 Claudius I., sovereign-pontiff, 7, 150. Clearing-house (see Permutation of mercuaudise). Clippers of coins, 222, 235-6, 239-42, 245, 24S, 261-2, 26G, 340, 370. Cloth money (see Vadmal). Clothaire, 147. Clevis, 143, 147. Cuut (see Ciinute). Codes. Barbarian, 338, 339, 358-60. Codex Justiuianus, 135 n, 282, 406. Theodosianus, 133, 135, 147, 190, 289, 368 n. 406. Coehvlf I., king of Mercia, 205. II., king of Mercia, 205. Coenwlf, king of Mercia, 205. Coinage a mark of sovereignty, 48, 183, 213, 277, 279, 346, 3^65, 451. of gold a pontifical right, 48, 58, 277, 279, 346. svstems (see Monetary). Coins,' 129, 156, 213, 344, 365; counterfeit (see Forgeries) ; finds of, 337 ; light (see Light coins) ; proclamatorv, 129; restorations of, 129 ; sacred^ 48, 129, 346 ; statis- tics of, 396 n ; used as weights, 189, 246. Combustion, 224, 230. Commerce, 344, 349, 364, 374, 388, 406, 415. " Commodity moneys," 321. Commons, House of, 276. Companies (see Corporations). Comstock Lode (see Nevada). Conflict ratio (see Ratio), 361-2. Constaus II., sovereign-pontiff, 171. Constantine I., sovereign-pontiff, 279. Constantinople, fall of, a.d. 1204-82, 293, 300, 360, 368-9. " Continental " notes of the British American colonies, 249. Contraction and expansion, 397, 454, 466. Control of money (see Prerogative, Regalian, &c.),' 357, 402, 466, 468. Convention coins, 266, 271. Conway Castle, 249. Copenhagen, 285. Copper monetary systems, coins, mines, mining, &.C., 6, 12, 26, 64, 65, 75, 77, 86, 89, 96, 122, 157, 223, 249, 253, 318, 320, 322, 324, 354, 368, 465. Copper-plate money, 323, 324. Corn rents, 230, 395 n. Cornwall, 238-9, 242, 244-5, 249. Corporations, 293. Corruptions of coins (see Tamperings) ; of ancient texts (see Mutilations). Cortez, Hernando, 170, 291. Cost of the precious metals (q. v.), 240, 478. Counterfeits (see Forgeries), 262, 290, 325, 449-50, Co\^Ties, 10. Crimen niajestatis, 226. Crockards, 249, 252, 260. Croesus, king of Lydia, 48. Crore, 13. Crown (see Eoyal). Crusades, 281." Currencies, 19, 20, 354, 454. Currency contraction (q. v.), 454, 466. Cyrus, sov.-pont., Persia, 5, 23. Dactyle, 59. Daler (see Dollar). Dam (see Delhiwalla). Damaretta, 50, 57. Danegeld, 217, 219. Danes of Denmark, 205 ; of England, 205, 209. Dantzic, 295. Darics, 3, 25. Darius, 2, 5. Darkonim, 3. Dealbandnm (see Albata). Debased coins, 233, 258, 259, 282, 345, 356, 369, 371, 451. Decimal relations of monej's, 4. Degraded coins, 233, 258, 260, 266, 282, 356, 369, 451. Dei gratia, 272. Delhi, city, 8 ti. Delhiwalla, billon coin, 9, 12. " Demonetisation " of gold, 396 ; of silver, 334. Denmark, 329. Denominations of money, 138. De Vienne cited, 98, 149, 189, 246 n, 289, 359. Deventer, city, 295, 345. Dharana, an Indian gold coin, 5. Diffusion of wealth effected by money, 146. Dinar, 97, 172, 191, 222, 340, 446, 465. Dinara, 1, 31, 153. Dirhem, 7, 153, 172, 340, 465. Dobla, 197, 209, 368, 447. 500 INDEX. Doit, 59, 288 n. Dollar, 27, 309, 382-3, 447. Domesday Book, 160 n, 167, 195, 215, 222, 230. Doom-rings, 158 n. Doomsday (see Domesday). Druids, 148. Ducat, 217, 310, 341-2, 345, 381. Ducaton,310, 342-3, 345, 354. Dutch East India Company, 465. Eadgar, king of England, 297. East India Companies (see British and Dutch), 473. Easterliug, or iesterling (q. v.), 241. Eastern Empire (see Roman Empire). Ecclesiastical forgers and adulterers of coins, 226, 234, 239, 243, 248, 264. laws, 226. mints and coins, 226, 233-4, 238-9, 243, 258, 277, 280. Edgar, king of Wessex, 215. Edgitha, mother of Edward the Con- fessor, 219. Edmund I., king of Wessex, 215. Edward Confessor, king of Wessex, 185 n, 193, 218, 278. Edward I., king of England, 192, 216, 236, 248, 251-2, 255, 265. 279. II., king of England, 251-2, 347. III., king of England, 171, 232, 248, 253, 256, 265, 282, 341, 355, 369 ». VI., king of England, 348 », 354. Edward-Guthrum treaty, 211 n. Egbert, king of Wessex, 193, 204. (son of OfEa), 205. Egypt, 154, 164, 184. Eissel, river (see lessel). Eistland, province (see lestia). Elagabalus, sov.-pont., 110, 289. Electruin coins, 4, 159. Elizabeth, queen of England, 355, 448, 473. Emirs, coins of the, 164, 182. Emperor-worship, 148. Empires, eastern and western, 276. Encomiendas, 413. Endorsement, 229. En^els, 337. England (see Britain), 111,185,341, 35J, 447 ; ratio in (see Ratio), 193, 354. Englanu's independence (q. v.). Equities of money, 146, 347. Eras, 3. Eric I., pagan king of Denmark, 209. II., pagan king of Denmark, 209. XIV., king of Sweden, 311-12. Estbonia (see lestia), 285. Ethelbert I., kins: of Kent, 143, 149. II., king of Kent, 143, 144», 187, 193, 202. king of East Anglia, 187 n, 202. Ethelred II., king of Wessex, Sec, 193. Ethel wulf, king of Wessex, 206. Etruscans, 148. Exchequer, 224, 227, 229, 230, 233. 252-3. bills, 322, 453. Exports of coins and bullion, 7, 125, 140, 250, 260. 262, 264, 266, 267, 271, 280, 355, 449, 451. Fabulous history (q. v.), 63. Fairs, 216, 228, 281 n, 288, 289, 291, 295. Familv coins, myth of, 80. Fatimites, 165, 181. Fayoum, 168 Ferdinand II., emperor of German v, 320. Ferise (see Fairs), 288. Feudal system, 142, 145, 201, 234. Fiduciary money, 139, 307. Finds of coins (see Treasure-trove). Fisc, 119. Fish-money, 153, 284, 293. Flemings, 270. Florins, 270. Follis, or purse of coins, 94. Foreign coins, 146, 243, 252, 262, 279, 285. Forgeries (see Counterfeits), 48,113, 124, 153, 156, 157, 177, 226, 251, 262, 290, 369, 373. Frakki (see France). Frakklatid (st^e France), 288. Franco-Prussian war, 401. France, 145, 148, 149 «, 155 n, 1 76, 177, 186, 195, 234, 297, 485. Fratres Ambarvales, 293. Frederick II., emperor of Germany, 216, 256, 275, 346, 368, 369. " Free" coinage (see Private coinage). Free trade, 228. Frisia, 149 n. Funding system, 453. INDEX. 501 Gardariki, 2yi. Gaul, 148. Genoa, Geuoese, 7. Gei'inau empire, 335, 346, 369, 407, 488. monetary system, 403, 486. Germany, 159, 292, 320, 336, 367, 368, 380, 397. GettE (see Goths). Gibraltar, 169. Goa, 464, 473. Godwin, earl of Kent, 219. Goertz's copper dollars, 324. Gold coins, 58, 103, 109, 115-18, 160, 224, 244; 262, 269, 317, 330, 347, 354, 363, 375, 382, 396. 449 ; ear- liest in Europe, 347, 352, 368. domestic and foreign, 263. mining, 111-12, 115, 334, 449. not coined by vassals, 29, 76, 115, 121, 171, 184, 224, 230-32, 255, 270, 337-8, 352, 367, 449. plate, 251. " standard," 399. Golden bull, 368. Goldsmiths, 8, 248. 252, 261, 466. Gotfried, king of Denmark, 205, 298. Goths, 146, 171, 187, 284, 292, 337. moneys of, 144, 151, 161, 293, 339. Governments and moneys, 146. Great fairs (q. v.). Greece, 25. Greek empire (see Roman empire). Gr.^enbacks, 308, 489. Gresham, Sir Thomas, 354, 361. Groats, 253. Grouch, or Turkish dollar, 343. Guclfs and Ghibellines, 369. Guerard cited, 98, 149, 339 n. Guilds (see Corporations), 91. Gulden, 339 n, 343, 374. Guuuar, king of Burgundy, 291. Gunnvaldsborg, 199, 287. Gustavus Adolphus, 321, 322. Gustavus Vasa, 303, 305, 316, 329. Guthrum, 205, 208,210. Hachem I., 268, 297. II., 269, 299. Haco, king of Norway, 217 n. Hadrian, pope, 194, 204. sovereigu-pontift", 278. Hakon, jarl, 298, 301. Hale, sir Matthew, cited, 80, 230, 241, 252, 268. Halfdane, the Black, 209, Hall-marked plate, 251. Halting standard (Etalon boiteux), 478. Hamburg, city, 229. Han, Hansa (see Hanseatic). Hanseatic League, 196, 229, 291, 293, 298, 304, 336, 360. Hapsburg coinages, 340, 360. Harmonies of money, 146, 178. Harold, king of Denmark, 205, 209, 298. Harfager, 298. Hardrade, 299, 301, 302. II., king of England, 216 w, 219. Haroun-al-Raschid, 189, 297. Harris, Joseph (1757), cited, 247. Hastings, the viking, 210. Haulds, or Hauldermen, a Gothic caste, 155. Hawkins' " Silver Coins" cited, 480. Hebrews (see Jews). Heen-Tsung, emperor of China, 216, 297. Hegemony of the Ratio, 376. Heligoland, 288. Henry II., king of England, 224, 227, 233. III., king of England, 132, 137 M, 222, 224. 229, 232, 243, 245, 248, 256, 269, 278, 369 n, 370. VIII., king of England, 349. Heptarchy, systems of the, 145, 159, 200. Heraclius, sov.-pont., 168, 178 n. Heretical coins (see Christian). Herring-money (see " Sil "). Hierai-chies, 165. 183-4. History, 5, 63, 140, 145. Hoards of money, 21, 241, 249, 330, 407. Hokeday, 218. Holland (see Netherlands). Honorius (see Arcadius). Hucsos, or Hyksos, kings of Egypt, 38, 154. Humboldt (see Von Humboldt). Hume cited, 394. Hun, Oriental gold coin, 465, 474. laku, gold coin, 245. Iceland, 152 n. Ideal moneys, pref., 140. Idolatrous coins (see Christian), 465. les, 61 n, 161, 336, 342. leschen, 337. 502 INDEX. les-sel, river, 197, 295, 302 w, 345. lesterliiig (see Sterling). lestia, province, 176, 195, 288, 291-2, 337. Image-worship, 147. Imperial coins, 145. "Imperium" theory of coinage, 66, 183. Ina, king of "Wessex, 149, 150, 204. Indemnity, Franco-Prussian war, 401, 406. Indentures of the Mint (see Mint indentures). Independence of England, 231, 233, 243, 250, 255-6, 259, 266, 272-3, 275, 278, 280. India, 1, 173, 229, 447, 465, 491. Indians, American, 406. Indulgences, sale of, 306, 415. Ingot-money, 82, 322, 324. Institutes of Juftinian (see Codex). Interest-bearing paper money, 146. International conventions, 370. moneys, 400, 485-94. Internments, monastic, 205, 208. Interregnum, the Great, 275. Ireland, 158 n, 234, 241. Iron coins, 35, 44, 157, 373. Isabella, wife of Edward II., 263. Islam, 163. Italiote coins, 74. Italy, 490. Ivan Vidfami, 292. Jaku of gold (see laku). Japan, Japanese, 4, 128-9, 159, 318, 447. Jehovah, name of, on coins, 311, 313. Jesuit missions of ParagUHy, 416. Jews, 125, 132, 136, 166, 240-41. 245, 248, 250, 260, 300, 348. Jital (see Delhiwalla). John, king of England, 216, 227, 241. II., king of France, 190, 216. — II., king of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, 305. of Nikios cited, 167. Jornandes cited, 136 n. Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald, 206, 209. Julin, city, 284, 291-2, 337, 350. Julius Caesar (see Csesar). Justinian code (see Codex). Justinian I., sovereign-pontiff, 131, 136, 290. ■• II., sovereign-poutiff, 131, 171. Kahinah, queen of the Berbers, 160. Karshapana, 3. Kent, kingdom, 188 k. Khuen, Khneii-Aten, 154. Klippings, 306-7, 318. Knite-nioney, .5, 31, 37, 382. Koran, 180,*183, 225 n, 447, 464. Kremnitz, 114. Kroner (Sweden), 334. Lak (a sum of 100,000), 10, 13. Laksmi (see Pagodas). Land measured by £. si. d.. 137, 246. Lands granted to the church, 206. La Plata, 411. Latin monetary union, 397, 4( i5. Laurium silver mines, 49, 447. Law, John, 409, 453. I Law, the basis of money, 78. ! Leather monevs 35, 61, 215-16, 234, I 241, 249, 253, 293, 297, 300, 303. ' Legal- tender, 146, 239. Liber Pater (see Bacchus), 84. £. s. d. system, 25, 27, 71, 90, 133, 134 M, 136, 143 n, 144-5, 153, 185. 212, 214, 217, 245, 254. Libra of money (see Livre). weight (see Livre). Light coigns, 249, 263, 266, 487. Limitation the essence of money, preface, 322, 325. Livius Drusus, 123. Livre of money and account, 27, SO, 90, 95, 101, 137, 286, 288, 343, 368. weight, 91, 92, 101, 136. Livy cited, 99. 136. Lombards, 248. London, 205, 209, 269, 355. Louis IX., king of France, 216, 277-8. le Debonnaire, 204-5, 291, 359, 368. Lowndes cited, 195 n, 225, 249, 253, 259. Ludica, king of Mercia, 205. Lycurgus, 38. Lydia, 4. MacLeod, H. D., cited, 101 n, 355. Magna Charta, 242-3, 256. Mahabarata, 1. Mahomet, 143 n, 164. Mahomet-bin-Tiisrlak, 11. Mallgard, 285. iLincus 112, 161, 186, 191, 197, 208 n, 211. Manes, martyrdom of, 25. INDEX. 50S Mania, 1G5. Manillas (see Bungs), 154. Manu, code of, 2, 5, 6. Maruvedi, 27, 153, 1(J1, 222,238 m, 248, 267-8, 343, 368, 416, 451. Marc Antony, 71. Marco Polo, 472. Mark, banco, 350, 397. German impeiial, 402. money, 159, 161, 189, 197, 212 «, 215, 223, 238 n, 273, 289, 302, 305, 309, 315. weight, 159, 180, 289-90, 309, 315, 330, 360. Market ratio (see Coufliut and Ratio), 362. Markets, 189, 228, 288. Martel (see Charles Martel). Masheh, 5. Massachusetts mint, 351. Massacre of St. Bride's, 217. of Stockholm, 306. of the Jews (q. v.), 245, 245 n, 300. Matthew Paris cited, 244, 259, 278. Maundy money, 90. Measure oi value, pre/., 20, 247, 458, 464-6. Megasthenes, 3. Menapia, 336, 358. Mercantile system (see Exports, &c.), 280, 364. Mercia, a kingdom of Britain, 187, 205. Mark (see Fairs), 288 n. Merovingians, 111, 147-8, 193. Metallic limitation to money, 142. Metallurgy, 194. Metals, 117, 141, 351, 466; for money, 18, 351. Michieli, doge of Venice, 216. Mexico, 291. Mikliardi, 288. Miliaresion, 186. Mine slavery (see Slavery), 141. Mines, Mining, 6, 131, 139, 141, 146, 254, 277, 304, 322, 393, 413, 425, 440. Mines Royal, 139, 277, 413. Mint Act of 1666, 17, 247, 465. indentures, Acts, and Codes (see Act of 1666), 146, 253, 255, 263, 273, 362-3, 374, 377, 401, 454, 457, 465, 480-95. saicen, 327. Mints, 131, 139, 198, 237, 241, 249, 262, 266, 272, 448-54, 481. Minuta, 161. Mir, or commune of the Russians, 189, 288. Mississippi Bubble, 409. Mita, 415. Mithcal, 178, 268. Moawijah, Caliph, 171. Mohur, 13. Monasteries (see Interuients), 241. Monetary commissions and conven- tions, 267, 273, 280, 333, 372, 376-7, 384-5, 393-5, 400. history, divisions of, 463. policy, 406. systems, 11, 29, 32, 53, 55, 64, 70, 100, 180, 197, 209, 225, 233-4, 236, 245, 282, 296, 353, 356, 362, 367, 369, 403, 446. Money, antiquity of, 39 ; a national institution, 256, 277, 401, 464; principles and nature of, pref., 15, 18, 20, 67, 78, 138, 141 n, 146, 157, 159 «, 282, 285, 321, 323, 369, 394, 401, 406, 466 ; right to create, 160, 282, 346, 463. Moneyage, 226. Moneyers or mintners, 131, 139, 192, 194, 226, 234, 237, 301. revolt, 91. Moneys, alterations of, 225, 282, 345. Monograms, sacred, on coins, 94. Mous, the Gothic hero, 307. Moors, 452, 477. Moslems, 7. 153, 163, 222, 240, 340. Mourdanish, 268. Mousa-ben-Nosier, 170, 194. Municipal moneys, 145. Murcia, \88n. Mutilations of ancient texts, 155, 155 m. Mythology, 5, 140. Napoleon, 14, 380, 406. " National " (private) banks of the U.S.A. and Argentina, 459. National attributes or marks, 256, 277, 464. money, 256, 277, 401, 464. Nautae Parisiaci, 293. Navahend, battle of, 168. Navicularii, 293. Navigation, 336. Nero, sov.-pont., 136. Netherlands, 285, 335, 490. " plakkaats," 456, 490. Nevada silver scare, 363, 365, 401. 504 INDEX. New Amsterdam, 351. Xew York, 351. Nimeguen, 295. Nmeteeiith-sun mohur, 15. Niska, 1. Noble, or half-mark, 232, 272, 341, 349, 360. Nomisma, vii, 406. Normans, 161. Norsemen (see Goths). Northumbria, 187, 195, 205, 209,234. Norway, Norwegians, 30.3, 329. Novgorod, province, 188, 195, 293, 298, 300; citv, 188, 195, 216, 228; Veleki, 288, 295. Numerical character of money, pref., 323, 399. I^umero, ad, 230. Numismatics, 267, 289, SOI. Nummulary grammnr, introd., 257. systems, ^re/l, 65. Nummus, 63. Nundinum, or ninth day, 415. Ober-Iessel, 302 n, 335. Obole, 58, 188, 246, 269. Octavius Augustus (see Augustus), Odericus Vitalis, 195. Odin, 292, 301 n. Offa, king of Mercia, 144, 187 n, 188, ] 93, 204, 214. 224, 293. Olaf I., Tryevaeson, king of Norway, 216, 288 n, 298, 300, 301. II., king of Norway, 199, 287. Ommiades, or Omeiads, 164, 299. Ora, coin, 149, 157, 158, 161, 197, 211 n, 212, 212 n, 289. weight, 159, 222. ^ Oriental trade and ratio, 125, 131, T4l, 298, 344. Osbreeht (see Osbright). Osbright, king of Northumbria, 190, 195. Osiris, 7. Overvalued silver pennies, 202, 217, 221-2, 245, 252-3, 266. Pagan and christian moneys, 338,465. effigies on coins, 325. Pagodas, 465, 473. Panics, 453. Panini cited, 1. Papal indulgences (q. v.). Paper moneys (see Leather, Paste- board, and Banks), HV^:56r^21, 326-7, 333-4,, 348, 354, 370, 378, 386, 387 n, 396, 399, 409, 456, 475. ^ Paraguayan missions, 416, 421. Parliament, 276. Pasteboard dollars, 308, 309, 358. Paulus cited, 63, 282, 407. Pax sterlings, 221. Payment in kind, 230. Pegge, Dr. Samuel, cited, 245. Pennies (see Sterlings), 186,201, 215, 256, 264. Pensum, ad, 224, 230. Pepin, le Bref., 103, 147-8, 186, 193, 338,340, 359. Permutation of merchandise, 228,297. Persia, 3, 166, 172. Peru, 408, 411-12. Peso, 447, 452, 494. Peter's pence (see Rome-scat), 204, 234, 283, 301. Philip I., king of France, 216. IV., le Bel, king of France, 252, 257, 276, 347. II., the Bigot, king of Spain, 132, 348, 361. III., king of Spain, 361, IV., king of Spain, 453. v., king of Spain, 453. Phocas, sovereign-pontiff, 147. Picul, 27. " Pinetree" shillings, 249, 275, 351. Pix, trial of tlie, 123, 236, 249, 277, 281. Placers, or alluvial mines, 4, 422 n. Plack, Scotch coin, 288 n. Plakkaats, fi.xing the value of Dutch moneys, 456. Plantagenets, 232-3, 250, 255, 280. Plate and plated coins, 11, 249, 251. Plato, cited, 48, 53, 63, 406. Pliny cited, 3, 60, 72-3, 78, 126, 136, 155 n, 280. Plunder (see Spoil). Pollards, 249, 252, 260. Poltowa, battle, 324. Pontificate, 163, 283, 370, 376. Population, 240, 411, 433, 438. Porcelain coins, 297. Portcullis coins, 473. Portugal, 447, 487. Potosi, mines, 441 n, 449. Pound, or i)ondo, 71, 72, 100, 134, 378. Pound of account (see £. s. d.). Pounds, shillings, and pence (see £. s. d.). INDEX. 505 Precious metals, pi-oduetion and consumption, 20, 351, 363, 401, 4U5, 441 ; cost of production, 321, 372, 406, 478 ; movement, 318, 352, 402 ; stock on hand, 20, 240, 323, 371, 380, 388, 394, 486. Prerogative of money, 66-7, 69, 76, 79, 86, 88, 89, 102, 108, 114, 132, 140, 182, 201, 214, 256, 2G2-3, 281, 346, 356, 363, 369, 449, 463. Private coinage, 8, 17, 18, 79, 105, 183, 262, 278, 318-19, 323, 334. 34S, 351-4, 362-3, 372-4 n, 376, 395, 399, 400, 402-3, 448, 451-2, 463-4-5-7-8,478; its origin, 464, 473. Proclamation of the Spaniards to the Indians, 412. Proconsuls, Roman, 139, 278. Productions of Argentina, 436, 443. Provincial moneys, 145. Prussia, 376, 378. Puritans, 352, 417. Quantitative theory, pref., 323. Queipo cited, 33, 179, 189. Quicksilver, 415. Quiudecemvirs, 177, 256. Quinine, discovery of, 421. Quintal, 27. Quinto, 7, 183, 447, 450, 452, 454. Ragiiar Lodbrok, 206. Ranitenkis (rama-tankas), 2, 4, 128. Ratio (gold to silver) : — Assvrinn, 36, 471; Chilian, 494; Chinese, 317 «, 471 ; Christian, 338-9, 476 ; Dutch, 33S, 341-2, 345, 348, 355, 358, 363; Egyptian, 36, 471 ; English, 193, 203, 218, 227, 269, 272, 341, 354,476; Etruscan, 148; Floren- tine, 375 n; Prankish, 148, 340, 345; French, 203, 227, 257, 343, 455, 471, 476 ; German, 345, 369, 374-5, 380, 390, 392, 403, 476; Gothic, 119,144, 159-60, 177, 200, 288, 303, 305, 311, 316, 338-9, 475; Greek, 36, 288; Indian, 5, 13, 22, 36, 119, 128, 177, 193, 465, 472; Italian, 382; Japanese, 22, 159, 477; Moslem, 119, 144, 148, 167, 175, 177-8, 192-3, 200, 205, 223, 267, 295, 337, 339-40, 471- 2-5-6 ; Oriental, 22, 36, 127, 202, J2S8, 475-6; Pagan, 338 ; Persian, 36, 288, 471 ; Portuguese, 465, 476-7 ; Prussian, 376, 392-3 ; Ro- man, 79, 80, 101, 104, 119, 127, 130, 135, 144, 148, 160, 175, 177, 178, 192-3, 201, 205, 207, 212, 215, 223, 227, 233, 255, 269, 286, 288, 303, 337, 339, 346, 358, 369, 471, 475, 478; sacred, 339; Spanish, 203, 345, 376, 380, 449-50, 452-5, 475-6; special, 334; liegemony, of the, 376, 380; conflict, 13, 15, 361-2, 376, 392-3; international mint, 376 ; exceptional, 391. Rations used as money, 198. Ra^ed effigies ou coins, 91. Raymond Lully, 270, Real, 446. Redeemable coins, 146. Redemption notes, 459, 480, 494. " Reductions" of Paraguay, 416, 421. Regalian rights (see Prerogative, &c.), 267, 273, 277, 280, 356. Regenfroy, king of Denmark, 205. Regulation of money (see Control), 366. Religion indicated by moneys, 143, 301. Requerimiento, the,of Charles V.,412. Rett, or indemnity, 4, 213. Revolutions : — Roman Moneyers, 91; Ghent, 344; Netherlands, 344, 346, 348, 356, 374; French, 308; Fronde,376; Englisli,352; Spanish colonies in America, 431, 454 ; British colonies in America, 275, 454. Riksbank of Sweden (see Bank of Stockholm'). daler, new, 331. daler, old, 331. silver notes, 333. Riksdaler, 328, 331. banco, 328. effective, 329. specie, 329. Riksgald daler, 329. Riksmynt daler, 329. Ring-money (see Bangs). Rise of prices (see Tulip), 353, 394. " Robbers' dens," 228. Roderic, king of Spain, 143. Roffer II., king of Sicily, 143 n. Rotla, 210. Roman British towns, 149, 150 n. coins in England, 223. empire, 346. government restored, 143,148-9* 506 INDEX. Roman monetary svstems, 140, 146 160, 184. pontificate (see Pontificate), 163, 283, 370, 376. provinces, 139, 145, 148. sacred constitution, 163. 223 245. Rome-scat (see Peter's-pence), 154 189, 204 n, 301 n. Rothschilds, the, 467 «, 482. Roundiiio- (see Clippers). Royal mines (see Mines). prerogative (see Preroarative), 252, 25-1, 465. ' proprietors of banks of issue, 331, 365. Rundstjeks, 308, 320. Runes, 152, 159, 160, 188,295, 304 310. Rupee, 2, 9, 12, 491. Rurik, 216, 295, 297, 300. Russia, 363, 491. Russian gold scare, 363, 365. Saal, or lessel (q. v.). Sacse, 284. Sacred character of gold, 58, 67 77 107, 114, 119, 120,' 129, 142,145' 156, 164, 184, 223, 244, 347, 35o! 463. college (see Quiudecemvirs). Sagas, 151-2, 155, 287, 288, 304, 310. Saiga, 197, 289, 338-9. Salic, 197. Saracens (see Moslems), 164, 337. Sassanian coins, 6, 24, 178. Saxons, Saxony, 144, 284, 292, 303 335, 336. Scad (see Scat), 153. Scalam, ad, 224, 230. Scandinavia, 145, 177, 187, 284, 305 Scat, 143, 145, 153, 158, 186, 194 196-7. Score, 134 m. Scot (see Scat), 153. Scotland, 234, 288. Scrupulum, 69. Scyphates, 128, 223, Scythia, 151, 154. Seigniorage, 8, 18, 63, 109, 139, 145 26Q, 272, 303, 318, 330, 334, 341,' 350, 354, 448-54. Seleucidae, 3, 23. SeljopoUar, 199, 287. Seltz, treaty of, 103, 346. Sequin (see Sicca), 342, 446. Sesterce, 6, 72, 141. Shitd (see Scat), 193. Shekel (see Sicca). Slier Shall, 8. Shilling, gold, 99, 136, 143 n, 144 149 160, 191, 203, 233, 242, 256, 286' 290, 338-9. of account (see £. s. d.), 203 218. 242. -; — silver, 143 n, 203, 286. Sicca, Sical, Sliekel, 4, 5, 14, 26 31 _ 43, 197,- 296, 327, 382. ' ' Sicilian coins, 143 n. Sicilicus, Scilling, Shilling (q.v ), 143 191, 199, 382. ° ^ 1 ^' • Siglo, the Persian siccal or shekel, 29 Sil, Sild, 30, 153, 293. Siliqua, 186, 268. Silver plate (q. v.), 112, 251, 449. Silver exports to India, 6. coinage relegated to vassal kinc-s, 231, 237, 346, 449. domestic and foreign, 262. money, 9, 112, 116, 128, 256 365, 379. Slavery, mininir, 304, 412, 416, 419 451. negro, 416, 420. Smith, Adam, cited, 357. Social aspect of monev, 159 n. Soetbeer, Dr. Adolph,'364 n, 372, 386 387, 405. Solidus (see Besaut), 382, 446. Sols banco, 350. Soj^hisms of money, 18, 321, 346 n 394, 395 n. Spain, 167, 177, 234, 376, 490, Spanish Americn, 348, 352, 373, 376 406. Spanish-American silver scare, 373. Spanish-Arabian empire, 234, 240 337. Special contract law of money, 330. Spoil, 130, 159, 173, 183, 234, 240 319, 321, 361, 411, 447. 449. St. Albans, 243, 245, 249. St. Louis Convention, 468. Stability of monev, 347, 374 n. Standard, 12, 79, "^245, 247, 251, 277, 281, 290, 295, 303, 311, 350, 365. 394, 396, 398. Staples, or emporia, 229, 298, 299. Star Chamber, 465, 473. State control of money, 308. Statistical Congress, International, of 1872, 410. INDEX. 507 Stephen, king of England, 226, 23 1. Sterling, 185, 19 J-, 195, 32-i. Sterlings, or pennies, 185, 187, 195, 221, 226, 241, 242, 248. 253, 256, 261, 264, 266, 285, 324, 337. Steuart, Sir James, cited, 15. Stiver, 343. Storcli, Count Henri, 406. Styca, 158, 197. Sun-worship, 336-7, 381. Suspension of coin payments, 451, 458, 479. Suvarna, ludiau gold coin, 4. Svastica, 2, 159, 160. Sveyne, Canutson, king of Norway, 302. king of Mercia and North- umbria, 287. Sweated coins, 371. Sweden, 307, 488. Tabakat-i-Nasiri, 7, 9. Tael (see Talent), 27, 492. Tahiria silver coins, 7. Talent (see Dollar), 27, 55, 134, 304, 309, 312, 342-3, 368, 374, 382-3, 398, 494. Tallero (see Talent), 27. Tamperings with money (see Adul- terations, Debasements, Degrada- tions, and Forgeries), 232-3, 244, 347, 370-1. Tanka, silver coin, 8, 10, 181, 472. Tarik, 170. Tavannes, 373 n. Taxes, 142, 179, 325, 332, 344, 346, 379, 414, 447, 452, 454. Tel-el-Amarna, 38, 154. Ten commandments, 4. divisions of the solar circle, 133. silver for one gold, 134. Teutonic monk-knights, 391. Thaler (see Dollar), 375, 402. Theodebert, 147 w, 148. Theodosian Code (q. v.). Thirty Years' war, 320, 375. Three Necessities, the, 206. Thrimsa, 197, 213, 217 n. Tiberius, sov.-pont., 336. Tin and tin coins, 158, 234, 236-8, 241-2, 246 n, 249, 253, 262. Tithes, 179. Titles of nobility sold, 453, 493. Toledo, 170. Topes, 6, 126 n. Tournois, or Turneys, 265. Tower of London (see Mints), 241-9. Trade corporations (q. v.), 372. Transmntatiim of metals, 270. Transport-notes, 322, 327. Treasure-trove, 220 n, 235, 277-8. Treasury (see Exchequer). Treaties (see Monetary conventions). Trebizond, 7. Trial of the pix (q v.). Tributes, 170, 172, 289, 346, 358. Triente, 194, 242, 338. Tulip-mania, 351. Turkey, 148, 151, 491. Twelve, a sacred number, 133, 146. divisions of the solar circle, 133, silver for one gold, 131. Tyke or Turk dialect, 185. Uncovered notes, 388. Uniform moneys, 347, 373, 402, 485. Unit coin, 400. of circulation, 328. of money, 138, 399. of value, 329. United States, 384, 405, 481-4, 488. Upsala, 197 n, 293, .301-2. Ural gold scare, 363. Usurers and usury, 265. Vadmal, 153-4, 293. Valens, sov.-pont., 135. Value, pre/., 139. 234, 394, 406. Vandals, 169, 295. Varangians, 297. Varaya, 465. Vedas, 1. Veneti (see Vinet), 4, 46, 223, 229, 294, 336. Vienne, de (see De Vienne). Viuaya, 4. Vinet, 195, 284, 288, 291-2, 295. Vishnu, 465. Von Humboldt, 16, 393, 407, 441. Waldemar I., king of Denmark, 256 n, 299. Wallenstein, 320. War-chests, 389, 486. Watchtowers, city of, 185. Weight, coins received by, 225, 242, 281. Weights, coins used for, 246. Weights, systems of, 380, 451. Wergenhageu cited, 294. 508 INDEX. Wessex, kingdom, 205. Wiglaf, ting o£ Mercia, 205. William I., king of Eaglaud, 161, 193,219,224. II., king of England, 193, 226. William the Bad, kin^ir of Sicilv, 216. Williamsby, 199, 287. Winet (see Vinet). Wismar, 327. Wissel Bank, of Amsterdam, 322, 348, 361. Woote, emperor of China, 216. Worship of Augustus, 83, 168. Yarranton, Andrew, cited, 352. Yes-sel, or Yssel (see les-sel). York, 205, 209. Zecchin, 198. Zikka (see Sicca), 198, 217 n. Zodiac, 134 n. LIST OF MR. DEL MAR'S WRITINGS, to he read in connection with the lists printed at the end of the author's previous works. Influence of the American Republic upon European Legislation — New York American Times, May, 1855. Direct Trade ivith Europe; Letter addressed to the Merchants' Exchange — Norfolk Virginia Times, May 5, 1860. Speech on the Currency before the Democratic Union Association — New York ; Cooper Institute, October 22nd, 1863. Two Dozen Hits at the Monetary Situation — New Y'ork Leader, Marcli to August, 18(54. Fremont and the Presidency — New Y'ork Commercial Advertiser, August, 1864. Eight Essays on the Finances — New Y'ork New Nation, June 4tli to October 8tb, 1864. Xational Wealth and the Sate of Interest — New York Journal of Commerce, August 4th, 1865. Lecture on the National Banking System, delivered before the Geographical and Statistical Society, 1866. Free Trade, Preamble and Resolution on the Freedom of Commerce, moved by Mr. Del Mar in the New York Chamber of Commerce, April 5th, 1866. Betrayal of the Party in 1868 — prepared for the Democratic State Convention at Saratoga. Mechanical Action of Currency — New Y'ork Free Trader, August, 1868. Course of Lectures on Political Economy, before the Washington Statistical Society; January, February, and March. 1868. Censuses of the Population of the United States in 1866, 1867, and 1868, taken by the Internal Revenue Officers, under the direction of Mr. Del Mar. Commerce and Navigation of the United States, for the years 1867, 1868, and 1869. Washington, Goveriimeut Press. Essays on Taxation — Washington Natioi'al Intelligencer, 1869. Series. Mercantile Navy List of the United States, with the official numbers and signal letters awarded to them by the Director of the Bureau of Statistics — Washington, Government Press, 1869. 8vo., pp. 206. Essays on Finance — Cincinnati Enquirer, 1870. Series. Emancipation in Russia — Address before the New Y'ork Liberal Club, Plympton Hall, October 25th, 1872. A Neto California — The Californian Magazine, March, 1881. Loaded Dice ; Closure of the Stock Exchange, or a few serious words to the Bankers and Brokers of New Y'ork, 1873. 8vo., pp. 8. Where shall we sell our Breadstuffs ? — New Y'ork Times, September 2ud, 1873. Let us live for the State, not for Ourselves — Letter written in Response to an invitation of the Illinois State Farmers' Association, and published in their " Proceedings," pp. 156-60. Decatur, December ISth, 1872. Argument against too early a Eeturn to Coin Payments, delivered in the New York Chamber of Commerce, 1873. The Taxes on Distilled Spirits — New Y'ork Wine and Liquor Circular, December, 1873, and January, 1874. Series. Cost of the War Department in Peace — New Y'ork Sun, February 12th, 187J. 510 LIST OF MR. DEL MAR's WRITINGS. Bread for the World — Philadelphia New Age, November 19th, 1874. A Century of Progress— Pliiladelphia, 1875. The Census of New York — New York Independent, May 27th, 1875. Series. Address on Federation, delivered before the Liberal Club at Plympton Hall— New York, 1876. Progress of America — New York Independent, July, 1876. Is the American Race decaying 1 — New York Independent, 1876. Ecclesiastical Exemptions from Taxes — New York Independent, February 3rd, 1876. Letter to the United States Agricultural Congress, 1876. The Republic in the Moon — New l''ork Federalist, 1876. Sugar Statistics of the World — London Statistical Journal, 1875. Policy of the Treasury — New York Herald, 1871. Series. The Purchasing Poioer of Gold—S. F. Stock Report, 1876. Interview hetiveen President Hayes and Mr. Del Mar on the Monetary Situation — Philadelphia Press, May 7th, 1877. Our Future Relations with Asia — Read before the Alumni of the Univer- sity of California, 1878. Beware of the Bead Comstock ! — New York Sun, July 12th, 1879. Local Character of the Fluctuations in Silver — New York Economist, November 14th, 1880. Hydraulic Mining in Fl Dorado County — London Mining Journal, December 18th, 1880. Series. Mining as a Secret Art — New Y'ork Mining Record, April 15th and December 4th, 1880. Reform demanded in the Treasury — New Y''ork Sun, October 27th, 1880. La Valeur des Metaux Precieux depuis les Temps les plus Recules. Par M. Alex. Del Mar; traduit de 1' Anglais par M. G. de Molinari; redaeteur en chef du Journal des ^conomistes. Paris, Guillauuiin et Cie, 1881. 8vo. pp. 28. Malign Influence of Adam Smith — Read before the Alumni of the University of California, 1885. Should Silver be Demonetised ? {Symposium) — North American Review, November, 1885. The Silver Conspiracy — Pall Mall Gazette, October 1st, 1885. The Earth as ravaged by Placer Mining— Address before the Geographical Society of the Pacific; San Francisco, December lltli, 1885. Foreign Policy of the United States — London Morning Post, February 3rd, 1885. The Impending Crash in America— London Pall Mall Gazette, August 29th, 1885. What fixes the Relative Value of Gold and Silver 1 — New York Economist, August 30th, 1885. Who altered the American Mint Code of 1873 ? — Letter (abstract) in London Economist, March 6th, 1886. Numerous Discoveries of Gold in California previous to 1848— San Francisco Kosmos, 1886. Causes of the Depression — Reply to the Royal Commission on the Depression of Trade, printed in the Third Report of that Commission ; London, 1886, p. 396. Silver— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1886, art. "Silver"; commencing at " Mode of Occurrence," and continuing to the end. Historical Interdictions of Gold and Silver Mining inVarious Countries — Read before the Geographical Society of the Pacific, 1887 ; San Francisco Mining and Industrial Advocate, April 14th, 1887. LIST OF MK. DEL MAR's WRITINGS. 511 President Cleveland's Message, or probable Future of the American Cus- toms Tariff— London Morning Post, Decemberl2th, 1887; pamphlet reprint, pp. 8. England's Salcy on .J^e— Printed by the Bimetallic League; London, July i9th, ISSy ; pamphlet, 8vo ; reprint, 1895. Early Discoveries nf Gold in Xorth America — New York Mining Record, May 12th, 1889. Series. The Monetary Crisis— O^ew Letter to President Cleveland ; London, 1890. Expeditions of the Veneti—ljonAon, 1892, pp. 12. The Discovery of Europe — London, 1892, pp. 8. The Mahometan Conquests and Co2«a^e*— Translated from the French of Lavoix, by F. P. D. Ftevised and annotated by A. D. London, 1892. Pamphlet, pp. 60. Production, Cost, and Helative Value of Gold and Silver— 'Sew York Mining Record, November 21st to January 9th, 1892. Series. The Site of Chicago in the Eighteenth Cen