History of the World/History of the World (Bureau Development, Inc.)(1992).BIN/dp/0211/02119.txt

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$Unique_ID{how02119}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{History Of Monetary Systems
Part I}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Del Mar, Alexander}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{coins
money
silver
coinage
tin
year
gold
henry
king
richard}
$Date{}
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Title:       History Of Monetary Systems
Book:        Chapter IX: Early Plantagenet Moneys
Author:      Del Mar, Alexander

Part I

Chapter Contents

     Purity of the coinage before the fall of Constantinople - Corrupt state
afterwards - The change was due to the destruction of the sacerdotal
authority, the disappearance 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. - Richard I. - John - Henry III. - Edward I.

Early Plantagenet Moneys

     The evidences which will be brought together in this chapter may be
conveniently formulated as follows: - Previous to the fall of Constantinople
there were but few tamperings with the English coinage, afterwards such
tamperings became numerous and continual - a proof that some event had
occurred meanwhile to render them practicable and profitable, such event
having been, in fact, the acquisition by the king of the coinage rights which
the Basileus had lost.  Previous to the fall of Constantinople no king of
England had ventured to strike a gold coin, whereas soon after that event, and
following the example of other princes of the West, a gold coin was struck by
Henry III.; and although this coin was recalled and melted down, it was
followed by another one struck by Edward III.  The issuance of this coin, the
gold noble, or half-mark, is regarded as the definite declaration of England's
independence.

     Reference to other portions of this work must convince the reader that
from William I. to Henry II. - an interval of nearly a century - the coins
issued by the kings of England were substantially free from degradation and
debasement.  In other words, the Norman kings rarely tampered with the
coinage.  The coins were all of one class - silver pennies, sometimes
including half-pennies, but usually pennies only.  These did not constitute
the only money in circulation, but the only money issued by the king.  In
addition to the silver pennies, there were coins issued by the nobles and
ecclesiastics, commonly base silver coins, of local course and circulation,
and the gold coins of the Basileus, valued by the Basileus always at one for
twelve weights of silver, and made and accepted as legal tender for any sum in
all parts of the kingdom. ^1 Other foreign coins had only a permissive
circulation, at valuations announced from time to time by the king; the gold
coins of Constantinople constituted the backbone of the circulation, and kept
the rest of it straight.  So long as contracts could lawfully be made in these
coins, the king could make no profit by tampering with the silver pennies;
accordingly he struck the latter, as nearly as he could, to contain exactly
the same quantity of fine metal as the gold shilling, or quarter-besant, of
the Empire.  As previously shown, the besant contained about 73, afterwards
65, grains fine.  The gold shilling, therefore, contained 18 1/4, afterwards
16 1/4, grains fine; and this was exactly the contents of silver in the two
classes of silver pennies of the heptarchy and of the Norman kings; twelve
such pennies being valued at a shilling and forty-eight at a besant.

[Footnote 1: The subject of Roman copper coins during the mediaeval period is
alluded to in the last chapter.]

     With the reign of Henry II. (Plantagenet) commenced those tamperings with
money which announced the advent of independent sovereign power in England,
and presaged the extinction of imperial control.  Plantagenet inherited from
his mother the States of Normandy and Maine, and from his father Touraine and
Anjou; from his wife Eleanor, who had been divorced from Louis VII., he
received Poitou, Saintonge, Angumois and Aquitaine; in a word, he became
possessed of the entire western half of France from the Channel to the
Pyrenees.  After adding these domains to the crown of England, he acquired
Northumberland by treaty with the king of Scotland.  Ireland he acquired by a
grant from Pope Hadrian IV., in 1154.  The productions and trade of these
extensive domains, together with his share of that additional trade and
wealth, which, in common with other Christian princes, the king of England
derived from the suppression and spoliation of the Spanish-Arabian empire, are
indicated to some extent by the vastly increased revenues of crown and mitre,
the splendor of the court, and the number and wealth of the churches.  To this
period belong some of the finest specimens of ecclesiastical architecture yet
existing in England.  Yet the monetary monuments are still those of a vassal
and feudal State.  An important part of the coinage was struck, valued and
made part of the circulation by one foreign prince (the Basileus), whilst an
important part of the revenues were collected and enjoyed by another (the
pope).  The influx of besants, the afflux of Peter's pence, the defiant issues
of baronial and ecclesiastical mints, which included leather and tin coins,
all betray the impotency of the king to preserve the national measure of value
from degradation and derangement.

     Of old sterlings there were probably few or none in circulation when
Henry II. came to the throne; whilst of the base and adulterated coins issued
by the robbers and forgers, who flourished during the weak reign of Stephen,
there were many.  Among Henry's early cares was the suppression of these
moneys and the issuance in their place of a new coinage (about the year 1156).
This coinage in violation of the king's commands was made below the standard -
a fault for which he severely punished the moneyers.

     About the year 1180 ^1 Henry II. sent to Tours for Philip Aymary, a
French moneyer, and committed to his charge the striking of a new stamp of
sterlings.  These were issued, and the previous sterlings retired.  After
executing this work, Aymary was himself charged with fraud, and dismissed to
his own country; yet the appearance of the coins supposed to have been minted
under his superintendence, great numbers of which are extant, afford no
support to this accusation.  The pieces are indeed badly executed, and may
thus have formed a ready temptation to rounders and clippers; the weights are
also irregular.  Perhaps it was on these accounts that the foreign artist was
so summarily treated.

[Footnote 1: "The Norman Chronicle" states that the new sterling money was
struck in 1175 (Madox, i., p. 278).]

     The rates of exchange established by the mint between the new sterlings
and the old ones - whether the base ones of 1156, or the rounded and clipped
ones is uncertain - prove that the latter were inferior in value to the former
by about 10 per cent; at all events, this rate probably marks the degrees to
which clipping extended at this period.  For L375 3s. 9d. of old clipped money
the mint paid L343 15s. 6d. of new; for L100 old, L89 6s. 8d. new; for L100
old, L83 6s. 8d. new, and so on (Madox, i., p. 278). This nova moneta is known
to numismatists as "short-cross pennies," and these became so popular that
they continued to be struck in the name of "Henri" until the middle of the
reign of Henry III. (1247), although the reigns of Richard I. and John
Lackland intervened.  This, however, does not necessarily imply that Richard
and John struck such coins.  The extant coins of Henry belong solely to the
last issue.  A hoard of these coins was found at Roylston in 1721. Other
pieces, to the number of 5,700, were found at Tealby, in Lincolnshire, in
1807.  They were as fresh as when they left the mint.  According to Keary, the
fineness is 0.925, and the contents in fine silver of the most perfect
specimens, 18 1/4 grains.  Dr. Ruding's valuable but antiquated work gives
what seems to be a wholly different account.  He says that 5,127 of them
weighed 19 lbs. 6 oz. 5 wts.  This is an average of 22 grains each, or
(assuming the fineness as equal to sterling) 20 1/3 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
(argentum blancum) occurs in the Exchequer Rolls 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 blanco firmae of Treatham; in the seventeenth year twenty shillings
were paid in argento blanco; 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, L9 5s. 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 blanco
examinato" was used when silver bullion was meant.  For example, in the
thirtieth year of Henry II. the sheriff of Devonshire paid 8s. 9d. in bullion
(argento blanco examinato), made up of divers old coins, and in the
thirty-third year the same sheriff paid twenty-six pennies in bullion (argento
blanco examinato), made up of numerous coins dug up from the earth.  Sir
Charles Fremantle was of opinion that the trial of the pix mentioned in the
Lansdowne Ms. related to this reign. ^1 In this opinion the author 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.

[Footnote 1: British Mint Report, 1871, p. 12.]

     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 even weight
with and exactly one-twelfth the value of the Byzantine sicilicus; and a base
coinage of local circulation, 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, Richard 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 Cornhill was
charged in the exchequer accounts with L1,200 for supplying the cambium, or
mints of England (except Winchester), and with L400, 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 under 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 VI. of Germany.  In 1194 he was ransomed for about the same amount of
money that he is said to have inherited from 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. Altogether 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 which the German 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 German 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 throughout
his realm. ^1 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.

[Footnote 1: 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.
4d. is three or four centuries earlier.  The mark of 1194 was composed of five
gold maravedis; 13s. 4d. was its value in silver, at the Christian ratio of
12.]

     In 1196 Henry de Casteillun, chamberlain of London, accounted to the king
for L379 1s. 6d., received for fines and tenths on imported tin and other
mercatures, also for 16s. 10d., the chattels of certain clippers. ^2 In the
same year L1 19s. 1d. were allowed to Odo le Petit in his account for the
profit of the king's mint for erecting therein a hutch and forge (fabrica) and
utensils for making "albata silver," or albata money (dealbandum argentum),
also L2 4s. for a furnace and other devices for working the same.  These
coins, though struck in the royal mint, were not of royal issue, and could
have had only a local and limited course within the domains of the noble for
whom they were made.  In the same year the sheriff of Worcestershire accounted
for L40 13s. 6d. albata, or album, money, the balance of his ferm of the
county.  Of this sum he had paid L12 in album money to the archbishop of
Canterbury, and owed L28 13s. 6d. in album money to the exchequer, besides
enough more to make up the difference between L12 silver money and the like
sum album money, paid to the aforesaid archbishop. In explaining the use of
the term "blanc," Madox confuses blanc silver and blanc money.  The former was
silver bullion, the latter a white money, sometimes called album, made wholly
or for the most part of tin.  The meaning of album money is clearly indicated
in several of the Exchequer Rolls, which he himself cites. ^1

[Footnote 2: Madox, i., p. 775.]

[Footnote 1: Madox., i., p. 280]

     In the same year (1196) the king granted a coinage license to the bishop
of Durham.  In 1198 William de Wroteham accounted at the exchequer for the
yearly ferm and profits of the mines of Devonshire and Cornwall, partly in
money and partly in tin bullion.  This bullion appears to have been sold for
tin marks, for in the 13th and 14th John, who succeeded Richard I., this same
William de Wroteham accounted to the king both for his ferm and for the marks
obtained from the tin (de marcis provenientibus de stanno).  It may be safely
inferred that in all cases these base coinages were issued by the nobles or
ecclesiastics, and were of limited course. ^2

[Footnote 2: The writers who allude to these corrupt coinages are Tindal
("Notes to Rupin," i., p. 258); Leake ("Historical Account of English Money,"
p. 58); Nicholson ("Eng. History," lib. i., p. 254); and the modern special
writers on tin and base coins.]

     The albata money of Richard's time was either a composition of tin and
silver - a good deal of tin and very little silver - or else merely tin coins
blanched with silver.  The clippers, whose chattels were confiscated to the
exchequer by Henry de Casteillun, must have practiced their art upon the royal
coins, for there could have been but small profit from exercising it upon
those of the nobles.

     Although, immediately after the payment of his ransom, Richard decried
all other coins but his own, his edict became a dead letter; indeed, he was
probably glad enough to see the base coins remain in circulation.  The
population of England and Plantagenet France during the reign of Richard I.
was probably not over four or five millions, and the total money not over as
many shillings, or, say L250,000.  Richard's ransom therefore stripped the
kingdom of probably one-third or one-fourth of its measure of value, and but
for the album money of his nobles, this circumstance might have brought on far
greater calamities than the release of the king was expected to avert.

     The main defect of the tin coins was not the low cost of the material of
which they were composed.  The gold and silver obtained from the spoliation of
the Moslem and the Jews were cheaper than tin, for they cost nothing to
produce beyond the labor of cutting so many pagan and infidel throats, whilst
tin ore had to be discovered, excavated and reduced to metal. But there was no
world-wide demand and no world's stock in hand to enhance and steady the value
of tin, whilst as to gold and silver there was; and this is chiefly what has
always rendered these metals preferable for coins.  Tin coins were also easily
counterfeited, the material was exposed to rapid oxidation, and the condition
of society and government was wholly unfitted for the use of coins of any
material which could not conveniently and without substantial loss be burred
in the earth, or otherwise hoarded for use in future and safer times.