History of the World/History of the World (Bureau Development, Inc.)(1992).BIN/dp/0211/02112.txt

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$Title{History Of Monetary Systems
Chapter III: Pound, Shillings And Pence}
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$Author{Del Mar, Alexander}
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$Subject{money
roman
coins
system
silver
gold
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ratio
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Title:       History Of Monetary Systems
Book:        Chapter III: Pound, Shillings And Pence
Author:      Del Mar, Alexander

Chapter III: Pound, Shillings And Pence

Chapter Contents

     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 -
Exportation of silver to India - Difficulty of enforcing contracts of coins of
a given metal - pound as an instrument of taxation - As an historical clew -
It always followed Christianity - Sidelights to history afforded by the three
denominations - pound 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 resumption of
Roman government - This rule applied to Britain.

Pound, Shillings And Pence

     Searching for the beginning of a custom is like tracing a river back to
its source: we soon discover that it has not one source but many.  When
brevity is preferable to precision, it is sufficient if we follow an
institution to its principal or practical source.

     We 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 nundinum 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. ^1 In these two systems we have the basis of
the decimal and duodecimal methods of notation, which are so strangely
intermingled in all Roman numbers and proportions, and which also appear in L.
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. ^1 On the
other hand, the number of denarii to the sicilicus was twelve, and the ratio
between the metals was twelve, which is duodecimal. ^2

[Footnote 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
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 conquered and obliterated Etruria, and
falsely attributed to Romulus, Numa, and other creations of Roman 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).]

[Footnote 1: The "pound" of money is to be discerned during the decay of Attic
liberty.  The Romans used the term "pondus" to mean 100 drachmas, and the
Greeks used the "talenton" of money before them.  Twenty drachmas (silver)
equaled in value one stater, and five staters were valued at a talenton, which
the Romans called a pondus.  The Greek ratio was 10.  Most of the confusion on
this subject has resulted from the refusal of numismatic writers to recognize
- 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 L. s. d. very like what the Romans afterward had.]

[Footnote 2: A remarkable custom, which, it may reasonably be conjectured,
originated in the changed subdivision of the zodiac, prevailed among the
Goths.  With them the 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).]

     Those writers whose researches into monetary systems are bounded by the
narrow conclusions of Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" or Tooke's "History of
Prices" usually attribute the origin of L. s. d. to William the Norman or to
Charlemagne, and their explanation of the system is commonly confined to that
of the pound., which they regard as the symbol for a pound weight of silver,
or else a pound weight of silver coins.  The different books in which this
delusion is repealed are probably sufficiently numerous to stock a good sized
library; yet it can be demolished in a few words.  Neither the contents of the
Norman or Carlovingian nor of any other coins sustain this theory, neither is
it sustained by the texts of the Carlovingian or any other period. The libra
of money (not the whole triad of L. 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., II), of which the following is the text
and literal translation: - "Ita ut pro singulis libris argenti quinos solidos
inferat" - "So that for each libra of money five solidi are to be understood."
^1 This portion of the code is attributed by some commentators to the
constitutions of Constantine, by others to a law of Honorius and Arcadius (A.
D. 397); ^2 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 frequently occurs in the texts of Valens, ^3 Arcadius and
other sovereign-pontiffs of the fourth to the eighth century, where, except in
one instance, it always means five solidi. According to Father Mariana ("De
Ponderis et Mensures"), the sicilicus - 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 remaining unchanged.  Such
is briefly the genesis of L. s. d.

[Footnote 1: It is from this passage in the Theodosian Code that the learned
Boeckh, Rome d'Lisle, and Bodin regarded the libra as a weight, and deduced
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 of 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 Justinian (liber. x., tit. lxxvi.,
de argenti pretio) also gives the ratio, "pro libra argenti, 5 solidi."]

[Footnote 2: Queipo, ii., 56.]

[Footnote 3: The cupidity of the Duke of Moesia induced him to withhold
provisions from the Gothic refugees, whom Valens, the sovereign-pontiff, had
permitted to enter that province, so that a slave (mancipium) was given by the
Goths for a loaf of bread (unum panem) and ten libras (of money) for a carcass
of meat (aut decem libras in unum carnem mercarentur).  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 understood;" but such was not
the custom of that time, any more than it is now.  When silver was understood
it meant money and not metal.  Said the law: "So that for each libra (libris
argenti) five solidi (of gold) are to be understood" (Jornandes, "De Getarum,"
c. xxvi.; Gibbon, ii., 597, 4 to ed.)]

     The translation of "argentum" into "money" needs no explanation to
Continental readers, for in all the Continental languages - French, Spanish,
Italian, etc. - "silver" means money.  This custom is derived from the Romans
of the Empire, with whom "argentum" meant money, as the following examples
sufficiently prove: - Argentariae tabernae, 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 aedibus (Cicero);
emunxi argento senes (Terrence); concisum argentum in titulos faciesque
minutas (Juvenal xiv., 291); tenue argentum venaeque secundae (ibid., ix.,
31).  The Romans 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 "argyrion," from argyros, silver.  The Hebrew word for
money was caseph, literally silver, alluding to 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 Prefect 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 Roman 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 is what was intended.

     These researches into the origin of L. s. d. were necessary in order to
determine its essential characteristics as a system 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
economical literature.  For example, L. 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 L. represented
a pound weight of bread, s. an ounce, etc.; in the latter L. meant one and
a-half acres and d. a rod of land. ^1 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 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 legal jurisdiction, joined
together.  In other words, the unit of money is and must necessarily be all
money. ^1

[Footnote 1: Statute 51, Henry III.  (1267); Fleetwood's "Chronicon
Preciosum."]

[Footnote 1: See chapter on this subject in the author's "Science of Money."]

     Taking the essential character of L. 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 L. s. d. there was commonly but one denomination of money and -
except in the peculiar monetary system of the Roman Commonwealth - 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 denarius, 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 combining 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 L. s. d. the Romans, in
expressing 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 L. s. d.

     In the last quarter of the third century the Roman empire was divided
between four Caesars, to whom was afterwards added he whom 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 unauthorized moneyers expelled from Mount
Caelius and other places to ply their trade in every province of the Roman
empire, the confusion became intolerable.  Without some device by aid of which
this maddening variety of types and weights could be readily harmonized and
valued, it became impossible to carry on the operations of trade.  Such a
device was L. s. d.

     The infinite diversity and number of local and 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-charges 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 issue or from sacerdotal and
imperial authority, why might not the proconsuls feel at liberty to issue
circulating money as well as the sovereign-pontiff?  why not the under-lords
as well as the proconsuls?  why not foreigners as well as citizens? - why not
anybody or everybody?

     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, the 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 regarded only as so much bullion, and every
provincial governor or barbarian king would be tempted to reduce 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 Caesar, 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. ^1 The efforts to save the old monuments would justify a slight
discrimination of value at the outset in favor of certain precious issues, and
this discrimination might be extended and enlarged as time went on.  Rome had
hitherto kept its most sacred numismatic monuments from the furnace by means
of a golden myth, a fixed ratio, and the restriction of exports.  Without
disturbing either of these arrangements, it was now proposed to supplement
them with the device of L. s. d.

[Footnote 1: In a less superstitious age perhaps not even the device of L. 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).]

     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 the same 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 L. 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.
However, as logic seldom stands in the way of practical legislation, we may be
sure that it was not this difficulty which compelled the Romans, when they
adopted L. s. d., to make them ideal moneys, or moneys of account, that would
logically add together; it was the practical difficulty 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 malcontents;
the produce of the Roman mines had become irregular; the oriental trade had
absorbed vast quantities of silver. ^1 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.  L. 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

[Footnote 1: Pliny, "Natural History," vi, 23, and xii., 18.]

[Footnote 1: In 1604 the Chief Justices of England decided that L. 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 Rome (State Trials, ii, 114; Digest, xviii., II).]

     It is scarcely necessary to turn from the public to the private
influences which urged the adoption of L. 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 L.
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 L. 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 L. s. d. any coin or piece of money could be legalized 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 L. s. d., and there it served in the
capacity and with the rank assigned to it by its imperial master. ^1

[Footnote 1: On different occasions the same coin has ranked as a penny
three-half-pence, two-pence, and even three-pence.  A shilling was at one time
represented 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-pontiffs of Rome more than once
altered the legal value of their silver and bronze issues.]

     In the fourth century the d. was represented by a silver coin, and the s.
by a gold coin containing about 18 (afterwards 16) grains of fine gold, and
the L. by five large solidi (afterwards called besants), each containing 72
(afterwards 64) grains of fine gold.

     If we follow the adoption of L. 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.  L. s. d. was
adopted in Gaul by Clovis, in a part of England it was established by
Ethelbert, whilst in other parts it was rejected by the unconverted Gothic
kings, his contemporaries. ^2 So the Arian Goths of Spain, down to the close
of Roderic's reign, refused both the Roman religion and the Roman system of
money, and the Saxons would have none of either until Charlemagne bent their
stubborn necks to the yoke of the Roman gospel.

[Footnote 2: 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 Norse 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 7 1/2 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 no Norse 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 L. 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 sicilici of the heretical Roger II.,
of Sicily, bear the legend in Arabic: "One God; Mahomet is His Prophet." On
the other side 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.]

     Another valuable historical sidelight is derived from L. s. d.  The
arithmetical relations of these moneys of account were originally, but have
not been always, 12 X 20 = 240.  Sometimes they were 5 X 48 = 240, or 4 X 60 =
240, or even (exceptionally) 5 X 60 = 300.  Whenever this is observed it
affords a sure indication of grafting.  The Gothic ratio between the precious
metals was 8, the Arabian ratio 6 1/2, and the Roman ratio 12.  Consequently,
when the Roman arithmetical relations of L. s. d. were grafted on Gothic or
Arabian, or Gothic-Arabian, monetary systems they had to be modified to suit
the local valuation of gold and silver. ^1 For example, in the eighth century
in Roman Christian Gaul (ratio of 12) it took 12 silver pence, each 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 1/
2), 5 silver pence, each of 20 grains, sufficed; so that if, as convenience
dictated, the newly introduced L. was still to consist of 240 pence, it would
have to be valued at 48 shillings of account, and this was accordingly done.
^1 Modifications in the weights of the silver penny, and efforts to harmonize
the two principal conflicting ratios - the Roman and Arabian - will explain,
not only the remaining variations of L. s. d. above alluded to, but also many
other obscure problems connected with the early monetary systems of England.

[Footnote 1: The system of Offa, king of Mercia, was Gothic-Arabian, and, as
is elsewhere shown, some of his coins had Arabian inscriptions upon them.]

[Footnote 1: System of Ethelbert, king of Kent, 725-60.]

     We have seen how L. s. d. arose out of the circumstances of a decaying
empire; we shall now see how it accommodated itself to those circumstances, so
as to promote the very disease it was in part designated to remedy.  The
empire was falling to pieces, splitting into many parts.  First, it had one
Caesar, 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 harmonize and regulate these
coins, as well as for other reasons, L. 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 characterized the matured feudal
system, and lent it strength and support.  Devised in part to unify moneys and
centralize authority, it became no insignificant aid to decentralization 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 perpetuated,
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
Frakkland, or the composite scats of the Anglo-Saxon heptarchy.

     Returning to the historical clew afforded by the adoption of L. 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 incongruity with the modern age of
progress will be recognized and acted upon.  Allusion is here made, not merely
to a system of three denominations, as L. s. d., nor to a mingled bi-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 with various
degrees of legal tender; of coins of local with others of extensive legal
tender; of native with 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 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
L. s. d., and so far as they follow it they interpose important obstacles to
the practice of equity, the just diffusion of wealth, and the progress of
civilization. ^1

[Footnote 1: "Science of Money," chapter vi.]

     The L. s. d. system was as much unfitted for the Gothic kingdoms or fiefs
of the dark ages as it was suitable for the Empire.  In a former work it was
shown that there existed a natural harmony, or tendency toward harmony,
between systems of government and systems of money, 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 a once expose the blunder or imposture.
Similarly, if an L. s. d. system of money were attributed to a tribe of Zulus,
the incongruity of the collocation would immediately 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 L)
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 a
hundred other subjects, concerning which neither Zulu nor Goth ever had a
clear conception.  For these various reasons the artificial system of L. s. d.
furnishes an unerring clew to historical researches during the dark ages.  In
a previous chapter similar clews were found in the golden myth and the sacred
ratio of twelve; in the present one we shall follow the clew of the three
denominations.

     The text of the Theodosian Code implies the use of L. s. d. at Rome and
in all the Christian provinces of the Empire.  The non-Christian provinces
were those parts of Gaul and Britain which, at the time of the promulgation 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) implies the use of L. s. d. at that date in southern and perhaps central
Gaul.  From 496 to 561, during the governments of the Roman patricians Clovis
and Clothaire I., the L. 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, ^1 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 worshiped 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. ^2 Over and over again
the Franks had professed and evinced their willingness to live under Roman law
and Roman government, and they proved their sincerity and good faith in these
professions by accepting Roman ecclesiastics as the administrators of that law
and the representatives of that government.  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 the detested religion of
emperor-worship seemed about to be revived in the very fane of religion, they
turned upon the Empire. ^3 From Theodebert to Pepin the Short the Roman
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 by the sacred myth of Rome, 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 Roman province. ^1

[Footnote 1: His tomb was opened in the seventeenth century (Morell, 67).]

[Footnote 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 of the Basileus.]

[Footnote 3: Charlemagne, at the Council of Frankfort (794), denounced the
worship of the imperial images.]

[Footnote 1: The earliest rehabilitation of the Roman system appears in the
capitulary of Pepin and Carloman, A. D 743, wherein the sol is valued at 12
deniers (Guizot, iii., 27).]

     In short, the monetary system of L. s. d. was established wherever Roman
government prevailed - in Italy, Greece, Asia Minor, Armenia, Egypt, Carthage,
Spain, Gaul, Britain and Germany.  It was not established by any state or
people not subject to Rome, never by the pagan Angles, Jutes, Saxons, Franks,
Sclavs or Huns, and never by 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 nummulary language, so far as practicable, to the customs of
the conquered Greek provinces, employed the L. and the d. to mean - not indeed
what they formerly meant - but something that suggested it, and this practice
afterwards found its way into other provinces of Turkey; but it had no
essential connection with the L. s. d. system, and employed only two
denominations instead of the characteristic three.

     Although it is probable that the libra of money (not the L. 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 L. s. d.
system in any document now extant occurs in the barbarian laws of Ethelbert,
A. D. 561-616 (ss. 33-5), where certain fines are levied in shillings.  No
"libras" are mentioned; and no denarii for twelfths of the Norse aurar; ^1
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. ^2 In neither case would this text afford any certain indication
when the L. s. d. system was re-introduced into Britain; and there is no other
evidence that can be relied upon of an earlier date than the reign of Ina,
which was toward the end of the seventh century.

[Footnote 1: See Roman gold coin of Canterbury mentioned in my "Ancient
Britain," ch. xix.]

[Footnote 2: Bishop Fleetwood ("Chronicon Preciosum," pp. 52-4) gives examples
from Brompton's translations of the laws of Ethelstan and Ina, in which the
terminology and valuations of money were changed to suit the circumstances of
the translator's times.  Guerard and De Vienne give examples of similar
alterations in the ancient texts of the Frankish, Lombardian, Frisian, and
Burgundian codes of law.]

     Measured by the clew of L. s. d., the Anglo-Saxon chieftains interrupted
the continuity of Roman government in some parts of Britain during an interval
of more than two centuries, that is to say, from a date somewhat later than
the edict of Arcadius and Honorius to the reign of Ina.  In other parts there
was scarcely any interval at all, for many of the Roman cities of Britain held
out long after the legions departed, and even then, they capitulated on terms
which involved, if they did not expressly admit, the imperial supremacy of
Rome.

     So far as it goes, the clew of L. s. d. harmonizes with the myth of gold
and the sacred ratio, and they all corroborate those other evidences which
proclaim that except during a comparatively brief interval, which was probably
no greater in Britain than in Gaul, the former remained a province of the
empire from the reign of Claudius down to a much later period than is commonly
supposed. ^1

[Footnote 1: Mr. Freeman deemed it probable that at the end of the sixth
century there were still Roman towns in Britain tributary to the English
chieftains, rather than occupied by them.  Sir Francis Palgrave (i., vi.)
extends the Roman occupation of some British cities down to the seventh
century.  Du Bos, Savigny, and Gibbon concur in a similar belief with regard
to some of the cities of Gaul.]