History of the World/History of the World (Bureau Development, Inc.)(1992).BIN/dp/0211/02118.txt

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$Title{History Of Monetary Systems
Chapter VIII: Anglo-Norman Moneys}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Del Mar, Alexander}
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$Subject{coins
silver
sterlings
gold
england
henry
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moneys}
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Title:       History Of Monetary Systems
Book:        Chapter VIII: Anglo-Norman Moneys
Author:      Del Mar, Alexander

Chapter VIII: Anglo-Norman Moneys

Chapter Contents

     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 Norman
princes to escape the monetary supervision of Rome - Receipts and payments
made in different moneys - Counterfeiting - Barter - Permutation - Fairs -
Taxes and rents in kind - Bills of exchange - The monetary systems of the
Norman princes exhibit a strange condition of political affairs.

Anglo-Norman Moneys

     During the Norman dynasty the coins in circulation consisted chiefly of
five classes, namely: Norman, Anglo-Saxon, early Gothic, Byzantine and Moslem.

Norman Coins

     These "sterlings," or flat, thin, silver coins of the half-dirhem type,
containing about 20 grains of silver 0.925 fine, or about 18 1/2 grains of
fine silver.  In modern numismatic works these are always called "pennies." No
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 half-pence, two pence,
etc., and of the twopenny sterlings, and threepenny 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 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 payments under the Anglo-Saxon laws, or in
reference to Anglo-Saxon rents and contracts.  There were, therefore, two
moneys of account employed during his reign, namely, the Norman 12 X 20 = 240
pence to the pound of account, and the Saxon 4 X 60 = 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, ^1 but in 37 Henry III. (A. D. 1252), the
maravedi of Moorish Spain was valued at 16 pence ^2 - 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 abrasion or "rounding," or else to its heretical stamp.  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.

[Footnote 1: The maravedi of this period weighed about 43 grains (nearly)
fine.]

[Footnote 2: Ruding, i, p. 316.]

Moslem Moneys

     The Spanish-Arabian dinar (60 to 66 grains fine) and the zecchin (50 to
55 grains fine), circulated in England under the misnomers of besant and
mancus.  Norman sterlings of the half-dirhem or sterling type, and containing
18 to 20 grains fine silver, had taken the place of the half-dirhems coined in
Arabian-Spain.  Valued in these Norman sterlings, the dinar was worth 34 to 36
sterlings, and the zecchin 30 to 31 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. ^1 The besant 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.

[Footnote 1: It results that the ratio for Moslem or heretical gold was 9 or
10 silver, and for Byzantine or orthodox gold, 12 silver.]

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 circulated among the common people, and,
according to Sir John Lubbock, they continue to circulate among them, in the
remoter parts of England, at 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 Sacred Empire in the 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 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 profoundest 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. ^1

[Footnote 1: Two or three heretical exceptions to this rule have been already
mentioned.]

     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 sixpence 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 pensum.  When
their purity was in question they were received as crude bullion and sent to
the refiners and assayers: this was payment by combustion.  In brief, this
means that payments into the exchequer, when made in light or debased coins,
were, as nearly as possible, subjected to precisely the same regulations that
they are to-day.

     There is no reason for supposing that the phrase "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 out 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 legitimized clipped 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 the other; but the
evidences of its practice appear plainly enough in the course of this work to
satisfy the ordinary demands of reason.  The power that scrupled 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. ^1

[Footnote 1: This practice (elsewhere) is alluded to and condemned in the
Koran.]

     The sterlings assigned by numismatists to William Rufus are slightly
heavier than those supposed to have been struck by his predecessor, and
described at the outset of this chapter.  The fineness is the same, and the
two types and designs are so much alike that none but the most expert can
distinguish them.  No other coins are known of the reign of William Rufus.

     The sterlings of Henry I., are of about the same weight as those of
William I. but not quite so fine.  These were followed by emissions of debased
pieces, which it was afterwards pretended were counterfeits.  Upon
instructions - no doubt from the Roman pontificate - a re-coinage was ordered
in 1108, and the severest sentences were threatened to false coiners.  In
1123, to lend effect to these threats, the power of Rome was invoked in aid of
the crown, and the penalties of the canon law were added to those of the
civil.  It is the indifference that was manifested toward these solemn
injunctions, coupled with circumstances mentioned elsewhere, which leads to
the suspicion that much of the base coining was done by a class of people who
knew too much about the crimen majestatis to stand in fear of impeachment. ^2

[Footnote 2: In 1362 the abbot of Missenden was convicted of coining and
clipping groats and sterlings; in 1369 the canon of Dunmore was accused of
counterfeiting gold and silver coins; and in 1371 the canon of St. Gilbert de
Sempingham was charged with secretly conveying coins abroad contrary to law
(Ruding, ii., pp. 199-208).]

     In 1125 the current coins had become so corrupt that a large proportion
of them would not pass even from hand to hand, and ninety-four accused
persons, among them several privileged moneyers, underwent mutilation for
false coining.  Some of the numismatic writers have credited Henry I. with
"abolishing the oppressive tax of moneyage;" but the fact is that he had no
right even to levy such a tax.  Its abolition must be credited, not to Henry,
but to his suzerain, the pope.

     The only coins of Stephen are the sterling pennies of the regular
Anglo-Norman weight and fineness.  There were debased coins struck in
Stephen's name, but they cannot be traced to the royal mints.  Other debased
coins were struck by Stephen's illegitimate brother, Henry, bishop of
Winchester; by his illegitimate cousin, Robert, earl of Gloucester; by his two
sons, Eustace and William, as well as by Roger, earl of Warwick, and numerous
other prelates and nobles.  In 1139 the sum of forty thousand marks, probably
in debased silver pennies, was captured in the castle of the Devizes, from
Roger, bishop of Salisbury.  In 1181 silver coins, nominally valued at eleven
thousand pounds, and foreign gold coins, amounting in value to three hundred
pounds, were found in the treasury of Roger, bishop of York. ^1

[Footnote 1: Dr. Henry, "Hist. Britain," iii., p. 311.]

Ratio

     In the reigns of Stephen, Henry II., and John, embracing the period 1140
to 1216, there occur several entries in the Exchequer Rolls where silver
bullion appears to have been paid for gold bullion at the ratio of 9 weights
for 1, and this ratio is supposed by some writers to have been adopted in the
coin valuations of the first three Norman kings; but such is not the fact -
the coin ratios were 12 for 1. ^1 In France, also, during the same period, the
ratio of silver to gold in the official valuations of coins was always 12 for
1, and the constant valuation of the mark coin in England at 13s. 4d. affords
reason to believe that the Roman ratio of 12 to 1 was reflected in the legal
valuations given to other coins in England.

[Footnote 1: See entry in the Exchequer Rolls 17 John, 1215, where certain
besants of Constantinople were valued at 3s. 6d. silver each (Madox, ii., p.
261).  Making allowance for difference of standard between the gold and silver
coins, and for the probably abraded condition of the former, this evidently
means a ratio of 12 for 1.  At the same time the ratio for bullion was 9 or 10
for 1.  We are not here alluding to the compromise ratios in the coinages of
the Gothic kings of the heptarchy, shown elsewhere, but to the actual ratios
for bullion, in 5 Stephen, 2 and 16 Henry II., and 15 and 17 John (Madox, i.,
p. 277 and ii., 261 u.) The subject has already been alluded to.]

     In dealing with this period it should not be forgotten that there were
but four classes of people who had anything to do with public affairs - the
imperial authorities, the royal authorities, the nobles, and the
ecclesiastics.  The adulterations of money were committed chiefly by the two
last-named classes.  During the reign of Stephen castles, monasteries and
fortified retreats sprang up on all sides, some of them supplied with
implements to fabricate counterfeit money.  A large number of these retreats -
called in official language "robbers' dens" - were destroyed by the first
Plantagenet king, but no mention is made of counterfeiting, and it was
probably not common.

     "Up to the year 958 the Flemings, Germans and Sarmatians dealt mostly by
permutation of merchandise." In 959 Baldwin III., earl of Flanders, observing
that the scarcity of money was an obstruction to the trade with France,
established markets and fairs, at which merchandise could be permuted without
money, and declared trade free of export or import dues. ^2 Fairs were held in
England throughout the entire period of the Roman empire; they were encouraged
in 1071, tallaged in 1195 (or before); they fell gradually into disuse after
the discovery of America, and were abolished during the present century as
"nuisances." The still lingering fairs of Beauclaire, Leipzig, Nijni Novgorod,
etc., are moribund examples of this now almost extinct but once indispensable
institution of European industrial life.  Nor do we believe with some authors
that the permutation practiced at fairs was simply barter.  The exchanges were
too numerous and important to be made by barter.  It therefore seems likely
that permutation was a system of clearings.  The goods were bought and sold on
a credit which was to last during the fair.  The prices were couched in L. s.
d. or other moneys, and when the fair closed the clearing was made, thus
obviating the use of any other money than the final sums needed to effect a
balance.

[Footnote 2: "Annales Flandriae," year 958, printed at Frankfort 1580, cited
in Anderson's "Commerce," i., p. 98.]

     It is commonly asserted by continental writers that bills of exchange are
of mediaeval origin, and were first used in England during the reign of Henry
III.  This is entirely erroneous.  There are examples of their use in India
and China backward to remote historical eras; in ancient Babylon; in Pontus
during the fourth century before our era; and probably also at the same time
in Greece; in Athens and Rome (tempo Cicero) and probably also for centuries
before and afterwards; in Constantinople and Carthage about the year A. D.
321; at Alexandria, Venice, Amalfi, Sienna, Florence, Barcelona, etc., during
the Arabian epoch; and in all the cities (including the English "staples") of
the pagan and Christian Hansas.  Bills of exchange were in common use in
Hamburg in 1188, and it can scarcely be doubted that they were known at the
same time, and indeed long before, in England. ^1

[Footnote 1: On the early use of bills of exchange consult Lenormant.  "La
Monnaie," i., p. 118; "U. S. Com. Rel.," 1858, p. 311; M. Courcelle Seneuil,
"Dict. Polit. Econ.," 1853, art., "Lettre de Echange;" Savary; Blanqui; Garni;
Thompson's "Polit. Econ.;" Del Mar's "History of Money in Ancient States," pp.
26 and 106; Eggleston's "English Antiquities," p. 122; Cicero's Letters;
Anderson's "Hist. Com.," i., p. 171; Eusebius.  "Ecc. Hist.," x., c. 6.]

     Blanqui says that at least the device of endorsement was unknown during
the middle ages; but this is also incorrect.  An instance of assignment by
means of written endorsements is given in Madox, i., p. 242, and relates to a
transaction between two Jews in 18 Edward I., year 1289.  It appears on the
ancient Exchequer Rolls relating to Jewry, and is not mentioned as a novelty.
Being written upon the dorsal portion of a "membrane," or parchment, it
afterwards came to be known as an endorsement. ^2

[Footnote 2: The expression "dorse of the membrane" is twice used in Madox,
i., p. 239.]

     Sir Matthew Hale ("Sheriffs' Accounts") proves that during the Norman era
farms were let variously upon a money rent (numero) or a bullion rent (blanc),
but that in both cases the actual payments were made in kind.  Even the
payments into the exchequer - which Madox would lead us to infer were always
made in silver ad scalam, ad pensum, or by combustion - were often made with
goats and pigs.  Lord Liverpool's researches led him to the same conclusion.
He says (chapter x.) that in the reigns of William I. and William II., and
during a great part of the reign of Henry I., the king's rents, arising from
his demesnes (which formed at that time an important part of the royal
revenue) though reserved in money, were really answered in cattle, corn and
other provisions, because money was then scarce among the people. ^3 The rents
of private landholders continued to be paid in kind down to a still later
period.  The best evidence with respect to this matter is given by the writer
of the Black Book, or Liber Niger Scaccarii, cited elsewhere, who avers that
he had conversed with men who saw the rents brought in kind to the king's
court.

[Footnote 3: However, they were commuted for money by Henry I.  (And, "Com."
i., p. 248-55) This was probably after his various coinages had rendered money
sufficiently plentiful.]

     Such are the monetary monuments, and such were the monetary systems, of
the Anglo-Norman kings.  That attempts were made to harmonize the diverse
materials of which they were composed - Roman, early Gothic, Moslem,
Anglo-Saxon, Carlovingian and Byzantine - is proved by the intervaluations of
Domesday Book, and the gradual suppression and disappearance of some of these
materials, chiefly the early Gothic and Moslem; but it is equally evident that
the attempt was only partially successful, and that there yet remained - as,
for example, in the mark and pound - an incongruous medley of pagan and
Christian denominations, and in the divided authority to coin - for example -
to the Basileus gold, and to the kings, nobles and prelates silver (upon
conditions) - another medley, which faithfully reflected the general confusion
of a period whose history was one of personal wars, personal combats and
personal displays of heroism, chivalry or religious devotion. Coeur de Lion is
its false ideal; Froissart was its true historian; and all attempts to deduce
from such materials an independent national existence or policy for France,
England, Germany or Spain during this early period have been both unsuccessful
and misleading.