THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

THE COLLECTOR SERIES
can it be said that that prince exercised more than a
suzerainty over a great part of the dominions titularly
comprehended within his empire. Already in the
sixth century the enormous volume of money, usually
designated Merovingian, began to issue from a large
number of mints in the Low Countries, France, and
Spain, while the more immediate followers in the foot-
steps of the Romans, and the temporary inheritors of
that soil, the Goths and the Lombards, produced a
currency in all metals (though sparingly in gold) partly
on the Roman and partly on the Teutonic model.
The imperial system soon resolved itself numismatically
into the enjoyment of the right of striking money by a
numerous body of autonomous states under the sanction
of the Frankish or German Caesar ; and in France, where
the jurisdiction of the emperors was soon lost, and in
the Peninsula, where it only revived with the rise of the
great Spanish monarchy in the single person of Charles
V., the crown long remained too weak to preclude the
great feudatories from having their own mints. Never-
theless, there is of the Frankish and other dvnasties,
which successively swayed the fortunes of Germany,
the Netherlands, and Italy, a notable assemblage of
coins of all kinds, either of pure imperial origin or
with mixed types, exhibiting the names of cities
or princes in conjunction with the name and cogni-
sance of the superior lord.
This principle survived down to the last days of the
old regime. But there were exceptions to its observ-
ance. The Italian republics, for the most part, re-
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