THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

CONTINENT OF EUROPE
period, and retained during an even briefer term, a
very distinguished place among the maritime and com-
mercial communities of the Continent, and from the
most obscure commencement (for there is no identifi-
able currency of Count Henry or of Affonso I. of Por-
tugal) developed a rich and sumptuous monetary policy,
which long survived the national greatness and power.
Even down to the first half of the eighteenth century,
when Portugal had lost nearly all her trade and her
influence, the coinage continued to be of the same
ambitious stamp as before, and comprised those heavy
gold pieces which formerly obtained favour in Castile,
United Spain, the Spanish Netherlands, and elsewhere,
and which the Czars of Muscovy obtained as compli-
mentary offerings to illustrious personages in the absence
of any medium of the kind at home. Few who feel an
interest in coins have failed to make acquaintance with
the*e old relics of the past, balancing in the scales six
or seven English sovereigns, and fast disappearing in
the hands of refiners.
The earliest autonomous Portuguese coinage was
modelled on that of the Moors, and followed Mahom-
medan denominations; these were the marabotin, the
maravedi di ouro, the medio, the methca, the pezante, of
some of which our knowledge is solely derived from
documents. The gold maravedi was allied in type to
the dinhero of Castile, already mentioned ; and of all
these, and other ancient monetary experiments, which
passed successively out of use, an account is given else-
where. We must satisfy ourselves on the present occa-
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