THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

THE COLLECTOR SERIES
Moneta—A word sometimes said to be derived from
the temple of Juno Moneta, where the earliest Roman
coins are thought to have been struck under the super-
vision of the priests.
Moneta palatini i, palati, or palaci—An expression
found on some of the Merovingian coins in the seventh
century, struck under the authority and supervision of
Eligius or Eloy, moneyer to Dagobert I. and II. The
same term occurs on the deniers of Charles le Chauve.
Monetarius—Moneyer, q.v . This became at an early
period a family name at Venice, whence we may infer
the antiquity, perhaps, of the Mint there, unless the
Monetarii were later settlers in the city.
Money of account—A method of computation based
on an imaginary unit or on weight. We find it
among the Sicilian Greeks on certain bronze coins in
the third century B.C. (see Head, p. 101), in the
ancient Roman numismatic system (comp. Sestertium),
and in the Middle Ages at Venice, Cologne, Paris, &c.
At Venice it was the mark, and subsequently the lira,
and in France the livre, which never had existence
in the normal coinage till the first Revolution, but
is frequently cited in large commercial transactions.
In Portugal in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
we find the libra = 20 soldi, mentioned as money of
account. It is not improbable that the Greek money
of account took its rise from the original as grave
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