W. C a r e w H a z l i t t Coinage of the European Continent

Introduction 7
ing ideas and possibilities. Everywhere we readily obtain
evidence of a dominant seigniorial caste, which often, or
indeed generally, survived broad territorial changes, and
transferred its allegiance from one sovereign or suzerain to
another. A royal or imperial dynasty disappeared ;
but the
lower strata of the system practically remained : a warlike,
turbulent, despotic nobility and gentry which, in requital of
services rendered, enjoyed various lofty and enviable privileges,
among which not the least was the right, sometimes qualified,
sometimes absolute, of striking money for local or provincial
use. The clergy looked with favour on this concession ;
for
the incidence of a mint was, it is not to be doubted, attended
by profit to the beneficiary and a
; proportion of the surplus
proceeds became a customary due receivable by the ecclesiastical
incumbent. When, in process of time, the towns of
the Continent rose into consequence and power, a new form
of complication presented itself for within a restricted area
;
three monetary systems might be established, each on its
own basis and standard, and it seems to have been the
exception when the urban authorities and the bishop or
abbot arrived at some amicable understanding, by which
a common currency served for both.
Nor was the practice of entering into conventions for
mutual security and accommodation one to which there was
a large or habitual recourse. The decentralising proposal,
which is at the present moment before the Swiss Government
after about forty years' trial of an uniform coinage,
helps us to comprehend the jealousy and distrust which precluded
the numberless petty administrative centres of Europe,
both during and after the Middle Ages, from coming to any
accord with each other on such a topic as this.
The gradual and partial acceptance by communities of
approximately the same race and language of an international
principle in regard to money formed at once a source
of convenience and disadvantage ;
the liability of the currency
of one or more members of the circle to reduction in standard
or value from financial exigencies and other causes necessarily
involved loss and embarrassment to the rest ;
the state of