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

322 The Coins of Europe
arity transmitted from the Taurisci, the primitive occupiers
of Noricum, and common to Uri in Switzerland, and to
Schleiz in the principality of Reuss. We have also Urach,
one of the two districts out of which Wiirtemburg was
originally formed, where the name is
supposed to imply the
same traditional notion and perhaps worship. There is a
very curious and significant pfenning of a seigneur of Werle,
struck at Malchin, bearing the emblem, with a cross between
the horns. The aurochs was succeeded in some places by
the a griffin, type borrowed from Pomerania. Such survivals
almost unquestionably point to a primeval order of society,
when the life of the pagus prevailed, and many obscure
forms of religious cult were in use among the remote population
which eventually became the great Teutonic race.
The oldest money of Mecklemburgh consisted of bracteates
superseded by pfennings, schillings, and double schillings.
Of the thaler we do not hear till
1502, during the
joint reign of Henry the Pacific and Albert the Fair. Our
knowledge of the subject may be, probably is, imperfect ;
but there is an apparent absence of continuity and sequence
in the series of larger silver ;
and we have not met with any
thalers between 1502 and 1540, when Henry was reigning
alone. There are: a ^ thaler of Albert, 1542, struck at
Gadebusch, and a thaler of John Albert, 1549. The former
is of a special type, and is
singularly
rare. The obverse
reads A\lbertus\ H\erzog~\ Z\ji\ M\ecklemburg^\ 1542; on
the reverse occurs Mo. Nova Gadebvs. The thaler of
1549 is remarkable for the form of the hat worn by the