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

Introduction 1 1
A scrutiny of the carefully -prepared charts which we
have of the periodical development of Western Europe will
shew us the difficulty and importance of keeping always in
mind the difference between the mediaeval and later boundaries
of states and the numerous changes which have taken
place in topographical nomenclature. The series of comparative
maps introduced into Bouillet's Atlas Universel,
1872, helps to illustrate the distribution of territory and the
changes of frontier from the sixth to the sixteenth century.
At the latter point of time, while the internal political fabric
and economy were still
largely preserved, the confines of the
principal countries had been settled on modern lines. We
are apt to forget, till we reflect, that the former divisions of
the Continent were often not conterminous with their more
recent or present namesakes ;
so extensive has been the
survival of old geographical terms.
The maps of France exhibit a progressive extension of
territory from 511, the date of the death of Clovis, to 1483,
that of the death of Louis XI. Germany did not comprise
Prussia and much of the existing German Empire. Prussia
partly belonged to Poland, and partly to Brandenburgh.
The kings of Poland ruled over a considerable portion both
of Prussia and of Russia. The province of Burgundy,
which belongs to France, and was once a feudal appanage of
that monarchy, importantly differs from the great Duchy of
Charles the Bold. The early Dukes of Muscovy owned a very
small proportion even of the dominions of Peter the Great.
The Counts of Flanders were virtually absolute masters of a
feudal area, to which the constitutional kingdom of Belgium
The Counts of Holland
bears a very imperfect relationship.
exercised a sovereignty restricted to the province so owned ;
and while the actual kingdom of the Netherlands embraces
only a portion of them, the Napoleonic kingdom of Holland
comprehended more than the whole.
The Europe at which we are looking is not only
superficially but chronologically of vast extent. In a
geographical sense it reaches from one end of the Continent
to the other ;
and in a political one its two extremities touch