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

Introdiiction \
3
centralisation. Although the old seigniorial principle
remained or revived after the close of the last century to a
certain extent, the fundamental changes in France itself,
and the rise of new political ideas, combined to draw an
indelible line between the past and the present, and our
inquiry mainly parts
with its
interest where the former order
of things may be regarded as having come to a practical
termination. The prosaic tenor of latter-day numismatic
history and art is incapable of yielding much scope for
useful or agreeable reflection. On the contrary, how
extremely interesting and instructive it becomes to study
and consider in every part of feudal Europe the almost
numberless groups or clusters of minor sovereignties,
subordinate to the Crown in a very limited sense and degree,
and exercising within their own confines an authority more
untrammelled than that of existing constitutional princes of
the highest rank. The Continent, parcelled out among the
tenants-in-chief of the emperor or king of a given
zone or
circle, and governed for all internal and municipal purposes
by laws and ordinances which varied and conflicted at every
frontier and within short distances, presented a spectacle
which can never return, and of which we can acquire a
knowledge only through literary and other monuments. It
was a political condition, slowly evolving from primaeval forest
and village life, until it
developed by the usual agencies
into a sort of network, and overspread the entire area from
the Atlantic to the Caspian Sea and the Ural Mountains,
and from the Arctic Ocean to the Mediterranean, with a
host of petty lordships, alike independent and jealous one of
the other. Those which lay in proximity might speak the
same language, cultivate the same soil, and serve the same
suzerain in peace and in war ;
but the obstacles to central
control, as well as to mutual intercourse, were incredibly
great, and each little community grew in course of time
virtually autonomous. If it had, as was frequently the case,
a prolonged duration and a prosperous career, it was
undoubtedly very far from fulfilling our ideal of what public
and private life should be ;
but all the more for that reason