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

392 The Coins of Eiirope
domains and title into the house of Burgundy by her
marriage to Philip le Hardi. The subsequent history of this
once great and prosperous Power is a chapter in that of
Spain, Bavaria, and Austria, of which it became in turn an
appanage. Among the more remote rulers of Flanders in its
days of autonomy the name of Baldwin IX. (1194-1206),
Count of Flanders and Hainault, and ultimately emperor of
Constantinople after the Fourth Crusade, is entitled to a
certain share of prominence as that of an interesting historical
figure, whose currency, reading B. Comes, would have
otherwise commanded slight attention ;
and a second point
worthy of note is the much later episode of Jacob van
Artevelde of Ghent, whose friendship with Edward III. and
espousal of his cause, in antagonism to his own sovereign,
Louis of Maele, seem to be associated with the acceptance of
the English gold florin of 1344 in Flanders, although such
a fact amounts to very little, especially as Edward entered
into regular monetary agreements with other states, and continental
coinages were admitted by the Western European
mercantile class everywhere on a stipulated footing.
To the numismatist the productions of Flanders present
of course innumerable features of attraction, even if
they are
somewhat bewildering in their almost inexhaustible abundance
and variety. In some respects the coinage prior to the
union with Burgundy is of superior interest and it embraces
; not only that of Louis of Cre^y and Louis of Maele, Counts
of Flanders, Nevers, and Rethel, but those of a large group
of townships and minor fiefs. It may doubtless be predicated
of the splendid gold money of the fourteenth century,
that the types were chiefly loans from France but
; Flanders,
even at the height of its prosperity, was a secondary Power,
and under its
Burgundian and other rulers it failed to sustain
its prestige even to this extent. In the Catalogue of Mints
some account will be found of the numerous seats of coinage,
of which the principal were, in the last days of autonomy,
Alost, Bruges, Ghent, 1 and Mechlin. To them we owe the
1
Between this and Bruges lies the village of Maele, with the neglected ruins of
the chateau where in 1330 Louis of Maele, son of Louis of Cregy, was born. (See
Delepierre, Chroniques, etc., de fandenne histoire des Flandres, 1834, p. 123.)