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

22 The Coins of Europe
matic effects and by the presence
on the same soil in
course of time of coins commemorative of each nationality
which had taken its turn in occupying and governing the
territory for the earliest care of a ; conqueror was to secure
the distribution of monetary tokens of his jurisdiction, if not
of his personality. We accordingly find on the mediaeval
Sicilian series between the sixth and sixteenth centuries,
instead of the purely Teutonic types current in the northern
portion, a chronological
memorial of all the vicissitudes
undergone by the country during this long lapse of time,
local emblems accompanied by the names, legends, and
mottoes of foreign masters, and under the Normans (1085-
I
200) even pronounced Arabic workmanship with bilingual
inscriptions.
VIII
As we have made Switzerland and the Low Countries
fall under the German group of districts, we now pass over
into FRANCE, where we without much difficulty perceive a
very wide field and a very extensive, as well as varied, body
of material. What is now recognised as exclusively French
ground has been trodden and held by Greek, Roman, Gaul,
Visigoth, Frank, Breton, and Norman, all of whom have left
their footprints and their contributions to its archaeology and
history. The boundaries of this fair and fertile region since
the mediaeval era have been repeatedly exposed to modification
by the fortune of war or the force of circumstances ;
the royal authority in many important respects has been
shared with feudal potentates, all of whom claimed local
supremacy while a few were almost as powerful as the
;
Crown itself; and among the pretensions which these
magnates, alike secular and ecclesiastical, advanced and
valued, not the least was that of coining their own money.
The product of such a system prevailing over so wide an
area through so lengthened a term is the survival of an
enormous volume of currency in all metals, of all types, and
of innumerable denominations.
Leaving out of account the