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

466 The Coins of Europe
school or scheme of finance, where silver replaced gold as
the principal medium and money of account, and heavy payments
were reckoned by weight or satisfied by specific conversion
of bullion into the amount immediately required.
Under such circumstances, since the Carlovingian dynasty
cannot be proved to have struck much gold,
it is more than
possible that the improved or advanced Merovingian trientes
remained in use, and the archaic system of coinage prevailed,
until the development of commerce rendered a change
imperative, and the more precious metal began to find employment
for currencies, associated with responsible governments
and definite boundaries. The very few examples
which we encounter, after leaving the Merovingian race
behind us, such as the denier d'or of Melle and the solidns
or sou of Louis le Debonnaire, are now generally referred to
special occasions or private enterprise. We owe, however,
to the Merovingian regime our knowledge of infinitely
numerous points connected not merely with this study, but
with topography and history ;
and it is a source of advantage
that, after an interval, the moneyers of France, and of the
Continent generally, thought
fit to revert to the usage of inscribing
the place, if not the author, of the coinage on the
dies. In some instances we see that down to much later
times the engraver or mint-master placed his signature on
his work ;
but the names found on certain Carlovingian
pieces are doubtless those of feudatories, who associated themselves
with the reigning sovereign on the coinage in the
manner so familiar to us.
The lists of French sovereigns prior to Charles le Chauve
are perhaps open to the objection that the predecessors of
that king, and notably Charlemagne and Louis le Debonnaire,
are more properly classed with the series of German
emperors. Both made use of Paris and other French mints
;
but they did so only in common with seats of coinage in
Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Italy.
Assuming that the denarii of Pepin
le Bref and his
immediate successor, if not always or even usually of French
origin, were at all events current in France in its largest