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

Descriptive Outline of the Coinages of Europe 469
struck in France on a model altogether different from that
followed elsewhere. It is rather singular, however, that
while the Venetian counterpart, belonging to the twelfth
century, was of Byzantine parentage, the 4-denier piece of
the French appears to have been copied in some of its
details from an Arabic original, where certain Oriental
characters on the obverse underwent at the hands of the
or chatel.
European engraver transformation into a gateway
The principal feature in the new gros tournois of Louis
IX. was its standard and its utility in commerce. It may strike
a modern thinker that the addition of a groat to the coinage
of a great and powerful people was not a matter of peculiar
importance but it was a gain for which England had still
;
a century to wait
;
and when we consider the other improvements
made by this prince in a similar direction, we may ask
the question, whether the step here taken was not adequate
to existing requirements. For, besides the gros, attributable
to the middle of the thirteenth century, Louis struck two
gold types : the royal or regalis aureus and the fau a" or,
both at present of great rarity. Other varieties in the same
metal have been named in
connection with him, but apparently
without real authority. The error or misconception is
very likely to have arisen from the similarity of the title on
the agnels of Louis X. ; and, again, from the reference to the
same piece under different names. But one authority (Le
Blanc) certainly cites the chaise d'or under this king, whereas
the earliest known belongs to Philip IV.
Louis IX. was the restorer on a more modern basis of
the French gold currency, which had been in existence from
the most remote period of the monarchy, and probably the
circulation of the royal and ecu was at first very limited.
Succeeding
reigns added the petit royal, the agnel or mouton, the
masse \ and the chaise; and the succession of the house ot
Valois in 1328 tended still farther to multiply varieties,
while occasionally types disappeared after a brief trial. Such
was the fate of the masse where the king holds in his right
hand the sceptre or mace, and which was discontinued after
Philip IV. Philip VI. of Valois (1328-50), whose beautiful