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

47O
The Coins of Europe
currency is still comparatively common, having
hoarded or issued in
either been
large numbers, had no fewer than eight
distinct gold denominations : royal, couronne, parisis d'or,
e"cu, lion, chaise, pavilion, florin. Georges (St. George and the
Dragon) and of some of these there were variants. Each
;
ruler or government seems to have aimed, in diametrical
opposition to modern principles, at achieving novelty and
diversity and the result could not fail to be under any
;
circumstances permanent inconvenience and confusion.
It was in an even larger measure the same with the
silver and billon, in which the issues were, as we approach
the reign of Charles VI. (1380-1422), bewilderingly numerous
and, as a rule, destitute of any clue to the name or
value. We count as many as eighteen sorts of money in
the inferior metals in simultaneous or nearly simultaneous
use. It is true that some of these coinages not only spread
over a reign of forty-two years, and that some of them were
for particular provinces ; yet, on the other hand, the old
money would generally remain current, and no district was
without its feudal mint producing independent types and
values, while over an extended area, during almost two
centuries, the English kings exercised monetary rights, and
struck coins in all metals at at least twenty-three ascertained
points, the patterns and module so closely resembling those
of the regal series, that an inexperienced or careless observer
might readily mistake one for the other.
For us, of course, the policy, however unpractical and
inconsiderate, has been the means of accumulating a store of
numismatic examples and documents (so to speak) almost
unsurpassed in richness as well as in bulk. English and
American collectors may be conversant with the noble works
of Hoffman and Poey d'Avant, and may have formed from
them some mental estimate of the aggregate volume but
;
early French coins of the rarer descriptions are seldom seen
out of the country and a few trays in a foreign cabinet
;
usually represent all that is procurable or of interest. For
there is that other side to the question. Thousands of pieces
exist, especially in billon or silver of low standard, of which