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

4QO
The Coins of Europe
mark the rate of progression from almost absolute barbarism
to a high state of artistic excellence, and from a single small
denomination to a noble and sumptuous currency in all
metals. We ought to bear in mind that the measures of
political and of monetary importance, however, are not
necessarily co-ordinate: some of the most rudimentary
examples in cabinets were the product of an age when the
feudal element in society was at the height of its prosperity,
while the most splendid and delightful specimens in our
hands belong to a time when the balance and weight of
power had well begun to incline toward the Crown, and
many of the greater domains, by a variety of influences, had
merged in the monarchy. Again,
it is the case that certain
of the seigniorial or baronial feoffees have transmitted to us
coins, executed during the best period of medallic art, more
ambitious and attractive than those of their sovereigns, and
that it is within these lines that we have to seek all that
is most humanly interesting in portraiture and personal
recollection.
We shall once more invite an examination of the Catalogues
for a general view of the French feudal mints and
numismatic nomenclature. But under several heads it becomes
desirable to call attention to points which may not
have been touched or treated sufficiently at length elsewhere.
To the general student or inquirer those moneyyielding
districts of Old France, which offer more than
a purely French interest, necessarily acquire
Normandy. / -.,./
Aquitaine.
a certain precedence ;
and to Englishmen and
Guyenne.
English-speaking folk throughout the world there
Anjou. will always be a mysterious charm in coins which
were witnesses of the
Viermois
military transactions and
Orange, protracted rule of the Anglo-Saxon race on French
vignon. SQ j^ Qr ^yhjch, in the case of Orange, formed the
cradle of a house importantly associated with English history
and English constitutional freedom. So far back as the
time of the Crusades the territorial area of this fief was considerably
abridged by partitions, and it is on foreign soil and
in the stock of Orange-Nassau that we have to look for the