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

Descriptive Outline of the Coinages of Eiirope 499
it
lay ;
and the series of early Messine deniers is
very desirable
and curious. We furnish in the Catalogues
Metz. ..... . . .
and Lists some useful information touching the
coinages of the bishops and sheriffs, and of those which preceded
them. The mint appears to have been independent of
the dukes, and was not employed by them.
In the first
Catalogue we have given, under Strasburgh
and other Alsatian mints, all the particulars connected with
the monetary production of this province, and
under Meran will be found a reference to the
Strasburgh
coinage for their Tyrolese possessions of the
ancient Counts of the Tyrol down to the time of Sigismund
of Hapsburg, Margraf of Upper Alsace or Elsas. The
territory originally constituted part of the Prankish kingdom
of Austrasia, and has been by turn French and German, till
it was ceded to Germany by the diplomatic arrangements of
1871. It was divided at a very early period into Upper
and Lower Elsas, and had belonged to France by cession or
seizure since 1697, when it was lost by the fortune of war a
few years ago. Within its limits, which represented
till
recently the French departments of the Upper and Lower
Rhine, lay several important seats of coinage, and we have
noted the introduction of the steel roller at Ensisheim in
Upper Alsace by the Austrian rulers about 1580. This
mint was fairly prolific from that date to the middle of the
following century, and the money is often recognisable from
the traces of the process by which it was struck, but does
not usually bear the place of origin, the sole indication
being the addition of Landgr. A Is. to the titles.
The landgraviat of Lower Alsace long formed part of
the temporalities of the See of Strasburgh.
The houses and titles of VALOIS and BOURBON occupy
a special place of honour as those which gave to France its
reigning dynasties from 1328 to the Revolu-
Bourbon. tion. The former, originally a fief of the house
Bourbon- of Vermandois, was united to the Crown by
Montpensier. -m ., A ,1 i ,,1 r
Philip Augustus in 1214 upon the death of
Eleonore, Comtesse de Saint Quentin et de Valois,