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 509
formed the commencement of the empire on which it was
once said that the sun never set, and on which it has
long set for ever. The united kingdom of Castile and Leon
proved to be the central point, to which the remainder of
the Spanish territories successively gravitated and by virtue
;
of a few capable rulers, and still more of the favouring
course of events, this corner of Europe acquired a temporary
preponderance, which carried with it the elements of decay ;
for the spread of Spanish rule over so much of the Continent
and over America so near to the unification of the
monarchy was a policy which necessarily weakened the
mother-country, and impeded its
internal development.
Numismatically, the absence of healthy political life is
not often of great moment, and is even apt to prove the
source of interesting phenomena ; and, moreover, neither in
this case nor in others which have occurred to notice was
the union of crowns tantamount to monetary or even executive
homogeny. The coinage of Castile and Leon was that
which, subsequently to the accession of Ferdinand and Isabella
as titular rulers of all Spain, enjoyed the widest circulation, yet
Arragon, Cataluna, Spanish or Upper Navarre, and Valencia
long preserved their special currencies and the types familiar
to the people, and so late as the reign of Charles V. certain
silver pieces struck for Arragon with his own bust and that
of his mother, Joanna, bore on their face a recollection of
the then historical contest between Christianity and Mohammedanism
in the four Moors' heads and the legend Trophea.
Regnvm. Aragonv.
The too literal heraldry of the early Spanish money gave
a lion as the symbol of Leon (Legio) and a castle as that of
Castile ;
and alike on the temporary and permanent union
of those two states the cognisances are found occupying either
side of the coins or the cantoned reverses. The introduction
of portraits sometimes displaced the lion, and the
employment of new types, as the paschal lamb on a piece
of John II. (1406-54), made it
necessary to dispense with
the castle. But, as a general rule, through the course of
centuries down to the present day, excepting the brief