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

30 The Coins of Europe
We seem to know comparatively
little of the history of
the somewhat extensive and artistic coinage
Maele, Count of Flanders from I 346 to 1
384.
of Louis of
This powerful
prince, who went with the times in multiplying and improving
his types, possessed at successive periods no fewer than seven
denominations in gold alone ;
and both here and in other
cases it is
obviously almost impossible to be sure whether all
the issues of a minor ruler proceeded from mints in situ, or
were struck at the nearest great centres on their behalf.
The varying delimitation of frontier from time to time
naturally accounts for the transition of seats of coinage and
for the presence of mints beyond the region to which they
may appear to have belonged. It was on a somewhat
cognate principle that the German or Roman emperor, down
to the end of the eighteenth century, struck coins for nearly
every part of Europe, and that Napoleon
I. issued French
money from the mints at Utrecht, Rome, and Turin. Paris
did not become the capital of the kingdom
till the tenth
or eleventh century, and at that time Normandy, Brittany,
Burgundy, Dauphine, Vermandois, and Navarre were independent,
while during the Middle Ages on the Spanish side
there were constant fluctuations of boundary. The capital
of the Visigothic kingdom was at Bordeaux. That of the
Merovingians, prior to their removal to Paris, had been at
Soissons, and subsequently, on the partition of the kingdom,
the seats of government were at Paris, Soissons, Orleans,
and Metz.
The mintage of coins in feudal castles was nothing
more than that of the English money in the Tower of
London during centuries. The seigniorial chateau or the
royal fortress was the only place of security, where there were
no municipal or official centres.
At present all is
changed. Our arrangements are
simplified.
The entire modern machinery
is mechanical and
monotonous. The mints of these days are strictly utilitarian.
Coins are no longer works of art and historical
landmarks.
In the case of many of the minor mints, where the