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 517
and Cerdagne). Ferdinand VII. on a 12 maravedi of 1812,
struck at Palma, with a curious bust to left, styles himself
Hisp Et Balearitnn Rex.
XVI. PORTUGAL 1
The numismatic, in common with the political, fortunes of
this portion of the Iberian Peninsula followed very closely at
first
those of the neighbouring states eventually consolidated
into the kingdom of Spain. The Gothic and Moorish elements
long influenced the Portuguese life, as they did the
currency, and the same descriptions of money, prior to the
erection of Lusitania into an independent countship by
Alfonso VI. of Castile (1078-1
in
109)
favour of his son-inlaw,
Henry of Burgundy, in 1094, indubitably circulated
over the whole region. The last struggle between the two
faiths and governments took place on this soil in 1
139, and
while the result finally crushed the Mohammedan power
in
this part of Europe, it erected the battlefield (as it were)
into a kingdom, and made the victor the founder of a royal
dynasty.
We hear of the second count, afterward king as Alfonso
I., according to the Cathedral of Braga or Bracara in 1 128
a share of the profit attendant on the national coinage, then
in its infancy and there is a
; piece of archiepiscopal origin
with Civitas Braga but the latter is
; usually ascribed to a
foreign mint, and is at all events exceptional and neither at
;
that nor any subsequent epoch does any alienation of the regal
prerogative in this respect appear to have been effected, or any
grant of a seigniorial character conferred. The consequence
is, that in the present case we have to deal solely with a
coinage emanating from the Crown, and that in that way,
and through the absence of the constitutional agencies which
1
See Manuel Bernardo Lopes Fernandes, Memoria das Moedas Correntes
em Portugal, 4, 1856.