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

534 The Coins of Europe
ical past
so rich and varied as that of the French and
Spaniards.
The series is rich in prizes for the fortunate collector who
secures some of its almost numberless rarities. The whole
body of ancient autonomous Portuguese money
down to the fourteenth century in good preservation
is rare to excess, and of some reigns no such coinage
is
known. But from documentary testimony
it is to be inferred
that Mohammedan types were current ;
and in commercial
and legal transactions from the tenth century we
hear of the uwdio, the metJica or nietcale, and the pezante
Portuguese terms applied to the same descriptions of money
as were simultaneously employed and accepted in Castile
and other parts of Spain. These numismatic monuments
and the equally uncommon coins of Sancho I.
(1185-1212),
succeeded by a strange gap of sixty or seventy years which
are unrepresented, constitute -the foundation of any series
claiming or seeking to be complete. But prior to the middle
of the fourteenth century, Portugal, in common with the
greater part of Europe, seems to have possessed no denomination
higher than a dinheiro. The reign of Pedro I. (1357-
67)
is notable for the commencement of a new era in the
coinage and the first
experiment in the direction of gold and
silver types, the dobra and mea dobra, and the tornez and
meo tornez. These pieces, especially the dobra and
-gdobra,
and the productions which immediately succeeded under
Fernando I., are among the chief desiderata in a Portuguese
cabinet. The improvement in style and variety was henceforward
fairly sustained. We have already spoken of the
rarity of the reaes or reals of silver of Joao I. (1385-1433) ;
the coins of the short reign of Duarte or Edward (1433-38)
are entitled to the same honourable distinction ;
and those
of Alfonso V. (1438-81) are not only difficult to procure,
but of importance on more than a single account, as it was
at this time that the gold escudo and cruzado were first struck,
as well as the grosso or affonsim of silver. From John
II.
(1481-95) the element of scarcity becomes more incidental ;
but the justo and espadim of that king, and the portuguez