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

Introduction 4 7
material for fabricating the new pieces
was of continental
origin.
XV
In ancient times the mutual association of money with
weight on the original theory and basis of exchange is perceptible
in the Spartan iron currency and the primitive
Roman As and its parts ; and when those inconvenient
symbols had been superseded or modified, the idea survived
in such terms as drachma, libra, lira, livra, peso, peseta, ounce,
while among certain uncivilised communities the use of bars
lingered down to the present time. The Hollanders in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries employed for their
commerce with the East Indies and Ceylon a class of coinage
approximate in character to that in vogue among the native
population rough thick pieces of metal, or copper ingots of
graduated lengths, stamped with the respective values. This
was a concession on the part of the European trader to the
Asiatic, for at that period we know very well that the
Low Countries were numismatically in a very advanced
state.
The link between the old and modern systems
is
strangely illustrated by a temporary Franco-Spanish bronze
coinage in the South of France in the thirteenth-fifteenth
century. It appears to have consisted of a livra, the half,
the quarter, and the eighth or onsa, so that those responsible
for the output of the series imagined and created an artificial
monetary pound of eight ounces ;
and in point
of fact the
terminology imported a twofold use as a coin and a weight.
In England the heavy copper penny and twopence of
1797, equivalent to one ounce and two ounces, was the sole
instance of an approach to the same principle ;
and both
these pieces were used as weights. But in what may be
described as recent days in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries the simple habits and ignorance of the Swedish
and Russian peasantry prompted a resort and adherence to
a species of currency which partook of the nature of barter