V. THE MINAS WHICH SURVIVED IN USE SIDE BY SIDE WITH THE ROMAN POUND.
According to the writers of the Merovingian and later period collected by Hultsch,[12] the Roman pound was not the only standard of weight which was in customary use in Europe.
The gold mina of 200 gold solidi.
We have seen that the commonly prevalent wergeld of 200 gold solidi was in fact the same thing, in wheat-grains, as the heavy Eastern and Greek gold mina of 19,200 wheat-grains. But besides this, there were two other minas of interest to this inquiry which seem to have been more or less locally in use, and more or less connected with the wergelds.
The mina Italica of 240 scripula of 24 wheat-grains or 20 Roman ounces.
It seems that the Roman pound of 12 ounces was not the only pound in use in Italy. A still older Roman pound of 10 Roman ounces or 5760 wheat-grains seems to have existed,[13] which was in fact a pound of 240 scripula of 24 wheat-grains. And two of these pounds made what was called the mina Italica of 20 Roman ounces. This mina Italica survived into Merovingian times. It contained 480 Roman scripula, and according to authorities quoted by Hultsch[14] the scripulum was so far a common unit in Gaul as to have earned the name of the denarius Gallicus. The number of Roman wheat-grains in the mina Italica was 11,520. Its weight was 545 grammes.
In the Merovingian formulæ and in the early charters of St. Gall there are constant references to fines of so many libræ of gold and so many pondera of silver, from which the inference may be drawn that the pondus of silver was a different weight from the libra of gold. Whether the older Roman pound or half-mina-Italica was the ‘pondus’ or not, the fact that it consisted of 240 scripula may possibly have made it a precedent for the monetary mode of reckoning of 240 pence to the pound, adopted by the Franks and Anglo-Saxons.
This mina Italica has also a Celtic interest. It is curious to note that whilst so late as the tenth century the Cymric galanas or wergeld was paid in cows, the cow was equated with a monetary reckoning in scores of pence, or unciæ argenti, of which twelve made a pound of 240 pence. At the same time in the Cymric Codes there are mentioned, as we shall find, two kinds of pence: the legal pence, probably those current at the time in England of 32 w.g., and the curt pence or scripula of one third less, viz. 24 w.g. Now, whilst 240 of the former would equal the pound of the nova moneta of Charlemagne, and of later Anglo-Saxon reckoning, 240 of the curt pence or scripula would equal the older Roman pound or half-mina-Italica.
Turning from the Cymric monetary system to that of the early Irish manuscripts and Brehon laws, we shall find that it was based on the Roman scripulum of 24 wheat-grains, and not, like the Anglo-Saxon and Frankish system, on the tremissis. And we shall find that though thus based upon the scripulum and the ounce, when payments were made in gold and silver, the reckoning, instead of making use of the Roman or any other pound, counted rather in scores of ounces; i.e. consciously or unconsciously, in so many of the mina Italica.
The mina Attica of 16 Roman ounces or 2 marks.
So much for the mina Italica and its possible Anglo-Saxon and Celtic connections.
The other mina, the mention of which is important, formed the probable basis of Scandinavian reckoning in marks instead of in pounds.
The authorities collected by Hultsch describe this mina as of 16 Roman ounces, and as the ‘mina Attica.’[15] It is a fact that 16 Roman ounces did exactly equal in weight (though not in wheat-grains) the light mina of 50 Attic staters or 100 drachmas. But under Roman influence this Attic mina no longer was divided like a mina into 100 drachmas, but had become twisted, as it were, into 16 Roman ounces and into 96 solidi of Constantine.
The mark, ore, and ortug of Scandinavia.
In Northern Europe, in nearly all the systems of reckoning which survived from mediæval times, the pound of 12 ounces was ignored. A pound of 16 ounces had taken its place. And this pound or mina of 16 ounces lay, as we shall find, at the root of the system of the earliest Scandinavian laws, with its monetary marks, ores, and ortugs, for it was the double of the mark of 8 ounces. The Russian zolotnic (or ‘gold piece’), on which the weight system of Russia is based, was theoretically identical in wheat-grains with the Roman solidus, and the Scandinavian ortug with the double solidus or stater.
It is not needful to dwell further upon these points at this moment; but it will become important to recognise the Byzantine or Eastern origin of the mina of 16 Roman ounces when we come to consider the wergelds of Northern Europe, and particularly the equation between the Danish wergeld of 8 half-marks of gold and the silver wergelds of Wessex and Mercia as described in the compact between Alfred and Guthrum.
In that compact we shall have to recognise not only the contact of two methods of monetary reckoning widely separated in origin, the one of gold and the other of silver, but also the clashing of two traditional ratios between the two metals, viz. the Scandinavian ratio of 1:8, and the restored Imperial ratio of 1:12 followed by the Anglo-Saxons.
VI. THE USE OF GOLD TORQUES AND ARMLETS, &C., INSTEAD OF COINS.
Wergelds paid in cattle or gold or silver by weight.
Although the amounts of the wergelds are generally stated in the laws in gold or silver currency, more or less directly equated with the cattle in which they were originally paid, it would be a great mistake to imagine that the wergelds were often paid actually in coin.
A moment’s consideration makes it clear that a wergeld of a hundred head of cattle, whether paid as of old in cattle or in gold or silver, was a payment too large to be paid in coin. It was a payment that no ordinary individual could pay without the aid of his kindred, and it is hardly likely that so large an amount in actual coin could be collected even from the kindred of the murderer.
Gold torques &c. made of a certain weight and used in payments.
There is plenty of evidence to show that large payments in gold and silver were mostly made by weight, and very often in gold articles—torques, armlets, and bracelets—made to a certain weight.
In the Scald’s tale is the well-known passage:—
He to me a beag gave
On which six hundred was
Of beaten gold
Scored of sceatts
In scillings reckoned.
Whether the true meaning be six hundred sceatts or six hundred scillings, we have here a beag with its weight marked upon it.
The museums of Scandinavia and of Ireland—the two poles of German and Celtic culture—are full of these gold objects, and very frequently little coils of fine gold wire are wound round them to raise their weight to the required standard.
Gold and silver objects weighing so many mancuses.
It may be mentioned, further, in passing, that in many early Anglo-Saxon charters payments and donations are made in gold and silver objects, and that the weights of these are sometimes stated in so many mancuses—the mancus being apparently a weight of gold or silver of 30 pence, and equated in the later laws, in its silver value, with the value of the ox.[16]
An historical example.
It may be worth while before concluding this chapter to refer to an historic example of the use of gold objects of definite weight, and the adjustment of their value in differing currencies. The incident deserves to be noticed, and may be of use in helping to fix upon the memory the difference, so often alluded to, between the Roman pound of 6912 wheat-grains and Charlemagne’s pound of 7680 wheat-grains. It belongs to the precise moment when Charlemagne, having issued his nova moneta, was contemplating his visit to Rome and the assumption of the Imperial title, and it has an historical interest as showing that the nova moneta was issued before the Imperial title was assumed.
Alcuin, who had long resided at the Court of Charlemagne, was now lying ill at Tours. In order to consult him, probably respecting the Imperial title, Charlemagne, with his queen Liutgarda, proceeded to visit him at Tours. Liutgarda was apparently taken ill while there, and died June 4 A.D. 800.
Alcuin weighs gold bracelets in the scales of the nova moneta.
During her illness Alcuin sent a messenger to Paulinus, the Patriarch of Aquileia, with two armillæ of fine gold from Liutgarda,[17] so that he and his priests might pray for her. He stated in his letter to Paulinus that these armillæ weighed ‘xxiv. denarii less than a full pound of the nova moneta of the king.’
Alcuin thus weighed the bracelets in the scales of the nova moneta, and they weighed twenty-four pence less than Charlemagne’s pound of 7680 wheat-grains. The interesting point is that 24 pence of the nova moneta (24 × 32 = 768) deducted from the pound of Charlemagne left exactly 6912 wheat-grains. So that when Paulinus weighed the gold bracelets in his Roman scales he would find they weighed exactly a Roman pound.[18]
But in correspondence with Ireland uses Roman weights.
And yet, though writing from Charlemagne’s Court, Alcuin, when addressing his ecclesiastical friends in Ireland, no longer used the terms of the Frankish currency. It was after all a local one. Charlemagne’s Empire had its limits, and Ireland was beyond them. The area of ecclesiastical rule was wider than both Empires put together. Alcuin writes that he and his Imperial master had distributed among the Irish monasteries so many sicli of silver. The siclus, according to the authorities collected by Hultsch,[19] was equal to two Roman argentei or drachmas of silver. So that Alcuin used the di-drachma or stater of Roman reckoning as fixed in the time of Nero, when corresponding with churches outside the Empire of his Frankish master.
Archbishop Egbert also uses Roman weights instead of local ones.
As we proceed in our inquiries we shall find another great ecclesiastic (Egbert, archbishop of York and brother of the Northumbrian king) using the same Roman monetary terms in replying to the question of his clergy respecting the wergelds to be claimed in taking their proper position and rank in the Northumbrian kingdom. The answer was given in Roman argentei and sicli, and not in Frankish solidi, or Anglo-Saxon scillings, or any other local currency.
In conclusion, the various currencies in which wergelds were paid may at first sight be perplexing, but the relevance of the facts stated in this chapter to a right understanding of the wergelds of various tribes under tribal custom, and of the amount of the wergelds to a right understanding of the constitution of tribal society, will become more and more apparent as the inquiry proceeds.
