THE ROYAL NUMISMATIC SOCIETY
The monthly meeting of the Royal Numismatic Society was held on December 18th, Sir Henry Howorth, Vice-President, presiding. Mr. G. F. Hill read a paper entitled "The Mint of Crosraguel Abbey," written by Dr. George Macdonald, who was unable to be present. Recent excavations at Crosraguel ("Crossregal") Abbey, a Cluniac foundation in Ayrshire, founded in 1244, and endowed by the Scottish kings with extraordinary privileges, resulted in the discovery in a latrine-drain of a large number of small objects, some of a miscellaneous nature, others evidently the remains of a local mint: large quantities of small tags of brass, needles, portions of thin sheets, etc., as well as objects and pieces of copper and lead, together with 197 coins of billon, bronze, or copper and brass. The coins are (a) contemporary imitations of pennies of James III. and IV., and farthings of James IV., including twenty which are a combination of the obverse of one type with the reverse of another; (b) fifty-one pennies bearing a cross on one side and a regal orb on the other, and the inscriptions Jacobus Dei Gra. Rex and Crux pellit omne crimen variously abbreviated; (c) eighty-eight copper or brass farthings, of types not hitherto known, inscribed Moneta Pauperum. The imitations of class (a) are the "black money" known from records. The pennies of class (b) are almost exclusively found in Scotland, though they have hitherto been attributed to one or other James of Aragon. They were clearly minted at Crosraguel, the types having a punning significance. They and the farthings are the only known instance in Great Britain of an Abbey coinage, such as is very frequent on the Continent, e.g., at Cluny. The inscription Moneta pauperum shows that the coins were intended to provide small change for the especial benefit of the poor like the seventeenth century tokens. The mint was probably suppressed by James IV.
At the meeting of the Society on January 20th, Rev. E. A. Sydenham gave the results of his study of the "Coinage of Augustus."