In A.D. 803 a clause was inserted in a Capitulare to the effect that all debts to the King should be paid in solidi of 12 denarii ‘excepta freda quæ in lege Saliga scripta sunt.’[144] This looks like a general reservation of the fines and wergelds of the Lex Salica. But it does not seem to have been so intended, or perhaps there was vacillation in the Councils of the Emperor.
A Capitulare of A.D. 816[145] contained the following:—
De omnibus debitis solvendis sicut antiquitus fuit constitutum per duodecim denarios solidus solvatur per totam Salicam legem, excepto leudis, si Saxo aut Friso Salicum occiderit, per 40 dinarios solvant solidum. Infra Salicos vero ex utraque parte de omnibus debitis sicut diximus 12 denarii per solidum solvantur, sive de homicidiis sive de omnibus rebus.
In the payment of all debts according to ancient custom the solidi shall be paid by 12 denarii throughout Salic Law, except in the case of wergelds, if a Saxon or Frisian shall kill a Salic Frank let the solidus be paid by 40 denarii. Among Salic Franks, however, on both sides as to all debts, as we have said, 12 denarii shall be paid for the solidus, whether in the case of homicides or anything else.
As between Salic Franks, therefore, the solidus of 12 denarii was to be legal tender in payment of wergelds and everything else.
The nova moneta enforced by penalties.
This was all very well for debtors, but it was not so satisfactory to creditors. The exception that, when a Frank was killed by a Saxon or a Frisian, the wergeld was still to be paid in the solidus of 40 denarii, was an admission that to receive it in solidi of 12 denarii would have been a hardship. And as to the general public, the acceptance of payment of debts in the denarii of the nova moneta had to be secured by penalties. A clause was introduced into the Capitulare of A.D. 794[146] according to which freemen refusing the new denarii were to be fined 15 solidi; whilst servi refusing them were to be publicly beaten naked at a post.
And it became permanent and was adopted by Offa and Alfred.
The permanent result was very remarkable. The new currency was maintained as legal tender in France, and the gold currency practically disappeared. Charlemagne and his successors coined very few more gold solidi and tremisses. King Offa and after him Alfred raised the English sceat to the penny of 32 wheat-grains, probably in imitation of the nova moneta, and Charlemagne’s pound of 240 of these pence—i.e. of 7680 wheat-grains of silver—became generally recognised as the pound of monetary reckoning in Western Europe.
But the ratio between gold and silver went back to 1:12.