So far Charlemagne triumphed. But in the meantime the artificial ratio of 1:4, sought to be established between gold and silver, could not be maintained. The pound of silver remained the standard in accounts, but one of Charlemagne’s successors restored the Imperial ratio of 1:12 and enacted that the pound of pure gold should no longer be sold at any other price than 12 pounds of silver. The date of the edict by which this restoration of the old ratio was secured was A.D. 864.[147]
These were the changes in the currency which took place during the period of the formation of the Lex Frisionum and Lex Saxonum which we have next to examine.
No wonder that they should have introduced confusion and alterations in the text of the various clauses. And in order that we may be able to feel our way through them it now only remains that we should realise the actual difference between the amount of silver in the 40 denarii of the solidus of the Lex Salica and the amount of silver in the 12 denarii of the new solidus of the nova moneta which had thenceforth to take its place as legal tender in the payment of debts and wergelds.
In the first place, we know that the denarius of the nova moneta was a silver penny of 32 wheat-grains, so that Charlemagne’s solidus of 12 silver pence contained 384 wheat-grains of silver.
All debts could be paid in one third of the weight of silver required before.
In the next place, whatever the denarii of the Lex Salica may originally have been, we know that the Merovingian silver denarii which had long been current in France and in England were of the same weight as the Merovingian gold tremisses, viz. 28·8 wheat-grains. Forty of these would contain 1152 wheat-grains of silver—i.e. exactly three times as much silver as the twelve denarii of the nova moneta.
So that if a wergeld were paid in silver it could now be paid in exactly one third of the weight of silver hitherto required under the Salic law, and so of every other debt.
Finally, not only was the ratio between gold and silver disturbed, but also the ratio between money and cattle. And this was an important matter in the payment of wergelds, for, as we have seen, the normal wergeld was 100 head of cattle. Obviously, wergelds would no longer be paid, as of old, either in gold or in cattle, when they could be paid at a third of the value in silver.
In which currency are the wergelds of the Frisians and Saxons recorded in the laws?