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.