The History of Currency, 1252 to 1896

by William Arthur Shaw

The currency history of Spain up to the conquest of America is one long list of alterations in the coinage, and of petitions from merchants and various Cortes for or against changes in the rating of the coins. The oro gran modulo was rated at 100 pesetas, under Alfonso XI. of Castile, 1312-50, and at 1000 under his successor, Peter the Cruel, 1350-69. The oro dobla Castellana was rated at 60 pesetas under Henry II., 1369-74; at 40 under Henry the Crafty, 1390-1406; and at 100 under John II.,

1406-54. In the case of this country the troubles in the fourteenth century arose from the proximity of France, the circulation of lower-rated French coins, and the consequent depletion of the treasure of the kingdom. In Aragon, for instance, the charter of Peter IV. in 1346 had ordered the coining of gold after the same weight and fineness as of the florin of Florence. It was found too high, and three years later he was obliged to cancel it by another proclamation, ordering his own gold coins to be made of the same weight and fineness as the écus of the French kings. The close of his reign and the early part of that of his successor witnessed acute crisis and distress, which led to Henry II.'s celebrated reduction of the coinage at the Cortes of Medina del Campo in 1371.

In 1391-93 another general proclamation was issued, ordering a reduction of the value of the monies and fixing new rules of exchange, and this was followed by one in 1398, prohibiting the circulation of foreign coins in Spain, except at bullion value. This latter was a common device, as will be seen in the case of our own country. It proved ineffectual to prevent the outflow of the metals, and when re-enacted in 1413 was found to be of as little avail. The Cortes of 1442 (Valladolid) complained bitterly, in a petition, of the money drawn away from the realm by foreign merchants, and in the same year a fresh ordinance was issued to readjust the values of the native monies to the foreign coins. In this schedule, doblas de la Banda

were rated at 100 maravedis, and the florin d'oro d'Aragon at 65 maravedis. In 1473, only thirty or so years later, by the charter of Henry IV., issued at Segovia, these coins were rated at 300 and 200 maravedis respectively. It was only with the advent of the Catholic sovereigns that the internal disorder and want of unity of the Spanish system was effectually remedied, in the very hour of that discovery of a new world which was to put upon Spain the vital function of distributing the new stores of precious metals (see account of Spanish monies, [Appendix III.]).

Germany.

The movements of the precious metals in Germany—which, as far as the ratio of the two metals is concerned, may be held to include the Netherlands up to 1552, when Flanders withdrew from the monetary system of the Holy Roman Empire—is a record of exactly the same process of natural and gradual appreciation of the metal (i.e. depreciation of the weight and fineness of the coin) as in Spain, France, and England. In the accompanying tables the movement of silver is illustrated by means of the groschen, and that of gold by the Rhenish gulden. These coins, it need hardly be said, were not unit coins, nor sole prevailing. They are chosen from the bewildering variety with which the numerous independent Mints of Germany have succeeded in perplexing posterity, as being of relatively greater repute and wider acceptance, and

because it is a simply impossible task to combine all the denominations of these coins, in order to deduce an average.

Up to 1375 the German gold coin was minted in close imitation of the Florentine florin. The weight was 53 grs., as was that of the Florentine piece; and the lily and St. John, the guardian saint of Florence, were both employed in the two coins, the German piece being indeed issued at first under the denomination, Florin d'or.

From the above-named date, however, and onwards, each succeeding and various power altered type, weight, or alloy, with more or less arbitrariness, but always to the increasing of the confusion of the system as a whole. And it was to remedy this confusion, or to reduce it somewhat, that the monetary union of the four electoral princes of the Rhine was established (8th June 1386), under the lead of the three towns, Frankfort, Speyer, and Worms; under which the four princes, Frederick, Archbishop of Cologne, Carl, Archbishop of Treves, Adolf, Archbishop of Mainz, and Rupert, Count Palatine of the Rhine, agreed upon a common minting of gold gulden. According to the treaty, 66 such gulden were to be minted from the Cologne mark of gold, each of the alloy of 22 carats 6 grs. gold, and 1 carat 6 grs. silver. In 1402 this coinage was confirmed at Mainz by the Mint edict of Rupert II.[4]