Seven years later, 1409, the three spiritual electors, Frederick, Archbishop of Cologne, John, Archbishop of Mainz, and Werner, Archbishop of Treves, made a new and slightly different treaty, for the purpose of again reducing the alloy of the gulden from 22 1⁄2 to 22 carats.
At this rate the system was, in the same year, at Speyer, formally accepted for themselves by the Netherlands, and at Cologne also, in 1409, by the Empire generally.
The detailed and various changes which the independent princes and powers of Germany subsequently made, it is out of the question to follow. To instance only in brief. In 1419 Frederick of Brandenburg ordered the coining of gulden for his own states, at the rate of 64 1⁄2 to the Cologne mark, and of the fineness of 19 carats—a very considerable reduction in the metal value of the coin. In 1422, only three years later, Sigismund was coining gulden 66 1⁄2 to the mark and 22 carats 6 grs. fine—a value somewhat higher than that accepted for the empire in 1409. In 1428-29, accordingly, the Emperor Sigismund issued an imperial order, which was formally adopted by the Reichstag meeting at Eger (1437) and Nürnberg (1438), by which the Cologne mark was to be coined into 68 gulden and the fineness reduced to 19 carats. Four years later, 1442, the Emperor Frederick IV. projected a further reform and reduction, proposing to coin 72 pieces of 19 carats fine, but this was not carried into effect, probably as exaggerat
ing the average depreciation of the content of the coin (or appreciation of the metal). The rate, therefore, established by Sigismund practically remained in force for a matter of sixty years.
In the diet of 1495-97 (at Worms), however, a further slight reduction in weight and fineness took place, 69 1⁄3 pieces being struck out of the Cologne mark, and the fineness lowered to 18 carats 10 grs.
On the whole, therefore, the movement of gold during these two centuries is remarkably sluggish in Germany, putting aside, i.e., the internal variations between state and state; and remarkably corresponding to, and confirmatory of, that in England. And in all probability the mean of the quantities in the two countries would aptly measure the perfectly natural or normal appreciation of gold (depreciation of the content of fine metal in the current gold coin) throughout the period.
The movement of silver during the same two hundred years, 1300-1500, is much more excited, but shows an average or mean appreciation that tallies remarkably with that of gold just described, as also with that of silver in England. The various denominations of silver coins which arose in Germany, in those years, make it a work of extreme difficulty even to attempt averages. In the accompanying tables, therefore, the groschen is taken as most fairly averaging and widely current in the empire. In its first form, the Gros Tournois, struck at Tours, in France, this coin contained 55 1⁄10 parts of a
Cologne mark, and was of the fineness of 15 loth 6 grs. In 1296, when it was first adopted in Germany (in Bohemia, and Meissen), 63 1⁄2 pieces were struck from the mark, and the fineness had been reduced to 15 loth. Its subsequent variations, up to the time of the discovery of America, are detailed in the accompanying table and in [Appendix No. V.], the principal points in which are marked by the years 1341, 1378 (a notable attempt at reformation by Charles IV. and Wenceslaus), 1390, 1412, and 1444 (marking also an attempt at reformation by treaty between the Duke of Saxony and the Margrave of Meissen).
MOVEMENTS OF SILVER IN GERMANY, 1300-1500, AS ILLUSTRATED BY THE GROSCHEN.