remedy, ordained that no merchant alien should constrain nor bind any of his liege people by promise covenant or liege, to make him payment in gold for any manner of debt due to him, nor refuse to receive payment in silver for any manner of such duty or debt, upon the pain of the double value of the same."
In 1439 provision was again ordered to prevent exportation of money by merchant aliens. It was renewed in 1448, and five years later the Commons petitioned that the silver mines of Devon and Cornwall, which had not been worked for a long time, might be again opened, on account of the great scarcity of money.
The confusion of the Wars of the Roses, however, renders it slightly problematical how far the two successive lowerings of the coinage, which took place in 1460 and 1465 or 1470, are to be attributed to arbitrary action or to a natural process. By the recoinage of 1460 the noble was increased in weight from 108 grs. to 120 grs., and the value from 6s. 8d. to 8s. 4d., being a real appreciation of the grain of gold from .7407 to .7500 of a penny. At approximately the same date, 1464, the weight of the silver penny was lowered from 15 to 12 grs. In the succeeding recoinage of 1465 and 1470 these rates were again altered. A new gold coin, the angel, was instituted, weighing 80 grs., and valued at 6s. 8d., while the weight of the silver penny was left unaltered. The ratio was accordingly changed to 11.15.
This was the last change of the coinage made in
England before the era of the discovery of America. The internal effects which the changes had on the commerce of the time are hidden from us by the disturbing influences of the Wars of the Roses.
CONCLUSION OF THE FIRST PERIOD
But it is, probably, in connection with this change of the English ratio—or with some wider, general movement, acting on both countries alike—that the last monetary ordinances of Louis XI. of France, referred to above, are to be understood.
These acts of conflicting policies mark the conclusion of the first period of European metallic monetary history, for no further changes were enacted previous to the close of the century and the discovery of America. As far as England was concerned, the monetary system remained comparatively unchanged till the days of Henry VII.
On a review of the whole period two simple facts emerge with unmistakable plainness and import.
1. It was a period in which the commercial expanse outstripped the reinforcing supply of the precious metals, and therefore in which a real decline of prices[8] prevails.