2. The evil effects of such decline were enormously increased by shortsighted, crafty manipulation of the currency by the European rulers, and by the rough, unscientific system of the prevailing coinage and exchange rates, and by the inability of the age to
understand, or even to perceive, the hidden working of two metals see-sawing against each other—acting as levers against each other—cutting each other's throats. The discovery of America corrected the fall of prices and saved Europe, but it left her rulers as deadly ignorant as before of the workings of bimetallism—to give a name to what they had not even perceived as a phenomenon, much less as a system.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] This is the date accepted by the numismatic authorities. It is adopted by Orsini (Storia delle Monete della Repubblica Fiorentina, p. xxiv, where he states the authority for it). It is nevertheless open to serious doubt. See in De Saulcy, Documents I. pp. 115-131, references to florins d'or from 1180 onwards. On the other hand, as to the nature of the florin de compte and its distinction from the florin d'or, see M.L. Blancard, Revue numismatique, 1886, pp. 48, 218, and 1887, p. 259; and Vicomte D'Avenel, Histoire de la propriété, etc., i. p. 41.
[2] Est a notter que le Roi en fit forger aulcune quantité (some slight quantity) d'or du poids de 12 den. 16 gr. chacune pièce laguelle auvrage il dedia seullement pour sou aulmosne aux pauvres ausquels souvent il lavait les piedz par humilité. Et en fut jamais inventée ladite pièce d'or pour aultre cause que dessus et non pour monnaie uzuelle et publicque." (De Saulcy, Documents, i. 115, 122, 125).
[3] See, however, in De Saulcy, i. 31, a mention of manteletz d'or de Flandre in 1265.
[4] Soetbeer considers the standard in 1386 as 23 fine, and asserts that, by the Mint edict of 1402, it was lowered to 22 1⁄2 carats.
[5] For an estimation of the commercial effect of these debasements, see Vicomte D'Avenel, Histoire de la propriété, etc., i. 53-54
[6] For a similar table calculated in francs, see Vicomte D'Avenel, Histoire de la propriété, etc., i. 62, 481, where the figures are very different. On Le Vicomte D'Avenel's method of calculation, see the English Historical Review.