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The Monetary Pattern of Sixteenth-Century Coinage1: The Prothero Lecture 1970

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

P. Grierson
P. Grierson
Affiliation:
Gonville and Cauis College, Cambridge
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Extract

THE equipment of any well-appointed counting house in the late sixteenth century would include, as a matter of course, one or more money-books illustrating and evaluating all coins likely to come its master's way. Such money-books had originated in the late fifteenth century, when the invention of printing had made it possible to illustrate the official ordonnances, tariffs, or placards listing coins approved for circulation and giving their legal values. The earliest ones were no more than flysheets: a Flemish one of 1499 illustrating the nine ‘good florins of the Electors’, an English one of 1504 illustrating two English groats and a Flemish double patard. In the early sixteenth century these flysheets grew into small brochures, as their publishers found it convenient to take account of coins not mentioned in official proclamations but found commonly in circulation. They were, in fact, becoming illustrated versions of the privately compiled lists of coins and values which are known to us from the time of Pegolotti onwards. In due course they attained the status of substantial volumes, their format being often made tall and narrow, like that of account ledgers, so that they could stand with these on the merchant's shelves.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 21 , December 1971 , pp. 45 - 60
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1971

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References

2 No general study of these tariffs exists, but some impression of their number and variety can be obtained from the chronological list of French and Low Country examples in Engel, A. and Serrure, R., Répertoire des sources imprimées de la numismatique française (Paris, 1889), ii. 431–95,Google Scholar and Supplément, pp. 43–89. On their origin and early history see vangelder, H. Enno, ‘Les plus anciens tarifs monétaires illustrés des Pays-Bas’, in Centennial Publication of the American Numismatic Society, ed. Ingholt, H. (New York, 1958), pp. 239–72.Google Scholar

3 For good illustrations of most of the coins referred to in this lecture see Porteous, J., Coins in History: a survey of coinage from the reform of Diocletian to the Latin Monetary Union (London, 1969), an excellent piece of haute Vulgarisation.Google Scholar

4 ‘Mesire Henric Dandle, li noble Dus de Venise, mande venir li charpentiers, et fist erraument apariller et faire chalandres et nes et galies a plante; et fist erraument faire mehailles d'argent por doner as maistres la sodee et ce que il deservoient: que les petites que il avoient ]i.e. the earlier small denari/ ne lor venoient enci a eise. Et dou tens de Monseignor Henric Dandle en sa, fu comencie en Venise a faire les nobles mehailles d'argent qu l'en apele ducat, qui cort parmi le monde por sa bonte’ (Martino da Canale, La cronaca dei Veneziani, in Archivio storico italiano, viii ]1845/, 320). The earliest recorded value of the grosso is 26d., but it may be taken for granted that it was originally worth 2s. After the creation of a Venetian gold coin in 1284 the term ducat (ducato d'oro) was gradually limited to it, the ducato d'argento being termed a grosso or matapano, the latter being a loan-word from Arabic.

5 For the quarto and its function, see Grierson, P., ‘Ercole d'Este and Leonardo da Vinci's equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza’, Italian Studies, xiv (1959), 41–42;Google Scholar for the barile, Orsini, I., Storia delle monete della repubblicafiorentina (Florence, 1760), pp. 280–82.Google Scholar

6 Attempts were made to remedy this either (I) by clauses in mint ordinances prescribing the proportions in which denominations were to be struck or (2) by reducing the proportionate amounts of precious metal in low denominations, so that their lower intrinsic value could be set off against their increased cost of production.

7 Rotuli ParHamentorum, iii. 498 (‘diverses signes de Plombe’).

8 Stewart, I. H., The Scottish coinage (2nd ed., London, 1967), pp. 51–56, 140–41, 197.Google Scholar

9 Chalon, R., Memoires sur les monnaies des comtes de Hainaut (Brussels, 1848), P. J. no. xviii (pp. 230–33). In this document of 1463, Duke Philip the Good limits their issue to £32 worth a year.Google Scholar

10 Lafaurie, J., Les monnaies des rois de France, i (Paris-Bâle, 1951), p. 118, no. 544. Lafaurie's explanation, that they were intended for the royal alms, is not correct.Google Scholar

11 Rot. Part., iii. 319.

12 Heinze, R. W., ‘The pricing of meat: a study in the use of royal proclamations in the reign of Henry VIII’, Hist.J., xii (1969), 586, citing the Journal of the Court of Aldermen.Google Scholar

13 Platter, T., Englandfahrt im Jahre 1959, ed. Hecht, H. (Halle, 1929), p. 74.Google ScholarErasmus', Adagiorum Collectanea (Paris, 1500x) is sometimes cited as evidence for the circulation of plumbeos Angliae during the reign of Henry VII, but the passage containing this phrase first appears in the Basel edition of 1533 (Adagiorum Opus, p. 1051).Google Scholar

14 Sambon, A. G., ‘I “cavalla” di Ferdinando I d'Aragona, re di Napoli’, Rivista italiana di numismatica, iv (1891), 325–56;Google ScholarPapadopoli, N., Le monetedi Venezia, ii (Venice, 1897), 6–7Google Scholar. A proposal to introduce such coins at Venice in 1463–64 had come to nothing (Ibid., i. 282–87).

15 The Venetian proposal of 1463 was formally ‘quod … cudi debeat moneta raminis que nichil teneat argenti, ut, per consequens, cum nichil exinde lucri pervenire possit, nemo eam defraudare seu falsificare querant’.

16 The best short account of the new features of sixteenth century coinage will be found in Porteous, op. cit., p. 140 ff. Fully documented studies of the background will be found in Braudel, F., La Méditerranée et le monde méditerranéan à l'époque de Philippe II (2nd ed. Paris, 1966),Google Scholar i. 420 ff., in Spooner, F. C., L'Economie mondiale et les frappes monétaires en France 1493–1680 (Paris, 1956), p. 7 ff.,Google Scholar and in the work of Magalhães-Godinho already referred to, though the last, while immensely learned and much wider in scope than the title of the book suggests, is confused in its arrangement and difficult to use. The relevant section in the classical work of Kulischer, J., Allgemeine Wirtschaftsgeschichte des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit, ii (Munich-Berlin, 1929), 327 ff., must be consulted with caution, as it contains a number of startling errors, e.g. the statement that the mint of Joachimstal largely relied on Tyrolese silver for its issues.Google Scholar

17 Cf. Wolfstrigl-Wolfskron, M. R., Die tiroler Erzbergbaue, 1301–1665 (Innsbruck, 1903),Google Scholar and the valuable general survey of Nef, J. U., ‘Silver production in Central Europe, 1450–1618’, Journal of Political Economy, xlix (1941). 575–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 Papadopoli, op. cit., i. 257, 259.

19 In the fifteenth century, to a much greater extent than in the fourteenth, Hungarian gold was minted locally instead of being exported for minting elsewhere. Ducats of the Emperor Sigismund and of Matthias Corvinus are amongst the commonest gold coins of the period.

20 Papadopoli, op. cit., ii. 5, 10.

21 Ibid., ii. 19. The author in question was Sebastiano Erizzo, and although he quotes it as an observation of the time it may be to some extent personal, since Erizzo was interested in both ancient numismatics and political thought.

22 Motta, E., ‘Documenti Viscontei-Sforzeschi per la storia della zecca di Milano’, Rivista italiana di numismatica, vii (1894), PP. 363–64, no. 302. The lira is mentioned only in the Italian version of the mint specification of 4 June, while the Latin text does not go above the half-lira. Whether the omission of the lira is merely a slip, or whether the creation of the full lira represents an afterthought, is not clear. The half-lira, in characteristically medieval fashion, weighed more than half the lira but was of slightly less fine silver.Google Scholar

23 Nagl, A., ‘Das Tiroler Geldwesen unter Erzherzog Sigmund und die Entstehung des Silberguldens’, Numismatische Zeitschrift, xxxviii (1906), 45–168;Google ScholarMoeser, K. and Dworschak, F., Die grosse Münzreform unter Erzherzog Sigmund von Tirol (Vienna, 1936);Google ScholarDer Tiroler Taler (Innsbruck, 1963). The last is an extremely valuable catalogue of an exhibition held in the Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum.Google Scholar

24 There is no satisfactory study of the monetary reform in Saxony. The most convenient guide to the actual coins is Haupt, W., Tabellen zur sächsischen Münzkunde (Dresden, 1963).Google Scholar

25 Fiala, E., ‘Das Münzwesen der Grafen Schlick’, Num. Zeitschr., xxii (1890), 165–264; xxiii (1891), 195–288.Google Scholar

26 Motta, art. Cit., pp. 238–39, nos. 268, 270.

27 Cf.Grierson, P., ‘The origins of the English sovereign and the symbolism of the closed crown’, British Numismatic Journal, xxxiii (1964), 118–34.Google Scholar