W. C a r e w H a z l i t t Coinage of the European Continent

I. GERMANY
CONFORMABLY with the principle which we laid down and
attempted to justify in the Introduction, we now proceed to
supply a general synopsis, commencing with Germany, of
the numismatic productions of the European continent down
to the present time ;
and we shall endeavour to overlook no
features of interest or monuments of importance in any of the
numerous series which are comprised within our scheme.
It must be obvious that to dwell on any but salient and
typical points and examples in a moderate compass
is an
impossibility nor can it be requisite to bestow much
;
attention on coins or classes of coinage other than such as
appeal to our sympathy under some definite or special
aspect. As in the three previous divisions of the undertaking
we have spoken at considerable length of the prevailing
characteristics, sources, and nomenclature of the
several branches of this study, it remains the leading object
to group together in their geographical sequence particulars
most likely to be of service to the collector and amateur,
whether desirous of following the policy of the writer or of
working on different lines. Within the limits of Northern
Germany alone, were we to go no farther, we find abundant
material for illustrating the progress of coinage, and an
inexhaustible store of examples belonging to all the successive
stages of the art from its rudest infancy its gradations of
: