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

Descriptive Outline of the Coinages of Eiirope 385
The duchy of Brabant, comprising the actual provinces
of Brabant, Limburg, and Antwerp (with Mechlin or Malines),
is associated with a succession of numismatic productions
which, from the somewhat primitive Louvain germ, evolved
toward the fourteenth century, in the long reign of John III.
(i 3 1 2-5 5), into a currency of equal volume, variety, and
importance, which was maintained by his successors and by
the Dukes of Burgundy after 1404. In the course of less
than a century the progress of commerce and the growth
of the towns had created a demand for a larger and more
diversified metallic medium ;
and the numismatic nomenclature
became rather complex. The monotony of the
denarius or esterlin was broken by the introduction, in the
last quarter of the thirteenth century, of the groot of various
types, including the tournois and the rijder or cavalier but
;
the first powerful impulse was given in the fourteenth
century, when John III. adopted the best foreign models
for his money, and coined pieces similar to the Florentine
florin, the French chaise and mouton, and the English groat ;
and it was here that the enlightened policy of conventionmoney
was carried out more freely and successfully than
elsewhere, enabling the same currency to pass throughout
Brabant, Hainault, and Flanders. The course of historical
events favoured and promoted the multiplication of mints
and types and the resort to higher values, no less than the
establishment of a more intelligible monetary economy.
The changes of dynasty from time to time, the fusion of
Brabant with Burgundy (1404) and of Burgundy with
Austria (1477), with the eventual entrance of the Spaniards
on the scene, and the rise of the Austrian and Spanish
Netherlands, swelled an already ever -increasing body of
numismatic types ;
and whil,e in Brabant itself, no longer an
autonomous duchy, but under Charles V. a province subject
to a foreign master, the coinage of the monarchy was so far
systematised as to possess a statutory unit (the mite} and its
multiples up to 1440, the former Brabantine and Burgundian
specie, and still more the seigniorial currencies, contributed
to accumulate a mass of monetary tokens on the same
2 C