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

386 The Coins of Europe
ground, not very convenient for those who employed it, and
somewhat perplexing to such as followed at a distance.
The Spanish and Austrian occupations, extending altogether
from about the commencement of the fifteenth to the end of
the eighteenth century, and covering the most flourishing
period of Flemish commerce and art, left mainly undisturbed
the subordinate feudal and municipal coinages, which had
successively established themselves throughout this portion
of the Low Countries, and at most exacted from the fief or
township an heraldic or nominal recognition of sovereignty.
Even the more ancient great divisions, like Brabant, were
hardly more than in a titular sense absorbed, as they for the
most part preserved their local institutions.
The history and fortunes of this county at first correspond
very closely to those of Brabant. Its independence, dating from
the tenth century, determined in the same manner
anc* near
(008*1421)
ly at tne same point of time by cession
to Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, in 1421.
But its later annals were checkered by unusually numerous
political vicissitudes, before it finally fell to the modern
kingdom of the Belgians in 1831. By turn Burgundian,
Spanish, French, Dutch, Bavarian, and Austrian, its coinage
has necessarily more or less reflected its unstable and
precarious government from the epoch of incorporation with
Burgundy. The autonomous Counts of Namur between the
eleventh and fifteenth centuries struck an enormous number
of types and varieties at various mints, of which Namur
itself and Dinant appear to have been the oldest. Gui de
Dampierre (1263-97), on a denier of the lion type, describes
himself as Marquis of Namur (G. Marchio Namvcens}. In
the course of the fourteenth century the most flourishing
era Meraude, Viesville, Neuveville - lez - Namur, and
Bouvignes were other seats of coinage. To the higher metals
copper was added under Guillaume I. (1337-91) and when
;
no fewer
we see that during that certainly prolonged reign
than eighty varieties of money in the less precious metals,
exclusively of the gold florin, were put into circulation, it
assists us in judging what a slender proportion
even the