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

Descriptive Outline of the Coinages of Europe 397
and Moneta Santi-Pavli.
This personage had established in
1300 a mint at Elincourt, in the diocese of Cambrai, where
he was enabled to copy with greater impunity the money of
his neighbours and contemporaries ;
and we have a variety
of denominations from this seat of coinage, more or less
exact contrefa^ons
of the cavaliers of Valenciennes, the gros
au portail of Alost, the coquibus of Cambrai, and other descriptions.
His widow pursued the same monetary piracy,
and was obliged in 1337 to discontinue the practice of
with
melting down the French regal money and recoining
it
a mixture of billon imported from that kingdom. The
Countess Marie (1317-39) even went so far as to take into
de la
her employment a messenger of the king, Aimery
Coste. In 1360, an heiress brought the county of Saint-
Pol in marriage to the house of Luxemburgh.
The coinage of Cambrai is believed to have been
exclusively regal or episcopal. The privilege to the See
dates from the reign of Charles le Chauve, and
Cambrai
was renewed by successive emperors down to the
close of the twelfth century. The earliest pieces
connected with this city are of regal origin, and bear the
names of Charles le Chauve and Zuintibold. The mints
were Cambrai (Cateau Cambresis) and Saint-Gery in the
vicinity ; but the latter was eventually amalgamated. The
mint of Cateau Cambresis is cited in the Imperial Charter of
1001. From a litigation which occurred between the See
and the Count of Cambrai, 934-47, it is augurable that the
secular lord was not entitled to any share in the rights or
profits attendant on the coinage, nor did the city ever
participate in them. But the chapter claimed a tenth, and
was accustomed, sede vacante, to exercise full vicarious
jurisdiction in this as in other respects. The two important
eras were the reigns of Gui IV. and Pierre IV. (1342-68),
when the currency became more diversified, and the first
gold appeared, and that of Maxim ilien de Berghes,
the first
archbishop (i 5 56-70), who struck the gold ecus of 40 patards
and other new varieties, not forgetting mites of pure copper,
as distinguished from the deniers noirs of his predecessors.