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

5 12 The Coins of Europe
monuments other than regal which have descended to us in
Spain are provincial, not seigniorial, and represent the
partial survival of independent political life in half a dozen
states where the Christian had necessarily supplanted the
Mohammedan rule, and the latter had left no allodial traces
of its existence. The only cases where monetary privileges
were enjoyed by bodies or institutions other than the Crown
were certain monasteries and churches at Segovia, Santiago,
and a few other points which received the authority to
strike coins in the twelfth century (i 109-57), and this
limitation will be found to have extended to Portugal, both
before and after its
severance from Castile.
Many of the Spanish coins even down to the present
century display the peculiarity of having the place of origin,
the moneyer, and the value on either side of the obverse or
reverse, or as part of the legend. The mint is sometimes
indicated by an initial and sometimes by a symbol. In a
dinhero of Fernando III. of Castile and Leon, 1230-52,
Burgos is understood by a B at the top of the castle in the
upper left-hand canton of the reverse, and the m.m. is somewhat
similarly denoted on a cornado of Sancho IV., i
294-95.
Toledo is ascertained from the crowned initial on a piece of
John II. (1406-54) dividing T and O, and on a real of
Ferdinand and Isabella (1479-1504) by on either side
J
of the shield. There is a disposition to refer to the colonies
all the coins with the Pillars of Hercules, and those
with to the
^
mint of Mexico or of Zacatecas. But as far
as the Pillars are concerned, they really seem to have no
such bearing, and to point rather to the ancient tie between
Spain and Africa and
; they occur on pieces which have no
ostensible colonial character. Their presence in one of the
cantons of the shield of a 20 reales of Joseph Napoleon,
1810, accompanied by two globes, merely illustrates the
usual legend of Hispaniarum et Indiarum Rex, and on the
other hand an 8 reales of Charles IV., 1794, with ME as a
m.m. for Mexico, offers the more ordinary form of the type
without the globes. It becomes tolerably clear that the