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

Introduction 33
began to appear on the German and Netherland currencies,
is generally shewn to the best advantage by the staff of the
mint-master ;
and it is a pleasure to meet with a mediaeval
piece in high preservation, where the skilfully -executed
portrait or other design is as fresh as when it left the die,
and is perfect in all its elaborate details. The mintage is
obviously as paramount in importance as the part played by
the moneyer for the finest production may be marred in
;
the striking, while the utility to the student of the most
barbarous effort peculiarly depends on the choice of an
adequate flan and a successful transfer to it of the type.
Perhaps there is no country in Europe where the weight
of the money has fluctuated more than in Russia, and yet
there is none where, from the great numismatic revolution
under Peter the Great, the coinage in every
metal has been
carried out with greater care, and where so few weakly-struck
pieces have been produced, or at least suffered to pass.
A natural fruit of the always increasing monetary interchange
among the various divisions of Europe was the
mutual imitation of types by moneyers in quest of novel or
improved designs. We find from the very outset the Merovingian
dynasty in France, the Visigoths in Spain, the
Anglo-Saxons in England, even the Italians, copying with
a varied measure of skill and success the products of the
mints of Utrecht and West Friesland in the Low Countries,
and the German types. The Netherlands, on their side,
adopted the English rose - noble, the Swiss dicken, the
Bolognese lira, the Brunswick thaler, the Hungarian gold
type of Virgin and
1
Child, the French gros, the last a piece
of which the germ is Oriental. Throughout Eastern Europe
the Byzantine influence and style were followed with an
intermixture of Arab and Tartar feeling ;
in the North, and
eventually in the West, through immigrants or invaders, the
Teutonic models prevailed ; and, finally, in the South in
1
What is generally known as the Hungarian type, or Italian ungaro of gold,
limited itself to reproducing the small full-length portrait on obverse. But the
Netherlands copied the whole, including the of course incongruous legend. This
rather favourite pattern, as far as the portrait went, was copied by the Medici
and other Italian rulers.
D