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

46 The Coins of Europe
the Middle Ages they continued to pass in France,
if not elsewhere, in default of small coinage, at an understood
rate.
The copper coin remained in modern times the special
machinery for all
ordinary transactions of small amount, and
its early introduction into those European states which were
the pioneers in commerce and discovery, was a step at once
wise and convenient. The Arabian and Norman settlers
'
in the Two Sicilies were
followed in this respect by the
Spaniards and the Netherlanders, the Venetians and Portuguese
and in some instances, as at Ragusa in Sicily,
;
we find copper money of Roman type and fabric, and
of admirable execution, current during the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries. In parts of Holland, even in the
fourteenth century, there was already seigniorial or feudal
money in copper. In the later half of the fifteenth, Pesaro
in Italy possessed a currency, like Venice, in copper sesmi,
bearing on the obverse the effigy of Giovanni Sforza (1483-
1510), and on the reverse the significant words Pvblicae
Commoditati. A copper grano of Malta of 1629 reads on
reverse Hospitali Hiervsalem Vt Commodivs, Almost within
our own time Portugal, though deposed from its former rank
as a first-rate Power, had an issue of 4O-reis pieces in copper
of the module of the English twopence of 1797, inscribed in
a similar spirit, Pvblicae Vtilitati.
On the Continent from at least the sixteenth, and in
England from the seventeenth century, the deficiency of
small change was met by the local issue of traders' tokens of
copper and in ; England, again, the higher average of wealth,
with the existence of minor subdivisions of the silver penny,
rendered the absence of a currency in the lower metal less
momentous. It was not till
1672 that the confusion and
inconvenience arising from the multiplicity of tokens led at
last to the addition of a halfpenny and farthing of Swedish
copper to the royal coinage ; and these new denominations
were appropriately designated Numorum famuli, or, in other
words, pieces of humbler value for common use. This
designation was exactly on continental lines, just
as the