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

Introduction 59
date or the value was carried out, the importance seems to
have been appreciated of identifying coins with the name of
a ruler and a religious or heraldic symbol ;
and the early
employment of shields of arms, prior to the use of portraits,
was dictated by the sense of a link between the bearings on
the money and those on the escutcheons of sovereigns. The
mediaeval denier soon lost all real relationship to the
Roman denarius, and more and more, in its multiples up to
a crown or ecu, complied with the spirit of more modern life
and the militarism of the Middle Ages. The English word
arms is translated into most of the Gothic or Teutonic
languages by one signifying weapons. It was a notion in
analogy with the formation of tribal government under the
Lombard dux the duke of later times.
In the reduction of mediaeval European currency to chronological
stages of development, we must first deal with typical
objects without a key or inscription ; (2) typical objects
accompanied by a few characters more or less unintelligible;
and the name of the
(3) the same with a distinct legend,
moneyer and mint ; (4) with a shield or cognisance and a
cross on the reverse infinitely varied in its form and cantonments
; (5) with a rudimentary portrait on the obverse ; (6)
with an ideal one; (7) with a positive or approximate likeness,
a fully descriptive legend, and an elaborate blazon ; (8) with
the date and the value. The extension of Christianity and the
influence of the Crusades gradually effaced and superseded the
Byzantine, as well as the Roman, feeling and style and with
;
very few exceptions the prevailing tone of Western money
became toward the ninth century Teutonic and unclassical.
In the European coins of most remote date co-ordinate
prominence is given to the ruler of the country or province
and to the place of origin and the engraver. Where there
was an infinite subdivision of territory and jurisdiction,
and
an equal multiplicity of mints, this course was a safeguard
against
confusion and fraud.
The leading symbols on coins are : i ,
a cross ; 2, a
crown ; 3, a sceptre and orb
; 4, a sword an animal as
;
5,
an heraldic cognisance or a figurative emblem
; 6, a shield