214 Mr. PETRIE'S Inquiry into the Origin and 



But, while the precious metals were used as a circulating medium in large 

 unminted pieces, or rings, of this description, it is obvious that a smaller and 

 more convenient species of money must have been indispensably necessary for 

 the ordinary purposes of exchange ; and it would be strange indeed, if, while 

 every other country in Europe, immediately after its conversion to Christianity, 

 adopted the use of a small denomination of minted money, the Irish alone 

 should have neglected a usage so necessary to a people, who had made any ad- 

 vances in civilization, till taught it by a people confessedly less civilized than 

 themselves. It is this consideration, which induced me to doubt the generally 

 received opinion that money was first coined by the Danes in Ireland, and to 

 believe it more probable that the type of the Danish coins was not derived from 

 cotemporaneous Saxon money, but more directly from an earlier Irish original ; 

 and, if I mistake not, the evidences which I have now to adduce, and which 

 these doubts induced me to search for, will go far towards establishing such a 

 conclusion. 



In the first place, it occurred to me that if the Irish had had minted money 

 similar to that in use in the neighbouring countries, evidences of such a fact 

 would necessarily be found in the ancient laws of the country, and that those 

 laws would also furnish evidence as to its weight and value ; and I was the 

 more sanguine that such evidences might be found, from a recollection of the 

 interesting letter written about the year 790 by Alcuin to the celebrated St. 

 Colcu, master of the school of Clonmacnoise, in which he tells him that he had 

 sent fifty sicli of silver to his brethren of the alms of Charlemagne, and fifty 

 sicli as his own alms ; thirty sicli of the king's alms to the southern brethren of 

 Baldhuninega, and thirty sicli of his own ; twenty sicli of the alms of the father 

 of the family of Areida, and twenty of his own ; and to every hermit three sicli 

 of pure silver, that they might all pray for him and for king Charlemagne, that 

 God -would preserve him for the defence of his church and the glory of his name. 

 The original of this passage, as published by Ussher in his Sylloge, pp. 51, 52, 

 and Colgan, Acta SS., pp. 379, 380, is as follows : 



" Misi charitati tuaa aliquid de oleo, quod vix modo in Britannia invenitur ; ut dispensares per 

 loca necessaria Episcoporum, ad utilitatem hominum vel honorem Dei. Misi quoq; quinquaginta 

 siclos fratribus de eleemosyna Caroli Kegis : (obsecro ut pro eo oretis :) & de mea eleemosyna quin- 

 quaginta siclos : & ad Australes fratres Baldlmninega, triginta siclos de eleemosyna Regis, et triginta 



