252 



year of Henry III. to obtain the king's mandates to the sheriff 

 of Yorkshire and the mayor of York to cause the archbishop to 

 have fully and freely his money dies in the city of York, in the 

 same manner as his predecessors, archbishops of York. ^ 



In the succeeding reign Archbishop William Wickwane was 

 required to show by what authority he claimed to have duos 

 cuneos monetales in civitate domini regis Eboraci, to which the 

 archbishop pleaded that he claimed such dies upon the ground 

 that he and all his predecessors from time immemorial had 

 been seized of such privileges. For better proof of his claim he 

 set forth the circumstances attending the proceedings against 

 archbishop Gerard in the reign of King Henry I. : and as an 

 additional plea, he alleged that all his predecessors were used to 

 have the third die of all the dies which the king had in the city 

 of York. The proceedings against archbishop Wickwane term- 

 inated in his favour by the verdict of a jury of sixteen at the 

 assizes for Yorkshire in the 9th year of King Edward I.^ 



Mandates are upon record of the reigns of King Edward III. 

 and his successor King Richard II., for the delivery of dies to 

 successive archbishops of York, in which the number of dies is 

 uniformly thus specified, — duos cuneos monetales pro camhio 

 suo Eborum. 



In a compotus of the temporalities of the see of York during 

 a vacancy which occurred in the 47th year of King Edward III., 

 ihejirma cunei monete infra palacium for one year was returned 

 at one hundred shillings ; and in the same account the collector 

 claimed 6s. 8d. for his fee as examinator monete infra palacium. 



Although the continued exercise of the privilege of coining 

 by the prelates of the see of York is thus clearly traced from the 

 conquest to the close of the fourteenth century, no evidence of 

 the operations of the archiepiscopal mint is obtained from any 

 coins that issued from it of an earlier date than the reign of King 

 Henry VI. This fact seems the more inexplicable when we 

 discover that a century and a half previous to that reign, coins 

 which proceeded from the mint of the Bishops of Durham were 



1 Claus. 2. Hen. III. m. 6. Ebor. App., p. cvi. 

 ' Flacita de quo warranto. Edw. I. p. 198. 



