[ M4 ] • 



fome pieces, chiefly filvcr, were introduced among the tribes on 

 the borders of the Rhine and Danube'. Whence, on their taking 

 poflelfion of that government, we find them imitating the Ro- 

 man filver coins, and a new fpecies of money is difcovered arifing 

 in the weft of Europe, confifting of fmall thin fdver pieces, not 

 known to more ancient times, infcribed with rude figures and 

 barbarous charaflers. Such was the money of France, Germany, 

 Sweden, Denmark and England, from the fixth to the twelfth 

 century. And the coins of the Anglo Saxons from the beginning 

 of the eighth to the clofe of the tenth century e, bear a ftrong 

 refemblance, in their figure, legends and coinage, to the 

 mofl ancient coins difcovered in Ireland \ and to thofe under 

 confideration ; fo that we may infer they cannot be produdions 

 of very different periods. 



Indeed Cambrenfis informs us, at leaft it was the opinion of 

 his time, that gold and filver, and confequently money, was 

 introduced into this kingdom by the Danes'. A circumftance, 

 moft probably, not far from the truth ; for it appears from the 

 Chronicon Mannias and Antiquitates Celto Scandicas, that the 

 Danes were acquainted with the ufe of money before their arrival 

 in Ireland in the ninth century. As to the aflTertions of Keat- 

 ing, that money was coined in this ifland by Teghernus and 



f Tacit. Germ. 26. Csfar, 1. 6, 22. 

 t See Gibfon's Camden. 

 ^ See the coins reprefented by Simon. 

 ' Topogra. Hib. Dift. 3, c. 10 



Eadhna 



