101 



BEZANT. 



BEZOARS. 



102 



antiqui vocabuli praeferunt imperatorii nummi Bizantini vocati." 

 (' Script, post Bedam,' edit. Saville, fol. 76 b.) This coin was called 

 byzant, besans, bezantus, byzantius, byzantinus, byzanteus, and 

 bixantius. The coins were in fact aurei, but as they were the only 

 gold coin current in Europe for a considerable time, they went by the 

 name of bezants among foreigners. 



The Moors of Spain stamped also a gold coin called byzantius 

 inassamutinus. There was likewise the byzantius saracenatus, or 

 garacenicus, struck by the sultans of Iconium in Lesser Asia ; and 

 byzantii melechini, so called from being coined at Malines in 

 Flanders. 



These bezants were not always of the same weight, fineness, or value, 

 since we find them described as aurei byzantii; aurei boni byzantii; 

 and auri optimi byzantii. Ducange quotes this last expression from a 

 charter of the year 915. (Apud Ughellum, torn. i. pp. 853, 960.) 

 The aurei, or bezants, of Constantine, were to be of the weight of 

 seventy-two to the pound of gold. 



Byzantii albi, eu argentei, white or silver bezants, also occur in the 

 ' Constitutions Odonis legati Apost. in Cypro,' an. 1248. Ducange 

 quotes a charter of 1399, which speaks of white bezants of Cyprus. 

 They likewise occur in a bull of Pope Gregory IX. (Apud Ughellum, 

 torn, vii. p. 60.) 



The Moorish bezants are sometimes called in old writers marabotini, 

 or maurabotini. They are mentioned by this name in Matthew Paris, 

 1176. (' Hist. Major.' edit. 1684, p. 110.) See also Ralph de Diceto 

 under the year 1177. (' Script.' x. Twysd. col. 598.) From Ducange 

 we learn that " Morabotini boni Alfonsini, auri fini et ponderis recti," 

 frequently occur in Aragonese charters towards the close of the 13th 

 century. The Moors in Spain had also gold trientes, or the third of a 

 bezant, but all these coins were of very limited circulation. 



Camden, in his ' Remains concerning' Britain,' noticing the coined 

 and other money in use among our Saxon ancestors, says, " Gold they 

 had also, which was not of their own coin, but outlandish, which they 

 called in Latin bizantini, as corned at Constantinople sometimes called 

 Bizantium, and not at Besancon in Burgundy. This coin is not now 

 known, but Dunstan, archbishop of Canterbury (as it is in the 

 authenticated deed), purchased Hendon in Middlesex of King Edgar 

 to Westminster for two hundred bizantines. Of what value they were 

 was utterly forgotten in the time of King Edward III. ; for, whereas 

 the bishop of Norwich was condemned to pay a bizantine of gold to 

 the abbot of St. Edmundsbury for encroaching upon his liberty (as it 

 was enacted by parliament in the time of the Conqueror), no man then 

 living could tell how much that was, so as it was referred to the king 

 to rate how much he should pay." 



In Domesday Book no mention whatever occurs of the bezant ; but 

 it occurs twice as a denomination of money, in the Winton Domesday 

 of the year 1148, and several times in the Boldon Book, a survey of 

 the palatinate of Durham made in 1183; both printed among the 

 ' Supplementary Records ' to the Great Domesday. The monks of 

 Oseney, in consideration of the manor of Hampton-Gay in Oxfordshire, 

 in the 6th of King Stephen, gave ten marks of silver to Robert de 

 Gait, and one bezantine to his wife. (Kennel's ' Parochial Antiquities 

 of Oxfordshire,' edit. 1695, p. 97.) Madox in his ' History of the 

 Exchequer,' says, that in Henry II.'s time, Cressalin the Jew of 

 Winchester, was amerced one hundred marks, and he paid instead 

 thereof, one hundred bezants, which were accepted by the king, mera 

 ffratid. (' Mag. Rot.' Henry II. rot. 10, art. ' Sudhantescira.') Madox 

 also says (' History of the Exchequer,' p. 711), that in the 17th year of 

 King John, 10. of Venetian money, and two bezants, were used at the 

 Exchequer for counters : the Venetian shillings valued at 15. and the 

 two bezants at 3. 6rf. These of course were silver bezants. From 

 the narrative of William de Braose's treasons (recorded in the Black 

 and Red Book of the Exchequer) against King John, it is clear that 

 silver bezants were in use in that reign ; for when Maud, Braose's wife, 

 was to make the first payment of a fine of 40,000 marks, which she 

 and her husband had consented to pay on being restored to the king's 

 favour, she told the justiciary, and the rest who were sent to distrain 

 upon their goods, that they must expect nothing, she having no more 

 money in her purse than twenty-four marks of silver, twenty-four 

 shillings of bezants, and fifteen ounces of gold. (See Dugdale ' Baron.' 

 torn. i. pp. 416, 417.) John of Glaston, in his 'Chronicle' (vol. i. 

 p. 224) informs us that Michael, abbot of Glastonbury, dying 1253, 

 left to his successor " quadraginta bisancios et viginti libras sterling- 

 orum." Chaucer names the " besaunt " in the ' Romaunt of the Rose,' 

 and Wycliffe, in his translation of the New Testament (Luke, c. xv. 

 v. 8, 9), uses the term " besauntis " for the ten pieces of money in the 

 parable. 



Thp probability seems to be that the bezant of gold was current 

 in England, if not from the 8th, certainly from the 10th, century, till 

 the time of Edward III., when the coinage of the English noble drove 

 it out of use. 



The Conatantinopolitan bezant was the coin which we still see in 

 our cabinets in gold, in the form of an umbo, or hollow dish, fre- 

 quently bearing the portrait of our Saviour. The weight of one of 

 those of Alexius Comnenus I., who reigned from 1081 to 1118, is 

 seventy grains. The Moorish bezants were flat. The Constantinopo- 

 litan bezant seems to have been generally of about the value of a ducat, 

 or nine shillings. The name was probably gm n in the middle ages to 



the gold coins of most countries. Cotgrave says that Henry II. of 

 France coined bezants. 



The white, or silver bezant, in the 16th year of Stephen, according 

 to an instrument quoted in Keunet's ' Parochial Antiquities,' edit. 

 1695, p. 10, was of the value of 2s. No silver bezant is at present 

 known to exist, at least under that denomination, in the cabinets of 

 our collectors : but Constantinopolitan coins of silver, of the same 

 size and form with the gold bezants, are found in cabinets, of the 12th 

 and later centuries : they xisually weigh about forty or forty-three 

 grains. 



Banduri and other writers call both the gold and silver coins of Con- 

 stantinople, which we have described, Nummi Scyphati. 



Camden (' Remains,' p. 236), says, that in the court of England, the 

 piece of gold valued at 15?., which the king was anciently accustomed 

 to offer on high festival days, was called a bizantine : " which anciently 

 was a piece of gold coined by the emperors of Constantinople ; but, 

 afterward, there were two," probably meaning bars, " purposely made 

 for the king and queen, with the resemblance of the Trinity, inscribed 

 ' In honorem sanctse Trinitatis," and on the other side the picture of 

 the Virgin Mary, with ' In honorem sanctse Mariae Virginia ; ' and this 

 was used till the first year of King James, who, upon just reason, 

 caused two to be new cast, the one for himself, having on the one side 

 the picture of a king kneeling before an altar, with four crowns before 

 him, implying his four kingdoms, and in the circumscription, ' Quid 

 retribuam Domino pro omnibus quse tribuit rnihi ? ' On the other side 

 a lamb lying by a lion, with ' Cor contritum et humiliatum nou 

 despiciet Deus.' And in another for the queen, a crown protected 

 by a cherubim, over that an eye, and ' Deus ' in a cloud, with 

 ' Teget ala summus ; ' on the reverse a queen kneeling before an 

 altar, with this circumscription, ' Piis precibus fervente fide humili 

 obsequio.' " 



By the treaty for the deliverance of the French king St. Louis, and 

 the other prisoners made at the battle of Mansoura and elsewhere, 

 between the commissioners of his majesty and the sultan of Babylon, 

 it was agreed that the king should pay to the sultan 1,000,000 (dix 

 cens mils, Joinville says) gold bezants, which were then worth, according 

 to the recital of the Sieur de Joinville, 500,000 livres. The sultan 

 afterwards remitted a part, on the king's frank agreement to the sum 

 proposed, and it was thereupon reduced to 800,000 gold bezants. (Join- 

 ville, ' Histoire de St. Louis,' ed. Michel, p. 104.) 



Bezant is represented in heraldry by round pieces of gold without 

 any impression, and are held to signify the coins by which the stipends 

 of the higher soldiers of the army in the holy wars are supposed to 

 have been paid. They are, with us, always emblazoned gold, but the 

 foreign heralds make them both gold and silver. In English heraldry 

 when the figures are blazoned argent they are called plates. 



BEZOARIC ACID. [ELLAGIC ACID.] 



BEZOARS. [ELLAOIC ACID.] 



BEZOARS. The most probable etymology of the word bezoar is 

 from the Persian Pdd-zahr, that is, " expelling poison, the expeller of 

 poison." The stone bears this and other designations of similar import 

 in Persian ; for example, Bad-za.hr, which seems to be a corruption of 

 Pdd-zahr. The word pdd means " relieving, curing, removing (disease)," 

 and zahr is " poison." Bezoars are substances found in various parts, 

 but chiefly in the intestines, of land animals, and which were regarded 

 as antidotes to all poisons, as well as supposed to possess other extra- 

 ordinary virtues. Hence any substance which possessed, or was thought 

 to possess, important qualities, was termed bezoardic, to indicate its 

 value. Bezoars are either natural or artificial ; but even the natural 

 ones, being the result of disease, are not invariably met with in the 

 animals which produce them. Their rarity, as well as the preternatural 

 virtues ascribed to them, contributed to make them prized ; on which 

 account they have sometimes been sold for ten times their weight of 

 gold. Those -which were most esteemed came from the East, and were 

 the earliest used. The most highly-valued of these was obtained from 

 the stomach of the Capra Aet,ayrus, or wild goat of Persia. This was 

 called by way of eminence Lapis Bezoar Orientalis. The greater number 

 of bezoars are procured from ruminating animals, and in many instances 

 they are nothing more than some portion of their food agglutinated 

 into a ball by the secretions of the intestinal canal. Similar formations 

 are sometimes found in the human stomach or intestines, especially in 

 persons who live much upon vegetable or farinaceous food. (See 

 Monro, ' On the Morbid Anatomy of the Gullet,' &c.) The bezoars 

 from the west, called also American, are chiefly obtained from the 

 Auchmia Lama and Auchenia Vicuna, Illig. These have been analysed 

 by Proust, and found chiefly to consist of phosphate of lime. (See 

 'Ann. de Chimie,' vol. i. p. 197.) The oriental and some other bezoars 

 were analysed by Fourcroy and Vauquelin. (See ' Ann. du Muse'um 

 d'Hist. Nat.' i. 93, iv. 334.) 



Bezoars, though still esteemed in the East, have long fallen into 

 merited disuse in Europe. Various artificial bezoars were often 

 fraudulently substituted for the genuine ; but these are not to be con- 

 founded with certain metallic preparations, chiefly of tin, silver, 

 mercury, and lead, the composition of which was well known, and only 

 designated bezoars from their power in curing diseases; these, if 

 employed in the present day, are designated by other names, and will 

 be noticed under the heads of the metals and their preparations. 



The Bezoardicum animate was the name given to the heart and liver 



