CHAPTER XL 



CURRENCY. 



DURING the thirteenth century and the earlier portion 

 of the fourteenth the English currency was entirely silver. 

 Edward the Third coined gold in 1344. Macpherson, indeed, 

 has given evidence of a gold coinage under Henry the Third, 

 of the year ijffi, but he acknowledges that the quantity must 

 have been small, as the existence of this currency is generally 

 unknown. According to this author the proportion was_one 

 to__leiL. We shall have occasion to revert to gold currencies 

 below. 



Silver was coined into pence, halfpence, and farthings, the 

 cross stamped on the coin being intended, we are told, to 

 facilitate or direct the division. The method by which the 

 weight of the penny was estimated was that of a rude natural 

 standard. Thirty-two grains of wheat, of good middle quality, 

 taken from the middle of the ear, being said to be equal to 

 a pennyweight, and 240 of these pennyweights constituting 

 the pound of account. As the Tower or moneyer's pound con- 

 tained 5400 troy grains, the troy pound not having been used 

 as a legal measure till 18 Henry VIII., the penny contained 

 22.5 troy grains, a quantity which, as one may see on looking 

 to the weights given in Ruding's History of the Mint, is 

 verified by experiment on existing coins. Hence, as the 

 alloy was one-twelfth, the penny of the earlier period con- 

 tained 20.625 troy grains of pure silver. It is upon this 

 estimate of the penny that the reductions into modern grains 



