176 CURRENCY. 



they were ever received at the Exchequer at less than their 

 value by weight, or that mercantile transactions of any con- 

 siderable character were satisfied by payments of such coins 

 in tale. 



As I have said above, by far the most important sources of 

 income possessed and enjoyed by the manorial lords were fixed 

 rents and fixed fines. Similarly the crown had reserved rents 

 of an analogous, and in many cases of an identical, character. 

 Is it reasonable to believe that the feudal lord would have pa- 

 tiently submitted to a reduction of ten per cent, upon his fixed 

 income, or that the crown would have issued such a currency as 

 would cover a temporary gain by a permanent loss? I find, 

 however, no remonstrance in the rolls of parliament directed 

 against these depreciated issues. Is it to be believed that 

 the king or his advisers, who incorporated among the various 

 offences enumerated in the Statute of Treasons the issue of 

 an unauthorized currency, could have failed to see that the 

 act of issuing a depreciated currency to be received by tale 

 would be a powerful stimulant to the practice of coining? 

 Nothing, indeed, would have been more easy than the infrac- 

 tion of this law. Seals were common, and seal engraving 

 largely practised. Dies might have been made in plenty, and 

 even in that age ten per cent, would have been a sufficient 

 compensation for the issue of a currency of equal purity and 

 equal weight with the Mint standard of quantity. 



I regret, in the needful duty of selecting the evidence com- 

 prised in the second volume, that I have not made entries of 

 the purchase of weights and measures for estimating silver 

 coins. These are occasionally bought, and could not I think 

 have been procured in order to weigh small pieces of silver, 

 but aggregate amounts. 



The theory here suggested, namely, that payments were 

 made by weight, and the reasons adduced for such a view, 

 derive additional force from the changes made in the currency 

 after the time of Henry the Fourth. In 1412 the penny 

 issued from the Mint weighs eighteen troy grains only, and by 



