596 ON THE PRICE 'OF METALS. 



Popes to Avignon, for, as will be seen by the Itinerary printed 

 in the second volume (p. 633, and supra p. 137), the currency 

 of the curia is entirely gold. These causes, and the fact that 

 France issued a gold currency as early, we are told, as the reign 

 of St. Louis, are sufficient to explain the rise in the relative values 

 of gold to silver at the conclusion of the thirteenth century. 



The rates of exchange have been adverted to in a previous 

 chapter (p. 177). The variation between the years 1331 and 

 1363 is not sufficiently large for purposes of inference. We see 

 that in the first year the exchange of sterling silver at Avignon 

 was at the rate of y. 4^., while that of gold florins in London 

 was computed at 3.$-. 8d. If so different a rate prevailed, or 

 so heavy an agio was demanded, between places which kept 

 up so considerable and regular a communication, nothing con- 

 clusive can be gathered as to differences which might have 

 prevailed between the market value of these metals after an 

 interval of thirty-two years. 



The rate at which Edward the Third issued his florins in 

 1345, taking the six shillings, which they were declared to be 

 worth by proclamation, at 1485 grains of pure silver, is exactly 

 13.75 tc one. If this rate really represented the existing 

 proportion between the two metals, it would point to a rise 

 of about 10 per cent, in the value of gold in the course of fifty 

 years a rise which might occur as a consequence of the in- 

 creased circulation of gold as a means of currency. Now accord- 

 ing to Muratori, it was in the first forty years of the fourteenth 

 century that this gold currency was so generally extended. 



The remaining metals, prices of which have been collected 

 in the second volume, are quicksilver, lead, copper or brass, 

 and tin, under which I include solder and pewter. The price 

 of quicksilver has already been commented on, (supra, p. 462). 



LEAD. This metal is sold under very various weights. The 

 most characteristic are the carect, charret, or carrat, the plau- 

 strata and the fother (all which are to be taken as identical), 

 and the pes or fotmael, or pig, the thirtieth part of the above- 

 named quantity. Besides these we find the petra (that is, the 



