A. D. 1248. 397 



had a large profit, they found that they had fcarcely twenty fliillings of 

 the new money in return for thirty of the old. The new coins differ- 

 ed from the old only in having the crofs upon the reverfe carried out 

 through the letters of the legend almoft to the edge, inftead of reach- 

 ing only half way from the center, as in the former ones, and having a 

 border of fmall beads on the extremity of the furface of the reverfe. 

 [M. Paris, pp. 733, 747, 748. — Ann. Waver I. p. 207, cd. Gale. — Pembroke 

 coins, pi. 4.] 



A new coinage of the money of Scotland was made about two years 

 afterwards by the miniftry of the infant king, Alexander III, in which 

 the improvement introduced in the money of England was adopted. 

 \Scotichron. V. ii, p. 83, ed. Goodall.^ 



We are told that a fociety of Englilh merchants, called the Brother- 

 hood of St. Thomas Becket of Canterbury, at this time obtained privileges 

 from the duke of Brabant *. 



1249 — Louis IX, king of France, made an attempt to expell the dif- 

 ciples of Mohamed from Egypt ; and he a6hially took Damieta, .; cjiy 

 fituated on the eaftcrn mouth of the Nile, which was then reckoned a 

 rival to Alexandria in the Oriental trade f. His fleet, which was con- 

 duded by the feamen of Pifa, Genoa, Flanders, Poidtou, and Provence, 

 confifled of one hundred and twenty of the great veflels called dromons 

 (or dromunds), befides gallies and other fmaller veflels, to the number, 

 in all, of at leafl fifteen hundred ; and it was reckoned the greateft and 

 noblell fleet that ever was feen, being indeed much more numerous 

 than that of Richard king of England in the preceding century. [M. 

 Paris, p. 793; Addit. pp. i66, 169.] 



One of the great fliips of the French fleet (Mathew Paris calls her ' a 

 ' wonderful fliip') was built at Invernefs, near the northern extremity 

 of Scotland, for the earl of S'. Paul and Blois. [M. Paris, p. JJi-] 

 That a French nobleman fhould apply to the carpenters of Invernefs 

 for a fliip, is a curious circumfi:ance, which feems to infer, that they 

 had acquired fuch a degree of reputation in their profeflion as to be 

 celebrated even in foreign countries. We fliall foon fee reafon to be- 



* So fays Whtielfr, who was fecretary to the account of the Oriental regions, fays, that veflels 



com])dir\Y of merchan; adventurers in the year \ 60 1, from Damieta fupplied Syria, Armenia, Greece, 



and he adds, that thty afterwards laid afide the and Cyprus, with Indian goods, and that the tran- 



nanic of St. Thomas, and took that of merchant fit of thofe goods through Egypt yielded a great 



adventurers. [Treatifi of commerce, p. lo, Land, revenue to the fultan. He defcribes Alexandr:.! 



ed.'] But, as he produces no authority for his af- and the light-houfe at the port, hut fays nothing 



fertions, and is an advocate rather than an hiftor- of the commerce or (hippinj^- of it. \_ap, Bongarfii 



ian, it may be doubted, whether the flory has not Gejia Del, V. \, p. 1 1 28.] Soon after the libera- 



been nv. r.ted in order to outdo the rival company tion of Louis, who was made prifoner in Egypt, 



of the merchants of the ftaple in tlieir pretenfious Alexandria was deltroyed by the Cyprians, and 



to antiquity. reftorcd by the fultan, but very much inferior to 



t Jacques de Vitry, a French author wlio flour- its former magnificence. [X« /^Jrk. p. 675, ed, 



ifhed a liitle before the reign of Louis IX, in his 1632.] 



