578 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



lands. She, moreover, enjoyed the monopoly of commerce with 

 the New World and its stores of precious metals ; and this enor- 

 mous power, military and financial, was wielded by an absolute 

 monarch who combined the legislative and executive functions 

 unhampered and unrestrained. If ever a successful attempt could 

 be made to overcome the self-acting laws which govern trade it 

 could be made by Philip II and his successors. 



Like all other mediaeval kingdoms, Castile had had ample ex- 

 perience of the evils of an uncertain standard of value. In the 

 latter half of the fifteenth century the feeble Henry IV, among 

 other devices to secure the allegiance of faithless magnates, parted 

 freely with the right to coin money, until there were about a hun- 

 dred and fifty private mints scattering their issues throughout 

 the land. The crown itself reduced the standard of gold coin to 

 7 carats, while the irresponsible private coiners debased it to what- 

 ever their cupidity dictated. When Ferdinand and Isabella came 

 to the throne their resolute sagacity speedily put an end to this 

 deplorable condition. In their final legislation the gold standard 

 was fixed at 23f carats ; that of silver at the one traditional in 

 Spain known as 11 dineros and 4 grains, equivalent to 0'925 fine. 

 The marc, or half pound, of gold, containing 4,008 grains, was 

 worked into 05J excelentes or ducats, also known as escudos or 

 crowns. The marc of silver was worked into 07 reales or ryals. 

 The monetary unit was the maravedi, of which there were 34 to 

 the ryal and 374 to the crown, there being thus 11 ryals to the 

 crown. For convenience in small transactions there was an alloy 

 known as vellon, consisting of 7 grains of silver to the marc of 

 copper, the marc being worked into 192 blancas, the blanca being 

 half a maravedi, and the value of the marc of alloy and the cost 

 of coinage being reckoned at 90 maravedis.* 



In 1537 Charles V reduced the standard of the gold crown to 

 22 carats and its weight to 08 to the marc, diminishing its value to 

 330 maravedis, which he says brought it to an equality with the 

 best coinage of France and Italy. In 1552, moreover, he reduced 

 the silver alloy in the marc of vellon from 7 to 5 grains, giving 

 as a reason that there had been a profit in the exportation of the 



* It will perhaps facilitate the comprehension of the Spanish coinage to remind the 

 reader that the peso or real de d ocho, the " piece of eight," containing 8 ryals, is the Span- 

 ish dollar, adopted as our monetary unit by act of Congress in 1786. The ryal is thus one 

 eighth of a dollar, or 12^ cents, well known to the older generation, when our silver cur- 

 rency was almost exclusively Spanish or Mexican, as the " ninepence " of New England 

 and Virginia, the " shilling " of New York, and the " elevenpenny bit " shortened to " levy " 

 in Pennsylvania, or to " bit " in the West and Southwest. Our " quarter " was the two- 

 ryal piece or peseta, and the " pistareen," which rated at 20 cents, was the similar com of an 

 inferior currency, which, as we shall see hereafter, was known as " provincial." 



The maravedi, as the thirty-fourth part of the silver ryal, was equivalent to nearly 

 three eighths of a cent. 



