SPANISH EXPERIMENTS IN COINAGE. 589 



colder ilia and v$llon grueso those coinages which had undergone 

 so many vicissitudes, and which, in spite of prohibitions, persist- 

 ently continued in circulation. They were a shirt of Nessus, 

 clinging to the victim and impossible to discard. 



Again the load became too onerous to be endured, and relief 

 was imperative. The mints were pouring forth the molino 

 money ; there were quantities of it in circulation of pure copper 

 illegitimately issued, and the land was filled with imitations 

 brought from abroad. To remedy this, a decree of February 10, 

 1680, orders the simultaneous registration and sequestration of 

 the whole, carefully distinguishing the three varieties. The first, 

 or legitimate alloyed coin, was reduced to one fourth of its exist- 

 ing value that is, the piece which had been originally issued for 

 16 maravedis, and had in 1664 been cut down to 8, was now still 

 further diminished to 2; the same was done with the native 

 counterfeits, while the foreign ones were accepted at one eighth 

 of their current value. To soften the blow to the holders the 

 legitimate molino was redeemable at the treasury in gold or silver 

 at fifty per cent premium, and was receivable for sixty days for 

 all overdue debts to the fisc up to the end of 1677, while, as 

 a further act of grace, arrearages due up to the end of 1673, 

 amounting to over 12,000,000 ducats, were forgiven. 



This measure appears to have been designed as a preliminary to 

 the total extinction of the molino money, for it was followed, May 

 23d, by an elaborate pragmatica demonetizing this wholly and 

 forbidding its use, only twenty-four hours being allowed during 

 which it could be spent for the purchase of bread, meat, and wine, 

 and for nothing else. In all these efforts at contraction it was 

 expected that the inflated prices, which were a standing grievance, 

 would collapse with the diminution in the circulating medium, 

 and when this result did not follow with sufficient rapidity, there 

 was no hesitation in fixing a scale of maxima, for the trans- 

 gression of which heavy penalties were threatened. Thus on the 

 present occasion a most elaborate edict was issued, November 

 27, 1680, consisting of over a hundred folio pages, regulating all 

 dealings. All rents in Madrid are to be reduced to what they 

 had been in 1670, and for buildings of later construction or en- 

 largement the rates are to be determined by the magistrates. 

 Then follows a most extensive list of maximum prices, embrac- 

 ing nearly three thousand items, from raw materials by whole- 

 sale to finished products by retail, from wool by the arroba to 

 rhubarb by the drachm, and including what a tailor should re- 

 ceive for making a coat and a washerwoman for washing a 

 shirt. Such supervision by the state becomes endless, and a 

 supplementary edict was requisite, May 2, 1681, supplying omis- 

 sions and making changes. If currency and values were capable 



