CHAP. X. MIDDLE AGES. 25? 



grave of Brandenburg, and his successor, George 

 Fredrick, are stated to have enriched themselves 

 by the produce of these mines, which were very 

 profitable till about the year 1605 J . 



We have been induced to search with more 

 diligence for any intelligence respecting the 

 mines in Germany, especially those which were 

 worked in the middle ages, from having met 

 with the following remark in Anderson's History 

 of Commerce, vol. i. p. 67. 



" It was the silver mines found in Germany 

 in the tenth and following centuries which 

 gradually increased the quantity of money, and 

 the price of necessaries even before the discovery 

 of America." 



Whatever the increase on those two heads 

 may have been, it must not be attributed solely 

 to the mines of Germany ; and it may not, 

 therefore, be unnecessary to extend our in- 

 quiries, and to communicate the result of them 

 to the other countries of Europe. 



In the empire of Charlemagne all the mines France, 

 were the property of the crown, and continued 

 to be so till the reign of Charles the Vlth, 

 who in May, 1451, issued an ordinance, by 

 which the rights of the crown were abandoned, 



1 The present produce of the mines of Tarnowitz is said 

 not to exceed one hundred ounces of gold and eighty thou- 

 sand ounces of silver. Kapfs Skizzen aus der Geschichte des 

 Schleischen Mineralreichs, 1794. 



VOL. I. S 



