CHAP. xi. CONSUMPTION OF GOLD AND SILVER. 301 



CHAPTER XL 



On the consumption of gold and silver in the centuries from 

 the conclusion of the western empire to the discovery of 

 America. 



THE manners of a society must necessarily 

 have a vast influence on the consumption of the 

 precious metals which exist within it. In the 

 age of Charlemagne and in those of his suc- 

 cessors during the following centuries, both the 

 monarchs and their most powerful nobles were 

 the great proprietors of the soil, and cultivated 

 it for the maintenance of their households, by 

 means of various descriptions of vassals, who, 

 however distinguished by the greater or less 

 degree of severity of their servitude, were in a 

 condition little better than that of slaves. Every 

 thing required for the domestic establishments 

 of even monarchs themselves, with the excep- 

 tion of a few foreign luxuries, was drawn from 

 their own farms, and their ordinary clothing was 

 made in their own houses ; and thus it became 

 convenient to them to live, as they chiefly did, 

 on their estates. From this mode of subsisting 



