CHAP. XII. 



SAXON MONEY. 323 



being made by weight, operated as a check on 

 those deviations, and money continued at the 

 same value to the reign of Edward III., who, in 

 the year 1346, coined a pound of silver into 

 twenty-two shillings and sixpence, and thus re- 

 duced the nominal pounds from three pounds 

 of our present money, to two pounds twelve 

 shillings and eightpence. The value of money 

 continued at that rate till the year 1412, thir- 

 teenth year of Henry IV., when by the act of 

 parliament of that date the pound of silver was 

 ordered to be coined into thirty shillings, and 

 thus the value of money became double that of 

 our present currency. In the year 1464, Ed- 

 ward IV. caused the pound weight of silver to 

 be coined into thirty-six shillings and sixpence, 

 and thereby reduced the value of the nominal 

 pound to about thirty-one of our present shil- 

 lings. 



Henry VIII. in the first year of his reign, 

 1484, coined the pound of silver into forty-five 

 shillings, but in the thirty-fourth year reduced 

 the value of the shilling still more by coining 

 forty-eight from the pound. It continued at 



besides many others in several parts of England. At the 

 same time, all the goldsmiths in the kingdom were seized 

 and thrown into prison on suspicion of being guilty of the 

 same crime. See Henry, vol. viii. p. 348 ; Anderson, vol. i. 

 p. 129; Walsingham, Hist. Angl. p. 48; Hemingford, Hist. 

 Ed. I., p. 6. 



