374 BASE MONEY. 



CHAP. XIV. 



the minority of Henry VI. These pieces of 

 gold were of great purity, and when transferred 

 to England maintained their credit during a long 

 time. Bazinghen, who relates whatever con- 

 cerns the coinage of his own country, says on 

 this subject : " On lit dans un ancien manuscrit, 

 que le Roi d'Angleterre fit faire cette monnoie, 

 que etoit d'or fin, a plus haut titre qu' aucun de 

 ses voisins, esperant par ce moyen aliener des 

 Fran9ois de Charles VII., qui en meme terns 

 avoit et contraint d'empirer considerablement 

 sa monnoie : ce que Henry VI., ne fit point 

 pendant qu'il fut maitre de Paris." Vol. L p. 53. 

 Besides the money which was of competent 

 purity, a great number of coins of adulterated 

 gold and silver was introduced from foreign 

 countries, which, in spite of all the precautions 

 to prevent it, circulated before they were de- 

 tected a longer or shorter period, according to 

 their better or worse imitation of the domestic 

 coinage. The city of Luxemburg, or as it was 

 then called, Lushburgh, seems to have been the 

 chief place for manufacturing the base coin, if 

 we can judge from a petition of the Commons 

 in the parliament held at Westminster in 1344, 

 which states that " many merchants and others 

 carried the good money out of the kingdom, and 

 brought in its room false money called Lusshe- 

 bournes, which were worth only eight shillings 

 in the pound or less, by which means those who 



