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IIT. 



NOTES ON IKISH MONEY WEIGHTS AND FOREIGN COIN 

 GUEEENT IN lEELAND. 



By M. S. DUDLEY WESTEOPP. 



Plate V. 



Eead Januakv 10. Published Maiich 16, 1916. 



As at a comparatively early period coins were thin, irregular in shape, and 

 liable to be broken and clipped, the necessity for ascertaining their true 

 weight arose ; hence the employment of money weights. 



Later on, the introduction of foreign coins as legal currency made their 

 use still more necessary. In England various proclamations relating to 

 money weights occur from early in the thirteenth century. A proclamation 

 of the year 1421 directed that Bartholomew Goldbeter, John Paddeslie, and 

 John Brerner, of London, goldsmiths, and John Derlyngton, campsor and 

 assayer of the Mint in the Tower' of London, and Gilbright Vanbranburgh, 

 engraver in the same, should be authorized to make weights for the noble, 

 half-noble, and farthing of gold sufficient for the several cities and boroughs, 

 and to form ten puncheons for each weight, five of them with an impression 

 of a crown, and the other five with a fleur-de-lis. And in the year 1422-3 

 John Bernes, of London, goldsmith, was appointed by the King to make the 

 money weights for the noble, half -noble, and quarter-noble, and to stamp them 

 according to the statute of the year 1421. 



Similar proclamations were issued during the sixteenth and seventeenth 

 centuries. One of October 12th, 1587, ordered that no counterfeit pieces of 

 current gold coin be received, or any piece lacking the just weight. And in 

 order to enable all persons to ascertain the lawful weight, the "Warden of the 

 Mint was ordered to prepare upright balances and true weights of every 

 piece of gold lawfully current in the realm, to be struck with an 'E ' crowned. 



With regard to Ireland, references to weights for weighing the coin do 



B.I.A. PBOC, VOL. XXXIII., SECT. C. [7] 



