10 Trial of the Pyx. 



TRIAL OF THE PYX. 



In the days of our remote ancestry, when mints existed in 

 different parts of Great Britain, and were superintended by 

 various individuals known as money ers, it was no doubt 

 necessary that frequent examinations of the various coins 

 issued from those establishments should take place. Such 

 examinations constituted valuable checks upon those who 

 were engaged in the manufacture of the State monies, and 

 were a guarantee to the public that those monies were of the 

 legal standards of weight and of fineness. For many centuries, 

 however, trials of the Pyx took place within the mints 

 themselves, and were conducted by officials connected with 

 the mints. They were made at stated intervals, usually once 

 in every three months, and they came to be considered part 

 and parcel of mint duties. It is not essential for our present 

 purpose to inquire into the mode of operation pursued in those 

 primitive days of English minting, and, if it were attempted, 

 the task would prove to be one of extreme difficulty, from the 

 fact that the sources of information are few and unsatisfactory. 

 We may, therefore, more profitably consider the subject of 

 the trial of the Pyx from the period when, according to the 

 best historical data, it became a public ceremony, and when 

 our monarchs not unfrequently took part in it. Ruding, in 

 his elaborate and erudite work known as the Annals of the 

 Coinage of Great Britain and. its Dependencies, fixes this 

 time very precisely, for he states that the first public trial 

 occurred on the 24th February, 1248, the 32nd year of Henry 

 III., before the Barons of the Exchequer, the jury being com- 

 posed of twelve discreet and lawful citizens of London, with 

 twelve skilful goldsmiths of the same place. The first known 

 writ for such a trial is dated, nevertheless, at a later period, 

 namely, 1281, and, in the reign of Edward L, and it is pretty 

 clear that the trial of the Pyx,* or Mint-box, as now practised, 

 and as against the Master of the Mint, was really instituted in 

 the year last named. It was certainly not till 1279 that the 

 royal mints were consolidated under one mint master, and 

 that the latter became party to an agreement with the king 

 (Edward I.) for the execution of the coinage of the realm, and 

 thus made himself individually responsible for its genuineness. 

 An ordinance was passed in the same year called Rotulus de 

 Moneta, or the Roll of the Mint, and intended to regulate the 

 proceedings there. A copy of this, ordinance exists, and it 

 ordains : 1. That a standard should be made and kept at the 

 Exchequer, or where the king wished, and that the coin should 

 i * Derived from the Greek Uv^is, a box. 





