444 Descriptive list of some Coins. [No. 138. 



well as from the scanty notices given by the historiographers of the 

 middle ages on numismatic subjects. The obscurity shrouding those 

 remote ages had been partly dispelled in the course of the last fifty 

 years by a great number of coins, dug out of the earth, or found in 

 the foundations of some antient churches, which had been destroyed 

 by various causes. Still the links were wanting to connect the coins 

 of the 11th century with those of the 13th, which are now amply 

 afforded by the coins found at Daelie. 



The Norwegians used, as most nations did, the same term for money 

 and cattle. The Norwegian word " Fe" signifies cattle and money, 

 an£ " penningi" does not only denote the species of coins known 

 under that name, but money in general.* In like manner, in accordance 

 with other nations which fixed the value of things by metals, they 

 weighed the metal before they had coins, f The antient weights of 

 Norway are the following : — 



1 Marca (mork) = 8 Orae, (aurar)J 

 1 Ora (eyrir) = 8 "Ortugae, (ortugar.) 

 1 "Ortuga = 10 Denarii, (penningar.) 



The gold, used for weighing, was extended into a kind of wire in the 

 shape of a ring, either simple or of many folds (called bagr or bauger,) 

 which at a sale was weighed off entirely, or in pieces. The silver as a 

 means of exchange was used in a similar manner, having sometimes 

 the shape of a solid mass ; sometimes of a ring ; sometimes trinkets 

 were also applied to the same purpose, till foreign coins are at last ob- 

 served, especially Anglo-Saxon and German, of which a great many are 

 found in Norway. 



* Clarke (on the connexion of the Roman, Saxon and English coins, p. 390) gives 

 another derivation of this word which at first sight seems highly probable ; that pen- 

 ning (evidently the same with the Norwegian word) was formed from the Latin pendo, 

 and was sometimes written more agreeably to this origin " pending," and both expres- 

 sions were derived from the antient and universal custom of paying by weight; but 

 this appears rather an accidental coincidence, as the Saxon word is the same with the 

 Norwegian and German, and in the latter language, the term p (f ) enning obviously 

 shews its origin from the word in use for cattle. 



t The Hebrew word ^T)]^ originally denotes to weigh ; thus talentum and libra 

 signify a balance. The principal gold and silver coins among the Greeks were 

 called staters, which is taken euro Ttjg QaTLKtiq from the scale. Thus in Rome, 

 all payments were made per aes et libram. 



J The terms marks and oras were first used by the Goths, and ora, which is cor- 

 rupted from the Latin word "aureus" is synonymous withsolidus. — Clarke, 1. c. p. 310. 



