The sovereign could also gain profits from seignorage and moneyage. The term seignorage is sometimes used to include brassage, or the expenses of coinage, and is sometimes used to denote merely the profits taken by the sovereign over and above the expenses of coinage. Brassage did not vary very much, but the amount taken by seignorage depended entirely on the needs or caprice of the sovereign and varied enormously at different periods. Moneyage was a sum paid to the king in Norman times in return for his promise not to tamper with the coinage; this payment, however, was always felt to be unjust and oppressive, and was discontinued in the reign of Henry I.

A comparison of prices at widely different periods is always a matter of extreme difficulty, because the conditions of life vary so much, and in early medieval times coin played so small a part in everyday life that it is almost impossible to get any accurate idea about the value of money then as compared with its value at the present day. In the first place, in feudal times it is impossible to assign a price for land at all, because land was granted away subject to certain conditions instead of being sold or rented; labour dues were general, and wages and rent in money hardly existed, whilst payments and dues of all sorts were constantly given in kind instead of in coin. In the second place, the silver penny, weighing 22 grains, can no more be compared with the bronze penny of to-day than the pound weight of silver that formed the medieval pound sterling can be compared with the modern sovereign as a measure of values. Hence it is not until the later part of the thirteenth century, when feudalism was beginning to give way before the advance of trade and industry, that anything like a connected history of prices becomes possible.

All through the Middle Ages the prices of manufactured goods were high as compared with those of the primary

necessaries of life, and beyond these bare necessities commodities in general use were very few and very simple. The price of grain varied enormously with the seasons, and local variations in the same year were often very considerable. Eden estimates that between the Conquest and the reign of Edward III the price of wheat varied from 8d. to £6 8s. a quarter, and, though wheat was not the grain generally used by the peasantry, any failure of the harvests meant a season of scarcity which pressed very heavily on the lower classes. Thorold Rogers estimates the average price of wheat between the years 1260 and 1300 at 5s. 4 d. a quarter, of barley at 3s. 11d. a quarter, and of oats at 2s. 3d. a quarter, and he considers that the price of grain must have been high compared with the prices of farm produce. "The profit on growing corn must, owing to the exceedingly meagre returns to the seed, have been very small, and the advantages obtained by the mediæval agriculturist can only have been derived from the returns of his farm stock. As we proceed we shall find reason to believe that while the cost of corn, owing to the low rate of production, was high and the price necessarily considerable, the market value of all other farm produce, wool and hides excepted, was singularly low and obtainable in plenty by the general community. In these times, I conclude, the culture of the soil for corn crops was a necessity and not an advantage, and the general distribution of land drove the greater proprietors to such kinds of cultivation as would not have been before them except under such circumstances, and it was abandoned when the practical independence of all landowners led them in the sixteenth century to extensive sheep farming." The average price of wool during these years (1260-1300) was 3d. a pound, and the average amount of wool yielded by the fleece varied between 1 and 2 pounds. The average price of an ox was IOS. 9td., of a cow 7s. 3td., of a sheep Is. 5 d., and of a

good pack-horse 17s. 41d.; a capon could be bought for 2d., a cock for 1d., a goose for 27d., and one hundred eggs for 3d.

Eden, in his " History of the Poor," gives a summary of the valuation of movable property taken at the borough of Colchester in 1296 for the purpose of levying a subsidy, as an illustration of the degree of comfort then general among the people. "Of household furniture, the quantity possessed by each family was very inconsiderable. A bed was valued at from 3s. to 6s.; in most houses a brass pot, from Is. to 3s. value, is to be met with; it seems to have been almost the only culinary utensil then in use. Two or three of the inferior tradesmen possessed silver cups from Is. to 2s. value; a blacksmith had a silver cup, four spoons, and a mazer cup; silver spoons were also in use-one was valued at 10d. ; a cobbler's stock-in-trade was estimated at 7s. ; a butcher's stock of salt meat at £ 18s., another's at £1; a tanner's at 7s. and IIs. Almost every family was provided with a small store of barley or oats, usually about a quarter or two of each; rye appears to have been very little used, and wheat scarcely at all. It is probable that corn was generally ground into flour at home, as hand mills are mentioned-a pair cost 12d.; soap and candles with cotton wicks are noticed; some families possessed a cow or two, but more kept hogs; two or three were the usual number of the stock." A subsequent valuation taken at Colchester in 1301 gives a scanty catalogue of household furniture: mazer cups from Is. to 2s.; beds from is. 6d. to 6s. 8d., tripods from 3d. to 9d., brass cups from 6d. to Is., brass dishes from 6d. to Is., andirons from 31d. to 8d., gridirons from 6d. to Is. 6d., rugs or coverlets from 8d. to Is. 6d. An interesting inventory of the effects of John Senekworth, bailiff of Merton College, who died in 1314, is given by Thorold Rogers. "It contains a tapetum, valued at 7s., two others at 5s., one more at 20d.; six lintheamina (sheets) at

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4s. each, and a materace at Is.; a red coverlet at 2s., a counterpane (co-opertorium pro lecto) at 4s.; a red gown at 8s., another at 3s., a blue gown at 4s., a kaynet gown at 2s. 6d. ; a russet tunica at Is. 6d. ; a banker, i.e. a cover for a seat, at 15d.; a table cloth at Is.; two more, and two napkins, at 6s. ; three quisins, i.e. cushions, at 9d. each. Besides these articles of linen or clothing Senekworth possessed three gold rings, one of which was broken, the whole being valued at Is. 6d. ; a purse at 4d.; a pouch at 3d.; a knife at ıd.; a forcer, i.e. a chest, at 3s. ; two glasses (murræ), one with a silver stand, worth 7s., a second 8d. ; four silver spoons, valued at 3s. 2d. ; two silver seals (formacula), 2s., one of them being mounted by a gilded penny as a symbol; three books of romance valued at 3d. ; two pairs of linen panni at IS.; a basin and ewer at is., besides some less characteristic effects."

CHAPTER II

FROM THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY TO THE DISCOVERY

OF AMERICA

THE next period in the history of the coinage extends from the thirteenth century to the discovery of America at the end of the fifteenth, when the great increase in the supply of the precious metals revolutionized the monetary world. The chief characteristic that marks the period off from the earlier one is that the currency not only in England but in all the countries of Western Europe was now bi-metallic, and the use of gold as well as silver for purposes of money, though in itself a sign of progress, brought with it many complications and difficulties. This change began with the conquest of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204, which gave to the Latin races for the next fifty years control of the Black Sea and the Crimeathen the chief gold-yielding districts-and brought them into close relations with the Byzantine Empire, which had for centuries been accustomed to a gold currency, and it led to a great increase of trade with the East. The trading towns of Italy were first affected by the change, as these lay on the main route to the East, and they reaped the benefit of the trade with the East that developed in the wake of the Crusaders. The gold florin struck at Florence in 1252 started a new era for the monetary systems of Europe; gold coins were struck very soon afterwards in the countries of Western Europe, and in the fourteenth century numerous experiments in gold coinage were made,