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11 - On the rejection of good coin in Carolingian Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2010

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Summary

Ut nullus audeat denarium merum et bene pensantem reiectare

Scholars have been aware for quite some time of the repeated provisions in Carolingian capitularies against those who refuse to accept deniers (denarii) bearing the name of the ruler. This in itself would not merit particular attention, since people quite often show little confidence in the coinage of their own country (not infrequently for good reason), but for the fact that the refused coins were of good metal and were full weight.

We know that the first time a king took such a step in defence of his own coin was in 794, i.e. shortly after Charlemagne's famous monetary reform, by which light deniers based on the Roman pound were replaced by heavy deniers struck to the new Carolingian pound. At the synod of Frankfurt-am-Main, Charlemagne decreed as follows:

De denariis autem certissime sciatis nostrum edictum, quod in omni loco, in omni civitate et in omni empturio similiter vadant isti novi denarii et accipiantur ab omnibus. Si autem nominis nostri nomisma habent et mero sunt argento, pleniter pensantes, si quis contradicit eos in ullo loco in aliquo negotio emptionis vel venditionis: si ingenuus est homo, quindecim solidos componat ad opus regis…

We learn from the Capitulare missorum, issued fifteen years later in 809, that to refuse good coin was again prohibited: De monetis statutum est ut nullus audeat denarium merum et bene pensantem reiectare.

Type
Chapter
Information
Studies in Numismatic Method
Presented to Philip Grierson
, pp. 147 - 152
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1983

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