GUIDE TO HISTORY

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 21, 25 July 1934, Page 4

GUIDE TO HISTORY

COINS OF THE PAST

FACTS EMBALMED IN DESIGN

ADDRESS BY DR. ELLIOTT

"Coins as a- sidelight on history" was the; subject of an interesting paper road by. DivJ; S. Elliott at the annual mooting of the New Zealand Numismatic Society this week, the speaker remarking ; that the chief value of numismatics was the light which a study of the coins of all nations threw upon history. It helped to elucidate ancient mythology, fixed the chronology of various languages and forms of writing, ami showed the origin and expansion of divers systems of weighing and working the precious metals. Historically, coins were authentic and permanent means of commemorating the names of ancient and obscure peoples and cities and gave the chronological succession, of kings and rulers. They gave information on religious observances and recorded the phases of art and its rise and fall through the ages. The use of precious metals, as distinct from coins, could be traced to the remotest times of which there were any record. Civilisation owed to the Greeks the very general extension of tho use of coins, which displayed the mythology, migrations, customs, and arts of that great nation. 'Greek coins were the grammar of Greek art. The sculpture, marble and bronze, of the greatest age in Greece, now extant and preserved, would barely fill a gallery, but the coins of the period, never retouched, numbered thousands. Some of these coins, however, were copies of statues, so freely drawn that critics believed that tho wtist was no slavish copyist, but skilled to draw from memory. Coins which had laid dormant in the earth for centuries when discovered had made an ancient Greek town, of -which no traces, were left above the soil, famous for its exquisite coinage. . SILENT WITNESSES. Tho coin designers caught the influence- of the painter, the sculptor, or the gem-engraver. A gold Greek coin of the seventh century before Christ, was silent witness of tho migration of a Greek colony to Asia Minor, and revealed, the high state of Greek art at that .remote, period. Athenian, coins with the device of a poppy between ears.of corn .recalled the antiquity of 'agriculture -which .began,- according to Elliot Smith, in Egypt and not in Mesopotamia. Of tho polytheism of ancient Greece and their love of athletic culture their coins were witnesses. . As for the proud history of Rome, Addison called tho Roman coinago a "Stato gazotto on -which all the truly great events of the empire were periodically published." The artists who designed the Roman coins were, for the most part, Greeks, and their genius, if not decadent, was not enkindled to pleaso alien masters. The artists were not creative, but they wore painstaking and exact in the portraiture of the emperors and therefore sound historians. PAGAN INFLUENCE PASSES. Tho coins of the Christian emperors wore at first allegorical in design and rather pagan in character. It then became the practice to have Victory no longer holding a wreath but grasping a cross. In the purely Byzantine period the.pagan influence had. disappeared and .tte.cjQ^.S; triumphe.d. Would .future historians'"say of Now. Zea'la-n'd's : coinage^ thatefe neo-p'aganismv was:".the influence whjciMh 1933 banished-from bur coins tho«,l|jgic?honourecl testimony that our:.. King/'.i'eigned •: ■by tho graco.ofGod? jfi* ..*;' . : - ..When .Some.-fell ~the invaders .took over' thct-instituti.on of coinago and made' direct but not very skilful imitations of the imperial currency. Tho number of people in whoso names coins were struck was enormous. It is said that in Gaul the.ro were 1200 different moneyers. Later, penalties of the most barbarous kind awaited private moncyers, and this led to the usurpation of coinage by the feudal lords, prelates and the Pope. Independent moneying was less the custom in England than on the Continent except in the turbulent reign of Stephen, but clipping was in vogue general]}'. " ECONOMIC FACTORS. In-medieval times the condition of tho currency was best in places where the mercantile element was strong and best organised. It was evident that tho changes during the middle ages in the method and quality of coinage threw light on tho political and economic history of the time. Towns, except in part of tho East, were ruined in the fourth and fifth centuries by currency inflation, and what survived was a system of self-supporting country estates, the beginning of feudalism. Tho extent to which necessary supplies of precious metals were available must, however, he considered. Tho mints of Thrace, Spain, and Attica would not suffice and Persia and tho region beyond tho Black Soa were drawn upon for supplies. Tho commercial awakening following tho crusades increased tho demand for currency, but the decisivo event was tho discovery of the Now World by Columbus in 1402, followed by innumerable argosies that crossed tho Atlantic in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and brought monetary salvation to tho Old World. In tho ninth and tenth centuries contemporary Arabic silver coins wore current Nin Northern Europe" through the Vikings coming into contact with the Arab merchants in the Mediterranean. Tho reintroduction of a gold currency into Western Europe came from-Flor-ence in the thirteenth century, and the: coinago of the fourteenth century reflected the artistic' vogue of the time, particularly in regard to achitecture. BRITISH COINAGE. ', In making a brief survey of British coinage, Dr. Elliott said that .much could be learned of the Roman occupation in England from a study of Eoman coins found in England, particularly at Lydney, tho home of the society's patron, Lord Blcdisloe. The early Saxon' coins in England, showing thirty or forty different designs, wero anonymous, and thereforo could not bo dated, but probably belonged to the beginning of tho seventh century. The penny was introduced about 760 and its design was stereotyped by ■Edward I, his pennies having a wide circulation in England and on the Continent. : Edward 111 issued a gold coinage and1 under Edward IV and tho Black Prince a largo issue of AngloFrench coins in gold and silver was minted, as well as the Calais groats. The wealth of England in the reign of Henry VII had greatly increased and was reflected in tho number and variety of the King's coinage. After Henry VII -heraldic devices appeared on tho coins, at first supplementary to the:.cross which had held its place on the reverse since the time of Edward I. In.the-reign of Henry VIII, Cardinal Wdlsey had the temerity to strike at York a groat which bore the device of his cardinal's hat, and this treasonable act was included in the bill of indictment against him. Elizabeth established a colonial coinage for the East Indian Company when that company wished to have leave to export Spanish dollars. "Whether there should be one coinage of uniform value and pattern for the whole British Empire," concluded