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19 - Judicial documents relating to coin forgery

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2010

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Summary

In their valuable editions of charters of the period 1380–1436 in the registers of the French chancery, L. Douët-d'Arcq and A. Longnon made available a body of material, which, if limited in quantity, is of great importance for the study both of popular attitudes and of the human and social problems of the late Middle Ages. I propose in this paper to use three of these charters to examine one particular aspect of the social and economic history of the period: the making of false coin at official mints by moneyers and other officers and workmen employed there, using the state's own equipment and official dies. For counterfeiting seems to me a particularly fascinating area of study in that it raises a series of different problems, not only numismatic, but economic, social, and political as well. It is also a theme for which the evidence of contemporary documents is especially vivid. More often than not, however, these are lacking and we depend on the coins themselves for our information about forgery. It is hoped that these three examples may serve to illustrate the circumstances of forgery at other times.

DOCUMENT I

In a letter dated 13 November 1399, the French king Charles VI pardoned the master (comptable) and the wardens {gardes) of the Sainte-Menehould mint for illicit coining. Charles, etc.

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Studies in Numismatic Method
Presented to Philip Grierson
, pp. 231 - 238
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1983

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