History Of Monetary Systems
Book: Chapter IV: Gothic Moneys
Author: Del Mar, Alexander
Chapter IV: Gothic Moneys
Chapter Contents
Proofs that the earlier sagas were altered in the mediaeval ages - Among
these is their frequent mention of baug-money: an institution which did not
survive the contact of Norsemen and Romans - Progressive order of Norse moneys
- Fish, vadmal, and baug moneys - The baug traced from the Tartary to Gotland,
Saxony and Britain - Gold baugs acquired a sacerdotal character - This was
probably immediately after Norse and Roman Contact Subsequent relinquishment
of baug-money and the adoption of coins - Proof that Caesar encountered Norse
tribes in Britain, derived from his mention of baugs - This view corroborated
by archaeology and philology - Subsequent Norse coinage system of stycas,
scats, and oras - Important historical conclusions derived from this study.
Gothic Moneys
It needs but a cursory examination of the earlier sagas to be satisfied
that they have been grossly mutilated. They jumble together events hundreds
of years apart; they mingle details which belong to communities as yet
ignorant of Roman customs with the affairs of communities well acquainted with
them; they resurrect the Turkish or Scythian forefathers of the Norsemen, and
set them down in the midst of mediaeval Christian saints; they omit all
mention of Rome or Roman affairs, or the Roman religion, or the causes of
difference between the Norsemen and the Empire; they eschew dates, ignore the
calendar, and commit the pagan festival to oblivion. The silly explanation
which has been offered to us of this disorder is that the sagas were popular
songs, ^1 which were repeated by word of mouth for centuries before they were
committed to writing, and that this custom produced the confusion, omissions,
anachronisms, and other defects which now characterize them. There might have
been a time when such an explanation was sufficient, but the class of people
who offer them forget that the world grows and that knowledge is cumulative.
We now know that language without a written literature to fix its terms and
meanings is too ephemeral to last for centuries, indeed, that a few
generations mark the utmost time during which it will remain unaltered. It
was reliance upon this principle that led to the distrust of Macpherson's
forged "Ossian," and that compels us to regard as mutilations the Eddas as
produced by Saemund Sigfusson and Snorri Sturlason. ^1
[Footnote 1: Tacitus ("Germania," iii.) mentions the folk-songs of the
Northern tribes.]
[Footnote 1: The historian of Iceland (A. D. 1056-1133) and his
foster-grandson (A. D. 1178-1241).]
In the present connection the liability of unwritten language to rapid
mutation proves one of two things - either that the earlier sagas are
mediaeval fabrications in Latin, translated into the mediaeval Norse and
re-translated into the vernacular, which is precisely the case with
Macpherson's spurious "Ossian;" or else they are mutilations of early Gothic
or runic originals. Their repleteness of historical materials and local
coloring belonging to the earlier centuries of our era, leads at once to the
conclusion last named. ^2 It is this local coloring which marks the
distinction between a mutilation and a forgery out of the whole cloth.
Macpherson had no historical dates before him, therefore he was forced to
forge his entire work; Sigfusson found plenty of history in the old written
sagas, so he merely mutilated them, and, with the sobriquet of "The Learned,"
achieved that immortality which is ever the reward of virtue and fidelity. If
any further proof than that afforded by the nature of language itself were
needed to corroborate these views, it will be found in the frequent mention of
anachronical moneys in the sagas. An example of this sort will be quoted in
the present treatise from the Egil Saga; others will appear as the argument
develops.
[Footnote 2: Charlemagne made a collection of these sagas, but these are now
"lost" (Note to Murphy's Tac. "Germ.," iii., probably from Eginhard).]
The evolution of Norse monetary systems, whether in Iestia, Saxony,
Scandinavia, Frakkland, Britain, Russia or Iceland, usually proceeded in the
following manner: - First, fish and vadmal (cloth) money; second, baug, or
ring-money; third, imitations of pagan Roman coined money; fourth, Norse pagan
coinage system (partly derived from the Roman system) of stycas, scats, and
oras; fifth, intrusion of Moslem coinage system of dinars, maravedis and
dirhems; sixth, replacement of the last by Christian Roman coinage system of
L. s. d. This progression did not occur simultaneously in the various
countries named, because the Goths used coined money in Britain before they
employed fish-money in Iceland; it was the usual order of progression in each
country or petty kingdom by itself. From the period of their original
settlement in Britain down to that of their contact with the Brigantes, the
Norsemen used no coined money; indeed, they had little or no commerce, and
lived chiefly by hunting, fishing and plundering. After each raid upon the
enemy the plunder was "carried to the pole" and there divided. It is evident,
from numerous analogous examples in the sagas, that in case of dispute the
rival claimants fought it out at once, and the survivor took the lot. This is
a custom, not of trading communities, but of predatory bands.
The first money of the Norsemen in Britain was probably fish, as was the
case in Norway ^1 and in Iceland down to the close of the last century. Sild,
hring, or herring, is still used to mean money, ^2 and the scad or scat
(corrupted to scot), a fish of the same genus, has the same meaning in North
Britain. ^1 There are suggestions of fish-money in the expressions
"Rome-scat," "scot-free," "scot-and-lot," etc. Following fish, the money of
the Norsemen in Britain was vadmal, a homespun cloth, measured by the arm's
length; still later they used baugs, or ring-money. It was not until after
all this that they began to strike coins.
[Footnote 1: Frostathing Laws, xvi., 2.]
[Footnote 2: Poole, "Anglo-Saxon Coins," i., 7.]
[Footnote 1: According to Mr. T. Baron Russell's "Current Americanisms"
(London. 1893) "scads" is still used for "current coin" in some parts of the
United States.]
Baugs were anciently that money of Scythia, northern China and northern
India of which a reminiscence still survives in the baugle or bangle. ^2 At a
remote period baug-money was introduced from Scythia into Egypt.
Representations of it appear upon the stone monuments of Thebes. As for
dates, Egyptian chronology has been so ruined in the various attempts made to
fit it successively into the mythologies of Assyria, Greece and Rome, that no
reliance can be placed upon it. The baugs engraved at Thebes are round rings,
which are represented as being placed in the scales to be weighed. No
peculiarity of form and no stamp-marks distinguish them in the sculptures -
facts that, coupled with the weighing, led the author in a previous work to
doubt that they were money. Since that time "dozens of rings (stamped), with
the names of Khuen-Aten and his family, and molds for casting rings" have been
found in the ruins of Tel-el-Amarna. ^3 It cannot now be doubted that such
rings were money, and we may also feel tolerably confident that they formed
the principal circulating medium of Egypt during the time of the Hucsos or
Scythian kings. From Egypt baug-money made its way down the eastern coast of
Africa, where the early Portuguese and Spanish navigators found it, the latter
giving to the rings the name of manillas or manacles. They were used in
Darfoor (latitude 12 Degree north, longitude 26 Degree east) so late as 1850,
for Mr. Curzon saw several chests full of gold baugs from that country at
Assouan in 1854. They are still used on the West coast, from whence the
present author had one of copper, shaped like the letter C, that is to say,
with the two ends of the ring left apart. ^1 Another line of baugs is
traceable from Scythia to Gotland, where they are mentioned in sagas, which,
although in their present form belonging to an era subsequent to the
employment of baugs for money, are evidently mutilated versions of more
ancient texts. ^2 Egil having been paid two chests of silver as indemnity for
his brother, "recites a song of praise," in which he alludes to the indemnity
as "gul-baug," or gold rings, meaning money. ^3
[Footnote 2: The pinched bullet-money of Cochin China also appears to be a
modification of the baug.]
[Footnote 3: Address of Dr. Flinders Petrie, before the Oriental Congress,
London, September 6th, 1892. Khuen is evidently the Tartar "kung," or king.
Ridgway mentions the baugs of Mycenae found by Dr. Schliemann, while Madden
alludes to the baugs of Syria, mentioned in the Bible.]
[Footnote 1: "History of Money," 133. Baugs, or ring-money, are mentioned by
Pliny ("Nat. History," xxiii., I).]
[Footnote 2: Baugs appear to have been also used by the tribes of the Baltic
coasts after the Goths conquered or assimilated with them, for the term was
employed by the Salic Franks, and is still employed in French to mean rings.]
[Footnote 3: Egil Saga. The Dutch still give the name of "gulden" to certain
silver coins.]
The suspected mutilations of the sagas are corroborated by the known
mutilations of the laws: "If a hauld wounds a man, he is liable to pay 6
baugar to the king, each worth 12 oras; if an arborin-madr wounds a man, he
has to pay 3 baugar, and a leysingi (freedman) 2, a leudrman 12, a jarl 24, a
kning 48, 12 oras being in each baug, and the fine shall be paid to those to
whom it is due by law. All this is valued in silver." ^4 The text of this law
proves that it assumed its present form at three different dates. The first
belongs to the barbarous period, when the indemnity was fixed in Gothic baugs;
the second to the Roman period, when the baugs were valued in heretical oras,
or Roman sicilici; and the third to the period when the oras were valued in
Christian silver pennies. The original baug appears to have weighed about as
much as three sovereigns of the present day.
[Footnote 4: Frostathing Laws, iv., 53; Du Chaillu, i., 549.]
A C-shaped figure, like that of the African baug above mentioned, is
twice repeated on a stone slab from the Kivikgrave, near Cimbrisham, a
monument assigned by archaeologists to a very remote period. Whether it
represents the baug or not cannot at present be determined, ^1 but there is
some reason to think it does, from the fact that gold baugs seem to have been
clothed with a sacerdotal character. For example, Egil fastened a gold baug
on each arm of the dead Thoroff before he buried him, ^2 and a gold baug was
paid for his bride. ^3 Bagi was also the Parthian name for divine or sacred;
it appears on all the coins of the Arsacidae. ^4 The originals of the
Frostathing laws may have descended from the period before the Goths revolted
from Roman control.
[Footnote 1: Fig. 28, in Du Chaillu, 88.]
[Footnote 2: Du Chaillu, ii., 476.]
[Footnote 3: Frostathing Laws, vi., 4; Du Chaillu, ii., 16.]
[Footnote 4: Geo. Rawlinson, "Seventh Monarchy," p. 66.]
Specimens of Gothic baug-money are still extant. Gold, silver and iron
baugs will be found in the collections of Bergen, Christiania, Newcastle, York
and other centers of Norse antiquities. There are Gothic gold baugs (about
one inch in diameter) and copper and iron baugs in the London and Paris
collections. During the last century "a vast quantity of small iron
ring-money was exhumed in the west of Cornwall, and one of these was deposited
by Mr. Moyle in the Pembroke collection." ^5 After the era of baugs the Goths
used coins. Says Du Chaillu: "A barbaric imitation in gold of a Roman
imperial coin was found with a skeleton at Aarlesden in Odense, amt Fyen," a
district and island about 86 miles from Copenhagen. ^1 A barbaric imitation of
Byzantine coin of the fifth century was found in Mallgard, Gotland. ^2 A
barbaric gold coin, falsely stamped with the image of Louis le Debonnaire, was
found in Domberg, Zealand, and is now in the Paris collection.
[Footnote 5: Walter Moyle's works, i., 259.]
[Footnote 1: Du Chaillu, i., 262.]
[Footnote 2: Du Chaillu, i., 275.]
When, several centuries before our era, the Celts came into contact with
the Greeks, whether in Spain, Gaul or Britain, they began to strike Celtish
coins in imitation of Greek originals. In like manner, after the Goths came
into contact with the Romans, or rather after they had learnt to abhor the
religion of the Romans and despise their arms, whether in Moesia, Saxony,
Zealand or Britain, they began to strike Gothic coins in imitation of Roman
originals. Such imitations are found in the uninscribed stycas, scats and
oras of early Britain - a fact which is deduced as well from the Latin name of
the ora as the general type and composition of all the pieces.
When Goth and Roman first met in Britain was when the ring-money was
still used by the former - a period clearly established by the following
passage from the principal work ascribed to Julius Caesar. Speaking generally
of the tribes whom he encountered in Britain (B. C. 55), Caesar says: "Utuntur
aut aere, aut nummo aureo, aut annulis ferreis, ad certum pondus examinatis
pro nummo" - "They used either bronze (money) or gold money, or iron rings of
a certain (determined) weight for money." The bronze metal, Caesar adds, was
imported. ^1 It is evident that this ring-money was not used at the time by
the Celtic or Gaelic tribes of Britain, because these tribes used coined
money, which, as a measure of value, is more precise and convenient than
baugs. The Celts also came from Gaul and Belgium, where coined money was
already in use. Their productions and commerce were too varied for the
employment of so rude a measure of value as baugs. Caesar says their numbers
were countless, their buildings exceedingly numerous, their wealth great in
cattle and cultivated lands, and their industry diversified, including not
only pasturage and agriculture, but also mining for tin and iron. ^2 Baugs had
not been used by the Celtic tribes for nearly three centuries, that is to say,
not since they had learnt the superiority of coins from the Greeks. On the
other hand, their use among the Norsemen at this time or, perhaps, even a
later period is proved by the sagas, ^3 and the conclusion that the ring-money
found in Britain by Caesar belonged to the Norse tribes in the remoter parts
of the island, and indicated their presence there, seems to be well sustained.
^4 When added to the evidences of archaeology, customs and language, adduced
by Wright, Stilling-fleet, Pinkerton, Du Chaillu, Hawkins, Evans and other
writers on the subject, ^1 the body of proof that the Norse settlement of
Britain antedates its Roman settlement becomes difficult to overthrow.
[Footnote 1: "De Bell. Gall.," v., 12. Several readings of this important
passage are given in Henry's "Hist. Brit.," ii., 238. The reading in the text
is from a Ms of the tenth century. Mr. Hawkins discovered that this passage
had been materially corrupted in later copies (Hawkins, "Silver Coins," p. 8,
and Ch. Knight, "Hist. England," i., 15, citing remarks on ancient coins in
"Moneta Historica Brit.," p. 102).]
[Footnote 2: Even after Caesar had ravaged their lands, the Belgians were able
to send him supplies of corn to Gaul ("De Bell. Gall.," v., 19, 20).]
[Footnote 3: The pagan Norse kings who ruled in Ireland used baug-money until
they were driven out of that country in the twelfth century. This is what Sir
John Lubbock, in his article on Money in the "Nineteenth Century," loosely
called the "ring-money of the ancient Celts."]
[Footnote 4: Caesar (v., 9 and 11) alludes to the civil wars which preceded
his arrival in Britain, and which since the Celts were all of one religion
(the Druidical), we may reasonably surmise were occasioned by the
encroachments of the heretical Norsemen.]
[Footnote 1: Doom-rings and numerous other Norse antiquities have been found
in Britain.]
The Norse-British coinage system consisted of stycas, scats and oras. The
styca was a small bronze coin, struck from the composition derived probably
from the melting down of bronzes, and containing about 70 per cent of copper
and 20 of zinc, the remainder consisting of tin, silver, lead and a minute
proportion of gold. The extant stycas are confined by numismatists to
Northumberland, but a coin of similar description, and used as a divider for
the scat, must have been employed in Kent and elsewhere. The scat was an
electrum coin, struck from the composition resulting from the melting down of
gold and silver jewelry. The ora was a coin of pure or nearly pure gold.
Originally containing about 30 grains of gold, it fell successively to 22 1/2,
20, 16 and even 13 grains. The electrum scats weighed about the same as the
oras. The early oras are known among modern numismatists as gold scats.
Sometimes the scats were stamped with the svastica, or with runes - a
peculiarity that does not appear upon any coins issued by the southern kings
of the heptarchical period. Eight stycas went to the scat, and eight scats to
the ora. Owing to the composite nature of the scats, the ratio between gold
and silver is indeterminable. Judging from the numerical relations between
scats and oras, the ratio was intended to be 8 for 1. The coin ora must not
de confused with the weight ora, which was afterwards the eighth of the mark
weight; nor must the money of account, called the mark (of which more anon),
be confused with the weight mark.
There is a remarkable similarity between the Gothic coinage system and
that of ancient Japan. There, too, coins were made respectively of gold,
electrum, and bronze; the gold and the electrum coins were of the same weight,
and the relative value of these even-weighted coins indicated that of the
metals which composed them. ^1 On the other hand, the Norse-British systems
were distinctly non-German. Styca and scat are Norse terms, and were not used
in Germany; mark is also a Norse term, and, according to Agricola, it was
employed by the Goths many centuries before it was known in Germany. The runic
letters and svastica are both Gothic and pagan. The Germans did not strike
gold coins. The ratio of 8 for 1 is Gothic; that of Germany followed the
Roman law, and down to the thirteenth century was either 12 for 1 or some mean
between this and the Gothic ratio. Finally, the independent issues of gold
and electrum coins were essentially Gothic, because the Goths, down to the
eighth, ninth, or tenth centuries, were pagans, and refused to acknowledge the
pope; whilst the Germans from the date when their country was made a province
of the Empire, had invariably bowed to its ecclesiastical authority.
[Footnote 1: The Japanese system is fully described in "Money and
Civilization," chap. xx. The reader must, however, not argue too much from
this resemblance. In the ruder societary life of the Anglo-Saxons exchanges
were comparatively few and simple, and the monetary system was of minor
importance; in the refinement of modern Japanese life, it affected the
foundations of equity and civil order.]
The Anglo-Saxon coins were not issued by any central authority, but by
each local chieftain independently of the others. For this reason the
valuation of the coins, and of the metals of which they were made, probably
greatly varied. More important than all, the whole number of coins was
uncertain and subject to the vicissitudes of war. A successful attack upon
the Romans, who, down to the sixth or seventh century, still held many of the
walled towns of Britain, might in a single day have doubled the entire
circulation of a given kingdom; whilst a repulse, followed by Roman pursuit
and reprisals, might as suddenly have reduced the circulation to a moiety.
The reader will bear in mind that the ora described above was the
original Gothic ora, afterwards called the gold shilling (gull skilling), not
what the ora became in later ages. As time went on it continually fell in
weight; the ratio of silver to gold changed from 8 for 1, to 6 1/2 and 7 1/2
for 1, then to 10 for 1, then to 12 for 1; the number of scats - or, as they
were afterwards called, pennies - to the ora, changed from 8 to 5, then to 4,
then to 20, 12, 20 and 16. ^1 In one instance there were 15 minutae to the
ora. "Ora, vernacula aura, Danis ore, fuit olim genus monetae, valens, 15
minuta." ^2 These may have been, not copper coins, but silver half-pence. ^3
It would be tedious to explain the endless combinations to which the changes
in the three terms - viz., weight, ratio and value - gave rise. Eventually
the ora became a money of account, and as the ora weight was one-eighth of the
mark weight, so the ora of account was valued at one-eighth of the mark of
account, which, during the Norman and Plantagenet eras, consisted of five gold
maravedis, each weighing two-thirds of the Roman solidus. This mode of fixing
the value of the ora gave rise to new and still more perplexing numismatic
problems, all of which, however, are readily solved by the guides herein
offered. For example, in the time of William I. there were still some actual
gold oras extant, or mentioned in unexpired leases. These were valued in
Domesday Book at 20 pennies, because their namesake, the ora of account, was
in England one-eighth of the mark of account, and the mark of account was
two-thirds of the libra of account. As the latter then consisted (in England)
of 240 actual silver pennies, so the mark was valued at 160 pence, and the
gold ora was valued at 20 pence.
[Footnote 1: Domesday Book; Ruding, i., 315. The relation of four scats to
the ora was enacted prior to the middle of the tenth century ("Judicia
Civitatis Londoniae;" Ruding, i., 309).]
[Footnote 2: Dolmerus, in Du Fresne, in Fleetwood, p. 27.]
[Footnote 3: The minuta of the Netherlands was the Ies, or Es (Budelius).]
If this mode of calculation, which was employed in England after the
Norman conquest, be applied to the ancient Gothic system, in which the gold
ora was of the same weight and value as one-fourth of the gold solidus or
mancus, it would follow that the mark of account consisted of two mancusses
instead of five maravedis. Thus, if an ora is 20 pence and a mark is 160
pence, then there are eight oras to the mark. If there were four oras to the
mancus, there were consequently two mancusses to the mark. The fallacy of
this mode of calculation, which some numismatists have used, arises from the
employment of the ora in two senses - firstly, as a money of account, which it
was in the eleventh century; and, secondly, as an actual gold coin, which it
was probably from the second to the seventh or eighth century.
