This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1903 edition. Excerpt: ...and the Faerynga and Olaf Trygvaeson sagas (ch. v.) 4 Egil saga. This same Ethelred paid more than 167,000 "pounds of silver" as danegeld (Du Chaillu, ii., p. 222). Some commentators regard this to mean 167,000 pounds weight of silver bullion. Dr. Henry (Notes, 18), with more reason, makes it 167,000 money. But it is useless to conjecture what it means until we know the date when (assuming the statement to be true) the phrase "pounds of silver" was translated from its original terms. 5 Greijer. 'Ihe Ynlinga saga informs us that for a time the tax of Rome scat was collected from the people "for Odin." Very likely. But it is pretty safe to conclude that, unless he lived in Rome, Odin never got any of it. 1 "Ancient Britain," xiv., p. 5, Adam of Bremen described the temple of Upsala as being roofed with gold and filled with the greatest riches (Du Chaillu). In the ninth century the Scandinavian mark of money contained 240 grains of gold, or 1,920 grains of silver; in the thirteenth century, reign of Magnus VI., there were no gold marks, whilst the silver mark only contained about 1,200 grains. At the ratio which prevailed on the Continent these were worth I00 grains, whilst in Scandinavia they were valued at I50 _grains, of gold. In the reign of Magnus VII. (Smek), 131943, a mark weight of silver was coined into five marks of money, and half a mark was deducted for seigniorage. If this. was fine silver, each mark contained 720 grains, or about the quantity in two American or Mexican dollars of the present day; but I am inclined to believe that all these quantities were of standard metal. During this reign copper coins were first employed in Norway, and toward the close of it even...

This book covers the history of money and finance. It is the result of fifteen years of research by the author, Alexander Del Mar, in great libraries and coin collections of Europe. He traced the historical development in all ages of which any coinage or other numismatic remains exist. He reveals in the great states of antiquity that money was a pillar of the constitution, its usage, its meaning in different countries at different times and how private coinage originated. It describes it's physical component and the discussion about its value, whether the value of money constitutes the metal or paper from which it is made or its numerical relation, and what governmental body should control this.