CHAP. XII.

SAXON MONEY.

323

being made by weight, operated as a check onthose deviations, and money continued at thesame value to the reign of Edward III. , who, inthe year 1346, coined a pound of silver intotwenty-two shillings and sixpence, and thus re-duced the nominal pounds from three poundsof our present money, to two pounds twelveshillings and eightpence. The value of moneycontinued at that rate till the year 1412, thir-teenth year of Henry IV. , when by the act ofparliament of that date the pound of silver wasordered to be coined into thirty shillings, andthus the value of money became double that ofour present currency. In the year 1464, Ed-ward IV. caused the pound weight of silver tobe coined into thirty-six shillings and sixpence,and thereby reduced the value of the nominalpound to about thirty-one of our present shil-lings.

Henry VIII. in the first year of his reign,1484, coined the pound of silver into forty-fiveshillings, but in the thirty-fourth year reducedthe value of the shilling still more by coiningforty-eight from the pound. It continued at

besides many others in several parts of England. At thesame time, all the goldsmiths in the kingdom were seizedand thrown into prison on suspicion of being guilty of thesame crime. See Henry, vol. viii. p. 348; Anderson, vol. i.p. 129; Walsingham, Hist. Angl. p. 48; Hemingford, Hist.Ed. I., p. 6.

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