Book Title: Indian Antiquary Vol 42
Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications
View full book text
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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[APRIL, 1913.
The double of the 400 cash to the dollar scale is to be seen in that of the old Dutch scales.33 Amsterdam and Rotterdam.
make
114
16 pfening
20 stiver
2 guilder
12 denarii
20 solidi
800 pfening to the dollar.
The general European scale, on which the above and very many others in the western countries are based, is that established by Charlemagne so long ago as the 7th century A. D. make 1 solidus
1 libra (pound)
12 deniers
20 sols (sous)
4 livres
240 denarii to the libra.
This sale gave rise to others which spread over Europe and especially to the Latin countries and were in force up to the 18th and 19th centuries. This scale works out to 960 denarii to the dollar, because the libra under various forms stood constant through the centuries at about a quarter of a dollar. Thus :-35
France
Old Copenhagen 4 pfening
make
13 witte
2 fyrke
16 skilling 1 mark
4 ort
"3
31
ال
35
"
33
33
Italy denari
960 deniers, etc., to the dollar.
To show the close connection between the German and Latin ideas on monetary scales, there was a Vienna scale for money giving 960 heller to the rixdollar (Kelly, op. cit., p. 848).
In old Germany there was a scale that worked out on two lines of division to 288 pfening to the rixdellar, which by multiplying by both 4 and 5, as the Dutch did in the Malay Peninsula, has led to instructive scales for the present purpose: "7
soldi
lire
1 witte
1 fyrke
1 skilling
1 mark
1 ort
1 rixdollar
1 stiver 1 guilder
1 dälder (rixdollar)
2 piening
3 dreyling
12 grote
8 shilling
2 rixdollar
33 Op. cit., pp. 8, 297.
34 Chalmers, Hist. of Currency in the Brits Colonies, p. 398 f. n.
dineros sueldos
libras
Old Hamburg make
se Kelly, op. cit., pp. 141, 344, 348, 316.
* This figure of 288 to the upper unit was once common in Europe.
3 Kelly, op. cit., pp. 74, 167.
Spain
}make
33
ake 1 dollar.
1 dreyling 1 grote
1152 pfening to the dollar.
1440 pfening to the pound (Flemish).
There were other connected scales in Europe most reminiscent of those in the Malay Peninsula. For instance in Poland there were two-one double of the other-in different divisions of the country, of 540 pfening to the sloti orrixdollar and the other 1080. Here we
1 shilling
1 rixdollar 1 pound
