Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 1.djvu/86

84 the former of which a wether is to this day molt, and in the latter mult. Hence, in fact, come the French mouton and our English mutton. The Anglo-Saxons, it would appear, although they had metallic money, had not completely passed out of the state of only commencing civilization in which cattle serve the purposes of money. A certain value seems to have been affixed by the law to horses, cows, sheep, and slaves, at which they might be seized by a creditor in payment of a debt due to him; and it is supposed that all kinds of fines, or pecuniary penances, imposed either by the state or the church, might be discharged either in dead or living money. The church, however, which, to its honour, from the first opposed itself to slavery, and greatly contributed by its systematic discouragement and resistance to put down that evil, early refused to accept of slaves instead of money in the payment of penances.

In the parts of Britain not occupied by the Saxons, it may be doubted if during the present period any metallic money was coined. No coins either of Scotland or of Wales of this antiquity have ever been found. Considering the intercourse, however, that in the later part of the period subsisted between both of these countries and England, it is impossible to suppose that, although they may not have minted any money themselves, they could be unacquainted with its use. A few of the Saxon coins probably found their way both to the Welsh and Scotch, and supplied them with a scanty circulation. The Welsh laws, indeed, show that the denominations, at least, of money were familiarly known to that people; but they seem to show, also, by the anxious minuteness with which they fix the price of almost every article that could become the subject of commerce, that a common representative of value and medium of exchange was not yet in common use. These Welsh laws, for instance, in one section, lay down the prices of cats, of all different ages, and with a most elaborate discrimination of species and properties. This may be regarded as a rude attempt to