Page:Will of King Alfred.djvu/47

Rh

To Osferth, my cousin.] Sax. mæge, relative.

Mancuses.] Mr. Manning says "the mancus was about 7s. 6d. of our present currency." This may be correct; but the precise grounds of every valuation of ancient money in modern currency should be stated. Mr. Turner, in his history of the Anglo-Saxons, Vol. II. p. 468, (4th edit.) quotes a passage from Elfric, which asserts that five pennies made one shilling, and thirty pennies one mancus. This, as he observes, "would make the mancus six shillings," which is not very far from its value in " present currency" according to Mr. Manning's calculation. But it must be recollected that these were Anglo-Saxon pennies and shillings, the relative value of which to commodities was very different from that of our modern pence and shillings. Mr. Turner supposes that two sorts of pennies were the only coins of the Anglo-Saxons above their copper coinage; and that all their other denominations of money (including the mancus) are to be regarded as "weighed or settled quantities of uncoined metal" — we should rather say money of account.

The men that me follow, to whom I now at Easter-tide money gave.] The Saxon easter tidum, is plural, and might be rendered every Easter. Of what description of persons these followers consisted is very uncertain. Mr. Manning in his " free" translation has "My Valects whom I hired at Easter." This is too modern.