the analogy of some of the manifestations, although there were no such Mint and coinage disorders in England as had aggravated and in the first place partly induced the movement in Germany. Page 106
In 1623 a great Mint deputation from all the circles was held, and in accordance with its representations the new imperial basis was established, which remained in force until the conclusion of the period of which we here treat. By that basis the mark of silver was coined into 9 Reichs thalers 2 groschen. The thaler was fixed at 90 kreutzers, the gold gulden at 1 florin 44 kreutzers, and the ducat at 2 florins 20 kreutzers. This disposition remained the Mint law over all the weary, disastrous period of the Thirty Years' War, which is practically a blank for the monetary history of Germany. It is not until 1665—the opening of a fresh period—that complaints of the state of the lower denominations of the coinage are again heard. But how far this quiescence is to be attributed to the economic wisdom of the settlement of 1623, or to the mute, dumb, inarticulate agony of Germany during that strife when her commerce, much more even than her national life, was suspended, is hidden from us in almost complete darkness.
Spain.
During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the function of Spain was a very simple one in the European system. She was the