of Florence. The second, struck some little time later, was a copy of the écu d'or of Philip VI. of France.
In 1337 our own King Edward was made vicar-general and lieutenant to the Emperor, with powers Page 7 to coin monies of gold and silver. He accordingly kept his winter at the Castle of Louvain, and caused great sums of money both of gold and silver to be coined at Antwerp. Two years later, this same Emperor Louis, the Bavarian, granted to the Duke Rainhold of Gueldres the right to mint gold coins, "after the valuation of the gold monies of the Archbishop of Cologne, the Duke of Brabant, and the Counts of Hainault and Holland." In the following year he granted to the free state of Lübeck a similar right—the patent expressly stipulating that their gold coins should not exceed in weight or value the gold florin of Florence.
Sixteen years later (1356) the general liberty of coining gold was conceded to the seven Electoral Princes by the Golden Bull of the Emperor Charles IV., and subsequently state after state and free town after free town purchased or were granted the right. Even as late as 1372, in the patent granting to Frederick of Nürnberg this so eagerly solicited liberty, the stipulation is made that the gold gulden to be coined should be of as good gold and weight as "the gulden or florin of Florence."
In the case of Lübeck direct documentary evidence of transactions relating to the introduction of a gold coinage has survived among the archives of that state. The privilege of a Mint and of coining (of silver) was first granted to Lübeck by Frederick II. in 1226. But it was not until a century and more later that Louis the Bavarian, by his bull of 28th November Page 8 1340, conceded the right of coining gold "in pieces which were to be neither heavier nor of higher worth than the florin of Florence." On the 8th September in the following year the Lübeck Mint made its first purchase of gold from a certain Jacob Grell of Zütphen in Holland. The purchase consisted of 4 marks 1 loth 8 pfen. weight of gold