The foundations of a national Mint, or monetary system for the Netherlands, were first laid by the ordinance issued by the Emperor Maximilian at Breda on the 14th December 1489.
According to this ordinance the gold double florin was to be struck at a tale of 44 3⁄4 to the mark Troy, of a fineness of 23 7⁄8 carats, and issued at an equivalence of 80 gros.
The remaining gold coins were to comprise the St. Andries florin = 40 groschen (and its half); while the silver coins were to comprise—
Gros = 1 gros. Pattart = 2 gros. Double pattart = 4 gros. Grand double = 8 gros.
Page 348 In great part this is to be regarded as an ideal or unrealised system. The first effectual regulation of the silver coinage was made in the ordinance of Charles V. of 22nd February 1542.
This ordinance prescribed the minting of the silver carolus, in imitation of the Dutch thaler.
| Weight to be | 14 engels, 30 azen. |
|---|---|
| Standard to be | 10 pfennige (= .853 fine). |
| Equivalence to be 20 stivers. |
The practical effect of this measure, therefore, was to introduce a coin equal to, and therefore representative of, the hitherto fictitious or merely ideal gulden.
The remaining tariffs of the succeeding hundred years or so, together with the bimetallic experience of the Netherlands, have been already briefly described in the text (supra, pp. 71, 77). On the declaration of independence by the Northern Provinces, and the separation of the United Netherlands from the Southern or Spanish Netherlands, which succeeded, the monetary history of these two portions of the Low Countries bifurcates.