The Chronic Medieval Affliction of Clipping

Eadgar's Pennies.

The aficionado of the English Middle Ages is probably quite familiar with money described as shillings, pence, groats and the like.  Coins, that is, valued by the weight of silver or gold in them.  The names, however, may not bring a realistic picture to mind.  Stephen Leake informs us, in general terms, how metals were coined in an oft-cited passage:

first, it was cast from the melting-pot into long bars; these bars were cut with shears into square pieces, of exact weights; then with the tongs and hammer they were forged into a round shape; after which they were blanched, that is, made white and refulgent by nealing or boiling, and afterwards stamped or impressed with a hammer, to make them perfect money.[1]

Forging small  blobs of metal into a round shape, it should be noted, is a very imperfect art in a process which must move along rapidly in order to provide large amounts of coin at a labor cost only a tiny fraction of the total face value of the coins being minted.

Coins, in fact, were irregular more-or-less round shapes.  The figure with which they were stamped was precisely in the center of the sort of round metal only slightly more often than it was to the right or left or top or bottom or partially off the edge of the coin.

What was more important was that the process assured that the weight of each coin was the weight ordered for the mint run.  That weight of silver gave the value to the coin.  It (and the fineness of the metal) was ordered by the king in consultation with parliament and other interested parties.  The details effected every person in the realm.  The merchants at home and abroad followed such matters closely.

Shortly before the Anglo-Saxon King Eadgar died, in 975, the antiquarian Rogers Ruding informs us, he “commanded new money to be made throughout all England”.[2]  His reason was one that would be common throughout the centuries to come.  Merchants — especially overseas merchants — had come to realize that the edges could be clipped off of irregularly shaped coins without being detected.  Those edges could be collected into pouches of silver dust (for there no gold coinage at  the time) and sold by weight.

How long the practice had been going on, historically, would seem to be impossible to determine.  That it was a major problem by the year 975 is clear.  Ruding tells us that the pennies in circulation had been reduced to less than half-weight.

Eadgar’s answer was intelligent and made the clipper’s job more difficult.  I am not aware of the method having been used before then but many examples of it exist from the coins of kings who followed him. Surviving pennies show that he bordered the coins with an inscription bounded by two circles, one  beaded on the outside edge and one a line at the inside of lettering.    There would certainly be no half-weight pennies.[3]

Still, this was not the end of the practice.  There were other coins less well designed.  Off-center coins could be clipped.  It was not generally to anyone’s advantage to surrender clipped coins they might have received.  Instead, they would hope to be able to use it themselves for payment and be rid of the problem.  Metal files could be used to carefully thin the outer boundary (the source of the word “chiseler”) yielding a fine silver dust that would still add meaningfully to a merchant’s profits.

Another means of preventing clipping informs us that the practice was still rampant.  That is strengthening or enforcing statues against it.  In 1205, and the years immediately following, the officers of King John were ordered to go throughout the realm to seek out and destroy clipped coins.  Penalties for such coins increased with each new outbreak but seem to have remained within range of attachment of the coins, chattel, and property of the offender and imprisonment.

In 1381, Parliament requested Royal experts submit suggestions as to how to reduce the capital flight being experienced from the realm.  Second on the list of suggestions returned by Richard Leyc, as representative, was to address clipping.

Article II. For the enfeebling of the gold coin by clipping, he knew no other remedy than that it should be universally weighed by those who took it[4]

The other experts uniformly agreed.  At least for gold (which was being coined by this time).

Of course, this answer could only apply to merchants.  It was not practical for individuals to check the coins provided them in a balance against the Royal standard weights occasionally provided for this purpose.

In 1415, in the reign of Henry V, clipping and filing were added to the currency crimes that fell into the category of treason and were addressable by hanging, drawing and quartering.  Most “chiselers” being located in European import/export markets, beyond the justice of the English king, and all being difficult to detect, there would not seem to have been many such prosecutions.  Henry also distributed standard weights to merchants in the realm.  Frustrating though the fact was, there was as yet little more to be done.

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[1] Leake, Stephen Martin.  An Historical Account of English Money  (1793).  76.  Citing the Red Book of the Exchequer during the reign of Edward I.

[2] Ruding, Rogers.  Annals of the coinage of Great Britain and its dependencies..., Volume 1 (1840).  130.

[3] While this statement is generally true, there were so many variables to coining and coin clipping that the method was not uniformly effective.  The details are far too manifold to go into here.

[4] Ruding, 240.

Also at Virtual Grub Street:

• A Thousand Years of English Terms.  June 2, 2019.  ‘One person did not say to another, “Meet you at three o’clock”.    There was no clock to be o’.  But the church bell rang the hour of Nones and you arranged to meet “upon the Nones bell”.’
• Shakespeare’s Barnacles.  March 3, 2016.  “Prospero will wake, he fears, before they can murder him, and will cast a spell on them.”
• The King's Esnecce.  January 13, 2019.  “It comes as no surprise, then, that when Maud’s son, Henry Plantagenet, Count or Duke of most of the western territories of France, and, by terms of the treaty, heir to Stephen, next rose to the throne as Henry II, he was quick to arrange for the safest possible means of transit across the channel.”
• Check out the Medieval Topics Article Index for many more articles about this fascinating time.
• Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time.