IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
298 NOTICES OF THE LAND ROUTE TO CATHAY, ETC.
CHAPTER IV.
Charges on merchandize which are paid at Tana on things entering the city, nothing being paid on going forth thereof.
Gold, silver, and pearls at Tana pay neither comerchio nor tarnunga, nor any other duties.
On wine, and ox-hides, and tails, and horse-hides, the Genoese and Venetians pay four per cent., and all other
people five per cent.
What is paid for the transit of merchandize at Tana.
Silk 15 aspers per pound.
All other things, at ... aspers for 3 cantars.
At Tana the money current is of sommi and aspers of silver. The sommo weighs 45 saggi of Tana, and is of the alloy of 11 oz. 17 dwt. of fine silver to the pound. And if silver be sent to the Tana mint, they coin 202 aspers from the sommo,1 but they pay you only 190, retaining the rest for the work of the mint and its profit. So a sommo at Tana is reckoned to be 190 aspers. And the sommi are ingots of silver of the alloy before mentioned, which are paid away by weight. But they do not all weigh the same, so the ingots are weighed at the time of payment, and if the weight is less than it ought to' be the balance is paid in aspers, to make up every sommo to the value of 45 saggi of Tana weight.
And there are also current at Tana copper coins called folleri, of which sixteen go to the asper. But the folleri are not used in mercantile transactions, but only in the purchase of vegetables and such small matters for town use.2
CHAPTER v gives details as to the relation of the Tana weights
i The asper must therefore have contained silver to the amount of about Os. 2.8d.
2 Follero is the Byzantine copper Follis, and perhaps Persian pul.
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