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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

I\TIZODUCTOR,' NOTICE.   411

which there went twenty-four to the sequin), and also that the bizant was worth a ducato di zeccha (or sequin) and a quarter ; hence there should have been thirty grossi or dirhems to the bizant (Amari in Journ.

Asiat., Jan. 1846, p. 241, and in Diplorni Arabi u.s. ; Ibn Bat., i, 50 ; Della Decima, iii, 58, iv, 113 ; Viag. in Terra Santa di L. Frescobaldi e cl'altri, Fi-

renze, 1862, p. 43). The estimates of the dinar also are various. Quatremère

assumes the dinar in Irak at the beginning of the fourteenth century to be 15 francs, or lls. 101d. ; Defremery makes 100,000 dirhems of Egypt

equal to 75,000 francs, which, at Ibn Batuta's rate of 25 to the dinar,

would make the latter equal to 14s. loc., or at 20 dirhems ( which is probably the number assumed) ils. 100. Pegolotti says the bizant of Egypt

(or dinar) was worth 4 florin, but makes other statements from which we

must deduce that it was 1,1 valuations which would respectively make the dinar equal to 10s. 11.66d., and lls. 3.82d. Frescobaldi and his companion

Sigoli both say that it was worth a sequin (or a florin) and a quarter, i. e., ils. 8.35d., or lls. 9.06d. Uzzano says its value varied (in exchange apparently) from 1 florin to 1i-, or even 13 ; giving respectively values of 9s. 4.85c1., 10s. 6.9d., and 12s. 6d. But he also tells us that its excess in •

weight over the florin was only 14 carat (or X51), which would make its intrinsic value only 9s. lid. MacGuckin de Slane says in a note on Ibn

Batuta that the dinar of his time might be valued at 12 or 13 francs, i.e.,

from 9s. 6d. to 10s. 3 cl. ; and Amari that the dinar of Egypt at the beginning of the fourteenth century was equal to the latter sum (Quat.

Rashideddin, p. xix ; Ibn Bat. i, 95 ; Della Decima, iii, 58, 77 ; iv, 110 seq. ; Viaggi in Terra Santa, pp. 43, 177; Jour. Asiat., March, 1843, p. 188; Diplorni Arabi, p. lxiv). On the whole I do not well see how the dinar of Egypt and Syria in our author's time can be assumed at a lower value than 10s. 6d.

Taking the dinar of Egypt and Syria at 10s. 6d., and 25 dirhems to the dinar (according to our author's own computation) we have the dirhem worth 5.04d., and the Indian dinar or Tangah, being worth eight dirhems, will be 3s. 4.32d.... (B).

Or, if neglecting the whole question as to the value of the dinar and number of dirhems therein, we take Frescobaldi's assertion that the

clirhem was worth a Venetian groat as an accurate statement of its value, we shall have the dirhem equal to 211 of a sequin or Os. 4.68d., and the Tanga worth 3s. 1.44d.... (c).

But even this last and lowest of these results is perplexingly high, unless we consider how very different the relation between silver and gold

in India in the first half of the fourteenth century is likely to have been from what it is now in Europe ; observing also that all the values we have been assigning have been deduced from the value of gold coins estimated

1 For he tells us (p. 77) that 1 oz. Florence weight was equal to 6 bizants and 16g- carats, the bizant being divided into 24 carats; and in another place (p. 202) that 96 gold florins of Florence were equal to one Florence pound. The resulting equation will give the bizant almost exactly equal to 1- florin.