Beschreibung:

[Coinage] Cest lavaluation des monnoyes dor et dargen estrangieres selon les pois et essay qui y ont este fais par nous Jean Lhuiller sieur de Boulancourt president en la chambre des comptes, et Jehan Grolier sieur Daguisy Tresorier de France, appellez avec nous mer Alexandre de la Torrette, president en la cour des monnoyes... Donne a Marchenoir le xiieme jour de fevrier mil v et lix signee Francois... [Paris, 1559]
The report of a royal commission commanded by François II on 12 February 1560 (1559 Old Style) to determine the weight, purity, and value of foreign gold and silver coins then circulating in France alongside domestic coinage. Written in a fine lettre courante, the text is illustrated with woodcuts of the obverse and reverse of 150 coins, printed directly onto the page, and is attractively bound in flexible vellum ornamented by gilt centrepieces.
Although assembled by François II (r. July 1559-December 1560), the commission was pursuing his father Henri II’s ambition of reforming monetary policy and controlling foreign coin. It was charged with deciding which coins were authorised for use in France (legal tender), assessing their purity, and fixing new values for them against the main French gold coin, the écu d’or au soleil (devalued from 46 sols to 50). The commissioners submitted their proposals to the king on 13 April 1560 and on 17 August 1561 Charles IX promulgated at Saint-Germain-en-Laye an Ordonnance du roy contenant le pois et pris des espèces d'or et d'argent. This ordinance was printed at Paris by Jean Dallier, who held the lettres patentes for printing royal acts, using some of the woodblocks cut in 1560 (only 137 coins are illustrated in the book).
The commission was led jointly by Jean Luillier (Lhullier), seigneur de Boulancourt, President of the Chambre des Comptes, the body responsible for auditing all elements of the royal government, and by Jean Grolier. Grolier had purchased the office of Trésorier de France pour l’Outre-Seine et Yonne in 1532 upon the resignation of Nicolas II de Neufville, seigneur de Villeroy, and was reinstated in that office in 1538 following his release from prison. An Ordonnance of 1542 reduced the power of all treasurers and an edict of 1551 replaced the four principal treasurers with seventeen Trésoriers généraux. Grolier still held the office at his death in 1565. Although Grolier’s life-long interest in coins and medals is well-known and celebrated, his activities as Trésorier are overlooked and unsung. Grolier undoubtedly possessed a copy of this document, however it either has been lost, or is unrecognizable.
The other members of the commission were Alexandre de La Tourette, President of the Chambre des monnaies, which regulated the French mints; Guillaume de Marillac, formerly a valet du chambre to Henri II, an entrepreneur who had developed the mint at Etuves, and joined the Chambre des Comptes; Charles Le Prévost, another officer (Auditeur) of the Chambres des Comptes; Claude Marcel, a goldsmith, since 1556 Essayeur général des monnaies; and Guillaume le Gras, identified as Marchand bourgeois de Paris. A workplace was established for them beside the Louvre, on the terre-plein du Pont Neuf (Antoine Le Roux de Lincy, Recherches sur Jean Grolier, 1866, p.18).
The coins are presented in two lists (98 gold, ff.1-16v; 52 silver, ff.17r-25v), preceded by the text of the royal command (dated at Marchenoir, 12 February 1559 [1560]) and by a precis of objectives (2 unnumbered ff.), and followed by a summary (26r; verso blank). The entries are more or less uniform, stating the denomination of the coin, its origin, weight (measured in deniers and grains), alloy or fineness (gold measured in carats, silver by the denier), and proposed rates of exchange. Several coins were issued in 1557, and a gold scudo struck in Montalcino by the exiled Sienese Republic is dated 1558.
We are aware of nine other manuscripts of the report, all seemingly copies of copies, some with the woodcuts printed on slips of thin paper and pasted onto the page. Five of those manuscripts are now digitised (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Mss Français 18505, 11155, 5524, 4534, available on Gallica digital library; Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Reg. lat. 953, available on DigiVatLib). They all present a set of 149 woodcut coins, in the same order, and we suppose that the woodblocks and a master exemplar of the text were kept at the Chambre des Monnaies, where copies were produced on demand. The 1561 edict quickly proved futile. Charles IX struggled to control inflationary pressures (in 1569, the écu was at 56 sols) and banned coins re-entered circulation. New monetary ordonnances devaluing specific coins were made almost annually for the remainder of his reign, until reforms instituted by Henri III in 1577 brought some stability. In such turbulent circumstances, the Luillier-Grolier report evidently possessed enduring utility.
Two of the five digitised manuscripts have the subscription “A Paris le xiii. iour d’Avril, Lan mil cinq cens cinquante neuf virgille de Pasques” (New Style 1560) and bear the signatures of the seven commissioners (BnF, Français 18505; BAV, Reg. lat. 953). Judging by omissions and scribal carelessness, neither is likely to be the master exemplar. Comparing just the first page, we notice that 18505 and Reg. lat. 953 both have a gap in line 20 (correctly filled with “Alexandre” in ours and the three other digitised manuscripts); Reg. lat. 953 has incorrectly “Iaques Marcel” in line 22 (correctly “Claude” in 18505, in ours, and elsewhere); and 18505 has incorrectly “vii.me jour de fevrier” in line 28 (correctly “xii.e jour” in Reg. lat. 953. in ours, and elsewhere).
The present manuscript has a variant order of the coins and either is idiosyncratic or must descend from a different model. Missing from the sequence of 149 woodcut coins found in the other manuscripts is a gold Guilder issued by Charles V in 1546 for the imperial cities of Deventer, Kampen, and Zwolle (18505 and Reg. lat. 953, f.16r); added is a gold Guilder of Charles V issued in 1534 for the imperial city of Deventer (f.14r), and a gold Guilder issued after 1464 for the Bishopric of Utrecht (f.16v; this coin appears in the published Ordonnance, f. H1v). Unlike all five of the digitised manuscripts, the purity of the coin is here written in numerals next to each woodcut, for example “23 7/8” (indicating nearly pure, 24-carat gold) beside the first coin in the report, the ten-ducat portuguez, the most valuable coin then circulating in Europe.
The original owner of the manuscript has unfortunately left no clue to his identity. A rubbing of the obverse and reverse of a gold Real issued by Sebastião I of Portugal in 1557-1559 (Alberto Gomes, Moedas Portuguesas, SE 65) has been transferred into the margin of f.5r, so it is probable that he had a professional interest in currency, perhaps as a merchant, or in some official capacity. An inscription on the front pastedown indicates that some two centuries later the manuscript was in the possession of Noël Charles le Pocquet de Kério (1703-1744), conseiller in the Cour des monnaies de Paris 1734-1740. It perhaps descended to him from his father Charles (1664-ca 1734), who he succeeded in that office; or from his maternal grandfather, a goldsmith and Émailleur ordinaire du Roi.
Folio (330 x 217 mm). Manuscript on paper [watermarks Briquet 12059 and similar to 12060, both France, 1550s], written in a professional lettre courante (or civilité) script, 37 lines. collation: 1-142: 28 leaves. Woodcut illustrations of coins. (Occasional light staining, front flyleaf defective.)
binding: Contemporary limp vellum (337 x 224 mm), small gilt oval centrepiece, single gilt fillet border, stubs from two pairs of blue silk ties. In modern drop-backed box. (Binding slightly rubbed, creased and soiled at edges, lower pastedown torn.)
provenance: Ex Biblioteca Natalis Carolus Le Pocquet de Kerio in suprima monetarum curia senatorum [Noël Charles le Pocquet, 1703-1744, conseiller in the Cour des monnaies de Paris 1734-1740], inscription on inside front cover — Jean Blondelet (died 2001), initial B on lower pastedown. acquisition: Purchased in 2006 from Librairie Paul Jammes, Paris.