MINT. The place where money is coined, from the Anglo-Saxon and that in all probability from the Latin enoneta. It is a part of the royal preroga tive to coin money. [Comma.] The Roman moneta was the place where the money was coined. It was a building on the Capitoline Hill, which was attached to the Temple of Juno Moneta. The subject of the earliest coinage is treated by Eckhel, Doctrina Nunsorum Veterans, Prolegomena, vol. i.
On the early Anglo-Saxon coins are found, in addition to the names of the kings, those of other persons also, who are conjectured to have been the money ers, because on later Anglo-Saxon money the names of those officers frequently oc cur, with the addition of their title of of fice. From this circumstance we may pro bably conclude that they were responsible for the integrity of the money ; and that they were the principal officers of the mint.
In the Anglo-Saxon times an officer called the reeve seems also to have had some kind of connection with the mint, or some jurisdiction over it ; for in the laws of Canute it is provided, that if any person accused of false coinage should plead that he did it by licence from the reeve, that officer should clear himself by the triple ordeal. If he failed to do this, he was to suffer the same punishment as the falsifier himself, which was the loss of that hand by which the crime was committed, without any redemption either by gold or silver. (Leg. p 134; LL Conti, § 8.) After the Norman conquest the officers of the mint appear to have been in some degree under the authority of the Court of Exchequer, as they were admitted to their respective offices in that court, and took the usual oath of office before the treasurer and barons.
The mint did not attain its full con stitution of superior officers until the 18 Edward II., when a comptroller first ap peared and delivered in his account, dis tinct from those of the warden and mas whose accounts also were distinct from each other. Thus they operated as mutual checks, and no fraud could be practised without the concurrence of all these three persons. One of the principal offices, namely, that of cuneator, and pro bably others, descended by inheritance even in the female line, and the inheritor was sometimes allowed to sell it. See Ruding's account of this office in his Annals of the Coinage of Britain,' 8vo.
edit., vol: i., pp. where its de scent is traced from the time of Domes day Book to the 4 Richard II.
In the Anglo-Saxon and the early Norman period there were many mints beside the king's, and some were continued to a much later time. Barons and bishops struck money, especially in King Stephen's reign, and in two or three in stances the privilege of coining was grant ed to the greater monasteries. Wolsey exercised this franchise, both as Bishop of Durham and Archbishop of York ; and there are coins of the Archbishops of Canterbury, distinctly marked as such, at intervals from Jaenberht, consecrated in 793, to the close of the reign of Henry VIII. Of the lay barons of Stephen's time, we have but one coin now extant, usually ascribed to Robert Earl of Glou cester.
From a very early time the moneyers seem to have enjoyed exclusive privileges. In the 33 Henry II. the moneyers of York were expressly exempted from the payment of the Donum ' which was as sessed upon the men of that city. (Madox, vol. i., p. 635.) In the 18 Henry III. the mayor, &c., of London were com manded not to infringe upon the liberties of the king's moneyers of London, by ex acting from them tallages or other cus toms contrary to their privileges (Cl. 18 Henry III., m. 30) ; and before his 41st year those privileges appear to have been extended to the whole body of officers belonging to the mint; for at that time the bailiffs, &c. of Canterbury were ordered to appear in the Exchequer to receive judgment for having distrained upon the officers of that mint. (Madox, Hist. Exch., voL i.,748 ; Ruding, An nab, vol. iv., p. The earliest grant of these privileges by charter was in the reign of Edward I., when the officers of the exchange and of the mint were (by the names of the keepers of the changes of the city of Lon don and Canterbury, the labourers, or workers, money-makers, or coiners, and other ministers deputed or appointed unto those things which touch the office of the changes aforesaid) freed from all tallages, and were not to be put into any assizes, juries, or recognizance, and were to plead before the said keepers of the changes only, except in pleas appertaining unto freehold and the crown.