Minters:

By: Joseph Jacobs

Persons authorized to strike coinage on behalf of a government. As early as 555 a certain Priscus struck coins at Châlons ("R. E. J." x. 237). One Gideon was minter at Milan in the tenth century. In 1181 three Jews at Winchester were apparently fined for minting, though the reading of the document on which the statement is based is ambiguous (Jacobs, "Jews of Angevin England," p. 73). Several "short-cross" pennies exist of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries with names of moneyers which may be Jewish, as David of London, Isaac of York, Samuel, Simon, and Solomon of Canterbury; but it is doubtful whether these were really Jews ( ib. pp. 392-396). A certain number of German coins of the twelfth century with Hebrew inscriptions have been found (see Aronius, "Regesten," Nos. 351, 389). A certain Jew, Jehiel, is mentioned as mint-master on one of the coins of Bishop Otto of Würzburg; another held a similar position in Treves (Lamprecht, "Deutsches Wirthschaftsleben," ii. 1452, 1472). Earlier than this a Jew named Schlom was mint-master to Leopold V. of Austria. He appears to have been murdered during the Third Crusade (Scherer, "Rechtsverhältnisse der Juden," i. 121 et seq. ). In Hungary the early minters appear to have been exclusively Jews (Kohn, "A Zsidók Tostenete Magrarorszagan," i. 240); and there are a number of Polish coins with Hebrew inscriptions ( see Numismatics ).