It might at first sight be thought that these twelve denarii may have been twelve _argentei_ or drachmæ, but 240 drachmæ would make far more than a pound. And by an edict of A.D. 765[136] Pippin had enacted that out of a pound of silver not more than 22 solidi were to be made, one of which was to go to the monetarius, and this clearly forbids the supposition that the solidus could be of twelve drachmæ. The pound would contain only eight such solidi. Another Capitulare of A.D. 779[137] proves that the twelve denarii were Merovingian denarii of 28·8 wheat-grains.[138] The issue of the new denarii of 32 wheat-grains was apparently made before A.D. 781, for in that year an edict was passed forbidding the currency of the old denarii.[139] [Sidenote: The pound of the _nova moneta_ was 240 pence of 32 w.g. = 7680 w.g.] There was nothing very remarkable in this raising of the silver denarius from 28·8 to 32 wheat-grains. It was merely adopting the Imperial standard. But the extraordinary thing was that Charlemagne seems to have thought that he could, by law, substitute the solidus of 12 of his silver denarii for the _gold solidus_ hitherto in use. The gold currency was going out and the silver currency was taking its place; but it was quite another thing to make the solidus of 12 silver denarii of 32 wheat-grains legal tender in the place of the gold solidus of the Lex Salica of 40 silver denarii of 28·8 wheat-grains. Yet this was what Charlemagne did, though perhaps only by degrees. [Sidenote: Charlemagne enacted that the silver solidus should be legal tender for the gold solidus.] The change was made under the pretence of the sanction of ancient custom. In the addition made to Tit. XXXVI. of the Ripuarian law the wording of the clause as to the payment of wergelds was ‘Quod si cum argento solvere contigerit, pro solido duodecim denarios, _sicut antiquitus est constitutum_.’ And this allusion to antiquity was repeated. What was meant by this appeal to ancient custom it is not easy to see, unless it might be the probably long-established equation already mentioned between 12 Roman drachmas or argentei and the Merovingian gold solidus. Very possibly this equation was older than that of the 40 denarii to the solidus of the Lex Salica. In a series of remarkable articles contributed to the _Forschungen zur Deutschen Geschichte_ of 1862,[140] Dr. Ad. Soetbeer endeavoured to show, and with considerable force, that the introduction into the Lex Salica of the round numbers of denarii--forty to the solidus--was of comparatively late date; and if this hypothesis be correct, then it may be that Charlemagne was appealing to an earlier Frankish custom of reckoning 12 silver denarii or drachmæ to the gold solidus. But even if it could be so, obviously the denarii of 12 to the solidus of ancient custom cannot have been the same denarii as those which afterwards were reckoned at 40 to the solidus.[141] [Sidenote: This involved a ratio of 1:4.]