Although the amounts of the wergelds are generally stated in the laws in gold or silver currency, more or less directly equated with the cattle in which they were originally paid, it would be a great mistake to imagine that the wergelds were often paid actually in coin. A moment’s consideration makes it clear that a wergeld of a hundred head of cattle, whether paid as of old in cattle or in gold or silver, was a payment too large to be paid in _coin_. It was a payment that no ordinary individual could pay without the aid of his kindred, and it is hardly likely that so large an amount in actual coin could be collected even from the kindred of the murderer. [Sidenote: Gold torques &c. made of a certain weight and used in payments.] There is plenty of evidence to show that large payments in gold and silver were mostly made by weight, and very often in gold articles--torques, armlets, and bracelets--made to a certain weight. In the Scald’s tale is the well-known passage:-- He to me a beag gave On which six hundred was Of beaten gold Scored of sceatts In scillings reckoned. Whether the true meaning be six hundred sceatts or six hundred scillings, we have here a beag with its weight marked upon it. The museums of Scandinavia and of Ireland--the two poles of German and Celtic culture--are full of these gold objects, and very frequently little coils of fine gold wire are wound round them to raise their weight to the required standard. [Sidenote: Gold and silver objects weighing so many mancuses.] It may be mentioned, further, in passing, that in many early Anglo-Saxon charters payments and donations are made in gold and silver objects, and that the weights of these are sometimes stated in so many _mancuses_--the mancus being apparently a weight of gold or silver of 30 pence, and equated in the later laws, in its silver value, with the value of the ox.[16] [Sidenote: An historical example.] It may be worth while before concluding this chapter to refer to an historic example of the use of gold objects of definite weight, and the adjustment of their value in differing currencies. The incident deserves to be noticed, and may be of use in helping to fix upon the memory the difference, so often alluded to, between the Roman pound of 6912 wheat-grains and Charlemagne’s pound of 7680 wheat-grains. It belongs to the precise moment when Charlemagne, having issued his _nova moneta_, was contemplating his visit to Rome and the assumption of the Imperial title, and it has an historical interest as showing that the _nova moneta_ was issued before the Imperial title was assumed. Alcuin, who had long resided at the Court of Charlemagne, was now lying ill at Tours. In order to consult him, probably respecting the Imperial title, Charlemagne, with his queen Liutgarda, proceeded to visit him at Tours. Liutgarda was apparently taken ill while there, and died June 4 A.D. 800.