We see the Florentines invited to manage the mints, and fix the weights and measures of various European states. In 1278 a convention between the King of France and the Lombard and Tuscan _Universitates_ invites both to find money for the former's government. In 1306 the Modenese people issued a decree, appealing for the same purpose, to the notaries and bankers of Florence. Then in 1302, when the King of France, lacking funds wherewith to make war, decided on repeated debasement of the coinage, this fatal step was attributed to the advice of two Florentines, Bicci and Musciatto Franzesi. These men were severely censured by their fellow-citizens, many of whom had been ruined by the bad French currency. On all occasions when the French sovereigns were on the eve of a great war, they were practically compelled to first secure the aid of some known Florentine banker in bearing the expense. Some of these bankers held the same position in Europe as the Rothschilds of the present day, and accumulated fortunes of apparently fabulous amounts. In 1260 the Salimbeni house lent twenty thousand florins to the Siennese. In 1338 we find the Bardi and Peruzzi creditors of King Edward III. of England for one million three hundred and sixty-five florins, the which, without reckoning the difference in the value of gold, would amount to about sixteen millions of Italian _lire_; and allowing for that difference, would amount, as Sismondi has calculated, to no less than sixty-four millions. Pagnini adds a list of many other loans, amounting to a positively enormous total. In 1321 the Peruzzi had a credit of 191,000 florins on the Order of Jerusalem alone, and the Bardi another of 133,000 florins. In 1348 the house of Tommaso di Carroccio degli Alberti and his kinsmen had banks at Avignon, Brussells, Paris, Sienna, Perugia, Rome, Naples, Barletta, Constantinople, and Venice.[352] And at the close of the fifteenth century Philippe de Commines declared that Edward IV. of England owed his crown to the help of Florentine bankers.