Vikings: Lords of the Ice Sea

Chapter 230 Code and Silver Coins

859 October.

Wig issued a decree announcing the convening of the Witenagemot, inviting the upper classes of Vikings, Anglo-Saxons, Welsh, Picts, and other peoples to gather at Londineum to discuss the compilation of the kingdom's legal code.

The Kingdom Code is an expanded version of the earlier Tyneburg Code, which includes the Civil Code, the Commercial Code, and the Noble Code.

The venue was chosen to be the old royal palace. Although most of the wooden buildings were destroyed by fire, the main hall, which was made of brick and stone, was largely intact and suitable to accommodate more than two hundred people.

Due to significant differences in language, customs, and clothing, attendees tended to sit with their own ethnic group. The front left row was occupied by Viking nobles, the aisle in the middle was covered with a red carpet, the right row by Anglo-Saxons, and the back row by Welsh, Picts, and Gaels, as well as a small number of Irish (the Duflin court had assigned five low-ranking knights to attend the invitation as a perfunctory gesture).
After waiting for about ten minutes, Vig entered the main hall surrounded by guards, walked up the steps on the red carpet, and was still wearing his black robe embroidered with gold as his everyday attire.

For a long time, three chairs stood on the steps, with Ragnar in the middle and his two queens on either side. Unfortunately, these three jewel-encrusted, gilded chairs were chopped into pieces by the people and taken home as collectibles, so Vig could only find a plain chair to make up the difference.

After taking their seats, Vig glanced at the inattentive attendees, knowing they were too lazy to listen to pleasantries, and went straight to the point.
"For many years, Britain has been divided into many countries, each with its own distinct customs. I have gathered you gentlemen here today to establish a just and effective legal code to resolve disputes."

Because Ragnar did not initially enact a legal code, local gentry and merchants frequently came to him with complaints, severely consuming his energy. For example, when a gentry's sheep grazed on someone else's wheat seedlings, the sheep were killed by the victimized farmer, ultimately leading to a conflict between the two families.
Fearing the same predicament, Vigé drafted a code to delegate such trivial matters to the Minister of Justice and the judges of the counties, only to handle them personally if the conflict became too serious.

Seeing the hesitant crowd, he introduced the basic principles of the Kingdom's Code and promised to abolish a series of chaotic policies promulgated at the end of the old royal family's reign, including lowering the agricultural tax in the directly controlled territories from 25% back to the previous 15%, and also reducing taxes on some commodities. However, one seemingly absurd system was retained.

Several years ago, in order to amass wealth, Asura created a new noble title – “Sir”, which was held for life and could not be inherited.

Vigé continued this system, declaring that commoners who made "certain contributions" to the royal family could be knighted, though the knighthood was not hereditary, but legally considered nobles, and could also allow one of their children to enter the Royal Court School.

His initial intention in establishing the knighthood was not only to make money, but more so to protect the merchant class and reduce the exploitation of them by nobles in various regions.

According to Vigé's recollection, after the 11th century, Western Europe saw many measures to protect commerce, such as granting charters to cities and bestowing numerous privileges. In some regions, a principle also emerged: if a serf escaped to a city, resided there for a certain period (usually one year and one day), and was not captured by his original lord, the serf would gain his personal freedom.

After long-term observation, he concluded that: merchants are good at creating wealth and can provide a lot of tax revenue, but they are not strong enough in combat, and commercial cities often rely on mercenaries for security.

The nobles of the fiefdoms practiced martial arts and horsemanship from a young age, which enabled them to provide high-quality cavalry. The downside was that they paid too little tax.

The nobles and merchants each have their strengths and weaknesses, and the church/temple also plays a unique role. Therefore, the king should maintain a balance of power among these three groups.

After explaining his ideas to the public, Vig left the meeting. He would not participate in the specific work of compiling the code; that would be left to the cabinet and the council of wise men.

With more than an hour to go before lunch, he headed to the Wang Family Mint in the west of the city. The silver ingots from the Cornish silver mine had been stored a few days ago, and the minting of silver coins had begun.

The mint was surrounded by a stone wall, heavily guarded, with guards patrolling back and forth with hunting dogs. Led by the supervisor, Vig entered the workshop to observe the entire silver coin production process. First, the silver ingots were hammered into thin plates, cut into small round silver sheets, and then weighed. Those that were too heavy were trimmed, and those that were too light were melted down.

(In the 9th century AD, the Carolingian Denier silver coin weighed approximately 1.7 grams, while silver coins from the British Empire typically weighed 1.46 grams.)
Workers would then heat the silver sheets to soften them and make them easier to deform. They would then place them in molds and forcefully strike the top of the upper mold with a hammer. The impact deformed the silver sheets between the upper and lower molds, imprinting the designs of the molds onto both sides of the silver sheet. The obverse of the silver coin featured the Tyneburg family's dragon coat of arms, while the reverse depicted the outline of the Kingdom of Britain.

Once the stamping process is complete, workers use files to scrape off the burrs from the edges of the silver coin, obtaining a qualified finished product, which is then transported to the national treasury.

Wittling the entire production process, Vig did not express any opinion. He had considered implementing the gold standard, but there was too little gold in circulation, so he had to make do with silver.

"Only when sea routes to the New World are opened and massive amounts of gold and silver precious metals are obtained from Central America will the 'gold standard' become feasible."

Putting that thought aside, Vig asked his supervisor about the silver coin production over the past few years. On average, they had obtained about 600 kilograms of silver ingots each year, producing 1,700 pounds of silver pennies.

"Too little," he thought to himself.

Agricultural technology has improved significantly, and many agricultural products have entered the market. The problem is that there is not enough money in the market, which hinders further economic development.

After careful consideration, Viggo concluded that the only effective solution was to increase mining output and produce more silver coins for the market. He argued that issuing paper money and using copper coins were both problematic and unsuitable.

After leaving the mint, Viggo found Gwen, the head of the intelligence agency, and asked him to secretly investigate the silver mine.

"Your Majesty, the Prime Minister has already sent people to investigate. Should my agent investigate alone, or should he assist the administrative staff?"

"Investigate separately, one overtly and one covertly, with a focus on the silver mines in Nottinghamshire."

Upon hearing the instructions, Gwen bowed and took his leave. Ten minutes later, he arrived at an unremarkable-looking courtyard. Nominally, he and his subordinates belonged to the County of London's Sheriff's Office, but in reality, they were only accountable to the King and received their salaries from the Imperial Treasury, not the national treasury controlled by the Prime Minister.

Currently, the intelligence system has three departments: the Investigation Department, the Analysis Department, and the Logistics Department.

The investigation department has the most agents, who are responsible for collecting intelligence from various places and then handing over the intelligence to the analysis department.

The agents in the analysis department were responsible for filtering useful information and reporting it to the King regularly.

The logistics department has the easiest job, responsible for training agents and all sorts of miscellaneous tasks.

(End of this chapter)