History - The New Mint of Segovia

THE NEW MINT OF SEGOVIA Karl Friedrich Rudolf

The history of the new Mint of Segovia began

at the end of 1580 with the decision of Philip II to introduce into his kingdoms a new coining technique, the roller-press. He had received information of a

new hydraulically-driven machine which had been operating to perfection since 1567 in the mint of the Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol, his cousin. The

new machine guaranteed speed. Its basic principles increased production while reducing personnel and expenses, which resulted in significant savings. In 1582, while Philip II was in Portugal, he formalised the order for the machine, fixing the price, the means of delivery and the architectural and technical measures for its installation.

This industrial plant, as it would be known today, consisted of a building, the hydraulic equipment –a channel and the wooden wheels with their shafts— and of the machinery itself. It was projected, that, while the machine was being built at the mint in Hall in Tyrol, the necessary structure for its installation would be prepared in Spain. Everything would have to be completed before the arrival of the machine, which was given in the end to Philip II as a gift from his cousin, the Archduke Ferdinand.

For this purpose, a group of specialised craftsmen and builders arrived in Spain from Tyrol.

In 1583, it was decided that Segovia would be the seat of the new Mint, where Philip II had purchased a flour and paper mill on the banks of the Eresma river. At the end of that year, the work began, supervised by the royal architect Juan de Herrera. It was completed in 1584 with the first building of the new Mint of Segovia and the hydraulic system, in particular, a wooden duct which channelled the water from the river to the wheels which would drive the machinery.

The new machine arrived in Segovia in 1585, accompanied by a group of mint employees from Hall in Tyrol, who would set it to function. The following year, the regular production of coins commenced, of a quality until then unseen in Spain. Owing to this, in The life of Don Quixote by Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda, Sancho Panza would refer to the eight Real pieces produced in Segovia as “más redondos que hostias“ (“rounder than communion wafers”).

It soon became apparent that the complex would need to be extended, which was carried out over the first two decades after the Mint was founded and under the supervision of the architect Francisco de Mora at the beginning of the 17th century. Minting by roller-press was the technique used during this century. Profound changes would come in the first half of the 18th century.

From 1730, the Mint of Segovia became exclusively dedicated to the production of copper coins, extracted from the mines in Río Tinto (province of Huelva).

Finally, flywheel minting was introduced in 1771.

This technique was accompanied by great changes to the Mint of Segovia overseen by the royal architect Francisco Sabatini (see Archaeology). During the War of Independence, our Mint fell temporarily into the hands of the French, reason why the mint in Jubia (Galicia) was opened to continue its activity, parallel to the Mint of Segovia, after 1814.

Slowly, operations at the Mint of Segovia came to an end. Already in 1835, the immediate closure of the Mint had been debated in the Assembly, being solely dedicated to the production of copper coins, now considered useless and detrimental with such an exorbitant quantity of coins in circulation. Soon after, in 1837, Juan Álvarez y Mendizábal highlighted the low profitability of the Segovia Mint, favouring its closure. With these pessimistic prospects, the final phase of the Mint began.

Following the final change in the minting system to automatic presses, the story of the Mint as a centre for the production of coins ended in 1868, during the first Republic. In the following year, the machinery was dismantled and sold, as were the buildings in 1874. From 1879, a flour mill was housed on the site and the structure of the complex would be modified several times over the course of the next one hundred years until, in 1974, it also ceased to operate. (See Archaeology).

Gradually, the condition of the buildings deteriorated. In 1983, the City Council of Segovia initiated the process to acquire the Mint, which ended in the nineties. From that point, it became possible to seriously consider a restoration project composed by the architect Eduardo de la Torre and his team between 2003 and 2004, which began to be executed in 2007 (see Restoration). The first stone was laid on 14th February, 2007.

Image of the Mint before its restoration in 2011

After four years, the work was completed. On 11th March, it was presented to the public in the presence of the Secretary of State for Housing, Beatriz Corredor; the Mayor of Segovia, Pedro Arahuetes, and the General Director of the regional government (Junta de Castilla y León), Alberto Gutiérrez. On 18th May 2011, the Mayor of Segovia received the keys to the restored Mint, which was officially opened on 29th June, 2011.

Segovia and its two Mints

In the book from the 1890s, España Ilustrada (An Illustrated Spain) in which Segovia is described, the author, en route to El Parral Monastery and leaving behind the Mint complex founded by Philip II, briefly explains that there were two mints: “This Factory is to be found along the same stretch of water that drives it, with its slate roofs towering merrily over the treetops. Its German makers set it here in 1582 on the orders of Philip II, who was present for the first operations, and it is probable that the building was designed by his indispensable architect, Herrera. He once lived in these parts, which since times past has given Segovia its importance, in the upper part of the town, in the courtyard named San Sebastián, alongside the Eastern gate of San Juan; and he was continually rebuilding so, in 1455, Henry IV ordered that his name and royal coat of arms be emblazoned above the main entrance.” (Translated from Quadrado, 639-640). We are offered with these words the leitmotif of these few pages: the existence of the two Mints in Segovia, which produced coins parallel to one another, albeit using different techniques.

The exact date on which coining by hammer began at the first Segovian Mint is known by the date displayed on the building, no longer in existence. “This Mint was founded by his Royal Highness, his Excellency Henry IV, in the year of Our Lord Jesus Christ MCCCCLV. It commenced with the production of gold and silver coins on the first day of May” (Translated from Colmenares, Historia de Segovia ch. 31, 3). Thus, Segovia came to house a Mint by the will of King Henry IV of Castile, whose reign had commenced in the previous year.

130 years would pass until, in 1585, in a recently constructed building called the “Casa Nueva” (New House), in the second Mint of Segovia, the first coining was carried out using the machine. It was a novel machine which had recently arrived from afar. Could this not have created strong competition with the “Casa Vieja” (Old House)? This did not close down but continued to operate using the old technique of coining using rollers until the end of the 17th century. The “Casa Vieja” continued to provide employment for many, estimated at around one hundred, among them “treasurer, manager, clerks, scales master, assayers, guards, engravers, builders, coin makers, and others” (493).

Henry IV of Castile (1454-1474) Although Henry IV does not have a good reputation as a governor – and “great anarchy under his rule” has been noted –, owing to the monetary system, we can highlight his special relationship with Segovia, where he had a magnificent residence in the Alcázar. He conceded a Mint to the city to add to the other Mints already in existence in the kingdom in Burgos, Toledo, Seville, Cuenca and La Coruña which produced “Enriques” and “half Enriques” in gold, “Reales” and “half Reales” in silver, and the small coins “Blancas” and “half Blancas” in copper.

There was no lack of attempts to put the monetary system in order; in fact, several testimonies show the king’s intent from 1455, heeding the continual requests from the lawyers of the kingdom, who were seeking solutions to certain illegalities, as it happened in the Assembly of Toledo in 1462.

In 1465, in the Assembly held in Salamanca, evidence was produced that the Mint of Segovia occupied a leading position and functioned well. The result of this was that Henry IV was asked in Salamanca to “order that, in general, all the mints established to produce coins do so as in Segovia …” and to “… order his licence to be given so that the coins of the realms be produced in these mints, coins of gold and silver and especially of copper …”. It would seem that the Mint of Seville was not operating at that time, as the lawyers complained of the lack of gold being brought over from North Africa, “which they were accustomed to having brought from the Berber Coast when the said mint produced coins…”.

However, there was little money in circulation and the overvaluation of the currency caused serious economic problems which needed to be resolved.

An attempt was made to reach an agreement within the kingdom of Henry IV in the year 1465, when a commission made up of nine people was set up, chosen by the councils and officials of Seville, Córdoba, Toledo, Burgos, Segovia, Cuenca, León, Valladolid and La Coruña in order to examine and determine “said business of said currency, and in what the currency should be minted, …, and the mints in which it should be produced, and those persons who should intervene in this, and the values at which, from now onwards, they should be worth, and all other matters necessary and which must be carried out for the execution, setting and dispatch of the aforementioned”.

The King also appointed three other people from the Royal Council and a prelate. Until any decisions could be made, the King ordered “that in any one of the mints, no coins be produced either in gold, or in silver, or in copper, or any other metal, except in the Mint of Segovia, which may produce coins from the day our sentence is delivered until ninety days”. Once again, the Mint of Segovia stands out as the favourite of Henry IV. However, the complaints of the lawyers from the cities and towns regarding counterfeit coins continued, such as in the Assembly of Ocaña in 1469.

Finally, on 18th April 1471, Henry IV signed the legislation for the gold “Enriques”, which would also be valid for the personnel of the other mints: treasurers, managers, clerks, scales masters, assayers, guards, engravers, builders, coin makers, and others. The King submitted to the requests of the experts and ordered that the exclusive production of “coins of gold, silver and copper” only take place in the six royal mints and nowhere else, “of a certain legal standard, size, and value contained in the appeals …” and “that in each one of my six mints from now on Enriques and half Enriques are produced in fine gold, Reales and half Reales in fine silver, and Blancas and half Blancas in copper”. Shortly after, in Medina del Campo and on 30th July of the same year, the subject arose again with talk of “eight to ten years” of “bad and counterfeit” coins, which Henry IV decided to resolve once and for all. The different types of coin are again mentioned in the document and their values in “Maravedís” (another type of old Spanish coin), information which was sent on the King’s orders to the six mints in the Kingdom of Castile which exclusively produced the coins.

Once again, the Mint of Segovia would be the protagonist. On this occasion as the place where Henry IV made a decision concerning his financial policy. On 26th March 1473, the King announced severe punishments for those found in possession of counterfeit coins and those who exchanged and traded with them. It was a memorable date as papal approval was granted for the reforms by Cardenal Rodrigo Borja, later Pope Alexander VI, who could be found in February 1473 as a legate in Segovia. The “ill and perverse use of common currency …” had to stop and the punishment of excommunication was announced in all the churches.

Once again, it was highlighted that the Royal Mints were the only places where coins could be produced. Henry IV died on 11th December of the following year and was succeeded by his sister, Isabella, as the Queen of Castile, married to Ferdinand of Aragón: the Catholic Monarchs.

The Catholic Monarchs (1475-1516)

With them, the monetary policy entered a new phase, developed in the context of the new political constellation of the peninsula, of relations with other European territories and the Discovery of America, when new economic horizons were opened up to resolve the short supply of precious metals, above all silver. The first changes came about immediately, when, in 1475, new legislation, the Ordenamiento de Sevilla, set out that the gold “Castellano” would be coined in Seville and Toledo, while the half Real and the quarter Real – in silver – would be produced in the mints of Segovia, Burgos, Cuenca, Seville and Toledo. Five years later, in 1480, further legislation, the Ordenamiento de Toledo, fixed the value of one Castellano as 431 Maravedís and the Real as 31. However, the coins from earlier times were still in circulation, concretely the old Enriques and silver Reales from the era of Henry IV, worth 435 and 30 Maravedís, respectively.

An important development in the monetary policy of the Catholic Monarchs was, without doubt, marked by the Royal Edict of Medina del Campo of 13th June 1497. It was then that the Venetian ducat was adopted in the kingdom of Castile as a model, a type of coin made with 24 carat gold which had already been used in 1483 in Valencia. The result was a gold coin, the so-called “Excelente”, which was equivalent to two ducats. Examples of two and ten Excelentes are conserved from the Mint of Segovia.

Joanna I and Charles I (1504/1516-1556)

During the reigns of the successors of Isabella of Castile, Joanna I and Charles I, coins with the names of the Catholic Monarchs would continue to circulate until 1550, such as the silver Real and its denominations, and the copper Maravedís as fractions of a Real. In the Mint of Segovia, Reales were produced, especially the two Real piece. It was the period in which the eight Real piece became the basis of the monetary system.

There is one document which can offer a special perspective, as it was destined for the “Old House” of Segovia. It is known that, in 1535, production of the Escudo commenced in the name of the Monarchs Joanna and Charles, firstly in Barcelona, while in the Mint of Segovia they were produced from 1543. On 28th April of the same year, Francisco de Cepeda, foot messenger of Charles V, arrived at the Mint of Segovia and gave Álvaro de San Millán, notary, a royal letter patent signed with “I, the King” and dated in Barcelona on 15th April 1543. The document should be read and those it was destined for notified: Baltasar de Rueda, treasurer of the Mint; Juan de Alcalá, smelter; Antonio de Sello, assayer; Francisco de la Vega, manager, and the other officials. The King ordered “that all gold present in this house, or that which is brought here either ours or that of any individual, is worked to the legal standard of twenty-two carats, and of that crowns are produced in gold with each Castilian mark weighing seventy-eight crowns, which is the legal standard and weight of the best foreign Escudos; in said crowns on one side our royal coat of arms, as on the single ducat, and the lettering Juana et Carolus hispaniarum Reges, and on the other side a cross”. The messenger also delivered the die and the mould of the new coin. Dies and moulds which had been used until this point were destroyed in the presence of witnesses, who signed a document composed by the aforementioned Álvaro de San Millán.

Philip II (1556-1598)

In the era of Philip II, in Castile, the value of the gold and silver coins was established in the royal edict of 23rd November 1566, maintaining the weight and legal standard of Charles I; shortly after, in another royal edict of 14th December of the same year regarding rich copper coins, the King set out legislation to all the mints.

Fifteen years later, the history of the “new machine” in Segovia began. It is evident that there were relations between the old mint and the new. It is demonstrated by the fact that, on 11th June 1582, in Lisbon, Philip II appointed Antonio de San Millán manager of the “Old House”, who was a member of one of the most powerful families in Segovia, merchant and alderman. In the following year, he received from the King the designation of the succession of this role “for two lifetimes”, as noted

by Leonor Gómez Nieto and Ana Arévalo Santiuste. In exchange, he sold a paper mill and other properties to the King, where the building to house the machine for minting using the roller press was built. Finally, Antonio de San Millán would also become manager of the new Mint of Segovia and conceded the management of the Old Mint to his nephew, Juan de Cuellar, in 1599 for 750 ducats, as noted by Rafael Ródenas Vilar.

It is Mint,

also known that Alonso Moreno, who was deputy treasurer of the Old received and executed orders from Philip II regarding the new Mint.

In spite of this, it is still not known whether the “New Machine” caused tensions among the workers, a tension comparable to the rebellion which occurred during the industrial era due to the introduction of machinery. It would seem that indeed there were, which can be gleaned from the correspondence of the assayer Joachim Linngahöl, who arrived with the machinery from Tyrol, as confirmed by Heinz Moser. It was not only the two machines for coining and laminating by roller press which came from Hall in Tyrol: there were more. There was also the equipment for making small coins. One indication is that the King mentions, in one of his letters regarding the new Mint, “certain machines and instruments to produce coins in my Kingdoms of Castile”. This clearly supports the transport inventory composed in 1584 of which the German version has been conserved.

The coining process was able to begin immediately, as within the packing crates there were “three pairs of steel, engraved rollers for coining eight real pieces, each roller with five dies and two pairs of engraved, steel rollers for coining four real pieces, each roller with six dies”. They also sent from Tyrol the necessary dies for the various small coins in gold and silver, for double crowns and single crowns. Furthermore, in the “New House”, coining was carried out by hammer or, as is stated on the inventory, the very small coins would be produced “by hand without hydraulic equipment”.

It is known that the new Mint was directly accountable to Philip II, and the production of coins, therefore, served to maintain the Royal Family – for example, for the purchase of barley for the stables – and to pay the people who worked at the Mint. What is certain is that, in 1588, Philip II set out orders for the operations of the Mint. By reading this document, it is very interesting to follow the process and circumstances of the new form of coin production, the detailed orders of the King regarding security and the alloying of metal. Furthermore, it is also specified the role of those in charge, who were Alonso Moreno, the assayer, the notary and Hans Belta, who supervised the machinery, the personnel, who worked from five in the morning until seven in the evening, with a two-hour break for elevenses, lunch and tea and, finally, what people should do if there was no silver to mint, among other things.

The two Segovian Mints co-existed for one hundred years. The “Old House” continued to produce coins using the old hammer method until the end of the 17th century and ceased to exist in the following century, while the New Mint closed its doors in 1869. The photograph by the Loty company, taken from the river Eresma and looking towards the Alcázar seven decades ago between 1932 and 1936 shows the still intact structure of the complex and the first structure, built in the 16th century.

Illustration 9: Loty, The Mint and the Alcázar seen from the river Eresma, between 1932 and 1936.

Loty archive: NIM: 02023; NIA: 38027. Photography Library of Historical Heritage, IPHE, Ministry of Culture (Taken of: Segovia in three periods. Photographs by Laurent, Moreno and Loty 1856- 1956. Exhibition catalogue. MAPFRE Foundation. Institute of Culture – Institute of Spanish Historical Heritage – Ministry of Culture. Madrid 2006).

BIBLIOGRAPHY Works consulted or cited: GÓMEZ NIETO, Leonor – ARÉVALO SANTIUSTE, Ana, El ingenio de Segovia en el siglo XVII a través de la documentación del Archivo de Palacio. Estudios Segovianos 33 (1992) pp.

421-504.

MATEU LLOPIS, Felipe, “Función histórico-económica de los valores monetarios expuestos”.

Monedas hispánicas 1475-1598. Catálogo de exposición. Madrid 1992, pp. 71-98.

QUADRADO, José Mª, España, sus monumentos y artes, su naturaleza e Historia. Salamanca, Segovia. Barcelona 1884.

RÓDENAS VILAR, Rafael, Vida cotidiana y negocio en la Segovia del Siglo de Oro. El mercader Juan de Cuellar. Valladolid 1990.

SAEZ, Liciniano, Demostración histórica del verdadero valor de todas las monedas que corrían en Castilla durante el reynado del señor don Enrique IV. Madrid 1805.

TORTELLA, Teresa, Las monedas hispánicas en la documentación de la época. Monedas hispánicas 1475-1598. Catálogo de exposición. Madrid 1992, pp. 41-68.

ROYAL MINT OF SEGOVIA C/ DE LA MONEDA S/N 40003 - SEGOVIA Tel. 921 475 109 www.casamonedasegovia.com casademoneda@turismodesegovia.com