The Act against Multipliers

[Paul Ferguson]

Tomorrow (13.1.24) is the 620th anniversary of the English Act against Multipliers. "This Act forbade the transmutation of base metals into gold or silver, which one might then use to create counterfeit coins. Its enactment was meant to protect the authority of the government by preventing the debasement of currency. Four decades later, Henry VI began issuing special licenses to alchemists to circumvent the statute in an attempt to pay for costly wars."

https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2023/01/alchem...ltipliers/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplication_(alchemy)

https://www.earthmagazine.org/article/be...s-alchemy/