Argument 400: on Diverse Gold and Silver Coins That Have Been Coined in Castile and Portugal over Time. On Their Value at the Moment of Coinage and at the Present Time. On the Value of Gold and Silver Ingots in These Kingdoms at Different Times (Treaty on Money) (Excerpt‪)‬

In order to better understand what we need to say on exchanges, we should discuss the matters indicated in the title of this argument, as we are more familiar with the coins from Castile and Portugal than with those from other kingdoms. All things considered, what we say about those from Castile and Portugal shall make it easy to surmise what should be considered about the other coins, once we have the information about the laws that refer to them and their characteristics. For a better understanding, take into account that a half pound (selibra) of gold and silver, which the Spanish call marco, and in other places they call marca, is a coin that weighs eight ounces; and the ounce is divided into eight eighths, which the Hebrews call adharcon, and the Greek and Latin call drachmas. The Spanish, distorting the Greco-Roman name, call it drama, adarame, or adarme. I suspect that, as happens with many words in our language, adarame is a word that the Spanish inherited from the Saracens who occupied the Spanish territories, and whose language is very similar to the Hebrew tongue. In this kingdom of Castile they call the half ochavo, (1) namely the sixteenth part of an ounce, a dram or adarame and so the half pound contains 64 ochavos, as the eight ounces in the half pound times 8 ochavos make 64 ochavos. The gold ochavo has seventy-two grains.