IIRC, the first copper coinage was not issued until the Reign of either henry VIII or of Edward VI. My particular period of re-enactment is late-15th Century England, Brittany, & the Anglo-Norman Isles, - and at that time the shilling did not exist save as a "unit of account" - and everyone was paid in pennies - which were actually coins containing something over 97%fine of real silver, [a plentiful metal in medieval Europe from great middle-European mines such as Kutna Hora]. In my period, a Craft Journeyman in England could expect to earn an average 6 silver pennies for a day's labour. A ploughman - 4d/day. A Knight on campaign - 24d/day for himself - with additional allowances for his personal soldiery, for his servants, and for their maintainance. There are some really good online references for this sort of info; - and Peter Spufford has written 2 wonderful books on the subjects of money and of trade in medieval Europe - which are likely to be of interest to any re-enactor. Especiallt those of us who have done demos, and have had MoP ask "what did it cost? - or - How much did you earn? - or - what were your wages?" At that time, for over a century previously, maybe longer [IIRC], a number of the silver coins in circulation had the reverse design containing a cross; - and as it was not a crime at the time to "deface the coinage", - various medieval coin hoards discovered in modern times have been found to contain silver pennies either cut in half or even cut in quarters along the axis of that reverse cross design. In fact the medieval half-penny of the British isles was literally that - a silver penny cut in half - at least up to the Reign of Henry VIII - there was no half-penny coin minted. In France, the equivalent size & value coin to the British silver penny was the silver "sol" - but the greedy French Kings devalued the currency so much and so often that by the time I re-enact - one English silver penny was worth 28 "sols" from any French Mint. In Service to the Light, and to Drachenwald, Matthew Baker.
Kate M Bunting <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Cynthia wrote: >In this example, the costs are is 14d, where the d is denarius = a >unit of money. I'm not clear how or why the Brits kept using d to >refer to the old shilling coin. Perhaps it was a silver coin just as >the roman denarius was? I leave to someone from the other side of the >pond to explain further. "d" means an old penny, not a shilling. "Denarius" was used as the Latin word for it, perhaps because a denarius was a small coin in Roman times? £ s d = Libri, solidi, denarii. Kate Bunting Cataloguing & Data Quality Librarian University of Derby _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
