I'm reading a history of King John. It mentions that in 11th and 12th century England there was only one denomination of coin in circulation, the silver penny. It even gives a rough estimate of the total number of silvery pennies in existence at the time. And mentions that historians calculate that one silver penny in around 1200 was worth the equivalent of approximately £20 now. But there was, apparently, no smaller coinage. A time before cash for most people in daily life?
Yes. but if you look at the coins, you'll notice that there was a cross on one side. This is nothing about religion, but rather so you could cut the coin to make halves and forths.
Because the penny was worth 1 penny of silver, if you needed a quarter pennyth of silver you just cut the coin up.
There was also a system of taxation whereby every x years you had to take your coins to the local mint to be remade, whereby you'd give them 100 old coins, and they gave you back 90 new coins.
Useless trivia, if you have £1 of new pennnies now, they weigh. One pound. It's not the same as the pound we use for tomatoes, but rather the tower pound, as used for a pound sterling for centuries. So in theory £1 of pennies now, should weigh the same as £1 of silver pennies from 800 years ago. Also 100 1p coins weighs the same as 50 2p coins...
This is why our currency is sterling. £1 was literally 1 pound of sterling silver.
J
