Schilling (unit)

As well as being the name of a coin, the Schilling was an historical unit in three areas of measurement: numbers, volume and weight. It can be regarded as a European measure, because it was used in Bohemia, Bavaria, Silesia, Austria and Lusatia.

In Bohemian mines it was a measure of volume that corresponded to 5 wheelbarrows. The schilling was determined as follows:

  • 1 schilling = 12 leather skins filled with water = 480 Prague pints
  • 18 schillings = 1 quantity (Losung) of water

In Regensburg the measure was applied to salt. In Bavaria, for example, it was used as a number and a weight.

  • 1 schilling salt = 40 'slices' (Salzscheiben)[lower-alpha 1]
  • 8 schillings = 1 Pfund ("pound") of salt

In Austria a schilling corresponded to the number 30[1] and in Silesia and Lusatia, the number 12. In the regional dialect it was called a Schilger in Silesia and a Schilger or Schilk in Lusatia.

240 pfennigs were minted from the 367 g Carolingian pound of silver. A schilling was determined to be twelve pfennigs, but was initially not an actual coin.[2]

Footnotes
  1. A salt slice was a standard container of salt in retail ready form.

References
  1. Friedrich Noback: Allgemeines Börsen- u. Kontorbuch. Band 3, Adolf Gumprecht, Leipzig 1862, p. 84.
  2. Walter Haupt: Sächsische Münzkunde, Berlin 1974, p. 12

Literature
  • Joachim Heinrich Campe: Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache. Volume 4, Brunswick: Schulbuchhandlung, 1810, p. 141
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