Penny

The medieval silver penny was modeled on similar coins in antiquity, such as the Greek drachma, the Carthaginian shekel, and the Roman denarius. Forms of these seem to have reached as far as Norway and Sweden. The use of Roman currency in Britain, seems to have fallen off after the Roman withdrawal and subsequent Saxon invasions.

Charlemagne's father Pepin the Short instituted a major currency reform around AD 755,[7] aiming to reorganize Francia's previous silver standard with a standardized .940-fine denier (Latin: denarius) weighing ¹⁄₂₄₀ pound.[8] (As the Carolingian pound seems to have been about 489.5 grams,[9][10] each penny weighed about 2 grams.) Around 790, Charlemagne introduced a new .950 or .960-fine penny with a smaller diameter. Surviving specimens have an average weight of 1.70 grams, although some estimate the original ideal mass at 1.76 grams.[11][12][13] But despite the purity and quality of these pennies, they were often rejected by traders throughout the Carolingian period, in favor of the gold coins used elsewhere; this led to repeated legislation against such refusal, to accept the king's currency.[14]

O: Draped bust of Aethelred left. +ÆĐELRED REX ANGLOR[UM]	R: Long cross. +EADǷOLD MO CÆNT
Anglo-Saxon silver "Long Cross" penny of Aethelred II, moneyer Eadwold, Canterbury, c. 997–1003. The cross made cutting the coin into half-pennies or farthings (quarter-pennies) easier. (Note spelling Eadƿold in inscription, using Anglo-Saxon letter wynn in place of modern w.)

Some of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms initially copied the solidus, the late Roman gold coin; at the time, however, gold was so rare and valuable that even the smallest coins had such a great value that they could only be used in very large transactions and were sometimes not available at all. Around 641–670, there seems to have been a movement to use coins with lower gold content. This decreased their value and may have increased the number that could be minted, but these paler coins do not seem to have solved the problem of the value and scarcity of the currency. The miscellaneous silver sceattas minted in Frisia and Anglo-Saxon England after around 680 were probably known as "pennies" at the time. (The misnomer is based on a probable misreading of the Anglo-Saxon legal codes.)[15] Their purity varied and their weight fluctuated from about 0.8 to about 1.3 grams. They continued to be minted in East Anglia under Beonna and in Northumbria as late as the mid-9th century.

The first Carolingian-style pennies were introduced by King Offa of Mercia (r. 757–796), modeled on Pepin's system. His first series was 1⁄240 of the Saxon pound of 5400 grains (350 grams), giving a pennyweight of about 1.46 grams. His queen Cynethryth also minted these coins under her own name.[16] Near the end of his reign, Offa minted his coins in imitation of Charlemagne's reformed pennies. Offa's coins were imitated by East Anglia, Kent, Wessex and Northumbria, as well as by two Archbishops of Canterbury.[16] As in the Frankish Empire,[8] all these pennies were notionally fractions of shillings (solidi; sol) and pounds (librae; livres) but during this period neither larger unit was minted. Instead, they functioned only as notional units of account.[17] (For instance, a "shilling" or "solidus" of grain was a measure equivalent to the amount of grain that 12 pennies could purchase.)[18] English currency was notionally .925-fine sterling silver at the time of Henry II, but the weight and value of the silver penny steadily declined from 1300 onwards.

In 1257, Henry III minted a gold penny which had the nominal value of 1 shilling 8 pence (i.e. 20 d.). At first, the coin proved unpopular because it was overvalued for its weight; by 1265 it was so undervalued—the bullion value of its gold being worth 2 shillings (i.e. 24 d.) by then—that the coins still in circulation were almost entirely melted down for the value of their gold. Only eight gold pennies are known to survive.[19] It was not until the reign of Edward III that the florin and noble established a common gold currency in England.

A worn medieval penny, probably dating from the reigns of Henry VI–VII, AD 1413–1461

The earliest halfpenny and farthing (¼d.) found date from the reign of Henry III. The need for small change was also sometimes met by simply cutting a full penny into halves or quarters. In 1527, Henry VIII abolished the Tower pound of 5400 grains, replacing it with the Troy pound of 5760 grains (making a penny 5760/240 = 24 grains) and establishing a new pennyweight of 1.56 grams, although, confusingly, the penny coin by then weighed about 8 grains, and had never weighed as much as this 24 grains. The last silver pence for general circulation were minted during the reign of Charles II around 1660. Since then, they have only been coined for issue as Maundy money, royal alms given to the elderly on Maundy Thursday.

Throughout the 18th century, the British government did not mint pennies for general circulation and the bullion value of the existing silver pennies caused them to be withdrawn from circulation. Merchants and mining companies, such as Anglesey's Parys Mining Co., began to issue their own copper tokens to fill the need for small change.[20] Finally, amid the Napoleonic Wars, the government authorized Matthew Boulton to mint copper pennies and twopences at Soho Mint in Birmingham in 1797.[21] Typically, 1 lb. of copper produced 24 pennies. In 1860, the copper penny was replaced with a bronze one (95% copper, 4% tin, 1% zinc). Each pound of bronze was coined into 48 pennies.[22]

The United States' cent, popularly known as the "penny" since the early 19th century,[6] began with the unpopular copper chain cent in 1793.[23] Abraham Lincoln was the first historical figure to appear on a U.S. coin when he was portrayed on the one-cent coin to commemorate his 100th birthday.[24]

The penny that was brought to the Cape Colony (in what is now South Africa) was a large coin—36 mm in diameter, 3.3 mm thick, and 1 oz (28 g)—and the twopence was correspondingly larger at 41 mm in diameter, 5 mm thick and 2 oz (57 g). On them was Britannia with a trident in her hand. The English called this coin the Cartwheel penny due to its large size and raised rim,[25] but the Capetonians referred to it as the Devil's Penny as they assumed that only the Devil used a trident.[26] The coins were very unpopular due to their large weight and size.[27] On 6 June 1825, Lord Charles Somerset, the governor, issued a proclamation that only British Sterling would be legal tender in the Cape Colony (colonial South Africa). The new British coins (which were introduced in England in 1816), among them being the shilling, six-pence of silver, the penny, half-penny, and quarter-penny in copper, were introduced to the Cape. Later two-shilling, four-penny, and three-penny coins were added to the coinage. The size and denomination of the 1816 British coins, with the exception of the four-penny coins, were used in South Africa until 1960.[26]

• Allen, Larry (2009), "Carolingian Reform", The Encyclopedia of Money, Sta. Barbara: ABC Clio, pp. 59–60, ISBN 978-1-59884-251-7.
• Blackburn, M.A.S.; et al. (1986), Medieval European Coinage, Vol. 1: The Early Middle Ages (5th–10th centuries), Cambridge.
• Bosworth; et al., An Old English Dictionary.
• Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Penny" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 21 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 115–116.
• Chown, John F (1994), A History of Money from AD 800, London: Routledge, ISBN 0-415-10279-0.
• Cipolla, Carlo M. (1993), Before the Industrial Revolution: European Society and Economy, 1000-1700, ISBN 9780203695128.
• Ferguson, Wallace K. (1974), "Money and Coinage of the Age of Erasmus: An Historical and Analytical Glossary with Particular Reference to France, the Low Countries, England, the Rhineland, and Italy", The Correspondence of Erasmus: Letters 1 to 141: 1484 to 1500, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pp. 311–349, ISBN 0-8020-1981-1.
• Frassetto, Michael (2003), Encyclopedia of Barbarian Europe: Society in Transformation, ISBN 9781576072639.
• Keary, Charles Francis (2005), A Catalogue of English Coins in the British Museum: Anglo-Saxon Series, Vol. I.
• Munro, John H. (2012), "The Technology and Economics of Coinage Debasements in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: With Special Reference to the Low Countries and England", Money in the Pre-Industrial World: Bullion, Debasements, and Coin Substitutes, Pickering & Chatto, republished 2016 by Routledge, pp. 30 ff, ISBN 978-1-84893-230-2.
• Scott, Martin (1964), Medieval Europe, New York: Dorset Press, ISBN 0-88029-115-X.
• Islam and the Carolingian Penny, National Bank of Belgium Museum, November 2006.
• Selgin, George A. (2008), Good Money: Birmingham Button Makers, the Royal Mint, and the Beginnings of Modern Coinage, 1775-1821, University of Michigan Press, ISBN 978-0-472-11631-7.
• Suchodolski, Stanislaw (1983), "On the Rejection of Good Coin in Carolingian Europe", Studies in Numismatic Method: Presented to Philip Grierson, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 147–152, ISBN 0-521-22503-5.