Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 1.djvu/79

Rh But the most important, and unfortunately also the darkest question of all, is that of the determination of the value of these several coins or denominations of money. There has been the greatest doubt and difference of opinion both as to the absolute value or weight, and as to the relative value, of nearly every one of them. Almost the only thing which is perfectly certain is, that the pound was always understood to be a full pound of silver. It appears, however, to have been not the common troy pound, but another measure, long known in Germany by the name of the Cologne pound, and used in this country as the Tower or Mint weight down to the reign of Henry VII. It was three quarters of an ounce less than the pound troy, and was equal, therefore, to only eleven ounces and a quarter troy weight, that is, to 5400 grains. Out of this amount of silver, throughout the whole Saxon period, the rule seems to have been to coin 240 silver pennies, each of which would therefore weigh 22½ of our grains. Accordingly, this is about the average weight of the Saxon pennies that have been found. Our present pound no longer means a pound of silver of any denomination; but the old relation between the pound and the penny, it will be remarked, is still preserved—the value of the pound is still 240 pence. A few passages in old writers and documents have inclined some antiquaries to suspect that the Saxons had two kinds of pennies, a greater and a less; but, on the whole, this notion does not seem to be tenable. The name of the penny in Saxon is variously written,—peneg, penig, peninc, pening, penincg, penning, and pending.

Supposing the value of the penny to have been thus ascertained, we have obtained that also of each of the inferior coins. The halfpenny, which, as existing specimens show, was also of silver, would weigh about 11¼ of our grains, and the feorthling, or farthing, about 5⅝. But no Saxon farthings have been discovered, and we do not know whether the coin was of silver or copper. The styca was of copper much alloyed,—in other words, of bronze; but, as it was the half of the farthing, its precise value would be estimated at 2-13/16 grains of silver. All the stycas that have yet been found are from the mints of the