£sd

[Guest Doris]

Out one evening with friends we were discussing the old money and no-one knew what the d stood for not even those in there 80's. Can anyone tell me what it stood for please?

Contact cormie40@yahoo.co.uk please

[Chris Perkins]

It's from the Roman Denarius. 12 Denarii made a Sestertius, and 20 of those made a Livre (spelling?).

That's where the £SD comes from (the pound sign being much like an L)

[kuhli]

According to the Royal Mint, and the commemorative set of £.s.d. coins they issued in the 1990's, it is Libra, Solidus, Denarius

[Chris Perkins]

That's the one! I think Livre is the French?! Whatever, it means 'pound'.

I think it would be fun if the royal mint reintroduced some of the old names for denominations....Like calling the 5p a shilling, the 10p a florin and the 20p a double florin for example. Accompanied of course with the numerical value in pence so as not to confuse people.

[Geoff T]

I think it would be fun if the royal mint reintroduced some of the old names for denominations....Like calling the 5p a shilling, the 10p a florin and the 20p a double florin for example. Accompanied of course with the numerical value in pence so as not to confuse people.

You mean there are people who don't?

G

[Sylvester]

I still sometimes find myself counting ten pences as 'two, four, six, eight, ten... eighteen and one pound"

It's from the days of dealing with two shilling pieces. It's a very rare occurence these days though.

Way back in Anglo Saxon times there used to be 240 silver pennies to a £ and these silver pennies weighed 1lb, now i don't know whether that's Troy or Avoirdupois (sp?).

So 1lb in weight was one Livre (French from Latin). The d originally came from denarius, however more correctly the d actually came from the French 'denier' (which came from Denarius). In the 760s the French king introduced a new broad and thin silver coin known as a denier. In the 780s this new type of coin spread to England when it was adopted by Offa of Mercia (Mercia was the kingdom territory that roughly covers the midlands and Offa was the king of this territory), and they thus coined their own variants and these became known as pennies (from German pfennig).

Why did they keep the Lsd shorthand though? Well that's because of 1066, the Normas arrived and they spoke French (English was for low life scum, i.e the conquered peasants). In turn in 1154 the Norman line was succeeded by another line straight from France, the Angevin line (from Anjou, also known as Plantagenets), and thus French continued as the official language of England till sometime in the Fourteenth/Fifteenth Century. Even after that period French was still more prestigous and important than English and was until the Welsh took over in 1485 (the Tudor) Henry VII straight over from France (a pattern emerges no?).

Then of course the Reformation put paid to French once and for all (well until 1714 at any rate when it became the language of the Government, due to the German Hanoverian kings not being able to speak English and the MPs not being able to speak German). English generally though became more predominant from the 1530s onwards. Latin went into decline too because it was seen as Popery.

So naturally the French variants, Livre and Denier stuck.

[Geordie582]

Spot on Sylvester. Are you going to put the Royal Mint right?

[Peter]

I take it you bought those expensive History Books.

I thought LSD was invented via "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"

I tried the stuff many moons ago....Wicked....but foolish.

I'm pleased to say many cultures and creeds had an input in our coinage.

We will be Euro's soon...?????I reckon.

[Sylvester]

Personally i hope not. I think there's something to be said for retaining a little individuality you know.

Our £ sterling represents over 1000 years of both our history and culture and that of Europe, mainly France. Whereas that part of their cultural identity has been consigned to the history books it still lives on in Britain.

Our Decimal currency if you think about it has a Franco-American twist (being that it works in 10s) but still has it's foundations in the Roman coinage that came eons ago.

When it came to the euro though, Greece lost the most.