Penny

History

All begins with the Roman Aureus which was worth, under César, 25 money sums of money (that is to say 100 Sesterce S of brass or 400 ace of bronze) and weighed more than 8 grams of gold. Each emperor cutting down it of advantage, Dioclétien then Constantin had to stabilize his value at 1/60 then 1/72 of book Roman, that is to say finally 4,5 grams of gold, under the name of solidus . The penny had been born.

Making honor with its name, the new currency was going to gain its reputation of almost unchanged inalterability while crossing the decline and the fall of the Roman Empire of Occident, the Great invasions and the creation of Germanic kingdoms in all Europe: not only struck with Byzance until the 11th century under the name of Nomisma , the solidus will be imitated by the cruel kings, in particular the Mérovingiens, though generally in the form of third of under ( Tremissis ).

Vis-a-vis a gold shortage, a new “stabilization” (thus the devaluations are often called) will come from Charlemagne: the solidus will not be from now on any more one Roman sixty-twelfth of gold book but one twentieth of book Carolingian… of money. It itself is divided into 12 denarius , which, except rare exceptions (the large of Saint Louis), will be in practice the only ones to circulate. But the system of account “£sd” (1 book = 20 pennies of 12 sums of money) will remain unchanged in France until the Révolution - and in England until in 1971.

Solidus will become soldus , then solt (11th century), ground (12th century at the 18th century), then penny . Thousand years after the Carolingian monetary reform, when the Livre tournaments frankly yield the place to the , grounds and sums of money disappear from the purses but the term “penny” is anchored so much in the practices which French will continue to indicate twentieth franc thus, and this until the last part of 5 (old) Centime S is démonétisée in the Années 1940.

Of trimming in devaluation, the antique penny of Gold, then of Money, will have become a part of balk, of Cuivre, Bronze before finishing, will have struck last once between the dates symbolic systems of 1914 and 1939, in the form of a bored part of 5 centimes in Cupronickel then in Maillechort which one still finds in the attics and the memories: at the beginning of the 21e century, the old people still speak about such article with six pennies of their youth and, for them, five old francs are always a part of one hundred pennies.

Without being more attached to no money value, the penny even survived in the passing to the Euro to indicate the money in the current language.

The penny in the French expressions

of under means money (there forever known as “it are francs” nor “it has euros”);
it is a business of big money to speak about a business in which the questions of money have a great importance.
to be without the penny , not to have valiant penny means not to have money ;
one said also not to have neither penny nor mesh , the mesh being a half-sum of money.
one says that which is always with money court that it always misses nineteen pennies to make a franc ;
a penny is a penny wants to say that the small profits should not be neglected;
but to be close to its under , it is to be skinflint;
one is bored with hundred pennies the hour ;
an object of four pennies is little of value, thus “the Opera with 3 groschen” of Brecht became the Opera of quat' under;
worse, when one does not have not two pennies of jugeote , one is not worth a penny ;
penny by penny or penny with penny means gradually ;
clean as a new penny means very clean ;
and even if euros there are lost, the gangsters penguins remain Machines with under.

With the Canada, the word penny is used in the current language to name the division of the Canadian dollar, whose official term is hundred . The parts of one hundred have the vernacular name of black penny , and the parts of twenty-five hundreds, that of thirty pennies .

Dependant articles

Antiquity and Early middle ages: Aureus, Solidus and Nomisma
the Middle Ages and old mode: Book, Book tournaments, Ground and modern Sum of money
Time: Frankly, French franc and Centime

Random links:

François Xavier | Christian Liger | Armelle Ferron | Zabojnica | CJH