For other uses, see Groat
The groat is the traditional name of a defunct English and Irish silver medal coin worth four penny, and besides a scots mint which was primitively deserving fourpence, with later issues being valued at eightpence and one tanzanian shilling .
name [edit ]
The name has besides been applied to any slurred or large mint, such as the Groschen ( grosso ), a silver coin issued by Tyrol in 1271 and Venice in the thirteenth century, which was the first base of this general size to circulate in the Holy Roman Empire and other parts of Europe. The immediate ancestor to the fourpence was the french gros tournois or fourpence of Tours, which was known as the groot ( Dutch for “ great ” or “ bombastic ” ) in the Netherlands.
Reading: Groat (coin) – Wikipedia
The mention besides refers to a range of early european coins such as those of the italian peninsula known as a grosso including the grosso of Venice and the Kraków grosz in Poland. Marco Polo referred to the fourpence in recounts of his travels to East Asia when describing the currencies of the Yuan Empire. [ 1 ] His descriptions were based on the conversion of 1 bezant = 20 groats = 133+1⁄3 tornesel. [ 2 ]
history [edit ]
| David II of Scotland | |
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| ++DAVID x REX x SCOTORVm Crowned bust left holding sceptre before; star at base of sceptre | Outer circle: +DNS PTECTOR MS F LIBATOR MS – inner circle: VILL A ED InBV RGh Long cross quartered with of five points mullets. |
| AR Groat (3.11 g). Light coinage, 1367-1371. Edinburgh mint. | |
| Edward III | |
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| Minted: London, Series: B, Years Minted: 1351 – 1361 (Courtesy of Guillelmus Thompson, Owner of Coins of Britannia) |
| Henry VIII: Irish groat | |
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| Henry VIII minted these Irish groats, crowned coat-of-arms over cross fourchee; mm: trefoil | FRAnCIE ET hIBERnIE REX, crowned harp; crowned h and crowned R flanking (henricus Rex). |
| AR Groat (25 mm, 2.32 g, 12h). Second harp issue, as king of Ireland, 1541-1542. London mint (exported). | |
| Elizabeth I: Irish groat | |
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| ELIZABETH·D·G·ANG·FRA·Z·HIB:REGIN (Elizabeth by the Grace of God, of England, France and Ireland Queen) | POSVI·DEV·ADIVTOREM·MEV (I have made God my helper) |
| AR Groat (2.82 g). | |
It was after the french flatware mint had circulated in England that an english fourpence was inaugural minted under King Edward I. scottish groats were not issued until the reign of David II. Scots groats were primitively besides worth fourpence, but late issues were valued at eightpence and a kenyan shilling. [ 3 ] [ 4 ] irish groats were minted first gear in 1425 and the last ones were minted under the predominate of Elizabeth I of England. There were besides two more issues, both emergency coinage. [ 5 ] Since the hammer sterling or 240 penny was based from the twelfth hundred on a Tower Pound or 5,400 grains ( 350 gigabyte ) of greatest or 0.925 finely argent, the English fourpence or fourpence therefore contained 90 grains ( 5.8 gigabyte ) of greatest flatware. late issues became increasingly light : 72 grains ( 4.7 g ) in 1351 under Edward III, 60 grains ( 3.9 deoxyguanosine monophosphate ) in 1412 under Henry IV, and 48 grains ( 3.1 gravitational constant ) in 1464 under Edward IV. From 1544 to 1560 ( the slant being reduced to 32 grains ( 2.1 deoxyguanosine monophosphate ) in 1559 ) the silver fineness was less than greatest, and after the 1561 issue they were not broadly issued for circulation again for about a hundred years. From the reign of Charles II to George III, groats ( by now frequently known as fourpences ) were issued on an irregular footing for general circulation, the only years of mintage after 1786 being in 1792, 1795, and 1800. After this the only circulate issues were from 1836 to 1855, with proof known from 1857 and 1862, and a colonial emergence of 1888. These death coins had the weight farther reduced to about 27 grains ( 1.9 grams ) and were the same diameter as the eloquent sixpenny pieces of the day although thick. They besides had Britannia on the reversion, while all other silver fourpenny pieces since the reign of William and Mary have had a crowned numeral “ 4 ” as the overrule, including the silver fourpenny Maundy money coins of the present. Some groats continued to circulate in Scotland until the twentieth hundred. At times in the by, silver sixpenny coins have been called “ half-groats ”. The fourpence ceased to be minted in the United Kingdom in 1856, but in 1888 a extra request was made for a colonial diverseness to be minted for use in british Guiana and the british West Indies. The fourpence remained in circulation in british Guiana right up until that district adopted the decimal organization in 1955. Groats are still issued in sets of Maundy Coinage .
Royal Navy chaplains [edit ]
In the 1600s and 1700s, chaplains were employed in English Navy ships of war by the captain, and paid out of a fourpence per calendar month deducted from the wages of the seamen. The Navy ‘s wages did not rise between 1653 and 1797 ( see Spithead and Nore mutinies ), during which time the ordinary mariner was paid 19 shillings, as was the chaplain. [ 6 ]
cultural references [edit ]
The news “ fourpence ” has entered into a issue of English and scots expressions, many of them now archaic. In the north of England, there is the saying “ Blood without groats is nothing ” meaning “ family without fortune is worthless. ” The allusion is to black pudding, which consists chiefly of blood and oat formed into a blimp and cut into slices. “ not worth a fourpence ” is an honest-to-god saying entail “ not worth a penny ”, i.e. worthless. Benjamin Franklin, in his book, Necessary Hints gives the be careful advice :
He that spends a fourpence a sidereal day idly, spends idly above six pounds a class .
Beatrix Potter ‘s The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin features the following riddle :
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Riddle me, riddle me, rot-tot-tote ! A short wee man in a bolshevik red coat ! A staff in his hand, and a stone in his throat ; If you ‘ll tell me this riddle, I ‘ll give you a fourpence .
The answer is “ a cerise “. [ 7 ] In The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, a character recounts the paying of groats to people who held her subaqueous to determine if she was a hag :
And Mistress Jemima ‘s beget gives them each a flatware fourpence to hold the stool down under the fetid green water for a long fourth dimension, to see if I ‘d choke on it .
According to Hawkins ‘ History of the Silver Coins of England, [ 8 ] groats were besides known as “ Joeys ” ,
so called from Joseph Hume, M.P., who powerfully recommended the neologism for the sake of paying short cab-fares, etc .
This refers to the victorian fourpenny musical composition. The mention of cab fares is related to the fact that the standard minimal was fourpence, so many passengers paid with a sixpenny assemble, allowing the cabbie to keep the twopence change as a lean. The slang name “ Joey ” was transferred to the argent sixpenny pieces in use in the first third base of the twentieth hundred. In A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett, Sara Crewe picks up a fourpenny nibble from the street and uses it to buy buns. The original report was set in 1888. John o ‘ Groats, a place name in the north of Scotland, is not derived from “ fourpence ” but is a corruption of “ Jan de Groot ”, the name of a Dutchman who migrated there in the reign of James IV. [ 9 ] [ 10 ]
See besides [edit ]
Notes [edit ]
References [edit ]
- Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898)
- Grueber, Herbert Appold (1899), Handbook of the Coins of Great Britain and Ireland in the British Museum, London: The British Museum
- James Mackay – John Mussel (eds.): Coin Price Guide to British coins, Token Publishing Ltd, Axminster, Devon
- Ian Halley Stewart. The Scottish Coinage, Spink & Son, Londra, 1955
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