The pound or pound-mass is a unit of mass used in British imperial and United States customary systems of measurement. Various definitions have been used; the most common today is the international avoirdupois pound, which is legally defined as exactly 0.45359237 kilograms, and which is divided into 16 avoirdupois ounces. The international standard symbol for the avoirdupois pound is lb; an alternative symbol is lbm, #, and ℔ or ″̶.
The shilling is a historical coin, and the name of a unit of modern currencies formerly used in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and other British Commonwealth countries.
The złoty is the official currency and legal tender of Poland. It is subdivided into 100 grosz (gr). The widely recognised English form of the currency name is the Polish zloty. It is the most traded currency in Central and Eastern Europe and ranks 22nd in the foreign exchange market.
Tael, also known as the tahil and by other names, can refer to any one of several weight measures used in East Asia and Southeast Asia. It usually refers to the Chinese tael, a part of the Chinese system of weights and currency. The Chinese tael was standardized to 50 grams in 1959.
Władysław I Łokietek, in English known as the "Elbow-high" or Ladislaus the Short, was King of Poland from 1320 to 1333, and duke of several of the provinces and principalities in the preceding years. He was a member of the royal Piast dynasty, the son of Duke Casimir I of Kuyavia, and great-grandson of High-Duke Casimir II the Just.
The solidus, nomisma, or bezant was a highly pure gold coin issued in the Late Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire. Constantine introduced the coin, and its weight of about 4.5 grams remained relatively constant for seven centuries. In the Byzantine Empire, the solidus or nomisma remained a highly pure gold coin until the 11th century, when several Byzantine emperors began to strike the coin with less and less gold. The nomisma was finally abolished by Alexius I in 1092, who replaced it with the hyperpyron, which also came to be known as a "bezant". The Byzantine solidus also inspired the originally slightly less pure dinar issued by the Muslim Caliphate. In Western Europe, the solidus was the main gold coin of commerce from late Roman times to Pepin the Short's currency reform, which introduced the silver-based pound/shilling/penny system.
The aureus was a gold coin of ancient Rome originally valued at 25 pure silver denarii. The aureus was regularly issued from the 1st century BC to the beginning of the 4th century AD, when it was replaced by the solidus. The aureus was about the same size as the denarius, but heavier due to the higher density of gold.
£sd is the popular name for the pre-decimal currencies once common throughout Europe, especially in the British Isles and hence in several countries of the British Empire and subsequently the Commonwealth. The abbreviation originates from the Latin currency denominations librae, solidi, and denarii. In the United Kingdom, these were referred to as pounds, shillings, and pence.
The talent was a unit of weight that was introduced in Mesopotamia at the end of the 4th millennium BC, and was normalized at the end of the 3rd millennium during the Akkadian-Sumer phase, divided into 60 minas or 3,600 shekels. In classical antiquity, the talent was the heaviest of common weight units for commercial transactions. An Attic weight talent was approximately 26.0 kilograms, and a Babylonian talent was 30.2 kg. Ancient Israel adopted the Babylonian weight talent, but later revised it. The heavy common talent, used in New Testament times, was 58.9 kg. A Roman talent was 1+1⁄3 Attic talents, approximately 32.3 kg ; an Egyptian talent was 80 librae, approximately 27 kg (60 lb).
Grivna (гривна) was a currency as well as a measure of weight used in Kievan Rus' and other East Slavic countries since the 11th century.
Groschen a name for various coins, especially a silver coin used in various states of the Holy Roman Empire and other parts of Europe. The word is borrowed from the late Latin description of a tornose, a grossus denarius Turnosus, in English the "thick denarius of Tours". Groschen was frequently abbreviated in old documents to gl, whereby the second letter was not an l, but an abbreviation symbol; later it was written as Gr or g.
The mina is an ancient Near Eastern unit of weight, which was divided into 60 shekels. The mina, like the shekel, was also a unit of currency.
The traditional Polish units of measurement included two uniform yet distinct systems of weights and measures, as well as a number of related systems borrowed from neighbouring states. The first attempt at standardisation came with the introduction of the Old Polish measurement [system], also dubbed the Warsaw system, introduced by a royal decree of December 6, 1764. The system was later replaced by the New Polish measurement [system] introduced on January 1, 1819.
Tyniec is a historic village in Poland on the Vistula river, since 1973 a part of the city of Kraków. Tyniec is notable for its Benedictine abbey founded by King Casimir the Restorer in 1044.
A Zuz was an ancient Jewish silver coin struck during the Bar Kochba revolt, as well as a Jewish name for the various types of non-Jewish small silver coinage, used before and after the period of the revolt. The name was used from the Greek era of drachmas, through the Roman era of Denarius, and then as the quarter denomination of Bar Kochba coinage. The Jewish insurrectionists' zuz were overstruck on Roman Imperial denarii or Roman provincial drachmas of Vespasian, Titus, Domitian, Trajan and Hadrian. Four Zuzzim, denarii or drachmas make a Shekel, a Sela or a Tetradrachm.
The most important phenomenon that took place within the lands of Poland in the Early Middle Ages, as well as other parts of Central Europe was the arrival and permanent settlement of the West Slavic or Lechitic peoples. The Slavic migrations to the area of contemporary Poland started in the second half of the 5th century AD, about a half century after these territories were vacated by Germanic tribes fleeing from the Huns. The first waves of the incoming Slavs settled the vicinity of the upper Vistula River and elsewhere in the lands of present southeastern Poland and southern Masovia. Coming from the east, from the upper and middle regions of the Dnieper River, the immigrants would have had come primarily from the western branch of the early Slavs known as Sclaveni, and since their arrival are classified as West Slavs and Lechites, who are the closest ancestors of Poles.
The Wiardunek was a Mediaeval Central European unit of mass most widely used in Poland and Germany. Wiardunek was also used as a unit of account, and as a such as commodity money.
Kopa was a medieval unit of measurement used in Central and Eastern Europe, particularly in the 15–18th-century Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. It denoted 60 pieces or 5 dozens of whatever was counted. It was used for counting large amounts of money. For example, ransoms and war reparations after the Battle of Grunwald were counted in kopas of Prague groschen; the 16th-century treasury of the Grand Duchy was counted in kopas of Lithuanian groschens. Kopa was also used to count grain sheaves or quantities of other products.
The so-called Lithuanian long currency was a type of money used by the Baltic tribes and in the early Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 12th–15th centuries. It was commodity money in the form of silver ingots. Most often they were semicircular rods about 13 cm (5.1 in) in length and weighted between 100 and 110 g. Other trading centers, notably Kievan Rus' and Veliky Novgorod, developed their own version of such ingots which are known as grivna or grzywna. The ingots were replaced by minted coins in the middle of the 15th century.
The Carolingian monetary system, also called the Carolingian coinage system or just the Carolingian system, was a currency structure introduced by Charlemagne in the late 8th century as part of a major reform, the effects of which subsequently dominated much of Europe, including Britain, for several centuries. It is characterised by having three denominations in the ratio 1:20:240 the units of which went under different names in the different languages, but which corresponded to the Latin terms libra (pound), solidus (shilling) and denarius (penny).
