Featured Medieval Cut Pennies

Welcome Matt! Despite being cut, there is some excellent detail on that coin, being issued from Stephen! How is Norfolk these days? I lived in Norwich for a while about 13 years ago but haven't really been back.

 

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I live 20 mins from Norwich and still the same as it was, still a lovely city full of history . Plenty of medieval hammered coins , Roman coins and artefacts !!!

 

Great thread. Thanks for the contributions. Some really interesting stuff. Great Stephen coin also. Thanks.

 

Ah yes. Cut pennies and cut farthings. The origin of one of my favorite medieval dirty jokes. I teach Chaucer, and I wrote up this explanation for my students to accompany the attached photo. The larger item is a silver penny from the reign of Edward III, late 14th century. But perhaps more interesting is the smaller half penny cut in two–the equivalent of a farthing. The word “farthing” is an alternate pronunciation of the word “fourthing” because it is ¼ penny. Since the smaller item in the picture is a half penny cut in half, it is equivalent to a farthing. This was how small change was made in the Middle Ages. Geoffrey Chaucer’s Summoner’s Tale from the Canterbury Tales likely alludes to this practice. In the tale, a rich man is dying and a greedy friar wants his wealth. The rich man knows he’s being played, so he tells the greedy friar that he has hidden away an especially valuable treasure in his arse, and all the friar has to do is reach into his arse and take it. But first, the dying man makes the friar promise to split whatever he gets evenly with all of the brothers of his order. Of course, when the greedy friar reaches under the man’s bottom, “Amydde his hand he leet the frere a fart.” The ridiculous potty humor continues as the friar must keep his promise, and thus must figure out how to split a fart 12 ways. This question may have been proverbial, implying that a s mall amount of money or something without great value is rendered virtually worthless if it has to be further divided. But inherent in the joke may be hidden a linguistic/economic pun. The word “farthing” would’ve been pronounced “farting” in Middle English. (Consider, for example, that the river Thames is pronounced /TEMZ/). So when the friar asks, “What is a ferthyng worth parted in twelve?” he simultaneously articulates the potty humor proverb and alludes to the contemporary numismatic practice of cutting pennies and farthings to make smaller and smaller change. If the smaller coin in my photo is equivalent to a farthing, you can imagine how worthless a twelfth of that coin would be. And how do you split a fart 12 ways? You’ll have to read the Summoner’s Tale to find out how an ingenious squire solves this riddle.

 

Made me laugh. I shall go forthwith & seeketh out ye Summoners tale. Thank You Gavin.

 

who doesn't like a good fart joke?

ben franklin made a "fart"/"farthing" joke as well

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fart_Proudly

 

Interesting. I wonder if that -th sound was pronounced as a -t in Franklin's day as well.

 

I love the humor of the Middle Ages. Unfortunately I have to leave some of my best books at home since I teach high school, and while they might be ready for it, their parents are not...

 

Well, I'm very glad those high school students have a teacher who is enthusiastic about the Middle Ages. Often times the "otherness" of the Middle Ages intimidates teachers and they try to get to modern periods as quickly as possible. But when the teacher cares, often the students care.

 

The earliest cut quarter penny ( farthing)I know of is of Alfred the great and coins were cut by the mint from this time right up to pennies of Edward 1.

 

That is a very interesting use of "Ye". There is an orthographic error here that has been reproduced for hundreds of years. The "Y" in "Ye" is not actually a "Y" at all. Instead the letter should have been a thorn, which looks a bit like a "Y" but has a closed loop on the stem. The letter thorn stands in for the "th" sound.

Wikipedia:
"In Old English, ð (called ðæt by the Anglo-Saxons[3]) was used interchangeably with þ to represent the Old English dental fricative phoneme /θ/, which exists in modern English phonology as the voiced and voiceless dental fricatives now spelled "th".

Unlike the runic letter þ, ð is a modified Roman letter. ð was not found in the earliest records of Old English. A study of Mercian royal diplomas found that ð (along with đ) began to emerge in the early 8th century, with ð becoming strongly preferred by the 780s.[4] Another source indicates that the letter is "derived from Irish writing".[5]"


To simplify, thorn is the voiceless form and eth is the voiced form. For example, place a finger on your throat near the vocal cords. Say "thin", you should notice that your vocal cords do not vibrate-the th is voiceless. Now say "then". You should notice that the vocal cords vibrate.

We still use both voiced and voiceless forms of "th" but we no longer have separate characters for them.

So whenever you see a sign that says "Ye old tea shoppe", you will now know that the "y" is supposed to be a thorn and that is supposed to be a voiceless "th" sound.