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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;EWC3, post: 3227384, member: 93416&quot;]Yes I checked the article I wrote a few years back on this.&nbsp; Robert of Selby was chancellor in Sicily.&nbsp; Thomas Brown was a member of his staff who subsequently worked in the court of Henry II in London.&nbsp; The argument for Islamic influence hangs on the specific number of jurors (12), and comparisons with contemporary Islamic North African practice.&nbsp; As I said, as it stands the argument seems a bit thin, and indecisive.&nbsp; However, I see no reason at all to call the idea silly.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>I believe trial by combat was a practice of ancient German early illiterate society?&nbsp; And introduced into England by William I?&nbsp; I am inclined to say that that practice would correctly be called silly</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Correct, but oddly, Offa’s dinar at root had no real connection to the sterling system either.&nbsp; The Islamic gold dinar weight seems to be a form of Attic, surviving at Damascus.&nbsp; The sterling system seems to be a much older, from Egypt, and was instead applied to Islamic silver dirhems.&nbsp; And, apparently, thence to Offa’s silver penny.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Its very probably more complicated than that.&nbsp; Cologne seems clearly to be using the sterling standard already by the 10th century.&nbsp; Meanwhile, the Vikings certainly introduced their own weight system to England, which seems to have been, in complicated ways, a derivative of Attic via Roman practice.&nbsp; So, at the very least, in 1083, William I chose sterling out of a number of alternatives, and he quite possibly chose it in contradiction to Paris and Rome, but in line with Cologne.</p><p><br /></p><p>That’s my best guess, would be pleased to hear of evidence, for or against</p><p><br /></p><p>Rob T[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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