PENNY, a British coin and money of account: After the Secattm (q.v.) it is the most ancient of the English coins, and was the only one generally current among the Anglo Saxons. The name is evidently the same as the German pfennig, and both words seem to be intimately connected with the old German plant, a pledge, and the Latin pendo, to weigh or to pay. Both in Britain and on the continent the word was anciently used for money in general, hence we have such phrases as "he has got his i.e., he has got value for his money, etc. The penny is first mentioned in the1aws of Ina, king of the West Saxons, about the close of the 7th c. It was at this time a silver coin, and weighed about 224 troy grains. being thus about of the Saxon pound weight. This relation to the pound weight is evidently derived from the usage of the early Franks. who retained the Roman division of the' libra into 20 solidi, and the solidus into denaril (the denarius being thus the 240th part of the libra or pound. See Kum Half-pence and farthings were not coined in England till the time of Edward I., but the practice previously prevailed of so deeply indenting the penny with a cross mark that the coin could be easily broken into two or four parts as required. Silver farthings ceased to be coined under Edward VI., and silver half-pennies under the commonwealth. By this time the penny had steadily decreased in weight; it was 18 grains under Edward In.. 15
and 12 under Edward IV., 8 under Edward VI., and under Elizabeth it was finally fixed at 711 grains, or of an ounce of silver, a value to which the subsequent copper pen nies, which till 160 were the circulating medium, closely approximated. In 1672 an authorized copper coinage was established, and half-pence and farthings were struck in capper. The penny was not introduced till 1797, and at the same period the coinage of twopenny pieces was begun; but these latter, being found unsuitable, were withdrawn. The penny of the present bronze coinage is of only about half the value of the old copper penny. The German pfennig was also originally a silver coin, bearing the same relation to the German pound of silver as the English penny to its pound. And in the 12th e. it was made so broad, in imitation of the Byzantine coins, that it would no longer bear to be struck with a die on each side as before, but was struck on one side only. In the beginning of the 14th c. the mark • of silver was anew divided into 60 parts or coins, which, to distinguish them from the old coins, were called grossi whence the t-rm groschen. In the modern money system of Prussia, the pfennig is a copper coin, the twelfth part of a grosehen.