Arcane Topic Warning: Part the Third

[William Cloud Hicklin]

"The shilling was based on the solidus (originally a gold coin weighing about 4.5 grams) as was the old frech Sou (the "/" was orignally a long "s""

Only indirectly: Charlemagne ordained that the basis of Frankish coin would be one pound (Tours) of silver, subdivided into 20 solidi (sols) or 240 denarii (deniers); this Carolingian system was copied by Offa of Mercia. The late-Roman and Byzantine solidus was, as you say, a gold coin (and worth a heckuva lot more than 1 sol or shilling, despite being only 1/3 the size); how the misnaming occurred is a mystery.

A-S scilling or shilling in place of sol/solidus is of unknown origin; what we do know is that in A-S times it was the value of a sheep. There was no actual shilling coin in England until the Tudor era.