French denier

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The denier was a French coin created by Charlemagne. It was introduced together with an accounting system in which twelve deniers equaled one sol or sou and twenty sous equalled one livre. This system and the denier itself served as the model for many of Europe's currencies, including the British pound, Italian lira, Spanish dinero and the Portuguese dinheiro.

The British equivalent of the denier was the penny, 240 of which (prior to decimalisation) made up one British pound or 20 shillings. The symbol for both the old denier and, until recently, the penny used in the United Kingdom and elsewhere was "d".

The name denier was derived from the name of the Roman coin the denarius.

[edit] See also

• denar
• dinar