The English florin, sometimes known as the double leopard, was an attempt in 1344 by

Edward III Edward III (13 November 1312 – 21 June 1377), also known as Edward of Windsor before his accession, was King of England from January 1327 until his death in 1377. He is noted for his military success and for restoring royal authority after t ...

to produce

gold coin A gold coin is a coin that is made mostly or entirely of gold. Most gold coins minted since 1800 are 90–92% gold (22fineness#Karat, karat), while most of today's gold bullion coins are pure gold, such as the Britannia (coin), Britannia, Canad ...

age suitable for use in Europe as well as in England. It was authorised on 27 January 1344, and struck from 108

grain A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit (caryopsis) – with or without an attached husk, hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and ...

s (6.99829 grams;

troy ounce Troy weight is a system of units of mass that originated in the Kingdom of England in the 15th century and is primarily used in the precious metals industry. The troy weight units are the grain, the pennyweight (24 grains), the troy ounce (20 p ...

) of nominal pure ('fine') gold and had a value of six

shilling The shilling is a historical coin, and the name of a unit of modern currency, currencies formerly used in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, other British Commonwealth countries and Ireland, where they were generally equivalent to 1 ...

s (equivalent to

pound sterling Sterling (symbol: £; currency code: GBP) is the currency of the United Kingdom and nine of its associated territories. The pound is the main unit of sterling, and the word '' pound'' is also used to refer to the British currency general ...

). The continental florin, based on a French coin and ultimately on

coins A coin is a small object, usually round and flat, used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order to facilitate trade. They are most often issued by ...

issued in Florence in 1252, was a standard coin (3.50 g fine gold) widely used internationally. The newly-introduced English florin at twice this nominal weight was ultimately found to be wrongly tariffed, resulting in it being unacceptable to merchants. It was almost immediately withdrawn from circulation and in August 1344, after only a few months, it was replaced by the more successful gold noble (7.80g gold, valued at 6s 8d).

Description

The obverse of the coin shows the king enthroned beneath a canopy, with two leopards' heads at the sides; the legend is EDWR D GRA REX ANGL

⁊ Tironian notes () are a form of thousands of signs that were formerly used in a system of shorthand (Tironian shorthand) dating from the 1st century BCE and named after Tiro, a personal secretary to Marcus Tullius Cicero, who is often credited ...

FRANC DNS HIB ("Edward,

by the Grace of God By the Grace of God (, abbreviated D.G.) is a formulaic phrase used especially in Christian monarchies as an introductory part of the full styles of a monarch. In England and later the United Kingdom, the phrase was formally added to the royal sty ...

King of England and France,

Lord of Ireland The Lordship of Ireland (), sometimes referred to retrospectively as Anglo-Norman Ireland, was the part of Ireland ruled by the King of Kingdom of England, England (styled as "Lord of Ireland") and controlled by loyal Normans in Ireland, Anglo ...

"). The reverse shows the royal cross within a

quatrefoil A quatrefoil (anciently caterfoil) is a decorative element consisting of a symmetrical shape which forms the overall outline of four partially overlapping circles of the same diameter. It is found in art, architecture, heraldry and traditional ...

, a leopard in each

spandrel A spandrel is a roughly triangular space, usually found in pairs, between the top of an arch and a rectangular frame, between the tops of two adjacent arches, or one of the four spaces between a circle within a square. They are frequently fil ...

; the legend is IHC TRANSIENS PER MEDIUM ILLORUM IBAT ("But Jesus passing through their midst went his way", from Luke 4:30).

Surviving coins

Only three examples of the coin are known. Two were discovered together on the banks of the

River Tyne The River Tyne is a river in North East England. Its length (excluding tributaries) is . It is formed by the North Tyne and the South Tyne, which converge at Warden, Northumberland, Warden near Hexham in Northumberland at a place dubbed 'The ...

in 1857, and are now held by the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

. Another was discovered at an undisclosed location in the south of England in 2006 and was sold at auction for £460,000, then a record price for a British coin. The coin was subsequently loaned to the

Fitzwilliam Museum The Fitzwilliam Museum is the art and antiquities University museum, museum of the University of Cambridge. It is located on Trumpington Street opposite Fitzwilliam Street in central Cambridge. It was founded in 1816 under the will of Richard ...

, Cambridge, before changing hands in 2016 for an undisclosed seven-figure sum to a private collector in the United States. A 2013 list included the coin as one of the most expensive in the world.

References

* {{Coins of England English gold coins Coins of medieval England 1344 in England Guilder