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Herculis Crossword

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twosearch | 17:28 Mon 17th Jul 2006 | Quizzes & Puzzles
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Re 28 down answered as ora in back postings. Could someone let me know where this is defined as 4 shillings? The Onelook Online Plain Text English Dictionery and the Websters Revised Unabridged 1913 Edition gives the definition as 20 pence. The Infoplease Dictionery gives it as 2 shillings. Can someone clear up this for me? Pretty please?
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In The Laws of Edward the Elder, an ora is listed as worth 2� shillings and in The Domesday Book as 20d...ie denarii or old pennies. That information is provided in The Oxford English Dictionary.
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Thanks quizmonster but neither of those is the four shillings in the clue!!

You don't think that the compiler has translated 20d into 20p and thus four shillings??????
I'm not familiar with the crossword, Twosearch, so it's impossible for me to be sure, but I suspect you are correct and that the setter has somehow got his/her maths adrift!
I posted this answer earlier today...
Definitions of ora
A money of account among the Anglo-Saxons, valued, in the Domesday Book, at twenty pence sterling.
Twenty pence today is four shillings in old money...�sd
But I think the compiler has got his old and new money mixed up.Other sites value the ora at an eighth of a mark,16 pennies and twenty pennies.
All a bit ambiguous.
This is where I got it from

http://www.morewords.com/
hi, I found this -
" the value of money in Early Medieval Britain was quite a variable thing. In its simplest form Early English money was divided into pounds, shillings and pence. Unfortunately the subdivisions were not the same as our pre-decimal coinage. The pound was the Troy pound (approx. 11.5 modern ounces or 373g) divided into 240 pennies (making a Saxon penny about 1.55g). To make matters even more complicated, the shilling did not have a constant value, varying from 4-6 pence, not the more recent 12 pence."
- So I guess 16 pence was 4 shillings.
I found this info here
http://www.regia.org/costs.htm
Question Author
Thanks everybody - this is an interesting discussion and we obviously have some learned contributors.

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