RESEARCH REVISION 29 · 12 OCTOBER 2026

Account systems before 1000

This pass investigates English–Frankish transmission and dated account systems before 1000 across several regions. It uses laws, debts, taxes, prices and ledgers. Coins and matching weights alone do not establish ancestry.

An earlier observation does not establish when a currency began. A qualified early association stays qualified even when a later account is secure. No complete account-unit ancestry path from a modern currency to Lydia has been established.

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English and Frankish: a connection in reckoning

The Frankish twelve-penny shilling was adopted in later English usage alongside older four- and five-penny shillings. This documents transmission of a subdivision and reckoning convention into an existing English penny system. It does not establish Frankish founding ancestry for sterling. The adoption envelope is approximately 950–1020; the dated Byrhtferth witness belongs to 1011–c.1020. English penny accounting is independently supported in 805–807; the earlier 786–796 shilling association remains qualified.

Frankish twelve-penny shilling reckoning entered English usage by the late tenth/early eleventh century, alongside older four- and five-penny shillings. This was subdivision transmission within an existing English penny system. Late-tenth-century uptake is reconstructed; Byrhtferth’s dated witness is 1011–c.1020. Four witnesses cluster in reformed monastic contexts; nationwide simultaneous adoption is not claimed. S944

Dated account evidence

These observations cover existing and newly admitted currency profiles. A legal date, a reconstructed document interval and a regional association retain their individual qualifications.

Connections reviewed

Depth by evidence standard

Counts use the same inherited 154 endpoint codes. Strict paths exclude qualified and optional relationships. Qualified ancestry includes explicit inferences; optional mode also admits optional reference links. One successful path is sufficient, so these figures do not measure full historical completeness.

Endpoints whose dated reach improved

Each date below is the conservative latest year of a witness range. The source belongs to the oldest account system on that path; it is not necessarily a local origin date for the modern endpoint.

Held findings and next gaps

These findings were not turned into unsupported edges or firm earlier dates. Disconnected roots are research gaps unless a positive origin finding establishes otherwise.

• Frankish founding ancestry of sterling: Later adoption of a subdivision does not make the pre-existing currency its descendant.
• Offa–Charlemagne reform equivalence: Reform order is uncertain and comparable penny standards do not establish account-unit succession. Hypothesized exchange ratios cannot be treated as documented conversion.
• Ine688–694 as strict sterling origin: The laws genuinely denominate liabilities in pennies and shillings, but survive through later copying. Their precise ratios and continuity with the later pound system are not explicit. Do not infer a 240-penny pound from slave-value arithmetic alone.
• Kentish seventh-century account system→laterEnglish penny: Kentish compensation reckoning is real; gold/silver transition and account equivalences remain contested. The proposed durable bimetallic reconstruction is not an established succession chain.
• 786–796 lease as pound evidence: The inspected Latin specifies solidi/sicli, not pounds. Later translated Chronicle totals must not be projected into the charter as a pound or 240-penny witness.
• Separate four-,five-,twelve-penny shilling nodes: Different subdivision conventions alone do not demonstrate independently denominated currency identities.
• Western late-Roman solidus → Frankish denier–livre ancestry: Fresh evidence establishes contractual and revenue uses of regional solidi, and an original scholarly account of the later gold-to-silver transition. It does not establish an adjudicated local sequence linking the imperial account unit to these particular regional obligations. No universal Roman parent or Egyptian-solidus parent should be added.
• Salic 40-denarii solidus → imperial Roman unit: Baseline C1320/S638 already reports the Grierson–Blackburn late-Roman-siliqua hypothesis with disputed dating; C1321/S639 preserves Drew’s contrary warning. No new source adjudicates this conflict. Existing C1065–C1071 already cover Angers, Salic and 803/816 settlement evidence.
• Alamannic tremissis clause as precise early-eighth-century anchor: Spufford quotes it via Jesse as account-transition evidence; critical manuscript/redaction chronology has not been verified. Do not turn the general description into a firm 700/720 law date.
• Separate Merovingian solidus currency node: The strongest new continuity source explicitly describes the account unit continuing. A new node solely for gold-to-silver settlement would conflict with the unit-identity rule. Regional Gallic evidence remains contextual until its relationship to the existing scope is adjudicated.
• T-FTM000412: Mikami explicitly presents inherited ancient debts as a proposed explanation of later imported Song-coin use. Treat733/750/966 as firm local account records but qualified grouping within existing mon, not a proven continuous733-to-modern chain. No separate issue-only ancient mon node.
• Tang cash to modern yuan or Song regional units: Tax strings establish a real unit but this pass has no identified conversion/adoption across the relevant local transitions.
• Beiting731–732 silver-coin accounting: Receipt is actual monetary valuation, but author identifies coins as probably silver. It cannot silently become early copper-cash evidence; specific local silver standard must be identified.
• Goryeo pre1000 account unit: Official history supports circulation experiments and commodity money, not a dated specified unit of account. Need a quantified tax, debt, wage or price record and its unit before1000.
• Textile currency units: Standardized monetary textiles are established, but textile tax obligations alone do not settle which general account-unit identity and local boundary to admit. No generic silk or hemp currency node in this batch.
• Egyptian denarius/talent accounting → solidus/nomisma: The present pass extends the gold-account dossier but does not establish the disposition of earlier denarius-denominated obligations. Concurrent valuation or an exchange rate alone is insufficient.
• Egyptian solidus account before 481: P.Lips.I13 is a gold loan in indexed research; current HGV/Leipzig metadata dates it 364, whereas an indexed 2025 article retains 366. Direct editions failed to load. Do not silently assert either date or invent a 364–366 documentary range.
• Separate Palestinian solidus and early Islamic dinar currencies: The 687 bilingual transaction uses two names for one obligation.605 and 687 document local gold reckoning across regimes, but no original pre-conquest debt is shown being carried across the entire interval. Keep regional association qualified.
• Sufyanid dinars of the believers → new currency identity: A repayment stipulation may distinguish an instrument. Shaddel’s identification with a particular coinage is argued, not established; it is insufficient to force a separate account unit.
• Sasanian drahm → Qom early Islamic drahm: The inspected Qom fiscal texts postdate the conquest. Proposed survival of Khusrō I’s tax-assessment method does not itself establish the monetary conversion or identity across that conquest.
• Qom drahm → medieval or modern Iranian/Arab units: No locally sequenced successor obligations were inspected that connect this account profile to the much later Persian toman/dinar profile or any modern dirham. Shared names do not decide this.
• Egyptian/Palestinian nomisma–dinar → later medieval gold accounts: The 692–697 coinage reforms alone do not define currency identities. The next useful dossier is dated accounts across those reforms and the early eighth-century Treasury standard, with local scope preserved.
• Ptolemaic silver account → existing Roman-Egyptian silver account: The 35 BCE silver debt is real, and Monson describes Augustus inheriting Cleopatra’s system; the precise cross-transition accounting sequence remains unsettled.
• Egyptian bronze-decimal account → silver account: no ancestry edge from contemporaneous conversion alone
• Daric → Sardian Hellenistic chrysous: The admitted mortgage proves an account unit but does not identify its principal as converted daric obligations.
• Lydian electrum → Croeseid → Persian royal account: retain issue succession as context only
• General Greek/Hellenistic units → founding Roman denarius: no general ancestry edge
• Sardis mortgage exact dating: Yegül discusses an original mortgage around 300–250 BCE and a wall copy around 250–200 or 200 BCE.
• Research finding: Arthashastra pana fines/debts are promising but literary redaction date and geographic application require separate adjudication; noMauryan-to-Nasik or modernrupee ancestry inferred.
• Research finding: Existing CUR-V26-OLD-BABYLONIAN-SILVER is not merged or automatically parented to Umma: shared shekel/mina nomenclature and later chronology do not alone prove local account succession.
• Research finding: Silver-for-barley settlement is concurrent conversion evidence. Do not convert the settlement ratio into an ancestry edge or assert one fixed empire-wide ratio.
• Research finding: Senart account evidence fully read; absolute120CE correlation currently supported by an inspected indexed scholarly passage, not full-page inspection. Keep circa date or1st–2nd-century range until checked.
• Kievan-letter zaquq debt unit: T-S12.122 records debt and partial repayment; Cambridge assigns the tenth century but the place-name remains disputed. Zuckerman interprets zequqim as silver account quantities, challenging a coin translation. A scoped unit is promising, but neither a Kyivan currency boundary nor a fixed relation to later grivna/mark accounting is settled.
• Rus–Byzantine treaty silver pounds to grivna: Treaty penalties in silver pounds cannot be converted into a later grivna genealogy by matching weights; scholarly criticism identifies the weakness of that inference.
• Pre1000 Nordic cloth accounting: Later Icelandic legal ounce/cloth valuations cannot be backdated from a saga setting without dating the legal rule or transaction. No pre1000 anchor admitted in this pass.

Complete root inventory and dispositions · Bibliography with inspection limits