Groat (coin)

The groat is the traditional name of a long-defunct English silver coin worth four English pennies, and also a Scottish coin originally worth fourpence, with later issues being valued at eightpence and one shilling.

The name has also been applied to any thick or large coin, such as the Groschen (grosso), a silver coin issued by Tyrol in 1271 and Venice in the 13th century, which was the first of this general size to circulate in the Holy Roman Empire and other parts of Europe. The immediate ancestor to the groat was the French gros tournois or groat of Tours, which was known as the groot (Dutch for "great" or "large") in the Netherlands.

The name groat also refers to a range of other European coins such as those of the Italian peninsula known as a grosso including the grosso of Venice and the Kraków grosz. Marco Polo referred to the groat in recounts of his travels to East Asia when describing the currencies of the Yuan Empire. His descriptions were based on the conversion of 1 bezant = 20 groats = 133⅓ tornesel.

It was after the French silver coin had circulated in England that an English groat was first minted under King Edward I.

Scots groats were not issued until the reign of David II. Scots groats were originally also worth fourpence, but later issues were valued at eightpence and a shilling.

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