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Word of the Day – Thursday, August 16th

 


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ECU (ay-KYOO)

Old French coin
Common clues: Old French coin; Euro forerunner; Antique French coin; Coin first minted under Louis IX; Common Market money; Calais coin of old

Crossword puzzle frequency: 2 times a year
Frequency in English language: 16328 / 86800
Video:
French 1727 Silver Ecu "Crown"


The term écu or crown may refer to one of several French coins. The first écu was a gold coin (the écu d'or) minted during the reign of Louis IX of France, in 1266. Écu (from Latin scutum) means shield, and the coin was so called because its design included a shield bearing a coat of arms. The word is related to scudo and escudo. The value of the écu varied considerably over time, and silver coins (known as écu d'argent) were also introduced.


The first écu, issued by Louis IX of France, in 1266


When Louis IX took office, France still used small silver deniers, which had circulated since the time of Charlemagne to the exclusion of larger silver or gold coins. Over the years, French kings had granted numerous nobles and bishops the right to strike coins and their “feudal” coinages competed with the royal coinage. Venice and Florence had already shown that there was demand for larger silver and gold coins and in 1266 Louis IX sought an advantage for the royal coinage by expanding it in these areas. His gold écu d'or showed a shield strewn with fleur-de-lis, which was the coat of arms of the kings of France at the time. These coins were valued as if gold was worth only 10 times as much as silver, an unrealistic ratio which Edward III of England had unsuccessfully tried to use. It failed again, Louis IX’s silver coins were a great success but his gold was not accepted at this rate and his successor discontinued gold coinage.


The écu disappeared during the French Revolution, but the 5-franc silver coins minted throughout the 19th century were but the continuation of the old écus, and were often still called écu by French people. The écu, as it existed immediately before the French Revolution, is approximately equivalent (in terms of purchasing power) to 20 euro or 25 U.S. dollars in 2006.


The fact that the coin's name was the same as ECU, the abbreviation of the European Currency Unit, may have assisted the ECU's adoption by France despite its being an acronym of English words.




This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Ecu".