Schilling (coin)

[1] The name schilling was originally given to the minted gold solidus, the late antique successor of the aureus.

In the Empire of Francia from about 800 AD, only pure silver currency was valid, the coin weight of which was based on the pound.

Thus the solidus was purely a coin of account as well as being a unit of weight and the gold equivalent of 12 silver pfennigs.

From around 1150 onwards, in addition to the denar piccolo, which was greatly reduced in value, heavier multiple-denomination pfennigs denarii grossi were minted in northern Italy.

[citation needed] In northern Germany, from the High Middle Ages, the schilling was widely considered to be the sixteenth part of a Lübisch Mark and was divided into 12 pfennigs, as had been customary since the Carolingian coin reform.

The German silver schillings of modern times were comparable to the groschen and continued to mostly be worth 12 pfennigs.

[citation needed] From the Middle Ages, Hamburg and Lübeck based their currency on the Lübisch Mark of 16 schillings of 12 pfennigs each.

In 1619, the Reichsthaler minted to the 9-Thaler standard was used as the Bank of Hamburg's stable-value account unit, the Bankothaler or Banco-Thaler.

In the 19th century, the term schilling was still the equivalent of 30 pfennigs or 7½ kreuzers in the dialects of Salzburg and Upper Austria.

The schilling coins and notes that were last in circulation can be exchanged at the Austrian National Bank for an unlimited period of time, but not the older series that have been withdrawn.

[9] The Schleswig-Holstein schilling courant was introduced in 1788 into the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, which were then part of the consolidated Danish state.

The name of the coin is one of the few denominations in which the two separate duchies were connected with a hyphen, even before the term was politicized by 'Schleswig-Holsteinism' in the First Schleswig War.