silver sceatta coin

This coin is a silver penny of a type we call a sceatta, an Anglo-Saxon word found in law-codes from the early kingdom of Kent. The term, used in relation to payments of fines, became associated with early silver coins. By the eighth century silver coins were called ‘pennies’. The word sceatta, it now seems, must have referred to a unit of gold, but its popular use for these coins has lived on.