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Thelivre (abbreviation:£ or₶.,[1]French forlibra (pound)) was the currency ofKingdom of France and its predecessor states ofFrancia andWest Francia from 781 to 1794. Several different livres existed, some concurrently. The livre was the name of coins and of units of account.
The livre was established byCharlemagne as a unit of account equal to onepound ofsilver.[citation needed] It was subdivided into 20sous (alsosols), each sou equalling 12deniers.[citation needed] The wordlivre came from the Latin wordlibra, a Roman unit of weight and still the name of apound inmodern French, and the denier comes from the Romandenarius. This system and the denier itself served as the model for many of Europe's currencies, including theBritish pound,Italian lira,Spanish dinero and thePortuguese dinheiro.
This first livre is known as thelivre carolingienne. Only deniers were initially minted, but debasement led to larger denominations being issued. Different mints in different regions used different weights for the denier, leading to several distinct livres of different values.
"Livre" is homophonous to the French word for "book" (from the Latin wordliber), the distinction being that the two have differentgenders. The monetary and weight unit is feminine, la/une livre, while "book" is masculine, le/un livre.
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Livre tournois | |
| In Unicode | U+20B6 ₶LIVRE TOURNOIS SIGN |
For much of the Middle Ages, different duchies of France were semi-autonomous if not practically independent from the weak Capetian kings, and thus each minted its own currency. Charters would need to specify which region or mint was being used: "money of Paris" or "money ofTroyes". The first steps towards standardization came under the first strong Capetian monarch,Philip II Augustus (1165–1223). Philip II conquered much of the continentalAngevin Empire fromKing John ofEngland, includingNormandy,Anjou, andTouraine.
The currency minted at the city ofTours inTouraine was considered very stable, and Philip II decided to adopt thelivre tournois as the standard currency of his lands, gradually replacing even the livre of Paris, and ultimately the currencies of all French-speaking areas he controlled. This was a slow process lasting many decades and not completed within Philip II's lifetime.
The result was that from 1200 onwards, following the beginning of King Philip II's campaigns against King John, the currency used within French speaking lands was in a state of flux, as thelivre tournois was gradually introduced into other areas.
Until the thirteenth century and onwards, only deniers were actually minted as coin money. Both livres and sous did not actually exist as coins but were used only for accounting purposes.
Upon his return from the crusades in the 1250s,Louis IX instigated a royal monopoly on the minting of coinage in France and minted the first goldécu d'or and silvergros d'argent, whose weights (and thus monetary divisions) were roughly equivalent to thelivre tournois and thedenier.
Between 1360 and 1641, coins worth 1₶. were minted known asfrancs. This name persisted in common parlance for 1₶. but was not used on coins or paper money.
The official use of the livre tournois accounting unit in all contracts in France was legislated in 1549. However, in 1577, the livre tournois accounting unit was officially abolished and replaced by theécu, which was at that time the major French gold coin in actual circulation. In 1602, the livre tournois accounting unit was brought back.
Louis XIII stopped minting the franc in 1641, replacing it with coins based on the silverécu and goldLouis d'or. The écu and louis d'or fluctuated in value, with the écu varying between three and six livres tournois until 1726 when it was fixed at 6₶. The louis was initially (1640) worth 10₶., and fluctuated too, until its value was fixed at 24₶. in 1726.
In 1667, the livre parisis was officially abolished. However, the sole remaining livre was still frequently referred to as the livre tournois until its demise.
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The first French paper money was issued in 1701 and was denominated in livres tournois. However, the notes did not hold their value relative to silver due to massive over–production. The Banque Royale (the last issuer of these early notes) crashed in 1720, rendering the banknotes worthless (seeJohn Law for more on this system).
In 1726, underLouis XV's ministerCardinal Fleury, a system of monetary stability was put in place. Eight Troy ounces (amark, or about 250 grams) of gold was worth 740₶.9s. (so, one Troy ounce of gold was worth approximately 4 Louis or 93₶.); 8 Troy ounces of silver was worth 51₶.2s.3d. This led to a strict conversion rate between gold and silver (14.4867 to 1) and established the values of the coins in circulation in France at:
However a coin of 1₶. was not minted. Yet in 1720 a special coin minted in pure silver was produced and assigned a token value of 1₶. Additionally, France took Navarrese 20-sou coins minted in 1719 and 1720, re-struck them as1⁄6 écu (between the years of 1720 and 1723) essentially creating a coin worth 1 livre. These re-struck coins, however, eventually were assigned the value of 18 sous.[2]
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A kind of paper money was reintroduced by theCaisse d'Escompte in 1776 asactions au porteur, denominated in livres. These were issued until 1793, alongsideassignats from 1789. Assignats were backed (in theory) by government-held land. Like the issues of the Banque Royale, their value plummeted.
The last coins and notes of the livre currency system were issued inYear II of the Republic (1794). In 1795, thefranc was introduced, worth 1₶.3d. (1+1⁄80₶), and the first one-franc coin was struck in 1803. Still the word livre survived; until the middle of the 19th century it was indifferently used alongside the word franc, especially to express large amounts and transactions linked with property (real estate, property incomes or "rentes", cattle, etc...).
The livre had also been used as the legal currency of theChannel Islands. TheJersey livre remained legal currency inJersey until 1834 when dwindling supplies of no-longer minted coins obliged the adoption of thepound aslegal tender.
Today and after two centuries of using the franc, France uses theeuro as its currency.
