scilling-rime.
He me a bracelet gave
on which six hundred was
of beaten gold
scored of sceatts
in scillings reckoned.
If these words may be properly translated literally ‘Of sceatts in scillings reckoned’[288] and are taken to mean ‘600 sceatts in scillings reckoned,’ the phrase accords very closely with the method of reckoning in the Salic laws—‘so many hundred denarii, i.e. so many solidi.’
Returning to the sceatts and scillings of the Laws of Ethelbert, the most obvious suggestion would be that the currency in Kent was similar to that on the other side of the Channel under the Merovingian princes. The two courts were so closely connected by Ethelbert’s marriage, and probably by trade intercourse, that the most likely guess, at first sight, would be that the Kentish scætts were silver tremisses and the Kentish scillings gold solidi like those of the Lex Salica.
We have seen that the Merovingian currency was mainly in gold tremisses, and as many of the 100 gold tremisses contained in the celebrated ‘Crondale find’ are believed by numismatists to have been coined in Kent, by English moneyers, the currency of gold tremisses in England is directly confirmed, though the silver currency seems very soon to have superseded it.[289]
The scilling of 20 scætts = one ounce of silver.