[282] ‘We must remember further that many of the coins of the Kings of Mercia were probably likewise struck in Kent, and that when we find, as we do, the same moneyers’ names occurring on the coins of a King of Mercia … and on the coins of Ecgbeorht, the probability is that these moneyers were Kentishmen who struck first for one master of their country and then for the other’ (Ib. p. xvii).
[283] See Schmid’s Glossary, sub voce.
[284] See Laws of Ethelbert, ss. 77, 78 and 79, and 83.
[285] In translating Luke xx. 24 and Mark xii. 15, ‘Show me a penny,’ the word used to translate ‘denarius’ is skatt.
Again, Luke vii. 41, the two debtors, one owing 500 and the other 50 denarii, are translated by Ulphilas as owing ‘skatte finfhunda’ and ‘skatte finftiguns.’
Again in John xii. 5, ‘Why was not the ointment sold for 300 denarii?’ ‘ccc skatti’ are the words used, and so also in the parallel passage Mark xi. 5, ‘thrijahunda skatti.’
In all these cases it seems to be clear that the skatt is the coin. And that it was a silver coin seems to be shown by the use by Ulphilas of the word skatt in reference to the ‘thirty pieces of silver’ in Matt. xxvii. 6-9.
[286] The word occurs seven times in the five Gothic records from Naples and Arezzo generally appended to editions of ‘Ulfilas.’ In the edition of Massmann (Stuttgart, 1857) see vol. ii. p. 810. In that of Heyne and Wrede (Paderborn, 1896) see p. 227 &c.
[287] Schmid, Anhang x. p. 404; Thorpe, p. 76.
[288] This may be doubtful: Sceatta scilling-rim, ‘gold to the worth of 600 scillings,’ Grein, ii. p. 408; sceatta, gen. plural of ‘sceatt,’ nummus, pecunia. Grein, ii. p. 405.