I'm watching the 1955 British made TV series "The Adventures of Robin Hood." It's set during the reign of Richard the Lionheart.
I am completely confounded by the currency. Ha'penny, penny and shillings I understand.
But they keep talking about marks and crowns and deniers. I know a crown was a 1/4 of a pound. But they never mention pounds. Sometimes they mention the coins being silver. Sometimes they mention them being gold. A silver mark, a gold mark. A silver crown, a gold crown. The denier was mentioned as being silver.
I've tried Googling it, but can't find anything on marks, crowns, deniers in silver or gold and their relative value.
Can someone explain the 12th century English currency system?
The old currency is a direct continuation of the Roman system.
There were 20 shillings in a pound (£), 12 pence in a shilling (s), 2 halfpence in a penny (d) and two farthings in a halfpenny. A crown was indeed a quarter of a pound (5 shillings) and a half crown was an eighth of a pound (2 shillings and sixpence). This system was used until 1971.
They probably never mention pounds because it was worth a lot. £1 from 1270 was worth approximately £910 from 2017.
Mark was never an actual coin in England, it was just a unit of account (worth 13 shillings and fourpence, i.e. two thirds of a pound). There were merk coins in Scotland, but these were first issued in 1570.
Regarding denier, it is just the French word for a penny. As you can see above, the sign for a penny was actually d which comes from Latin denarius (as does denier).