I am trying to find the worth of a non-debased Roman gold Solidii in silver coins such as Pennies or Denarii. I am especially interested in how much one would be worth in Viking age Anglo-Saxon England. The ratio i have found from my research is 1:20 or 1:25 of equal weighted gold and silver coins which seems awfully low considering that gold currency was rare in western Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
Hello, I essentially answered your question a few days ago here. It's worth noting that the economy of late Anglo-Saxon England is fairly extensively monetised, and as a result you'd probably be unable to actually spend your gold dinars. We have a corpus of numismatic evidence which suggests that foreign coinage was essentially seized at the border, where we can assume it was either exchanged for an equal weight of pennies or, in the rare cases it was of suitable quality, restamped as English currency. The use of gold coinage - mancuses - was likely a prestige element rather than an economic one.