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The livre parisis ([livʁ paʁizi], Paris pound), also known as the Paris or Parisian livre, was a medieval French coin and unit of account originally notionally equivalent to a French pound of silver. [1] It was the chief currency of the Capetian dynasty before being generally replaced by the livre tournois ("Tours pound") under Philip II in ...
The livre was established by Charlemagne as a unit of account equal to one pound of silver. [citation needed] It was subdivided into 20 sous (also sols), each of 12 deniers.[citation needed] The word livre came from the Latin word libra, a Roman unit of weight and still the name of a pound in modern French, and the denier comes from the Roman denarius.
Jean II (1319–1364) constructed a new standard of measures, including a livre actuelle ("current" pound, also known as a livre de poids de marc or "mark weight" pound) of 2 marcs, i.e. 16 onces. [15] The Charlemagne 12-ounce livre became known as the livre esterlin ("true" pound) in order to distinguish it.
This system was not well received by the public, and between 1812 and 1837, the country used the mesures usuelles – traditional names were restored, but the corresponding quantities were based on metric units: for example, the livre (pound) became exactly 500 g. After 1837, the metric system was reintroduced and progressively became the only ...
The 1795 swapping of livres to francs at the rate of 1.0125 livres = 1 franc suggest that the 6-livre ecu contained 26.67 g fine silver while the reduced 24-livre Louis contained 6.88 g fine gold. The livre tournois was swapped in 1795 for the French Franc (or franc germinal), worth 4.5 g silver or 9 ⁄ 31 g = 0.29032 g gold (ratio 15.5), at a ...
In France, the livre was worth 240 deniers (the "Tours penny"). These deniers were first minted by the abbey of Saint Martin, in the province of Touraine.Soon after Philip II of France seized the counties of Anjou and Touraine in 1203 and standardized the use of the livre tournois there, the livre tournois began to supersede the livre parisis (Paris pound) which had been up to that point the ...
Breech inscription, Paris An 2. The Canon de 12 Gribeauval fired a round shot that weighed 12 French pounds. [14] Commonly used until 1840, the French pound (French: livre) weighed 489.41 grams while the English pound weighed only 453.6 grams. There were 1.079 English pounds to the livre. [15]
March – Louis XIV abolishes the livre parisis (Paris pound), in favor of the much more widely used livre tournois (Tours pound). He also designates Gabriel Nicolas de la Reynie as the first chief of police of Paris.