sceat

plural sceats · alternative sceatt · alternative sceatta

1. historicalhobbiesA small Anglo-Saxon coin, especially one made of silver; sometimes regarded as a weight (and thus a comparative measure of a coin's value).

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   1840, Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, Volume 2, Commissioners on the Public Records of the Kingdom, unnumbered page, In the Anglo-Saxon laws there is no passage from which the value of the ‘sceat’ can be ascertained with certainty, though from some places in the laws of Ethelbirht it would appear, that, in Kent at least, 20 sceats were equal to 1 scilling.

   The Obolus and the Scruple appear to have been equally familiar to the Anglo-Saxons under the names of the older sceat and penny. The Kentishmen seem to have resembled the Franks in their coinage as well as in their Wergilds, for their scilling weighed 20 sceats; and as the scilling was only a corruption of the Roman sicilicus (the shekel), or quarter-ounce weight, the Kentish ounce must have contained 80 sceats or 40 pence; in other words it was the old Salic solidus of 40 scruples, often met with in later times under the name of mancus, or heavier ounce of 30 Carlovingian (or sterling), and 40 Merovingian pence, or scruples.

   1862, Eben William Robertson, Scotland Under Her Early Kings, Edmonston and Douglas, page 347