216 Mr. PETRIE'S Inquiry into the Origin and 



term synonymous with screpall, and innumerable evidences might be adduced 

 from the Irish laws, and other equally ancient authorities, to prove that the 

 word screpall was the designation of the denarius or penny, which was the 

 largest denomination of money then current in France and England, and which, 

 I think, was also current in Ireland, though under a different name. It is a well- 

 known fact that the largest silver coin current in Europe in the middle ages, 

 and which in France was called denier, from the Latin denarius, and known 

 to numismatists by the name penning or penny, was usually of the weight 

 of from twenty to twenty-four grains : and that such also was the weight of the 

 Irish screpall, or sigal, will clearly appear from the following passage in a 

 tract of the Brehon Laws, entitled Fodhla Feibe, preserved in the Book of 

 Ballymote, fol. 181, b, b, in which the following curious table of weights is 

 given : 



" lp & peo in mecro cojjbup in cmoe pin DO jpan cpuirneacca a pa pap a rip cpi meccon ; 

 ceicpi c. [correctly, no! c.] 7 II. mill ; uaip ui. jjpamni i. 7 cuij ceo 7 Ix. comrpom umji ; uaip 

 ceacpa gpainoi EC. er cpuicneacoa cotnrpom in pjpeabaiU aipjio. Cearpa h-aoaim xx. ec i 

 n-gpame, 7 comcpom un jcx. ec umje in tmoe pin, 7 ni h-o'n jabaino a oatnna." 



" This is the quantity* which that bar raises [i. e. weighs or balances] of grains of wheat which 

 grew in a soil of three rootsf ; sixty thousand and four hundred [correctly nine hundred] ; for 

 five hundred and seventy-six grains is the weight of an ounce ; for twenty-four grains of wheat 

 is the weight of the screaball of silver. Twenty-four atoms in a grain, and seven score ounces in 

 that bar, and its material is not from the smith." 



It is scarcely worthy of observation that, by some error of the transcribers 

 of this tract in copying the numerals, this table is not consistent with itself, but 

 in that portion of it relating to the screpall of silver there can be no error, and 

 its accuracy in this particular can be proved : and from the weight thus assigned 

 to the screpall, or sigal, as it was otherwise called, it would appear that the 

 Irish applied these terms to denote the denier of the middle ages ; and, indeed, 



* This passage is also given in an ancient vellum manuscript in the Library of Trinity College, 

 Dublin, H. 3, 18, but somewhat less correctly. Both, however, agree in making the weight of the 

 screpatt of silver to be twenty-four grains of wheat. The weight of the whole bar, according to the 

 table, should be 69120, which is equal to 10 Eoman Librae. 



f dp cpi meccon, land of three roots, i. e. the richest soil, which, according to the Irish notion 

 at the present day, is always known by the presence of three weeds, remarkable for their large 

 roots, namely, the thistle, the ragwort, and the wild carrot. 



