Talk:Piedfort

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"The word "piedfort" is French and combines the two words "pied", meaning weight, and "fort", meaning strong or heavy; thus a piedfort is literally a "heavyweight" coin." I'm french, and in no way could pied mean "heavy". It only means a foot, nothing more. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.224.32.86 (talk • contribs) 03:31, 29 July 2009


 * One of us fixed this at some point in the last couple of years. Badon (talk) 16:56, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

False etymology sources
I've been working on an etymology section that might be helpful in understanding the history of piedforts. I accidentally found some false etymologies in English language books that, in addition to publishing wrong etymologies, it also uses the "piefort" misspelling. I was about to dismiss the sources I found for that, because of lack of credibility with the speculative false etymologies combined with not even managing to spell the word correctly, but given how common the misspelled version is, it might turn out to be useful later. I imagine that with further research, we may be able to trace the origin of the piefort misspelling to one of these sources, which would be a very interesting discovery (if I haven't succeeded in discovering it already).

Here's a Scottish book that cites 2 different numismatic sources. One numismatic source provides an etymology connected a large and heavy coin that was called a "Leg Dollar", which somehow allegedly led to it being called a "piefort" for its literally "heavy foot" depicted on the heavy coin. It provides another speculative etymology that seems to be entirely pulled out of thin air with very little actual expertise on the subject. Basically, the author says in the footnote that the heavy coins were made in a Dutch town named Liege, which is supposedly also known as "Leg". It's kind of ridiculous, but here's the source in case it becomes helpful later:

http://books.google.com/books?id=l8gxAQAAMAAJ&lpg=PR33&ots=ucLkHMmOc5&dq=%22the%20word%20signifies%20the%20same%20as%20piefort%2C%20a%20heavy%20foot%22&pg=PR33#v=onepage&q=%22the%20word%20signifies%20the%20same%20as%20piefort,%20a%20heavy%20foot%22&f=false

Here's a text version for easy copy-paste:

http://archive.org/stream/accountbookofsir16foul/accountbookofsir16foul_djvu.txt

Here's the source it cites:

http://books.google.com/books?id=0ywDAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22leg%20dollar%22%20piedfort&pg=PA221#v=onepage&q=%22leg%20dollar%22%20piedfort&f=false

Note that this source talks about heavy coins, but not necessarily THICK coins. So, it appears to me it's not even talking about the right subject!

Badon (talk) 17:08, 24 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Perhaps it's not a misspelling? Oddly enough, currently the Franglais Wikipedia article claims that piéfort is, in some dictionaries, the only correct spelling. --DavidCary (talk) 03:47, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Right of pied fort
I've found several early 18th century French sources that refer to the "droit de pied fort", or "droit du pied fort", which appear to be detailing rules and laws for issuing piedfort coins to VIP's, or at least that's what I'm hoping they're talking about. Unfortunately, I'm having trouble understanding such old French, so maybe a native French speaker can help? Here they are:


 * http://books.google.com/books?id=rREUSYkBMbYC&dq=piedfort&pg=PA214#v=onepage&q=pied%20fort&f=false
 * http://books.google.com/books?id=b2pDAAAAcAAJ&dq=piedfort&pg=PP71#v=onepage&q=piedfort&f=false
 * http://books.google.com/books?id=OHREAAAAcAAJ&dq=piedfort&pg=PA217#v=onepage&q=piedfort&f=false (version 1)
 * http://books.google.com/books?id=NudlvCuktwIC&dq=piedfort&pg=PA217#v=onepage&q=piedfort&f=false (version 2)
 * http://books.google.com/books?id=S11YAAAAYAAJ&dq=piedfort&pg=PA70#v=onepage&q=piedfort&f=false (first edition, 1714)

From freenode ##French:

" well, this one says that the advisors to the Mint/Court of Finance each had the right to a coin of whatever new coinage was going to be minted next"

In that case, then the "droit de pied fort" in these sources is enumerating who the VIP's are that are given a piedfort pattern specimen of each coin.

Badon (talk) 20:40, 24 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Confirmed:


 * http://www.sacra-moneta.com/Mots-generaux-Techniques-de-fabrication/Piefort-Piedfort-Pieds-Forts-Essais.html
 * http://books.google.com/books?id=u1NEAAAAcAAJ&dq=piedfort&pg=PP12#v=onepage&q=piedfort&f=false (1672)


 * Badon (talk) 21:41, 24 February 2014 (UTC)