page_title: Écu
section_title: Development
hierarchical_section_title: Écu / History / Development
caption_attribution_description: English: Kingdom of France, half Écu, silver (1792). Louis XVI of France is depicted on the obverse with the "winged genius" designed by Augustin Dupré on the reverse. Iridescent rainbow toning.
context_page_description: The term écu or crown may refer to one of several French coins. The first écu was a gold coin minted during the reign of Louis IX of France, in 1266. Écu means shield, and the coin was so called because its design included the coat of arms of France. The word is related to scudo and escudo. The value of the écu varied considerably over time, and silver coins were also introduced.
context_section_description: Philip IV reintroduced gold coinage to France in 1296 and began a sequence of extravagantly designed but rapidly changing types. These coins were generally named for their obverse design, and the écu a la chaise which Philip VI introduced in 1337 showed a shield with the coat of arms of the kings of France beside the seated king. Philip IV spent vast quantities of these coins subsidizing his allies in the Netherlands at the outset of the Hundred Years' War, and this coin was widely copied in the Netherlands.
  Charles VI ended the practice of frequently changing gold coin designs (but not that of tampering with their weight and value) with his écu à la couronne in 1385. This is again named after the shield on the obverse, which now has a crown above it and the modern coat of arms of the kings of France with three fleur-de-lis. Charles VI’s father had scored major gains against the English but had passed the cost on to his children. The government of the child Charles VI abandoned his father's sound money policy by replacing his gold franc à cheval. The new écu à la couronne weighed less than the franc but its value was increased from one livre, i.e. 20 sous, for the franc to 22 sous 6 deniers (i.e. 22.5 sous) for the écu. Not only was this a devaluation, but while the franc had been identified with its valuation of one livre the valuation of the écu à la couronne was subject to manipulation.
  In 1475, Louis XI created a variant of the écu à la couronne called an écu au soleil because the Sun now appeared above the shield. The process of devaluation continued. In 1515 the écu au soleil was valued at 36¾ sous, but this was increased to 45 sous by 1547 even though its weight and fineness had been decreased in 1519. The écu design continued, essentially unchanged, on French gold coins until 1640 when the louis d’or replaced it.
  In the second half of the 1500s gold and silver imported from Spanish America impacted the French economy, but the king of France was not getting much of the new wealth. He responded by revaluing the écu d’or in stages from 45 sous in 1547 to 60 sous, i.e. 3 livres tournois, in 1577. This exacerbated the inflation caused by the increase in the supply of gold and silver, and the Estates General, which met at Blois in 1576, added to the public pressure to stop currency manipulation.  
  In 1577, Henri III agreed to stabilize the écu d’or at 3 livres tournois and to adopt a new monetary system with prices quoted in écus. As part of this system, he introduced quarter and eighth écu coins struck in silver. The types of quarter and eighth écus d'argent paralleled those of the écu d’or, with the royal arms on the obverse and a cross on the reverse. For the first time in French history, these coins had a mark of value, with IIII or VIII placed on either side of the shield. Royal coins struck at mints in Navarre and Béarn added local heraldry to the fleur-de-lis of France. Feudal coinages at Bouillon and Sedan, Château-Renaud, and Rethel also struck quarter écus, with their own arms replacing the royal arms.
caption: 1792 half écu of Louis XVI
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