Origin and Etymology
The livre was established by Charlemagne as a unit of account equal to one pound of silver. It was subdivided into 20 sous (also sols), each of 12 deniers. The word livre came from the Latin word libra, a Roman unit of weight. This system and the denier itself served as the model for many of Europe's currencies, including the British pound, Italian lira, Spanish dinero and the Portuguese dinheiro.
This first livre is known as the livre carolienne. Only deniers were initially minted but debasement led to larger denominations being issued. Different mints in different regions used different weights for the denier leading to several distinct livres of different values.
"Livre" is a homonym with the French word for "book". The difference is that the monetary unit has a feminine gender, while "book" is masculine. Thus the monetary unit uses the feminine article, "la livre", while a book would use the masculine article, "le livre".
Read more about this topic: French Livre, History
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