structural:expansion, linguistic:translation
Anglo-Saxon

The pound was a unit of account in Anglo-Saxon England. By the ninth century it was equal to 240 silver pence.

The accounting system of dividing one pound into twenty shillings, a shilling into twelve pence, and a penny into four farthings was adopted from the livre carolingienne system introduced by Charlemagne to the Frankish Empire. The penny was abbreviated to "d", from denarius, the Roman equivalent of the penny; the shilling to "s" from solidus (written with a long s, ſ, later evolving into a simple slash, /); and the pound to "L" (subsequently £) from Libra or Livre.

The origins of sterling lie in the reign of King Offa of Mercia (757–796), who introduced a "sterling" coin made by physically dividing a Tower pound (5,400 grains, 349.9 grams) of silver into 240 parts. In practice, the weights of the coins were not consistent, 240 of them seldom added up to a full pound; there were no shilling or pound coins and these units were used only as an accounting convenience.

Halfpennies and farthings worth 1 ⁄ 2 and 1 ⁄ 4 penny respectively were also minted, but small change was more commonly produced by cutting up a whole penny.