Penny Napoleonic Wars prompted the use of base metals in 1797. Despite the decimalization of currencies in the United States and, later, throughout the British Commonwealth, the name remains in informal use. No penny is currently formally subdivided, although farthings (¼ d.), halfpennies, and half cents have previously been minted and the mill (1/10¢) remains in use as a unit of account in some contexts. "Penny" is first attested in a 1394 Scots text, a variant of Old English ', a development of numerous variations including ', ', and '. The etymology of the term "penny" is uncertain, although cognates are
Quarter (unit) as 0.2286 exactly in 1959. In measures of weight and mass at the time of the Magna Carta, the quarter was ¼ ton or (originally) 500 pounds. By the time of the Norman French copies of the Assize of Weights and Measures, this had changed to 512 lbs. These copies describe the "London quarter" as notionally derived from 8 "London bushels" of 8 wine gallons of 8 pounds of 15 ounces of 20 pence of 32 grains of wheat, taken whole from the middle of an ear; the published Latin edition omits the quarter and describes corn gallons instead. The