George IV/IIII?

[Emperor Oli]

On some George IV coins, his name is displayed in the legend as either "Georgius IIII" or "Georgius IV". I thought the latter was correct, so why do some use the former?

[Sylvester]

This is where i get pedantic.

IIII is the general English version of the Roman 4 and IV is the general continental Latin version, per se. Although there are probably deviations all the way through.

The majority of English historical document i've seen from the medieval period almost always write it as iiij (yes J usually in small letters with the dots), the j being synonoymous (sp?) with i.

So English common practice was to write it as IIII and it always was.

I presume the IIII didn't look educated/continental enough at some point or other and they switched to the more traditional IV variant.

Both are perfectly correct, the French used XIIII for Louis XIV too. William IV also uses the IIII.

I guess it's kinda like shewn and shown, both are correct gramatically, one is no longer really used and would be seen as archaic. Well that's what's happened with IIII and IV, IV is more fashionable.

[Guest Peter]

I think that the Romans themselves used IIII for 4 and VIIII for 9 etc. I believe that the 'subtractive' system i.e. IV and IX was 'invented' in Europe during the middle ages.

[Chris Perkins]

Yes, that's probably the case.