An English Will of 1555 contains a bequest (of money?) in the
following terms: "To Elizabeth my daughter vj xiij iiij a Silver
Spoone &c. . ." What would the character j indicate?

Dear carinya-ga 

When I first started local history research I was confused by this. In
medieval documents the last i is often shown as j. So your amounts are
vi xiiii iiii . It is not unusual to see four written as iiii. I would
say that this probably means the sum of £6 14s 4d. However, I would
have to see the document to confirm it.

I found a suggestion that the use of the j was to prevent forgers
adding an extra i.
Source
http://www.eskimo.com/~hwa/papers/ppi.html

The references are:
Durham University
"In medieval records numbers were often written in lower case letters.
For example
ix = 9 
cciv = 204 
mdcccix = 1809 

A final unit was often prolonged below the line as a j. So 
vj = 6 
vij = 7 
xj = 11 
xij = 12 

In addition, because xx was a score (20) it was possible to write the
following expressions for 'two score', 'three score', 'four score' (=
'quatre vingt'), 'five score', etc. The xx (for 'score') was often
written directly above the lower number.

ijxx = 40 
iijxx = 60 
iiijxx = 80 
vxx = 100 "

Source
http://www.dur.ac.uk/r.h.britnell/roman_numerals.htm

University of North Carolina 

"In Roman times, only the capital letters were used for number
symbols. Later, after lower case letters came into use, Roman numbers
were often written in lower case. Thus "vi" means 6 and "cxxii" means
122. Sometimes cases were even mixed, as in "Mcxl" for 1140.
Furthermore, the lower case letter "j" was sometimes used in place of
"i". A common custom was to write "j" for the last in a series of
one's, as in "xiij" for 13."
http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/roman.html

You may find this document of assistance for examination of other
source material:
English handwriting conventions.
http://www.english.cam.ac.uk/ceres/ehoc/conventions.html

I hope this answers your question. If it does not, or the answer is
unclear, then please ask for clarification of this research before
rating the answer. I shall respond to the clarification request as
soon as I receive it.
Thank you
answerfinder

Search strategy
Personal knowledge
"roman numerals" medieval j
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22roman+numerals%22+medieval+j

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Clarification of Answer by answerfinder-ga on 07 Apr 2003 05:47 PDT

Sorry, I've added an extra i. It should read vi xiii iiii . Therefore £6 13s 4d.

Dear Carinya,

If you are not familiar with British "old money", it may be worth
pointing out that this rather odd-sounding amount (six pounds,
thirteen shillings and fourpence) is in fact exactly six and
two-thirds pounds.  Was the will dividing twenty pounds three ways?

I trust this helps.

Carnegie