Questions about European Silver Standards

Hey folks,

I have researched this as best as I can, but I'm still curious about stuff, so I thought I'd ask here.

European silver was once graded by loths. 16 down to 10, 100% purity, down to about 65% purity.

I have three questions:

1. What does loth, or lothige (which I believe is the full word), translate to? What does it mean? Where does it come from?

2. Which countries used the loth system?

3. When did it start and finish?

Hope someone can help! Thanks!

 

This is a start:
http://www.925-1000.com/a_Standards.html
You have to scroll down a bit to find them. Lødigt and zolotnik are related to loth, although zolotnik has a different numerical system.

 

Lot(h)

Alte Fgh-Bezeichnung bei Silberlegierungen, der Ausgang ist wie bei Gold die Kölnische Mark. (1/2 kölnisches Pfund = 233,8 g), die bei Gold in 24 Teile (Karate) und bei Silber in 16 Teile (Lote, eigentliche Schreibweise Loth) eingeteilt war. Silber war daher als lötig zu bezeichnen (15lötiges, 13lötiges Silber). Bei Umrechnung ist die Bruchzahl aufzulösen, oder sich zu merken, wieviel tausend Teile einem Lot entsprechen. 13lötiges Silber 13/16 = 13 : 16 = 0,8125.
http://www.beyars.com/lexikon/lexikon_707.html

It says that the standard for precious metals was based on the Cologne Mark, which was divided by 24 for gold (carats) and by 16 for silver (lot or loth).
Cologne is a town in the west of Germany, near the Dutch and Belgian borders.
The German word lot is related to the English word lot. Loth is an older spelling, Germans nowadays spell it lot, the pronunciation is the same, you pronounce the th as t.