The fragmentation of minting in the feudal age, which reached its extreme in thirteenth and fourteenth-century Europe, was accompanied, not surprisingly, by a bewildering variety in the design of the coins themselves. Underlying this diversity, however, are many groups of related types, borrowed or adapted by one issuer from another for various reasons. Normally the motive for imitation was commercial, as with the great international coinages of the later Middle Ages. Sometimes, at least partly, it was political, especially in the case of smaller issuers overshadowed by more powerful neighbours or superiors. Occasionally the inspiration may have been accidental, when a foreign coin came casually to notice and its design took the fancy of a moneyer or his ruler. Consideration of how, when and why such imitation came about is one of the pervasive themes of medieval numismatics. Nearly twenty years ago Professor Grierson raised these questions in my mind by showing me in the catalogue of the Thomsen Collection in Copenhagen an illustration of what is to all appearances a copper penny of James III of Scotland except that it reads Karolus instead of lacobus Since that day I have been gathering information about the foreign connections of Scottish coinage, with particular regard to the copying of Scottish types abroad. In the following pages I now present this evidence, followed by an assessment of its implications, and with some general observations on the nature of imitation in medieval coinage by way of introduction.