English word for inferior silver pennies. They were said to have come from Luxembourg, Lushbourne being its garbled form. These coins were first minted by the blind King John of Bohemia, who adopted the odd spelling of his name EIWANES. This was done to confuse English merchants, hoping they might mis-read EIWANES as EDWARDVS and accept the coins as legitimately issued in the name of Edward III. Henry Knighton (d. 1396) refers to them in his chronicle, saying that so many were circulated in 1347 by both English and foreign merchants that many were drawn and hanged in London that year.
Dictionary of Medieval Terms and Phrases. Christopher Coredon with Ann Williams.