The dinero was the currency of the Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

 states of Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 from the 11th century. It was copied from the French denier

French denier

The denier was a Frankish coin created by Charlemagne in the Early Middle Ages. It was introduced together with an accounting system in which twelve deniers equaled one sou and twenty sous equalled one livre...

 and served in turn as the model for the Portuguese dinheiro

Portuguese dinheiro

The dinheiro was the currency of Portugal from around the late 12th century until approximately 1502. For accounting purposes, twelve dinheiros equalled one soldo and twenty soldos equal one libra....

.

In most of Spain, the dinero was superseded by the maravedí

Spanish maravedí

The maravedí was the name of various Iberian coins of gold and then silver between the 11th and 14th centuries and the name of different Iberian accounting units between the 11th and 19th centuries.-Etymology:...

and then the real

Spanish real

The real was a unit of currency in Spain for several centuries after the mid-14th century, but changed in value relative to other units introduced...

as the unit of account. However, in Catalonia

Catalonia

Catalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...

 and the Balearic Islands

Balearic Islands

The Balearic Islands are an archipelago of Spain in the western Mediterranean Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula.The four largest islands are: Majorca, Minorca, Ibiza and Formentera. The archipelago forms an autonomous community and a province of Spain with Palma as the capital...

, the currency system based on the dinero continued, with twelve dineros to the sou and six sous the peseta

Catalan peseta

The peseta was a unit of currency in Catalonia until 1850, when the whole of Spain decimalized. It was also a name used throughout Spain for an amount of 4 reales de vellón....

.

Note that in modern Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

, "dinero" means "money".