The Lion by the Ant was Slain

Today marks the 819th anniversary of the death of Richard I Coeur de Lion. After his release from captivity he began a vigorous war against Philip II of France to reconquer the lost territories of the Angevin empire. In March of 1199, while laying siege to the minor castle of Chalus, he was struck in the shoulder by a crossbow bolt. Some sources indicate that the bowman was a cook, while others that he was a boy. The wound was poorly treated and became gangrenous. Richard put is affairs in order, including giving money to the boy/man that shot him, and named John his heir. After his death, his body was buried in Fontevraud Abbey with that of his father.

This is my most recent coin of Richard, a denier from Poitou.

Richard I AR Denier as Count of Poitou 1189-1199 AD Melle mint 20.0mm 1.025g
Obv: +RICARDVSREX; cross pattee within inner border.
Rev: PIC/TAVIE/NSIS
Elias 8

Feel free to post any coin, medieval or otherwise.

 

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A bit more to the story, one of which involves a coin hoard. According to the story Richard was there besieging the castle of one of his vassals. Supposedly the vassal (or one of his peasants) had dug up what was described as a "treasure" which some historians believe was an ancient Roman or Celtic coin hoard. Richard demanded at least a cut of the treasure, the vassal refused, hence the attack on his vassal. Never heard anything more about what the treasure consisted of or who wound up with it. One unpleasant note about the crossbowman. Whoever he was, Richard's retainers disregarded the dying words of the king and the crossbowman was killed by being flayed alive. Those of us who collect ancient and medieval coins know from their study that the world of those people was one where life was pretty much nasty, brutish and short as a matter of course.

 

Anglo-Gallic, Aquitaine, Richard I Cœur de Lion ("the Lionhearted"), Count of Poitou and Duke of Aquitaine 1172-1185 A.D., King of England 1189-1199 A.D.
AR denier
O: + / RICA / RDVS / ω.
R: +AQVITANIE. Cross pattée.
Bordeaux mint.
19mm
.83g
Elias 4; Poey D'Avant 2768.

 

Very nice denier @Mat its got a great eye appeal to it. Its one of the variants of Aquitaine I have yet to obtain.

@kevin McGonigal I had heard that version of events, but couldn't remember where. I agree, life was all to cheap back then.

 

I hear people say “the world was so much better back ‘then’,” and I think, “only if you knew...”

That is something I have been thinking about lately. You read about entire legions being defeated, cities being razed, massacres, genocides, etc. and you just don’t realized just how MASSIVE the number of people needlessly killed is. Life does not seem to have had the sacred importance back then as it does today.

 

This is probably OT, but a very interesting book on the topic of violence in human history is:


It was a great read, one both enjoyable and thought provoking.

And here is another Richard denier from my collection.

 

From what I understand of Richard he was quite comfortable living in a world of pain and misery, mainly because he created a good deal of it himself.

 

I have 2 coins of Richard I


Richard I (1189-1199)
Anglo-Gallic Poitou
Denier
(18.67 mm 1.04 g 5h)
E 8 W 340 a S 8008
Obv: Cross Pattee + RICARDVS REX
Annulet in third quarter
Rev: Inscription in three lines PIC TAVIE NSIS
Coins and historical medals from the collection formed by the late Revd. Charles Campbell
Dix Noonan Webb Online Auction September 13, 2017 Lot 163



Richard I (1189-1199)
Anglo-Gallic Poitou
Denier
(19.48 mm 1.09 g 1h)
Elias 8b, W 343a , S 8008
Obv: Cross Pattee + RICARDVS REX
Rev: Inscription in three lines” PIC TAVIE NSIS
Coins and historical medals from the collection formed by the late Revd. Charles Campbell
Dix Noonan Webb Online Auction September 13, 2017 Lot 163

 

I do enjoy some Richard coins. I need a few more to round things out...


French Feudal, Poitou
Richard I, r. 1168-1185
AR Denier, 17mm x 1 grams
Obv.: +RICARDUS REX, cross patée, annulet in third quarter
Rev.: PIC / TAVIE / NSIS, written in three parallel lines
Ref.: AGC 343A (1/a), Duplessy 926, Roberts 3887, SCBC 8008, De Wit 394


England
Richard I, r. 1189-1199 A.D.
London Mint, AR Short Cross Penny, 20.06mm x 1.8 grams
Obv.: [hEN]RICVS R[EX]. Bust facing seven pearled crown with sceptre
Rev.: +[RIC]ARD . ON . LVN. Short cross voided with quatrefoil in each angle
Ref.: North 967, SCBC 1347, CC99 R11D-010, De Witt 3193

An interesting numismatic legacy from Richard - after Richard was captured by the duke of Austria, John raised a massive ransom for his release. So many of these English short cross coins were sent to Germany, that the type was often copied.


German States, Osnabrück
Bishop Konrad I von Velber, r. 1227-1239 (1236-39)
AR Pfenning, 17.71 mm x 1 gram
Obv.: SANCT' PE[T']. Head of St. Peter facing holding key
Rev.: +CON[RAD]VS EPC'. Voided short cross with quatrefoil in each angle
Ref.: De Wit 1837 variety

 

My Poitou:

 

I'm glad you see @Orfew @FitzNigel and @Severus Alexander posting some great coins of Richard. Whenever there is a medieval thread I always figure you guys will be posting nice coins.

 

They were brutal times for sure. We sometimes don't appreciate how good we have it.
Here's a couple of Richard's coins and a William I sword type for good measure.

 

Nice addition

 

I’m not sure how much I agree with the middle ages being more cruel than the present. Perhaps the cruelty is just different - they didn’t have the ability to slaughter thousands of people within a minute like we can with machine guns or explosives after all... And the most deadliest wars in human history happened in the last century, where as there were large pitched battles in the twelfth century with only nine reported deaths.

 

At the battle of Cannae in the Second Punic War the Romans had about 50,000 of their soldiers killed in one DAY. How many more recent battles inflicted that many killed in a one day period? By the way that 50,000 figure does not include Carthaginian losses. In some instances a sword in the hands of a trained soldier is quite sufficient a weapon for mass slaughter.

 

Well, the death tolls from the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki are estimated to be 150,000 and 75,000 respectively. Dropping the bomb was a matter of minutes, but admitedly it would takes days for the death toll to rise that high from the radiation.

I’ll also add that the topic was of medieval brutality and not ancient. There was the code of chivalry in the middle ages. And where do the numbers for the battle of Canae come from? I am often cautious of large numbers given by ancient and medieval sources, as they are prone to exaggeration...

 

Lovely coins everyone! I enjoy reading these medieval posts, please keep posting your coins. I have added Richard I to my medieval wantlist

 

In the case of Cannae we rely on Polybius and Livy, but in this instance we can infer from the legions' present there no longer being mentioned that they must have been wiped out almost to a man. I am aware that both these historians, and just about all of the ancient historians, were not privy to statistics that we can independently verify but in this instance I have never heard of this one being off base. As for the Medieval statistics, the Crusades, the most medieval of medieval wars, started with the massacre of thousands of Jews in Germany, thousands of Hungarians, and an unknown number of Byzantines, by these Crusaders, even before they reached the Holy Land. When they took Jerusalem in 1099 they slaughtered all but a handful of the inhabitants and, as one of the chroniclers put it, the knights rode through gore up the cruppers of the horses. I am afraid that this notion of chivalry was applied pretty much only by members of the nobility to others of the nobility and the peasantry benefitted little from it. Take a look at the Hundred Years War and what the English did to the French civilians in that war, not to say, that English soldiers, archers, were also quite happy to give the coup de grace to downed French knights who they could not hold for ransom as the archers were not nobility and entitled to collect a ransom. No, I am afraid that living in the Middle Ages was as dangerous as the ancient period probably right up to the 16th Century Wars of religion (Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre) and the Thirty Years War it took the German people a century to recover from. We are fortunate to live in an age when there really is an attempt to limit non combatant deaths, even though that limitation goes out the window when necessity compels its abandon.

 

Vey nice coins alde, I really like them. I would love to an a William I to my collection one day.

 

There is no denying that death and violence were prevelant in the middle ages, but again, is it really worse than today? The sources we work with are like the equivalent of modern newspapers - if it bleeds it leads, which inflates the numbers and increases the belief in the amount of death. What you mention are wars, which will naturally have a large death toll, but do they match the 111,000 dead in the Afghan war? The 1.12 million in Vietnam? The 1.5 million in the Armenian Genocide? The vast majority of fighting in the middle ages were castle sieges (which generally had a low death toll because the goal was to avoid combat), and following this small skirmishes. I am by no means trying to Romance the middle ages, but we should also not look at the present with rose-colored glasses. We humans have a capacity to be violent, and our more advanced technology has made that violence more impersonal, and thus easier to commit on a massive scale.

But, in the interest of keeping this congenial, I will concede the point.

To keep this legit, here’s Richard’s mother and father:

French Feudal, Aquitaine
Eleanor, r. 1185-1204
AR Denier, 17.86mm x 0.8 grams
Obv.: + DVCISIT, M above, A below, two cross pattee on either side
Rev.: + AQVITANIE, Cross Pattee inside
Ref.: AGC 9B (1/a), Duplessy 1025 (Anonymous of William X), Roberts 4313, SCBC 8011, De Wit 401


French Feudal, Aquitaine
Henry II, r. 1152-1168
Bordeaux Mint, BL Denier, 16.57mm x 0.8 grams
Obv.: +hENRICVS REX, cross pattée
Rev.: º+º / AQVI / TANI / ºEº, in four lines
Ref.: AGC 2 (1/a), Duplessy 1030, Roberts 3881, SCBC 8001