Featured Fitz's Medieval Book Review

Naismith, Rory. Money and Coinage in the Middle Ages. Reading Medieval Sources, Volume 1. Boston: Brill, 2018.
ISBN: 978-9004372467
Cost: $135 (or for free as an open access e-book here)



Grade: B+

This volume, the first in a series on reading medieval sources, had the goal of bringing the latest research and understanding of medieval numismatics up to date for medieval researchers. The volume consists of thirteen essays, broken down into three basic categories (thoughts about money, a history of money in the Middle Ages, and then themes on the study of medieval money). In general, there are many good essays included with insightful research, and certainly I learned a few new things about the usage of medieval coins that I had not considered before. The final essays are particularly useful for considering different methods for studying coins.

The book does have a few failings, however. Since this is a collection of essays by a wide number of scholars, sometimes there is a lack of coherence between chapters. This was particularly noticeable on the chapters giving a survey on the history of money in the Middle Ages, as some chapters delved in and out of their time period and covered similar material to other chapters. And while the book intends to provide an update of knowledge on medieval numismatics, it in no way replaces the works of Grierson (Coins of Medieval Europe), or Spufford (Money and Its Use in Medieval Europe). I would recommend reading those two books before this volume edited by Naismith.

However, you can’t beat the price of Free. I was admittedly kicking myself for having paid so much for the physical copy, particularly since the day after I purchased the book, it was announced as being open access. Oh well - I prefer physical books anyway.

 

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Must be a massive undertaking. German AV coinage almost takes up 20 percent of Friedberg's AV Coinage of the World 2018 edition. I only have 200 coins from German States. I love the early dated types.
John

 

I have been a bit busy recently - maybe I missed something?

Anyhow - it is surely worth mentioning the only fairly complete (completed) account of Medieval European coins I know of

Traité de numismatique du moyen âge

by Engel & Serrure

You can get the first two volumes (about 950 pages) free here

https://archive.org/details/traitdenumisma02enge

I think it came out of copyright in about 2005 - volume III does not seem to be on the web (another 500 pages), but I bought all three volumes in the Elibron Classics reprint series.

It only illustrates a small proportion of the coins it describes - but even that is near 2,000 line drawings. The Elibron print run is not too expensive but unfortunately - to save paper - they reduced the page size. Not a problem with the text but they did not seem to realise all the coins would be about 30% too small......

Rob T

 

Of course the projected 17 vol work coming out of Cambridge will change everything, (but perhaps only for those who can afford it?)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_European_Coinage

However, it seems only 5 volumes been completed, in close on 25 years (?) - and the driving force behind it was the collector scholar Philip Grierson, along with Mark Blackburn - both no longer with us (Mark went much too early).

Hopefully it will still eventually get to completion, but I am rather sure I will not be around to see it

Rob T

 

It seems to me the MEC has regained some steam in recent years. About three volumes have been published in the last five/six years, and there were only two released in the previous 20. Many more are ‘in preparation’ now than they were a few years ago when I first started paying attention. The webpage to keep an eye on is here: https://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/research/mec

 

Another general book I should have mentioned of course is the update of the Thompson Collection published by Attic Books in 1992

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/Medieval-Coins-Christian-J-Thomsen-Collection/9179134819/bd

It lists 4,000 types and illustrates about 400 of them. However, I have to admit I own a copy and hardly ever used it. Seemed to me it was not often enough useful to me in tracking stuff down – maybe 400 coin pics is not enough – maybe they picked the wrong coins to illustrate? Maybe its just me…….

My most most useful guide to commoner medieval European coins came from a tip from Marcus Phillips:

It is copies of the auction catalogues “Numismatica” issued by Wendt KG in the 1970’s I own auctions XII and XXI.

They illustrated hundred of commoner medieval coins – I presume at every auction (?). Time and time again when I was stuck I got a big clue from their plates. They only come up for sale occasionally – but seem to go cheap when they do.

Here was one:

https://www.auctiones.ch/browse.html?auction=52&lot=10534

These days hunting obscure parts of the web is probably a better bet though

Rob T

 

Kelleher, Richard. A History of Medieval Coinage in England. Greenlight Publishing. Essex, 2015.
ISBN: 978-1-897738-57-3
Pages: 213
Cost: aprox $45 in 2017
Grade: A

To write a history of English coinage during the medieval period is a daunting task. It is a period that covers roughly 400 years and 4 dynasties, during which the coinage evolved from a single denomination in one metal to a bi-metallic coinage with roughly a dozen denominations spread across multiple geographic regions. And yet that is exactly what Richard Kelleher has done, and done it amazingly well. His book begins with three chapters that can largely be considered background information. They cover a brief overview of medieval English coinage, how to identify said coins, and how to record them. The rest of the book is a chronological discussion of the coins struck by the kings of England, from Willian I to Henry VII, and is divided into chapters that roughly correspond to each monarch. Each chapter follows a similar pattern, with an introduction, history of the reign of the king(s) and a discussion of the coinage associated with the king(s).

While the chapters may sound simple, Kelleher packs each one with an incredible amount of information. The historical discussion is filled with accompanying photographs of relevant locations, illuminations, and illustrations. When the book turns to the coinage there is a lot of information presented. The coins are wonderfully photographed in color and clearly labeled. All the major types, and even a few rarities, are presented and discussed by the author. But it isn’t limited to just the English coins. Irish, Scottish, and Anglo-Gallic coins are also covered, though not to the same level of depth. There are even contemporary European, Byzantine, and Islamic coins to give context to the English ones. One of the more interesting features is the inclusion of PAS and Hoard data for the respective coinages plotted on a map of England. There are also several appendices in the book that stand out. The first is a visual guide to English pennies from William I to Edward II that shows every type/class that was struck. The second is a list of all of the mints, known or suspected, that minted coins in England, Wales, and Ireland from 1066 to 1485. Each mint is broken out by king, denomination, moneyer, and class.

Richard Kelleher has written an absolutely wonderful history of medieval English coinage that I cannot recommend highly enough. It strikes a nice balance between readability and level of detail, not getting bogged down in the minutia of the coinage yet covering it in enough detail so as to give the reader insight into distinguishing features. When coupled with the historical information and all of the interesting asides on topics like Norman coinage in Italy or the famous Fishpool hoard this book is a joy to read. I have only two minor complaints about this book. I have read it several times, flipped through it on countless occasions, taken it on trips, and lent it to friends. All of this has started to take a toll on the book because it is softcover. If the book had been published as a hardcover it wouldn’t be getting dog-eared and worn. The other minor complaint is that almost all of the coins, while wonderfully photographed, are show at their actual size. It would be nice if a few of the coins were shown at large size in order to make the distinguishing features more visible. That said, these are minor criticisms, and I would encourage anyone that is interested in the history of the coins struck by the medieval English kings in England, Ireland, and Wales to pick up a copy of this book.

 

Thanks @TheRed! I’ve been wondering if there was a good source which actually listed all of the known mints by reign. Does it include known moneyers at each mint as well?

 

Yes, all known moneyers are listed for the mint based on king or coinage. The moneyers are listed in alphabetical order. Another nice feature is that all of the spellings of the mints are listed. Here is a photograph for the listing of London, which runs two pages.

 

Just a quick note that today I saw a paperback version of MEC 12 on northern Italy was published in February, and is currently available on Amazon for $40. I find this heartening news, as it may indicate the intention of publishing all of these in a more affordable paperback (and not just the oldest titles).

fingers crossed we see a paperback of the British Isles to 1066 volume out next year

 

I ordered a copy form Barnes and Noble for $42 a few weeks ago. While the photographic quality is a little worse than the hardcover copy of MEC vol 14, the overall quality of the paperback edition is really good. If more editions come out in paperback for $40-$50 in price I will pick them up without hesitation. I would rather have 4 or 5 volumes of MEC in paperback than 1 copy in hardcover.

 

That’s kind of my thought. It would be nice to have the higher quality photos, but I’ve found (so far) the pictures to be sufficient, and the descriptions work. (I’m also banking on the FitzWilliam collection going digital some day... hopefully in my lifetime!)

 

Thanks for the note about MEC 14, @FitzNigel. Happily it's also available on the Canadian Amazon. Ordered.

 

My copy of MEC 12 arrived today (surprisingly fast, considering I don’t have Amazon Prime...):

Just need Volume 1 to have all the editions available in paperback. Guess I need to start reading these things! (They are still quite useful for targeted research without the need to read cover to cover)

 

Silver Economy in the Viking Age, ed. James Graham-Campbell and Garett Williams, Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press, 2007.
ISBN: 978-1598742220
Price: $130 (can be found used for less)



Grade: B+

Silver Economy in the Viking Age is a collection of essays compiled after a symposium on the economic uses of Viking silver in May 2000. While a thin volume, the essays within are particularly dense, and the shortness of many of them is a trick of the small font used in printing. As with any collection of essays from an academic conference, these are papers meant for specialized research, and are not typically useful for a general readership. Since this is also a collection of multiple people’s works, I will attempt to give a brief summary my impression of each paper (or group of papers if no particular impression was given to me).

At first I found the essays a little difficult to understand, as the pictures of the coins and types being written about are not necessarily laid out in the most accessible way (such as inline with the spot of the text which covers the coins). This made the first three papers by D.M. Metcalf (‘Regions Around the North Sea with Monetised Economy in the Pre-Viking and Viking Ages’), Brita Malmer (‘South Scandinavian Coinage in the Ninth Century’), and Ralf Wiechmann (‘Hedeby and its Hinterland: A Local Numismatic Region’) hard to follow, but this may also be a product of my unfamiliarity with early Scandinavian coin types, and the academic discussion surrounding them (I entered into this book as relatively ignorant of Scandinavian coins).

I found myself on firmer ground with Marion M. Archibald’s paper of pecking on coins of the Cuerdale Hoard. Archibald had some fascinating points about pecking being a potentially ‘official’ institution rather than individual’s simply testing a coin’s metal in everyday trade. However, the paper is disappointingly short, as the majority of her work was to be presented in a book on the hoard.

Mark Blackburn’s paper on Gold in England was an illuminating take on the use of Gold in the Anglo-Saxon period - a time which has been assumed to primarily be using silver. A new contextual interpretation of the mysterious OFFA REX Arabic-imitation coin was given - one that suggests it was not a royal issue but an independent product of a moneyer who had no direction for what a gold coin should look like. This theory is supported with later gold issues of England which are similarly mysterious, but put within the context of one another, a potential path of gold production from independent issues to official minting from the same/similar dies as silver pennies is proposed.

Jens Christian Moesgaard’s “A Survey of Coin Production and Currency in Normandy, 864-945” is admittedly the paper which sparked my main interest in getting this book. The paper is exactly what it says it is in the title: a general survey of what we know about coin production in Normandy from the late Carolingian age through the reign of William Longsword (when the Normans first begin minting coins in their own name). Perhaps what stuck out to me the most from this paper is the theory of a possible Norman coin from before William Longsword (more on this forthcoming...).

Märit Gaimster then gives a nice overview of the presence of types of silver in hoards (‘Viking Economies: Evidence from the Silver Hoards’), which is followed by Birgitta Hårdh’s interesting paper (‘Oriental-Scandinavian Contacts on the Volga, as Manifested by Silver Rings and Weight Systems’) suggesting that ‘Permian’ rings were a form of large coin payment, and not simply ornamentation. John Sheehan’s following essay (‘The Form and Structure of Viking-Age Silver Hoards: The Evidence from Ireland’) was merely a call to change the classification system of Viking hoards to one that did not stress numismatic finds as much as other types of silver (such as ornaments, ingots, and hack silver). Susan E. Kruse (‘Trade and Exchange Across Frontiers’) challenges some of the preconceived notions that Viking traded solely on a basic weight standard, and that an established bullion economy could only come from a more stabilized political environment.

Gareth William’s paper on “Kingship, Christianity and Coinage” was in many ways the overview of Viking coinage and economy that I would have preferred to see at the beginning of the book. For a beginner, this is an excellent introduction. But at the same time, I understand it being the penultimate paper, as much of the evidence and conclusions given by Williams has been informed by the other papers of the book. The volume was then concluded with a similarly reflective paper by James Graham-Campbell’s final paper (‘Reflections on ‘Silver Economy in the Viking Age’) on the symposium which formed the basis of this book, but he does stress a general conclusion that Viking use of money could be split into two different “economies”: the ‘Display’ economy where one’s wealth is shown off in ornamentation, and the ‘Bullion’ economy where the weight of silver was used in transactions. Naturally, each of these economies could feed into the other.

I regret not going into this volume with a better understanding of Scandinavian coinage, but by the end of it, particularly with Gareth William’s paper, I believe I have a better understanding of he ‘Viking’ economy worked. As I mentioned above, this is a volume clearly meant for specialists, and I would not recommend it for the general reader. However, if one of these paper’s happens to be in an area of interest or specialization (as Moesgaard’s paper was for me), then there is some excellent scholarship to be had.

 

Oooh.... do tell!!

 

... gotta wait for something to arrive in the mail first!

 

Martin Dimnik and Julian Dobrinić, Medieval Slavic Coinages in the Balkans: Numismatic History and Catalogue (London: Spink, 2008)
ISBN: 978-1902040851
Price: £40 (about $50 as of 6/2020)
252 pgs, 8.5” x 11”



Grade: B

I have had mixed thoughts about this book, as there are some elements that are really quite good, and others which are a little frustrating. Perhaps what I like best of all is the simple fact that it is a cohesive book of an area of numismatics that could be quite confusing, and it is in English. While I suspect Metcalf’s Coinage in South-Eastern Europe covers the same ground, I haven’t yet seen a copy of that book to make a comparison. Either way, Dimnik and Dobrinić’s book is a least more recent, even if it is limited to just Slavic issues (as other powers issued coins in the Balkans during the Middle Ages). It is also well researched, and very meticulous in its descriptions (almost every coin, even imitatives, have a full description), but to the point where it felt a little repetitive at times. However, It did shine on the historical background of the Slavic Balkans by giving a very brief overview of the history of the region, dating back to pre-Roman times in many instances, to set the complicated stage for the coming of the Slavs, and their eventual striking of coinage when not under Byzantine control. I actually wish there was a little more of this, but that is more due to my ignorance of the history of the region, which it is not the responsibility of a book on coins to fill.

The book is split into two halves, the first being the history and description of the coinages, and the second half a catalogue of the coins. Both parts are then broken down into subsequent areas of the Balkans covered in the text: Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, The East Adriatic Towns (Including Zadar, Šibenik, Trogir, Split, Hvar, Ragusa, Kotor, Bar, Uljcinj, Skadar, Drivast, and Svač), and Bulgaria (The second Bulgarian Empire which was more culturally Slavic than Bulgarian). On the one hand, not having the catalogue for each part next tot he history portion is frustrating, as it means flipping the page quite a bit took look at the catalogue while reading, but on the other hand, having the catalogue separate should be more useful for identifying types. If the history portion where just small paragraphs, then this layout would be a detriment, but with the comprehensive history and descriptions, I think it works. The catalogue surprised me a little in that it is completely hand drawings, with no pictures of the coins at all. This can be good, as many of these coins are rather crude, and it can be difficult to make out the devices. However, many of the drawings are idealistic and not representative of the artistic style of the coins (particularly in the Bulgarian section). While this is not entirely the fault of the authors (they did not make the drawings, but sourced them from other catalogues), they did make the decision to use them. The book isn’t entirely without pictures though, as many of the types have a photograph accompanying its description in the historical portion. So in a way, the book gives the best of both worlds with photographs and hand drawings, which I think was a reasonable compromise.

The book is not a complete catalogue with all types and varieties, as it states so from the beginning. I can understand how this would then make for a monumental task, and probably increase the price of the book significantly. However, the limitations of not showing every type are sometimes seen when attempting to use the book to identify certain issues. For example, I became interested in a Dinar from Ragusa (Dubrovnik) which had a weight of 1.05 grams. These coins were struck between 1337 and 1621, with the weight of the coins starting at 1.95 grams, and ending at 0.64 grams between this time. But no intermediary steps in weight are given in the book that would aid me in further dating the coin (as I wanted one from before 1500), even though the catalogue hinted that more specific dating by weight was possible. Granted, there is another way to identify this type as being before 1438, but most of this information is gained through dense reading in the history of the coinages, rather than readily available in the catalogue portion. Which then makes the two portions being split a hassle again.

I may have some other minor complaints, but I fear voicing them would make it sound like this is a poor book, which it certainly is not. There is a lot of good information, and will be a very useful reference for the coins of the Balkans. I’ll admit that before buying this book I had little interest in the coins of this region as they all seemed crude and simply imitative of the Venetian Grosso or Byzantine trachys. But after reading this, I learned of some very interesting types, and knowing the history around some of the coins has changed my opinion of them.

 

I'm really glad you reviewed the book @FitzNigel I have been eyeing it for a while. While the layout sounds a little annoying and there is a lack of photographs, I'll certainly be adding it to my medieval library. I've wanted to venture into some of the Balkan coinages, such as the denar of Slavonia, but don't have a good defence.

 

The layout is a little annoying, but not a deal breaker. Come to think of it, it’s not all that different from the MEC volumes, but I think MEC does a better job of pointing the reader to the historical write-up from the catalogue portion.