Medieval Monday!

I’ve seen some weekly themed posts lately, and I thought it might be nice to have a general medieval pile-on thread! Feel free to post any medieval coin in your collection you find interesting or beautiful.

Bohemia
Ladislaus II, r. 1140-1172 (1140-1158)
AR Denar, 17.23 mm x 1.0 grams
Obv.: +DVX VVLADIZLAVS. Saint anointing a standing figure
Rev.: +SCS WENCEZLAVS. Sitting figure on left, Standing figure to right, standard between
Ref.: Frynas B.16.2
Note: Issued as Duke of Bohemia, before being crowned King in 1158

this is the first time I’ve posted this coin (which has made me realize I probably need to take a better photo of it). While the strike is a bit weak, it is very good for this rare type, and depicts some wonderful figures.

okay - pile on friends!

 

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I'll raise your Bohemian with another! I am not familiar with Frynas...

Bohemia: Premysl I. Ottokar (1197-1230) Denar, Prauge Mint (Cach-661, Šmerda-299)

Obv: Crowned king facing with scepter and orb. Legend around - + REX . OCTACARVS
Rev: Enthroned St. Wenceslaus facing with flag in right hand, left hand raised. Legend around - + SCS WENCEZLAVS



This reminds me of...

Six o'clock already
I was just in the middle of a dream
I was kissin' Valentino
By a crystal blue Italian stream
But I can't be late
'Cause then I guess I just won't get paid
These are the days
When you wish your bed was already made

It's just another m̶a̶n̶i̶a̶c̶ Medieval Monday
I wish it was Sunday...



and who doesn't like Susanna Hoffs

 

Yes! I was already hooked when I read "medieval"...

Here is a recent acquisition, another Bohemian penny. The reverses on this series are mostly theoretical:

Eger (Bohemia), royal mint, under Frederick II, AR penny, ca. 1215–1250 AD. Obv: rose within cross of four lilies. Rev: head under arch with four towers (weakly struck as usual). 20mm, 0.71g. Haskova 41; Krug 66 (for Archbishopric of Bamberg, under Ekbert of Andechs, 1203–1237 AD).

 

I don't think I have posted either of these here before.


Armenian Kingdom, Cilician Armenia
Levon I.
1198-1219. AR tram

Diameter: 21.8 mm
Weight: 2.95 g

Levon seated facing on lion throne, holding cross and lis, feet on footstool / Two lions rampant back-to-back, each with head reverted; patriarchal cross between them.

Nerc 286; Bedoukian 547.



Cilician Armenia. Royal. Levon I.

1198-1219. AR Tram

Obverse: Levon seated facing on throne ornamented with lions, holding cross and lis
Reverse: Two lions rampant back-to-back, each with head reversed; between, long patriarchal cross with pellet at base of staff.

Diameter: 23 mm
Weight: 3.06 g
Sis mint

AC 291-3

 

Cool idea, @FitzNigel .

I don't have many from the Medieval period, but never truly have an excuse to toss them out. Thanks.


SELJUQ OF RUM
Kaykhusraw II
1236-1245
AR dirham
Siwas AH 639 A-1218
lion sunface star L

 

Ah the 80's and my early youth. Nice coins all!

 

I know I have shared this one but it is one of my favorites. See a full write up here:

https://www.cointalk.com/threads/harold-harefoot.363275/

It was posted in the World Coins forum so some of you may not have seen it.



ANGLO-SAXON, Kings of All England. Harold I Harefoot.
1035-1040.
AR Penny

Diameter: 17mm
Weight 0.87 gr

Jewel Cross type (BMC i, Hild. A). Suðgeweorc (Southwark) mint; moneyer, Leofric. Struck 1036-1038. +

Obverse: HAR OLD RE, diademed bust left
Reverse: + LEORIC O ((NN) SVÐG:, cross composed of four ovals united at base by two concentric circles enclosing a pellet.

SCBI 40 (Stockholm), 532 var. (Rev. Legend); Hild. 924 var. (Same); BMC -; North 802; SCBC 1163

 

Frynas is a newer English catalogue for Bohemia, Hungary, and Poland. I wrote a review here (and I would offer to find the number for your coin, but I am at work atm...)

love the coins all! @Chris B - that is a lovely Harold

 

France, Lyon (Archbishopric). Anonymous. 12th century AR Denier (1.06g). Obv: + GALLIARVM; Cross. Rev: + PRIMA SEDES; L-monogram. Ref: Poey d'Avant 5037; Roberts 4032. Good very fine, lightly toned.

 

This guy’s legacy started messing things up as far away as Medieval Europe...


Great Mongols, Genghis (Chingiz) Khan,
AH 603-624/ AD 1206-1227,
AE Jital (4.12gm, 2h),
Ghazna type, undated, citing Genghis as Khaqan and
citing on the reverse, the 'Abbasid caliph al-Nasir. O: 'adl / khaqan / al-a'zam("the Just and Supreme Khaqan" or "Just [coin] of the Supreme Khaqan"). R: al-Nasir / li-Din Allah / amir al-mu- / -minin ("al-Nasir li-Din Allah, commander of the faithful").
SICA-9, 1008; Tye 329; Album 1969

 

Wow, @FitzNigel, what a great idea for a thread! Too (liberatingly) free-style for someone like yours truly ever to have thought of. And look at the range! This is Fantastic.
...So I was randomly trawling through the pics on file (where I can find them), and stumbled onto my Carolingian denier with peck marks.
It's a very common type; Melle ('METXVLLO'), issued by Charles II ('CARLVS REX,' 840-877), or (possibly) an early immobilization, into the earlier 10th century.
As lots of us here know, for later Anglo-Saxon, and contemporaneous Frisian and northern German, 'peck marks' are pretty endemic. Right, a fairly distinctly Scandinavian practice of testing the fineness of a coin. They've been kind of a personal obsession for a long time. ...Eventually, in (Graham-Campbell et al., ed.s) Silver Economy in the Viking Age, I saw a great article on pecking in the coins of the Cuerdale Hoard. Before the recent bombshells found by detectorists, this was the easily the largest Viking hoard found in the UK. And the author (Marion Archibald) notes the presence of pecking not only on the Anglo-Saxon coins, but on the Carolingian (and early Robertian) ones (see esp. p. 51). Since the hoard dates to "the first decade of the tenth century" (49), the pecking on the Anglo-Saxon examples already predates the glory days of AEthelred II by most of a century. But the fact that Vikings were pecking Carolingians, too, made me sit up.
The example above turned up on French ebay. On the down side, that would seem to make it less likely, on a purely statistical basis, that this one is an immobilization. ...For instance, from the later, only more chaotic (and funner --at a safe distance) period of Charles the Simple. From here, the relative crudeness of the style seems less than definitive either way. But from having been blissfully ignorant that pecking was even happening this early, to getting one in me 'ot lickle 'ands, was pretty great. The dealer had it attributed, minus the significance of the peck marks. He priced it as a generically damaged coin. ...And everyone on French ebay went along! ...Yeah, the good old days on French ebay....

 

Let me see if I can post unusual coins as I have already shown too many Byzantine coins and their derivatives...

Khaqanid: Fariburz III b. Gershasp (1225-1243) Æ Fals, NM, ND (Album 1913)

Obv:
لا اله الا الله
محمد رسول الله
المستنصير الله
المومنین

Rev:
الملك المعظم
علا الدنيا و الدين
ابوالمظفر
فریبرزبن کرشاسب
الناصرامیرالمومنین

 

AYYUBID Caliphate - Saladin al-Nasir Salah al Din Yusuf AH564-589 1169-1193 CE AR Dirham RARE mint

 

Too great, @Quant.Geek. This won't be in my (1950's, relentlessly Eurocentric) historical atlas. Gotta google it.

 

Oh, Shoot, @Alegandron, this is Too Good. I've collected Ayyubids, mostly no further than by reign (and, maybe, preferred mint), but have yet to get one of Saladin. Kind of out of sheer laziness. It's like, The Usual Suspect; you can just make a mental note. Given which, your example is the solidest I even care to contemplate.

 

Egypt Mamluk Qalaun 1279-1290 CE AR Dirham Dianeshq

 

Wow, @Quant.Geek, just Wiki'd Muzahim ibn Khaqan. Sounds like this is leading up to the Mamluks, and (drum-roll, please) Baybars.

 

...I did get a dirham of Baybars, with some of the heraldic tiger (what his contemporary, Edward Plantagenet, would call a 'leopard'). From receding memory, I think it was on ebay, or maybe VCoins, instead of of Steve Album ...who would've made me pay for it.

 

Here's my first medieval coin from here....
Jaime II Aragon 1291-1327
Dinero (Billon) Approx 18mm diameter - 1.17gr
Obverse - Crowned portrait facing left..Legend around ARA - GON
Reverse - Double cross..Legend around IACOBUS REX
Mint Jaca...Cru-364