bracteate..national museum denmark

It may make sense to Christian that a bracteate is not a coin. But all expert don't necessarily agree with him. In the book, "Coins", by John Porteous, page 38 depicts 3 golden (?) bracteates. The text says - "(left to right) Fritzlar, bracteate, Abbot Siegfrried III von Eppstein (1230-49); Erfurt, bracteate, Henry I von Haarburg, Archbishop of Mainz (1142-53); Brandenburg, bracteate, Margrave Otto I (1170-84). The bracteates of eastern Germany are the only mediaeval coins which worthily reflect the style of Romanesque art (enlarged 1 1/2:1)."

 

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But there’s a big difference between German 13th century bracteates and these 6th century jewels. German bracteates were coins, multiplied by a form that was pressed into a sheet of thin silver. By the thousands they were given out by bishops, dukes and other lords as money to be used in their High Medieval realms.
Show me a gold Danish bracteate of this period, seven centuries earlier, that is known in multiples.
Bracteate just points to a metal technique: a little (round) sheet of precious metal, worked on one side only. By the way, I’m still curious about the diameter and weight.

 

Migration period bracteates were not coins in any conventional sense. There is no debate. Here's how one bracteate specialist described them--note that she says they were stamped like coins, but they were designed primarily to be pendants:

"For the present case study, I have considered about
850 Scandinavian gold pendants of the Migration Period,
that is, of the fifth and sixth centuries A.D. The term "brac-
teate" from Latin bractea, "thin plate,"2 is a technical de-
scription referring to these disks, which have a diameter of
2 to 3 cm and show a mirror image of the same design on
the reverse when the disk is thin enough, since bracteates
were stamped on only one side, much like medieval bracte-
ate coins stamped with metal dies. From grave evidence,
they were apparently worn around the neck on a cord or
chain strung through a loop attached to the top edge of the
piece.3 The central circular field of a bracteate is stamped
with various motifs and often is surrounded by one or more
punched border zones. Although found primarily in Scandi-
navia, these objects also have been found as far away as
England, Hungary, and perhaps even Russia."

Wicker, Nancy L. “On the Trail of the Elusive Goldsmith: Tracing Individual Style and Workshop Characteristics in Migration Period Metalwork.” Gesta, vol. 33, no. 1, 1994, pp. 65–70. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/767136.

 

@Pellinore it looks like most of these sizes range from 28-48 mm.

Here's more eye candy from the same article. It's interesting that the author echoes @galba68's comparison to Picasso: "It may seem futile to attempt to recognize the work ofan individual in early medieval art. Drawing conclusions about the output of an individual artisan from style alone has many limitations. The style of an individual may change radically-just think of Picasso-and this is a problem that is particularly difficult to address for the consideration of anonymous art."

 

Very interesting. Figures 1 + 2, and 5 + 6 have the same design in the middle, suggesting the designs were duplicated. All the same it's clear these were not coins but jewels. And figs 10 and 11 show influence of Roman coinage and a bridge to Anglo-Saxon/ Frisian coinage of the 7th-8th century.

In early medieval tombs Byzantine bracteates are being found, imitating solidi of Justinian and his contemporaries, one sided and thin-sheeted, used as grave gifts, images of coins, images of a person's value. This is such a 'coin', taken from Zeno.ru.



Here's the description: Silk Road Region. 5th-8th centuries AD. AV Bracteate (0.59 g). Imitating an AV Solidus of Justinian I. Zeno #75161.

 

Bracteates again. They were very thin, and, most likely, very frail. So they wouldn't have survived to the same extent as, for example, the sturdier ancient Roman coins, which probably would have been minted in for greater numbers. Anyone interested in pursuing knowledge about bracteate coins might contact, for instance the National Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark or Roskilde Town Museum, Roskilde Denmark. Sweden may also have bracteate resources, as origins were said to be in 5th century Scandinavia, then making their way throughout Europe from England to Hungary.- A few details which I haven't quite got my head around. Mint Authority, Margrave, Albert the Bear.- Mint - Wegeleben.- Year of Issue, 1123.- Weight (g) 0.82. - Diameter (mm) 27.0. - Material, Silver. Don't know if this is typical or atypical, it's just one example. But a walk of a thousand miles, as they say, starts with one step.

 

If bracteates, as has been suggested, found their way to Russia, could it have been with the (Swedish) army of Charles XII ???