Before William the Conqueror died, he picked a younger son, William II (a.k.a. “Rufus”) to succeed him. Rufus was a good warrior, but another factor might have been that his oldest son, Robert, was short in stature. He was called “Robert Courtheuse” which in Norman French translates to “short stockings.” Word was that William I made fun of him because of that. The quality of the coinage really went down beginning with Rufus. This penny is fairly high grade, but the die is broken in the middle. As a result, not much of the portrait remains. Rufus liked to drink and he had a short temper. When he got angry, he face turned red which gave him his nickname, "Rufus the red." Rufus also didn't care for the church. He used foul language. When a bishop or abbot died he often took charage of the church property and took it for himself. Rufus was only corronated British king who never married. It was said that "young men minced their gait with lose garmens and walked around half naked in his court." (You can draw your own conclusions.) It is therefore not surprising that monks of the period characterized him as "an evil person who had the characteristics of a witch." Rufus died in what I would call "a hunting accident." One day a Norman nobleman, Walter Tyrel, missed a deer and hit Rufus instead. Before Rufus was cold, his brother, Henry, was riding off to London to claim the royal treasury and the crown. In the mean time Walter Tyrel hightaliled it back to Normandy. Later Henry I granted special favors to Walter's brothers, Gilbert and Rober of Clare. Once more you can draw your own conclusions.
I saw another one at a show that had a good portrait, not words on the obverse. The wording is readable on this one if you decipher the medieval alphabet. The price was almost double what I paid for this one.
Is that thin line running across the obverse a die crack or a flan crack? I only see it on one side, which makes me suspect the former.
The flan is partially cracked, but some of the line is raised too which says die crack to me. Maybe the cracked die broke the flan too.
To have a William II is impressive, simply because of the rarity! One correction though: The Royal treasury was in Winchester I have one coin which might have been issued by Curthose in Normandy. We don’t really know though... French Feudal, Normandy Robert Curthose, r. 1087-1106 AR Denier, 20 mm x 0.93 grams Obv.: +NOR[MAN]NA. Cross patted with pellets in angles Rev.: RI/AV in two lines Ref.: Dumas Group D XXI-17, Duplessy 32var., Roberts 3901-9var. Ex BRN Collection
