Medieval Monday!

Secondary phase Anglo-Saxon sceat
Mint: East Anglia
Series Q I E
Type 67
S.808E
Abramson 63-75
O: Bust right with cross before
R: Bird left

Series Q is a diverse series of sceattas with depictions of humans, birds, deer, lions, and other fantastic creatures.

 

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Kingdom of Hungary
AV Goldgulden ND struck 1385/6 Kremnitz Mint MS-63
Maria I of Anjou 1382-87
obv: St. Ladislas
rev: Anjevin Arms

 

Edward I, penny of Bristol, Class 3c, c. 1280-1.
My one and only problem with English hammered is that, unless you want to compete with the British Museum and the Fitzwilliam, there effectively isn't a feudal series complementing the royal one, as there are in France, the Low Countries, Germany, and even (on a smaller scale) Spain. By way of compensating for this, I'm kind of hard-wired to associate the mints of the royal coins with neighboring baronial castles. This is especially easy to do from mints in or near the Welsh Marches and the Scottish border, where the the local baronage was allowed greater autonomy by the Crown, as an ongoing concession to the less than settled conditions.
This example might have been in circulation during the career of Maurice 'the Magnanimous,' second Lord Berkeley (1271-1326). Here are two views of his tomb at Bristol Cathedral.

And here's one view of Berkeley Castle, not far north of Bristol, with the mid-12th-c. shell keep (where Edward II was imprisoned) surrounded by outer walls and residential buildings, variously altered and rebuilt over the 13th and 14th centuries.

 

I'm in the mood for non-European medieval coins today. Here are a dirham and a fractional dirham minted for Baibars, the fourth and arguably most important sultan of the Mamluk Bahri dynasty, which came to power after the Mongol invasion and the end of Ayyubid rule in North Africa and the Levante. @Parthicus did a phenomenal write-up on this ruler some time ago.

Note the little feline in the exergue, a pun on Baibars' name, which translates as "noble panther." On my full dirham, it is mostly off flan, while the fractional has a more or less complete animal. If I'd have to draft a short list of important medieval Islamic coins, this type would certainly be included.


Mamluk Sultanate, under Baibars I, AR dirham, 1262–1278 AD (662–676 AH), al-Quahira (Cairo) mint. Obv: names and titles of Baibars: "al-salihi / al-sultan al-malik / al-zahir rukn al-dunya wa al-din / baybars qasim amir al-mu'minin;” below, big cat l. Rev: central kalima: "la ilah illa allah / muhammad rasuluallah / arsalahu bi'l-huda;" marginal legend: “duriba al-quahira / sanat [date off-flan].” 20mm, 2.87g. Ref: Album 883.


Mamluk Sultanate, under Baibars I, AR fractional dirham (struck from dies for full dirham), 1262–1278 AD (662–676 AH), al-Quahira (Cairo) mint. Obv: partial names and titles of Baibars: "al-salihi / al-sultan al-malik / al-zahir rukn al-dunya wa al-din / baybars qasim amir al-mu'minin;” below, big cat l. Rev: partial central kalima: "la ilah illa allah / muhammad rasuluallah / arsalahu bi'l-huda;" marginal legend: “duriba al-quahira / [date off-flan].” 14mm, 1.04g. Ref: Album 884.

 

I hear you. I addition to somewhat inflated prices, this is a main reason why I never really got into collecting medieval British coins...

 

...i don't think i've posted this here yet...if i have, i apologize...if not...POOF!...Ferdinand l, 1528.....

 

Very cool, @Orielensis, and thanks for your reminder of @Parthicus's formidable writeup (and coins).
I have one less than great dirham with the panther. Posted recently; never mind. Your half dirham is on the same level as @Parthicus' full dirham. Right, that ironically, since, as you note, the panther is often only partly on the flan even on full dirhams.
...Maybe this should stay at the level of a thought experiment, but if heraldry is one link in the cultural frame of reference that was shared by medieval Islam and the medieval West, your observation about the visual pun can't help but evoke the 'canting arms' in France and England from the later 12th c. ACE.

 

...Where that was concerned, I really lucked out. There was an English collector I met on UK ebay, who sold me his culls (emphasis on "his") at cost. ...Nope, just luck.

 

@ominus1, that might be the earliest dated one I've ever seen. I only ever had one, 1555, long gone. But they're great for how much is going on, on a small scale. For me, the engraving of the obverse motif often evokes contemporaneous woodcuts. Then there are the early Arabic dates, and the evolving heraldry on the reverse.

 

I think I’m going to start participating in medieval mondays, although I don’t have much to share of nor coins or knowledge.
I have a groat. It’s from what Philip Grierson calls «the end of the middle ages». Like all my medieval coins, I bought it on impulse at an auction because I liked the coin and considered it a good deal, although the edge looks a little trimmed. I regret not having bought Henry VIs half groat that also no one else bid for at the auction. But there will always be another coin.



Henry VI 1422-61 AR Groat

Obverse: Crowned facing pogrtrait within beaded circle, royal title around

Lettering: hEnRIC DI GRA REX AnGL Z FRANC

Translation: Henry by the Grace of God King of England and France

Reverse: Long cross with trefoils in angles, annulets linking pellets in two opposing angles, legend around in two circles

Lettering:
POSVI DEVM ADIVTORE MEUM
CIVITAS LONDON

Translation:
I have made God my helper
City of London

Struck at the Tower Mint, London

Reference: Spink 1835

Henry VI became king of England and France as an infant. At least he was recognized as king in Paris. At Bourges, however, Charles VII was proclaimed as king, and was crowned in Rheims in 1429, partly due to the efforts of Joanne D’Arc. By 1453, Charles and the French had been able to drive the English out of France. I think I will be looking for a coin from his reign.
Upon the loss of France, Henry became mentally ill, and was absent from rule for a year. Mental illness seems to have set in regularly in his later years. He is described as a decent man, but a weak ruler. Eventually, the intrigues at the court got the better of him. He was dethroned by Edward IV, suffered hard time imprisonment in the Tower of London, was released, and then imprisoned agai,n. This time he would be killed in prison. It is still a custom that representatives from Eton College and King’s College lay down roses and lillies at the spot where he was killed, on the day of his death.

 

Keeping with the lingering Crusader theme from last week, here is a denier of Amalric of Jerusalem:



AR19mm, 0.98g billon denier, minted in the City of Jerusalem, cca. 1164/1167-1170.
AMALRICVS RЄX o; Cross pattee, annulets in 2nd and 3rd quarters.
+ DЄ IЄRVSALЄM; The dome of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Regular type a).
Malloy 25, Metcalf NC (1987) 3, Schlumberger 3, 19.

The "Dome of the Holy Sepulchre" type has been the royal coinage of the Kingdom of Jerusalem since the mid 1160s. First minted by King Amalric/Amaury of Jerusalem to be the coinage of the realm, it was perpetuated as an immobilized coinage by his successors up to Guy de Lusignan. After the loss of the city of Jerusalem in 1187 and the regrouping of the Crusader territories around Acre after the Third Crusade, King Aimery de Lusignan seems to have revived the type around 1200. These new coins of the immobilized type were of lower weight and silver content, often struck on irregular flans (or clipped flans), of rather inconsistent workmanship and engraving.

This particular specimen, with double-barred A's and higher weight, was most likely minted early during the reign of Amalric or around 1170. The type used to be dated in 1167 (the legal unification of the Holy Sepulchre Basilica and chapels under the same roof and the celebration of the construction of the new altar), but the research of Robert Kool (The Circulation and Use of Coins in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem 1099-1291, Hebrew University, 2013) indicates according to hoard information (Harim hoard, dated in the summer of 1164, Kool p. 106) that the denier was in use in 1164. The type stayed in use as an immobilized type in this format during the reigns of Amalric's heirs until Guy de Lusignan, cca. 1186-1187.

From an older French collection.


And since we have ventured outside the middle ages and into the 16th century, here is something that came from lot on French ebay in 2018, that I only recently got to clean:


It's a douzain of Rouen minted for Francois I of France (dit "le Pere des Lettres") under the royal ordnance of 19/03/1541;
AR25mm, 2.20g, billon douzain a la croisette, Rouen mint (B), 19/03/1541.
+ FRANCISCVS: D: G: FRANCORVM ❤ REX; crowned shield with the coat of arms of France, inside a double polylobe, B under the shield
+ SIT: NOMEN: DOMINI ❤ BENEDICTVM; croisette inside a double quadrilobe.
Duplessy 927, Ciani 1170, Lafaurie 785.

The type is common enough but this spec has an interesting obverse die match with this specimen here.

 

I had to have help with this one, but I had my old Arabic copper coin ID'd! It is super worn and came in a lot. Album describes the coin as one of the most popular early Islamic coins, but it is still really interesting to me. The mint is named after an entire region; al-Jazira which means the Island in Arabic, describing the Mesopotamian region between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in present-day North Iraq and Syria. Furthermore, the ruler al-Abbas b. Muhammad is relatively unknown even amongst other Arabic coins. Perhaps his uneventful rule was the source of the large number of coins from his lands.

Abbasid Caliphate
al-Jazira "the Island" Mint
c. 747-767 AD (130s-140s AH)
AE Fals | 1.90 grams | 20mm wide
Issued under al-'Abbas b. Muhammad
Ref: Album-304 (see below)


​

 

Here is another Medieval coin from Hungary/ from reverse photo sucks, so I ommited it.

 

Early Middle Ages
AV Solidus ND Constantinople Mint/ struck circa 646/7 AD
Byzantine Empire
Emperor Constans III 641-68AD/ with three sons on reverse/ Constantine IV/ Tiberius III/ Heraclonas

Constans ended up being bludgeoned death in his bath tub/ by his chamberlain.

 

to change scenery/ India
Western Gangas circa 1080-1200AD
AV Fanam ND MS-67/ Orissa Mint/ Anonymour Rulers
obv: Elephant Right
rev: Floral Scroll

 

Well, common or not, as per Album, it's got to be that great for an AE this early in the first Caliphate. (That rhymed. Slap Hands!) Right, I should be looking for the website. To call them 'responsible' journalism would be like saying the Great Wall of China is a hike.

 

Henry VI Pinecone-Mascle issue halfpenny of Calais. ex-Webb & Lockett.

 

A suitably grotty looking Tealby class A penny of Durham. The moneyer is Waltier.

 

Archbishop Eanbald styca, the moneyer is EDILVARD. Ex-Lockett 316pt, Glendining 6/6/1955.

 

This one was sitting on my chair when I came into the office this morning - I haven't had a chance to properly research it yet but I didn't want to miss out on Medieval Monday!

Dauphine (missing an accent on the e - this is the southeast region of France and not the crown prince) - Archbishophoric of Vienne
16mm 0.88gm
Roberts 5045, Boudeau 1045
Obverse: bust of St. Maurice left, S.M.VIENNA
Reverse: cross with pellets in quarters, MAXIMA GALL
dated 12th - 14th century