Medieval Monday!

Secondary phase Anglo-Saxon sceat
Mint: ?Essex
Series S
Type 47
S.814
Abramson 68-10

 

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Two new very common ones but very lovely ones I actually acquired today! The first is a denaro of Henry III-V from Luca circa 1039-1125 ad. The other is a god of hand heller from the Swabian city of hall circa 1300-1400 AD.

 

@Nap, regarding both of your sceattas, just, Big, Major Coolness!!! Needing one of those bad monkeys.
...Or maybe it's just good enough that you and the other, very duly esteemed sceatta guys are holding up this whole side of the tent.

 

Not quite Tuesday where I am so I'm going to sneak this one in. I have the seller's attribution for this but have never really spent the time to research it properly.

Denaro (or grosso?) of Genoa
16mm, 0.85 gm
Obv - stylized castle, +.IA.NV.A around
Rev - cross pattee in center, CVNRADI REX around
c.1272, Biaggi 837 (I don't have this reference)

Based on the legend and time frame I would guess this was issued under the authority of Conrad III, the Holy Roman Emperor around this time

 

@TTerrier, for one, greetings from this time zone!!!
Yours is a not untypically, as such emphatically solid example. I don't have references for this either, other than online, although Biaggi is one of the 'big names' for this stuff, as of something vaguely like the early 20th century. But I have one, replacing one I had before that.
You nailed everything (Conrad III, King /Emperor vaguely from 1138 --slumming here, even where the historical references are concerned), except for the fact that, as a civic issue of a major Italian seaport, it was immobilized for another two centuries.
...Right, for its milieu, the Genoese denaro was like the English penny, in terms of the scope of its recognition and circulation.
...And so forth.

 

Ups... Sorry, I forget about this difficulties...
The legend is: "Tsar and Grand Duke Alexei Mikhailovich of whole the Rus".

From cultural and economic point of view it's looks like the medieval to modern time in Russia was changed at the time of Peter 1 rule.
From technical point of view this reward quarter ducat is a classical medieval russian wire hummered coin.

 

...hehe...i couldn't resist...

 

Conrad III was elected King of the Romans, the traditional first step to becoming Holy Roman Emperor, but he was never elected emperor.

In 1138, a Genoese delegation went to Nuremberg and was received by Conrad III who had just been elected Rex Romanorum and was waiting to be named emperor. Conrad granted the Genoese the privilege of minting coins, giving them a special diploma, probably after receiving some form of compensation. His name appears on Genoese coins into the 16th century.

 

Yes, this 1616 AV Doppia/ Genoa illustrates this.

 

Not monday yet where I live, but it certainly is monday on some place of the globe

Having not found yet the Jean II "le bon" franc a cheval I'm dreaming of, I can at least show the weight that was used in the fabrication process


Jean II le bon (1350-1364) - Poids monétaire du franc à cheval
POIS : DE : FRANC - Jean II à cheval, galopant à gauche, l'épée haute, coiffé d'un heaume.
Revers lisse (blank)
14,5 mm - 3,66 gr
Ref : voir Ciani # 361

Q

 

I will let you know when next AV Franc a Cheval is on sixbid John

 

Thanks John.
I check on a regular basis, but didn't find the right one at the right price yet !

Q

 

I find there a lots of them on auction sites. Really hard to find them with a perfect strike on a full flan/ from fresh dies. I have found that a lot of collectors find "Medieval" coinage drab/ ugly in designs. Personally, I think the opposite. The Medieval period (France) for example starts with the Franks/ Merovingians to period of, "Hundred Years War". There where many fantastic coins struck in those 900 years. Ditto for Germany/ Italy/ England/ Burgundy/ Islamic Caliphates/ India.....

 

One of my favorite medieval coin - franc a'cheval. They are realy difficult to find in good condition and good style dies. Mine is from CNG 111, not perfect, but beautiful enought for me.

 

I also have done a colorised version

 

An unsettled mystery from the Principality of Achaea:


GEOFFROI II (cca. 1228-1246) or GUILLAUME II de VILLEHARDOUIN (1246-1278)(?)
AE18x17mm, 0.60g, copper denier, Corinth mint, cca. 1230-1240s(?).
G . P . ACCAIE; long cross pattee
+ CORINTVm; Acrocorinth fortress, surmounted by a cross.
Malloy 3, Schlumberger XII 7, Metcalf Hesperia (1965) p. 206 fig. 9.


It is not settled yet whether this type was minted under Geoffroi II or Guillaume and might even be from the ending of Geoffroi I's rule or throughout the three reigns until 1250.

According to a recent study by Guy Sanders (Dating Frankish Coins with Pottery: Coin Circulation in Corinth cca. 1210-1314, 1st draft, p. 27), the stratigraphy and the pottery associated with this type appears to push its date to an early phase, during the last years of Geoffroi I or at least beginning of the reign of Geoffroi II. The deposits/stray finds studied alongside the pottery contexts in which they appeared at Corinth seem to be pointing to this early dating. Also such a dating could be supported by the similarity of the type to the Genoese types, which started being emulated in the Levant in the 1230s (a good example would be the "castle coppers" of the "new style" of Tripoli under Bohemond V of Antioch).

Thus the coin circulation in the Corinth area after the Third Crusade according to Guy Sanders' hypothesis can be sequenced as follows:

1. Byzantine and Latin trachea 1204-1225/1230 (after the fall of Thessalonika to the Epirotes in 1224)
2. Villehardouin copper deniers of the CORINTVm type, minted locally as the currency of the realm 1225/1230-1246
3. Villehardouin CORINTI copper deniers, the new currency of the realm under the first period of the reign of Guillaume II 1246-1260s?
4. Villehardouin deniers of the ACHAIA type, possibly in the 1260s
5. Royal and feudal Frankish billon deniers tournois from 1267 and afterwards (after the Treaty of Viterbo)
6. Villehardouin local billon deniers tournois which circulated alongside the Royal and feudal deniers tournois cca. 1267-1300+ (it is likely that the first local deniers tournois were minted in the Principality after the Treaty of Viterbo and the Angevin overlordship).

An interesting possible sequence.

 

@panzerman, Fantastic example! I like the irony of the motif, given that Jean 'le Bon' was taken prisoner at the Battle of Poitiers (1356), the central of England's main victories in the Hundred Years' War involving English longbows annihilating old-fashioned French heavy cavalry.
It's also fun that the reverse shows up on contemporary jetons, into the 15th century.


(...Does the obverse imitate another French gold coin? Never looked that up.)

 

Nice one, @seth77. I'd go for the earlier attribution, purely since Guillaume's later examples from Clarentia /Glarenza, with the denier tournois motif, can be safely attributed to Louis IX's personal authorization for him to issue them, while stopping by on the way to Egypt. Also, ones nearer the Genoese motif were being issued in Cyprus a little earlier than that, by Henri I.
...And, for those tuning in late, Typo Alert (Seth, Yes, it's a safe assumption that that's exactly what it was) : that's Fourth Crusade.
(...Edit: After a quick check of Malloy, it turns out the issues of Cyprus with the more neo-Genoese motif go back to Gui de Lusignan (1192-94), continuing seamlessly through the reign of Henri I (1218-53).)

 

Here are two versions from Burgundy/ an ally of

 

Yike, another typo! Now I'm starting to feel right at home. The burgundians (Edit: sic!!!) were, of course, allies of England --as anyone who saw the movie with Ingrid Bergman knows.
...It's interesting that you get the first rumblings, this early, of chivalric motifs with connotations which are as ceremonial as they are purely martial. Witness the royal portraits, numismatic and otherwise, showing the king in full armor as late as the 17th century.
...Granted that we can't just write off the efficacy of heavy cavalry from the 14th century. In other contexts, it was a functioning part of the tactical landscape well into the 15th. One book that's of use on that issue is Stephen Turnbull's Book of the Medieval Knight (1985; Cassell, 1996). Despite the title, the book (essentially narrative history, although it jumps around geographically) starts from the 14th century, ending with the late 15th. ...Also cool is that Turnbull focussed (mainly in other books) on the parallels between later European chivalry and the Samurai.