Medieval Monday!

St Edmund memorial penny. S960


Edward III halfpenny, struck at Berwick on Tweed.


Cnut Short Cross penny of Warminster. PINEGOD ON PORI

 

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I love the memorial Penny! That is on my list…

I am starting to stretch to find something good each week to post here, but I am determined to get this thread past the one year mark. So here’s one that was a bit of a mystery in a group lot I bought a while ago. I may well have the attribution wrong, but my reasoning is below (apologies for the poor photos):
Bulgaria - Despotate of Vindin
Michael Shishman, r. 1313-1330 (1313-1323)
Vindin mint, AR Groši, 18.85mm x 1.16 grams
Obv.: Christ Pantokrator seated facing on throne, IC - XC either side
Rev.: Doge and St. Mark standing facing, holding banner between them, barbarous legend around
Ref.: cf. MSCB pg. 143
Note: Attribution is based off the size, weight, and similar style of official coinage at Trnovo (cf. MSCB Bulgaria 8.1.1), as well as its similarity to the Serbian imitations issued by Stefan Dragutin (cf. MSCB Serbia 2.1.1) to whom Michael was tied through marriage

 

My new little fella
10mm/0.4 g.

 

Very interesting! I’m not sure I’ve seen a Bohemond clipped like this before

 

There were many offered in 2017-18 and I'd like to know who did this and why, considering that the billon denier of Antioch already had a fractional coinage minted in high quantities all throughout the best part of ca. 1140s to 1250-60.

 

Here is a denier from the Diocese of Le Puy in the later part of the 11th century:


AR18mm 0.70g billon denier, minted at Le Puy-en-Velay , cca. 1080-1100(?)
+ SCE MANVE(?); star-shaped X I (chi-iota) monogram (or chrismon?)
MONETA(?); cross pattee
cf. Boudeau 375, cf. Poey d'Avant 2231, Olivier groupe V, 1er type, Revue Numismatique 1927, Pl. VIII no. 12-19

The coinage of Le Puy-en-Velay is one of the preferred coinages of the crusaders during the First Crusade, according to Raymond d'Aguilers -- but worth half the other types 'duo pogesi pro unum istarum.' In this style, with the cross and chrismon (or chi-iota) the coinage is present from around early 11th century, but the rounded bars on the cross and chrismon appear a bit later, around 1080 (cf. Olivier - Études de numismatique régionale, les monnaies féodales du Puy, RN 1927, p. 170-217 et 1928, p. 83-100). So this specimen is very likely related to the First Crusade, considering also that the other medieval material offered by this dealer seems to point to the Middle East. 407 similar specs were researched by Ingrid and Wolfgang Schulze (A coin hoard from the time of the First Crusade, found in the Near-East with remarks by Marc Bompaire and with contributions by Peter Northover and D. Michael Metcalf). With the overall details, size and weight, this specimen seems to have been minted earlier during Olivier's 'groupe V' and the wear could indicate that it did circulate for some time before being carried over to the Middle East.

 

Not sure if this pushes the bounds but it’s hammered. Henry viii half groat, 3rd issue York mint

 

It's Paul Joseph, Eduard Fellner: Die Münzen von Frankfurt am Main: Nebst einer münzgeschichtlichen Einleitung, Frankfurt am Main: Druckerei August Osterrieth 1896.

 

Vielen Dank

 

A bit of help to nudge closer to a year. Posted elsewhere, but I never tire of looking at the colour of this one. Cnut Quatrefoil penny of Crewkerne, the moneyer is Winas


Aethelred CRVX penny of Southampton, GODMAN M-O HAMPI. This is quite rare with approx. 10 known


Henry III cl. Vd WALTER ON KAN. One of the funny ones with irregular spelling

 

I finally found time this weekend to take pictures of this recent purchase.

Stralsund, located at the Baltic shore in northeastern Germany, was an important member of the Hanseatic League in the later Middle Ages. Its coat of arms, the arrowhead shown on the obverse of my coin, is a pun on the city's name. The Middle Low German word strale means "arrow." It shares an etymology with, for example, the Old English lexeme strǣl, its now archaic English descendant streal, Middle High German strâle, New High German Strahl, and Polish strzała.

The six-rayed star on the reverse of my coin is the emblem of the Wendish monetary union, a group of northern German Hanseatic cities that from 1379 on struck coins to the same weight standard. The cities Lübeck, Hamburg, Wismar and Lüneburg were the core members of this monetary union, which lasted until 1569. Stralsund, Rostock, and Hannover joined it for shorter periods of time. The witten, a silver coin worth four pfennige of the Lübeck weight standard, constituted the typical denomination of the early Wendish monetary union.


Stralsund, Hanseatic City, AR witten, before 1381 AD: Obv: *MONETA:SVNDENSIS; arrowhead with pellet below. Rev: DEUS.IN.NOMINE.TVO; cross with six-rayed star (emblem of the Wendish monetary union) in center; arrowhead in top l. quadrant. 18mm, 1.23g. Ref: Dannenberg 261; Saurma 4990.

 

Awesome coin @Orielensis! I love it when the coin design is a pun. I decided to delve into my Normandy sub collection for today (although looking at this, I need to get a better picture):

Feudal France - Normandy
Richard I, r. 943-996
AR Denier, 20.53 mm x 1.2 grams
Obv.: +RICARDVS. Cross pattee with pellets in angles
Rev.: +ROTOMAGVS. Lothaire monogram
Ref.: Dumas XV-23, Duplessy 18

the Lothaire monogram theory for the reverse comes from an article from the Celetor, which I don’t find very convincing (it’s based off a line drawing of a coin made in the 19th century… but I haven’t seen a real picture of the coin…). Another theory is it’s the monogram of Hugh the Archbishop of Rouen, but I do not know if another example of Hugh’s monogram has been found. So it is a bit of a mystery to me

 

One week to go to pass the anniversary, so to help a bit more -

Edward the Confessor PACX of Guildford. Cracked across 75% of the flan, but the only one as far as I am aware - so acceptable.


An Edward I 1c-1a mule penny


Henry III class 3c penny HENRI ON LVND

 

Those are somegreat coins @robp I really like your 1c-1a mike of Edward I and your class Vd of Henry III. Class Vd is the most attractive bust of his coins in my humble opinion. I'll add a couple of pennies of Edward I, both class 1c, one much nicer than the other.

 

A later issue for Florent d'Avesnes-Hainaut at Glarentza in Morea, with a very interesting reverse die -- the last A of + DЄ CLARЄNCIA has been worked to become a hollowed cross:


AR19mm, 0.6g, billon denier tournois, 262/1000, minted at Glarentza/Corinth(?), cca. 1296/7.
+ FLORЄNS ꞏ P ꞏ ACh; Cross pattee
+ DЄ ꞏ CLARЄNCI ꞏ ✙; chateau tournois, cross over/instead of the last A of the legend
cf. Malloy 13a, Metcalf (MN, 1971) pp. 182, 201; Saulcy XV, 1, Tzamalis Elis/1964 Hoard p. 272 FH A(?)

J. Baker totally rejects the possibility of two mints official operating in the Principality of Achaea after ca. 1260s, a hypothesis that Tzamalis favored as it could easily explain the different spire shapes of the chateau tournois on the reverse. In his latest and greatest work, Coinage and Money in Medieval Greece 1200-1430, Baker assigns all tournois issues from Guillaume II to Robert de Tarento to a single main mint in Glarentza, with a continuous output of coinage that would put to shame the French feudal mints of Alphonse de France and Charles d'Anjou not to mention the smaller operations of the 14th century -- La Marche, Poitou, Bourgogne, etc.

While Tzamalis's explanation is subjectively elegant, the amount of data that Baker oversees in his search for patterns of distribution inside Greece that would point to a multi-polar minting scenario simply does not confirm it.

Still, the best (i.e. most conservative and safe) approach is to keep both perspectives in mind. A small-scale issue (like for instance this here) is easier to tie to specific historical events if we consider just one main mint -- in this case, the death of Florent during his Arcadian campaign very early in 1297 and the government passing to Isabelle de Villehardouin, under which a great reform of the coinage was underway at Glarentza, which possibly took 2 years to be established.

A residual issue for Florent might have still been issued after January 1297.

 

I have been very poorly active in the forums recently, and apologize for that.

I humbly present a few Anglo-Saxon Mercian pennies.

Mercia was one of the petty kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon period, it peaked in the 7th century under the warrior king Penda, then again in the 8th century under Offa, then went into decline. The late rulers of Mercia may have been nothing more than puppet rulers, in service of either the stronger neighbor Wessex, or the invading Viking armies of the 9th century.


Offa 757-796



Coenwulf 796-821



Ceolwulf I 821-823



Beornwulf 823-826



Wiglaf 830-839



Burgred 852-874

 

A remarkable portrait! Very nice.

 

...Wow. For the last while, real life over here has been intervening more aggressively than usual, but it's fantastic to see what everyone else has been doing. A Lot of Really, Really exceptional stuff.
@FitzNigel, the article proposing the reattribtution of your (right, other main) issue of Richard I of Normandy was in two parts across two years, which didn't help to advance the argument. But one thing to observe in reference to 19th-century French line drawings is that, as such, their accuracy, at least in terms other than style, shouldn't be any real cause for concern. Along with his relative comprehensiveness, and a pretty impressive rate of accuracy in the attributions, the similar, contemporary renderings of Poey d'Avant made his book a standard reference through the following century.
More broadly, I'm always impressed by the methological standards of the people who were doing this at the time. It's reminiscent of the more responsible studies of local English antiquities that came out between at least the earlier 19th century, into the earlier 20th. It's important to recognize the distinction between methodology and the incontestable limitations of available data (thank you, in our context, starting with hoards, and archaeological sophistication generally). If the coin came from someone's cabinet, you can be pretty confident that it's accurately reproduced. By this time, numismatists were happy to conform to 19th-century scientific standards, such as they were.
The second part of DeShazo's article (which I still highly recommend --with a measure of personal bias) got deeper into the various, eventful interactions between Lothaire and Richard I, notably from Dudo of St. Quentin's relatively comprehensive, (?)comparatively reliable chronicle of the period. Citing the plates in Dumas (Tresor), DeShazo also noted the generally better state of preservation of this type than examples of Richard's 'temple' issue, suggesting a later mintage.
Here's one that just arrived.
Magnus 'the Good,' King of Norway 1035-1047, King of Denmark from 1042. AR penning, probably of Roskilde, Denmark, imitating prototypes of Harthacnut of (England and) Denmark (1035-1042). The triquetra on the reverse is a common Scandinavian motif, showing up on runestones as well as coins.
Funly, Magnus was the half-brother-in-law of this guy, Ordulf /Otto (here "ODDO," retrograde), Duke of Saxony (which included some of eastern Frisia) 1055/6-1072. Magnus was a son of Olaf II of Norway ('The Saint /The Stout'), by a mistress; Ordulf married one of his legitimate daughters, memorably named Ulfhild ("Wolf Battle").


The dynastic connection evokes the transition from the Scandinavian kingdoms effectively being 'rogue states' to being active, arguably constructive participants in 'mainstream' northern European politics. Part of what I like so much about the late phases of the 'Viking Age' is how dynamic this whole process was; less one of unqualified decline, than of an active redirection in focus.
Back to the Magnus example, the light weight and module, and possible billon content evoke the lower standards of early Scandinavian coins more broadly --right, running heavily to imitations of AEthelred II. There's even a fun bit in St. Olaf's Saga, from Snorri Sturlusson's Heimskringla, where Olaf sends tax collectors to northern Norway.

"(....) Leif went up to Thrand to receive the purse [of taxes], and carried it toward the front of the booth where it was light, poured it into his shield, rooted in it with his hand, and told Karl to look at the silver. They examined it for a while. Then Karl asked what Leif thought about it.
"He replied, 'It seems to me that all the bad money in the North Islands has been brought here.'
"Thrand overheard that and said, 'Don't you like the silver, Leif?'
"'No indeed,' he said."
(Trans. by Lee M. Hollander, (1964 /) 1991, UT /Austin.) --Why are so many Viking-Age coins peck-marked? Look no further!

 

I trust Poey d’Avant was meticulous, but even great scholars make mistakes, and much of his attributions of Norman coins have been questioned by later authors. I want to know where this supposed Lothaire coin with his monogram is. Maybe there is some other work of his that contains his monogram, but I haven’t seen anything. I’s love for the Lothaire theory to be true because it would solve the mystery, but I have too many unanswered questions without suitable evidence.

anyway, for the penultimate post before the anniversary of this thread (technically tomorrow!), here is the last coin from my Bohemian sub-collection that I haven’t yet posted here:
Bohemia
Přemysl Ottokar I, r. 1192-3, 1197-1230 (1198-1230)
AR Denar, 18.70 mm x 1.1 grams
Obv.: + VSCES[…]VM. Winged figure/angel r. holding lance fighting a dragon
Rev.: +SCS NSN. Bust of Ottokar facing with raised hands between two towers of a stylized building
Ref.: Frynas B.22.6 (This coin depicted), De Wit 2764 (this coin), Lanz Graz XIII, 465 (this Coin), (Cach 659, Šmerda 296)
Ex. Richard A. Jourdan Collection, Ex. Prof. G.W. De Wit Collection, Ex. Marquis von Hohenkubin Collection
Note: Issued as King of Bohemia, beginning the hereditary line of Bohemian kings

a more detailed tale of this coin (and particularly its provenance) is given here