They were both on French ebay, but from established dealers. County of Sancerre. Etienne (Stephen) I, 1152-1191. AR denier. Obv. Mitred profile to right; star in left field. +IVLIVS CESA.R. Rev. +STEPhANVS CON ('COM[ES];' Count.) Duplessy 640 variant; cf. 639 for rev. legend. ("[...]CONE;" "N" and "E" ligated.) Anonymous issue (...except for Julius), c. 1190-1230. Obv. Mitred profile to left; crescent and star in fields. +IVLIVS CES.A.R Rev. Cross; star and fleur-de-lis in angles. +SACRVM CESARIS Duplessy 647 variant; cf. 646 for punctuation of obverse legend. ...Etienne I's issues are the only ones of Sancerre, through the beginning of the 14th century, to have been issued in the count's name. The association with Julius Caesar originally struck me (when I had a later example as a kid, in the mid-1970s) as a predictable assertion of baronial autonomy. --Along the lines of a 13th-century motto of the seigneurs of Coucy, following the construction of massive, state-of-the-art castle: 'Neither count, nor duke, nor prince am I; I am the lord of Coucy!' But the truth is even better than that. From medieval times, Sancerre was associated (erroneously, to all appearances) with an episode in Caesar's conquest of Gaul. From French Wiki, the name originates from 'a shrine dedicated to Saint Satyrus, an African martyr of the third century [....]. It preserves the name of the African martyr whose remains were allegedly brought there.' From here, getting these, attributed but at relatively favorable prices, was a coup. It filled a big hole in my ongoing French feudal endeavors. Both geographically, and in terms of Sancerre's feudal relationship to the counts of Blois and Chartres, and later (formally as of the 12th century) of Champagne. ...It was effectively a comital appanage; the counts of Sancerre were a cadet branch of the same family.
Very nice pickups. I have been interested in these for a few years and they are fascinating pieces of history
V.DVCKS, Those are fascinating coins, especially the 2nd coin . Who is actually depicted on this coin, is it Enguerrand III the Great, or someone else ? I know virtually nothing about French medieval coinage & the history behind it . A couple of years ago I posted the only French medieval coin in my collection, pictured below. It's an Ecu D Or struck in the reign of Charles VI le Fol, AKA "The Mad", AD 1380- 1422.
Splendid coins, especially the second one. A fantastic piece. I'm green with envy! Also, these certainly are the cheapest postumous Julius Caesar portrait coins one can find. Good catch!
Gawsh, Many thanks to all. @Al Kowsky, this would be the perfect place to amaze you with my erudition, but, er, I'm confused about who the portrait is. Generally, even in the case of patron saints on ecclesiastical issues, if the portrait comes with a name, that's who it's supposed to be. But throughout the subseries, Duplessy consistently interprets the headgear as a miter, rather than some form of crown. Kinda stumpy.... One guess --which I should pursue-- is whether the local Julius Caesar tradition involved some kind of hagiographic aura attached to Caesar himself ....by whatever historical and theological gymnastics. Fantastic coin, by the way. Wow. And from more or less the absolute nadir of Valois fortunes! The irony only makes it better.
Like everything Berry, I'm also a big fan of Sancerre and especially the valiant and intrepid (and rather picky when it comes to women) Etienne I. Wrote an entry on Sancerre here. The last piece is an anonymous coinage under Etienne I, probably minted around 1170 while/after his first trip to the Holy Land. In 1169-1170, Etienne was invited to Jerusalem by a party of Holy Land prelates and knights in the name of King Amalric of Jerusalem, in a tentative by the Holy Land interests to have him marry Sibylla, the king's daughter, and become the heir to the throne of Jerusalem by jus uxoris. The tentative failed, but Etienne would remain a close ally to the Kingdom of Jerusalem. When the call of Philip II and Richard Plantagenet for the Third Crusade under both Angevin and Capetian patronage arrived, Etienne froze his old conflict with the King of France and joined the crusader army. Before leaving for the Holy Land again at the beginning of 1190, Etienne I abolished serfdom throughout his whole county and offered generous donations to the Church and the families of his retinue of old Brabancons -- his soldiers -- and knights. He then joined his brothers Henri and Thibaut to the siege of Acre in the summer of the same year, where he found his death that autumn either in battle or by the plague that had started in the Christian camp and would end up killing so many knights and Queen Sybilla. His brother Thibaut would soon follow him, dying from the plague in early 1191. They were buried on site. This anonymous type is one the rarer types minted for Etienne and is dated around 1170 thanks to hoard evidences from the study of the hoards from Accolay, Varzy and Saint-Aubin-les-Forges.
@seth77, you Know (...well, Not) that I have about 169 pages of writeup on my collection, small type, single-spaced, thoroughly annotated, going back a decade and a half --and you Beat me to Everything!!! No, Congratulations!!! With the exception of your no less impressive erudition in late Roman, and later medieval than I venture into (...apart from English hammered), it's almost eerie the extent to which we're on the same page.
Congrats on thegreat additions @+VGO.DVCKS O love both coins. One of these days, when I finally kick the Voided Long Cross habit, I'm going to pick up a denier of Sancerre from Etienne I. I've really looked them since I was made aware of the type by @seth77 He has a way of doing that.
