Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;seth77, post: 4901490, member: 56653&quot;]The fashion of wearing these small horse pendants (I have heard them being referred to as <i>vervelle </i>in French quarters) was not restricted to Britain and France. It also came South and East with the expansion of Charles d&#039;Anjou&#039;s suzerainty over Frankish Greece in the 1270s and the integration of Albania-Epirus-Achaea into his own version of the &quot;Angevin Empire&quot; at the end of the 13th century.</p><p><br /></p><p>An interesting hint would be a <i>denier tournois</i> of Lepanto in Epirus for Philippe de Taranto, Angevin Prince and Despot in Epirus and Corfu, from ca. 1297-1304:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1182660[/ATTACH]</p><p><i>AR19x18mm 0.81g Lepanto/Nepanti/Naupaktas</i></p><p><i>+ shield/vervelle Ph&#039;S P &#039; TAR DESP ⚜; cross pattee</i></p><p><i>+ ⚜ NЄPANTI CIVIS &#039; ; chateau tournois</i></p><p><i>cf. Malloy 111b, Saulcy XV, 13.</i></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>This series began as Philippe was still just Despot of Lepanto/Naupaktas, before acceding to the Principality of Achaea -- after the annulment of the wedding of Isabella de Villehardouin to Philippe de Savoia by Charles II d&#039;Anjou, who was the suzerain of Achaea, in 1306.</p><p><br /></p><p>Philippe started wearing the title of <i>Despot Romaniae</i> after the death of his father in law Nikephoros I Komnenos-Dukas around 1297 and lost the city of Nepanti/Naupaktas/Lepanto to the Komnenos-Dukas faction around 1304/5. In 1307 he had his possessions restored but it&#039;s unlikely that he restored a coinage operation at Lepanto.</p><p><br /></p><p>Malloy mentions the small figure at the beginning of the obv. legend as being a &quot;leaf&quot; but it is supposed to appear as a stop only on the reverse. This type might be unrecorded thus in CCS, or there might be an error in the description of 111b. Considering that there are many mark at the beginning of the obverse legend, it is most likely an error in the catalog.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1182663[/ATTACH]</p><p><i>AR17x15mm 0.87g</i></p><p><i>+ shield/vervelle Ph&#039;S P &#039; TAR DЄSP ⚜; cross pattee</i></p><p><i>+ ❚ NЄPANTI CIVIS &#039;; chateau tournois</i></p><p><i>cf. Malloy 111b, Saulcy XV, 12.</i></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>The nature of the figure is also intriguing. Malloy only mentions it in passing as being a &quot;leaf&quot; (a <i>fleuron</i> maybe?) but its shape is reminiscent of the armorial pendant/<i>vervelle </i>(often decorated with a coat of arms, that is the focus here), a very popular harness decoration by the 14th century. Showing coats of arms was apparently popular or at least not unheard of in the coinage of Frankish Greece -- the very rare denier of Thomas III de Stromoncourt from Salona (Malloy 108) for instance, or the fractionary coinage of Guillaume de la Roche (Malloy 81), or the fractionary of Philippe de Savoia (Malloy 23) etc. Although the small detail seen on this issue does not appear on other Greek deniers -- not even Philippe&#039;s coinage from later on at Glarentza -- there are other coins from the 14th century which show small shields with coats of arms in the legends from the West, like for instance the denier tournois of <a href="http://dole-monnaies-jetons.fr/Pymont.htm" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://dole-monnaies-jetons.fr/Pymont.htm" rel="nofollow">Philippe de Vienne</a> or the gros tournois of <a href="http://www.numismatikforum.de/viewtopic.php?f=51&amp;t=46833&amp;p=387916&amp;hilit=ravensberg#p387916" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.numismatikforum.de/viewtopic.php?f=51&amp;t=46833&amp;p=387916&amp;hilit=ravensberg#p387916" rel="nofollow">Remagen</a> -- but unlike these Greek fleurons/armorial pendants/<i>vervelles</i>, those shields actually show a coat of arms.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1182664[/ATTACH] <i>Detail with the pendant-vervelle at the beginning of the obverse legend and the Angevin fleur-de-lis at the end.</i>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in