Medieval Monday!

@VD76, those are Fantastic. Only for one, as a compelling transition from Byzantine lead seals to the similarly less well known ones in western Europe from the 13th and 14th centuries.

 

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Nothing short of extraordinary. The first one is probably the seal of Bohemond III?

 

I’m not sure until I find the same seal with the name visible. I saw very similar seals attributed to Raymond of Poitiers and Raynald of Châtillon , but not yet to Bohemond . There are limited papers on the crusader seals . I’m looking for plates from Schlumberger “ Sigillographie de l'Orient Latin” , but I can’t find it .

 

There's a similar one here (Google Books; thank you, old enough to be in full view):
https://books.google.com/books?id=LM0zET9gc5sC&pg=PA4&dq=Schlumberger+“+Sigillographie+de+l'Orient+Latin”&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiiv5Ccsb7xAhXT7Z4KHR6MAZEQ6AEwBXoECAMQAg#v=snippet&q=Antioche&f=false
...Hope that isn't redundant.

 

@seth77 Yes !!! You are right !! Finally found a seal of Bohemond and it’s very similar to my seal . The only difference I see is that on the seals of Bohemond , that I found , two half-length figures of Saints Peter and Paul , but on mine it seems to be Peter are sitting .

 

My impression was due to stylistical considerations, which would imply the second half of the 12th century. Raymond seems to have more Toulouse-style lettering, while the lettering here is less "classic" provencal. So Bohemond III would've been the better candidate considering that he ruled literally the whole second half of the 12th century.

 

That is all the more awesome! Congrats!

 

Here’s a fun one from Southern Italy to start the week off:
Norman Italy - Sicily
Tancred and Roger, r. 1190-1194 (1191-1193)
Messina Mint, AE Follaro, 13.34 mm x 2.5 grams
Obv.: Arabic legend on two lines: al-malik / Tanqrīr
Rev.: +ROGERIVS around, REX in center, pellet above and below
Ref.: NCKS 406, MEC 14.449-53

 

Although I just realized I have my obverse and reverse descriptions reversed. Oops…

 

My main interest regarding medieval coinage is the denier tournois with its many incarnations and multitude of local variations.

Like these:

- a very small flan tornese (15mm, 0.4g perhaps a half-tornese) minted by Nicola II di Monforte for his role in the Congiura dei Baroni (1459-1464), early on in 1461, with full silvering and very good style and dies; half-tornesi are not recorded for these "war money" issues:



- an immobilization of the tornese of Arta, ca. 1325/9-1330 for Giovanni II Orsini (di Cephalonia), Despot of Epiros; these copper tornesi ended up being heavily imitated in Bulgaria, especially radiating from Vidin for the small commerce on the Danube line, around the mid 14th century and even to the 15th century (Coinage and Money in Medieval Greece 1200-1430, p. 1474-1476); as an interesting feature this spec has CASTRA on the reverse in boustrophedon:





A fun connection between the two very late and heavily debased tornesi/tournois is the fact that the Orsinis gave the last Prince of Taranto - Giovanni Antonio Orsini-del Balzo (des Baux) - who rebelled against the Aragonese rule of Naples (il Regno) alongside the likes of Nicola II and Giacomo da Montagano, fighting together for the Angevin party in 1461-1463.

 

@FitzNigel, I've been wanting one of those! Nice one!
@seth77, your tornesi/tournois are an ongoing revelation. I'm still not done processing the gestalt of the type having persisted this late, literally to the Italian Renaissance. ...Two remarkable instances of cultural appropriation on a numismatic level.
...And I Just Found the pics of my tetarteron of John III of Nicea. Too bad it's this long after @The Trachy Enjoyer's memorable thread about him. Always liked the consonance between St. George, a distinctly martial saint, and the amount of trouble (some might say well-deserved) that he gave the Latins in Constantinople.

 

Here's my only, representative 'Freisacher' pfennig. This is of Bernhard von Sponheim, Duke of Carinthia (in eastern Bavaria /western Austria) 1202-1246.

Couple of fun things going on here. The obverse shows Bernhard, in a mail hauberk, brandishing a sword (the annulet is the pommel) and holding a shield with a fess (horizontal bar). The fess corresponds to half of the Carinthian ducal coat of arms, blazoned 'Gules [red], a fess argent [silver or, more commonly, white].'

The other thing I like is the thematic minimalism of the obverse motif. Given the small modules and indifferent striking for which the 'Freisacher' series is justly notorious, it's as if Bernhard is saying, 'Mess with me, and this is what might happen.' The duchy of Carinthia evolved from an earlier march (/buffer state) on the eastern, Hungarian border of the German empire, going back to the 11th century. It was still very much on the German political and cultural frontier.

All of which belies Bernhard's own reputation as a proponent of influences to the west, including Minnesang, the relatively late, German version of French and Occitan troubadour literature. Here's his seal, from Wikimedia Commons. (Here the coat of arms, with a lion, is a variant of the other component of the ducal blazon. In the German countries, heraldry, along with other elements of the western chivalric ethos, took a little longer to catch on. The heraldry, in particular, was still in a state of flux.)

Another (pfennig/) denar of Bernhard's (Much, Much scarcer) is listed on CoinArchives. Between the seal and the denar, you can see what Bernhard wanted to say, when the module allowed him to speak other than in sounbytes.

 

Nice one @+VGO.DVCKS! I really like the obverse with the mail and annulet for the pommel! I’ll get my Monday coin posted a little later - I’ve only just today started photographing the coins I’ve bought this year…. Gotta do a little clean up before posting a “new” purchase

 

Rhodes. Order of St. John . Emery d'Amboise (1503-1512) AR denier.

0.6 g.

EMERIC....AMBO... Arms of the House of Amboise

ECCE•AG....DEIECC..V.. St. John the Baptist standing facing ,holding the symbolic lamb with his right hand and a long cross in left .

Schlumberger Pl.XI - 10





Rhodes. Order of St. John . Emery d'Amboise (1503-1512) AR denier.

0.5 g.

E.....DAMBOISE•MA Arms of the House of Amboise

E.....DEI.....V St. John the Baptist standing facing ,holding the symbolic lamb with his right hand and a long cross in left .

Schlumberger Pl.XI - 10

 

Okay, not my first purchase of the year, but my first Bracteate!


HRE - Frankfurt am Main
Adolf von Nassau, r. 1292-1298
AR Bracteate, 22.55 mm x 0.57 grams
Obv.: King enthroned, holding scepter and orb
Ref.: De Wit 2150, cf. Hannover 2371, cf. Svensson 175

I don't know how it was determined that this is the right king (he was never made emperor), or that it was minted in Frankfurt, so I have a bit of research to do still... German coins are certainly a weak area for me.

 

No longer Monday, but here is an interesting piece: an inflationary (possibly irregular/counterfeit) Transylvanian denar for one of the last 'crusading' figures in the Balkans, Vladislav/Ulaszlo Jagiello "of Varna" as King of Poland and Hungary (1434/40-1444):



The type is irregular and not in the standard references (Huszar, Rethy, Unger, Pohl) but the privy marks are known for Kronstadt in 1440. Possibly this is an obverse-reverse over-strike.

Vladislav was one of the leaders of the anti-Ottoman 'Varna Crusade' of 1443-4, together with Janos Hunyadi and Giuliano Cesarini. The operation was a Papal venture executed mainly by Polish, Hungarian, Wallachian (Mircea II of Wallachia, the older brother of Vlad III Dracula lead the Wallachian cavalry) and Bulgarian (Fruzin Shishman of Bulgaria lead a detachment of Bulgarian malcontents and Transylvanian warriors) forces, with the support of Burgundian and Italian logistics and finance. It ended in disaster in November 1444 with the utter defeat of the Christian forces and the death of Vladislav Jagiello and Cardinal Cesarini.

 

As I’ve finally been catching up with photographing new purchases, I’ve come to realize that I haven’t bought that many medieval coins lately! A shame. Here is one of my last purchases of last year - another Bohemian Dinar:
Bohemia
Bretislaus I, r. 1034-1055 (1034-1050)
Prague Mint, AR Dinar, 19.62 mm x 1.03 grams
Obv.: BRACIZLAVS DVX, bust left holding standard
Rev.: SCS WENCEZLAVS, seated facing figure holding cross, cross to the right
Ref.: Frynas B.8.12, cf. Lanz Graz XIII, 104-111

this is one of the pre-reform coins of Bretislaus I. I posted one of his post-reform coins on Nov. 23 last year, but here it is again just for fun:

Bohemia
Bretislaus I, r. 1034-1055 (1050-55)
Prague Mint, AR Denar, 15.33 mm x 1.0 grams
Obv.: BRACIZLAVS DVX. Bust facing, a pellet to either side
Rev.: SCS WENCEZLAVS. Bust right, cross to right
Ref.: Frynas B.8.15, De Wit 2719, cf. Lanz Graz XIII, 116-122

 

Solid ones, @FitzNigel. The strikes and preservation of the Bohemian series are pretty exceptional for the whole period.
From the sublime to the ridiculous, here's a denier of Barthélémi de Montcornet, bishop of Beauvais (in Picardie /northeast France) 1162-1175. Scarce; bought unattributed on Delcampe (those were the good old days).

Obv. [+]BAR[TOLOMEVS].
Rev. Degraded Carolingian monogram; [+BE]LVA[CENSIS].
Boudeau (c. 1912) 1895, listing a reasonable example at 20 fr.; Poey d'Avant (mid-19th c.) 6468.
Another example of the paucity of current references for large geographic swaths of the French feudal series. Duplessy's ongoing update is only at two volumes, with the entire eastern part of the country (notably Champagne and Burgundy --two of the primary subseries) unrepresented. To this day, I rely on the archives of the .cgb website (along with ACsearch and CoinArchives), bouncing off Boudeau and Roberts.

 

I have had a really bad experience on delcampe, with a denier tournois of Mehun-sur-Yevre that got lost and a rather backwards seller who did not post recommandee although I had paid for the service.

Here's a broken but lovely denier of Vierzon during the reign of Herve I from CGB:

 

I just got this one last week @Spaniard

James II (Jaime) the fair. Aragon 1291-1327
Billon, Obolo 16.5 mm .6 grams
The Obolo is somewhat
more rare than the dinero.
Obv: Crowned bust facing left, ARA - GON
Rev: Patriarchal cross, IACOBUS REX. CRU 319



Jaime II KING OF ARAGÓN, VALENCIA, MAJORCA, SICILY, SARDINIA AND CORSICA, COUNT OF BARCELONA. His full title for the last three decades of his reign was James by the grace of God, king of Aragon, Valencia, Sardinia and Corsica, and count of Barcelona.
He married four times and had 10 children from these marriages, also had 3 children with Sicilian women.