Medieval Monday!

silver denar St. Louis IX..

 

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As of posting this, there are still about five minutes of MM left in my timezone! How about some Low Countries stuff?



County of Flanders, Jan van Bourgondië. AR Kromstaart (1418, Ghent). From the Woerden hoard (1972)



County of Flanders, Lodewijk van Male. AR Zilveren Lyoen (1365-1367, Ghent, first emission)



County of Holland, Floris V. AR Tournooise Groot (1286, Dordrecht)



Duchy of Guelders, Willem I of Gulik, AR Floerken (1382-1388, Arnhem)

 

Edward I class 1a farthing, struck in debased silver (0.766 fine). Spink 1443.

Apologies for the fuzzy obverse. Auto-focus needs to be re-educated.

 

@AnYangMan, that Floris Tournooise Groot is remarkable for keeping the original mint signature, 'TVRONIS CIVIS' on the 'chatel' side. But @Orielensis' 12th c. bracteate with St. Stephen is phenomenal. ...There's just something different about the full-flanned ones of the initial century. Serious numismatic evidence of the '12th-century Renaissance.' Here's mine, the only one I have that's earlier than just either side of 1200. This one's Magdeburg, with their patron saint, Maurice /Moritz. "+SC-S. MAVRICIVS. DVX." (The Medieval Latin "Dux" appears to have had other connotations than just 'Duke' -or 'Marquis,' or 'Graf.' --Notably martial ones; Maurice was yet another martial saint, appropriated from Ottonian times in connection with the eastern frontier of the German Empire.

 

Serbia: Prince Stefan Lazarević (1389-1402) AR Dinar (Jovanović 2; Иванишевић 42.12; Ljubića T.XIII 31-32)

Obv: CON-SVE; Helmet surmounted by two bovine horns on left
Rev: S-SO; Christ, nimbate, seated facing upon throne without back; right hand raised in blessing, left holds Gospels

 

A coin from France's "Spider King" Louis XI (1461-1483):


France Louis XI Ecu d'Or
Gold, 27 mm, 3.34 gm, Perpignan Mint
Obverse:
Shield with three fleur-de-lis on it and crown above
LVDOVICVS DEI GRA FRANCOR REX
Reverse:
Cross with fleur-de-lis at ends, mintmark 'P' in center (Perpignan Mint)
XPS VINCIT XPS REGNAT XPS IMPERAT (Christ conquers, Christ reigns, Christ commands)

Louis XI kept wild turkeys as pets.

 

@robp, that's easily the best Edward I farthing I've ever seen. And Class 1A. Just Never Mind....

 

Spain, Aragon. Immobilized issue from the time of Alfonso VIII to X, AD 1158-1284. BI Dinero (18mm, 0.73g, 11h). Toledo mint. Obv: ANFVS REX; Bust left. Rev: +TOLLETA; Cross with stars in alternate angles, stars have pierced centers. Ref: FAB 23.1 (Alfonso I); MEC 6, Plate 20, 379 to 382.

 

Lovely coins all! I’ll toss in another - in case anyone wonders what the Bohemond deniers CNG is offering blind, here is one of the top tier examples (I figured its such an iconic coin, why not pay the extra for a nice one):


Crusader - Antioch
Bohemond III, Majority, r. 1149-1201 (1163-1201)
AR Denier, 17.81 mm x 0.8 grams
Obv.: +BOANVHDVS, helmeted head left, crescent left, five-pointed star right, mail composed of crescents
Rev.: +ANTIOCHIA, Cross pattée, crescent pointing downwards in the second angle
Ref.: Malloy Antioch 69

 

..well i'll be danged...so the Vikings horned helmets DIDN"t come from the opera..

 

i wuz just thinking that too....

 

My only coin is a Vespasian that I love, but it means I don't get to play very often - however, I do have a Medieval knife blade (11th-14th century) if I'm allowed to post that. It's 12-1/2 inches long, so not your average paring knife:

 

"Louis XI kept wild turkeys as pets." @willieboy2, I'm just neeeding that.
...Guess he could. Anyway it was still a long, if already slippery slope to Louis XIV and 'l'etat, c'est moi.'

 

What a great idea @FitzNigel thanks for starting this thread. I haven't added too many medievals this year, been saving up for the November Whitman Baltimore expo, which was just cancelled. Maybe I'll be able to add some nice Plantagenets in the next few months. Here are some of the coins I've added this year, all from an Edward, two from grandfather one from grandson.



The last coin is a series B half groat of Edward III. like its bigger brother, the series B groat, it is one of the less common of the series of Edward III.

 

@TheRed, Your Edward I of Waterford is off the freaking charts. Just, Forget it. I'm done.

 

Lovely coins shown...
What's the general consensus for medieval dates from and to?

 

Roughly 500-1500. There are no hard dates though - some argue the founding of Constantinople begins the Middle Ages, so it’s fluid

 

The deposition of Romulus Augustus in 476 is hard to beat as the beginning but some historians look to Constantine, who got the ball rolling. Other dates that come to mind are the Rescript of Honorius in 410, abandoning Britain, or even Muhammad's flight to Mecca in 622.

My personal choice for the end is 1492 which encompases not only Columbus but the fall of the last Muslim state in western Europe. The conquest of Byzantium by the Ottomans in 1453 is another candidate, as is the publication of Martin Luther's 95 Theses in 1517.

Numismatically, the coinage reform of Anastasius in 498 is seen by many as the break between "Roman" and "Byzantine" issues. At the other end, the Krause Standard Catalog of World Coins begins at 1601, conveniently close to the transition from hammered to machine-made coins.

But as noted above, it's fluid and open to interpretation.

 

In Britain the end is usually taken as 1485 as this marks the start of the Tudors, but in terms of the coinage, 1500ish is a reasonable end date with the last of the facing bust portraits and the start of the profile coinage. As for the start, we break it down a bit with the Middle Ages starting in 1158 after the Normans, but medieval can reasonably encompass everything post-Roman. We would break it down into the Dark Ages, which is everything prior to the Saxon period, followed by the Normans. There are no rules.

 

It's Monday again!

William I PAXS penny of Bath. GODESBRAND ON BA. The short mint name leads to a little ambiguity.

In BNJ 1908, PWP Carlyon-Britton gave this coin to Barnstaple (illustrated pl.IX fig.2). However, current consensus is Bath on the grounds that Barnstaple is a small mint that would only have one moneyer and Seword is confirmed as a Barnstaple moneyer, striking classes 5,6 & 8 at Barnstaple and is presumably the same person who also struck types 2-5 at Exeter, so he appeared to migrate between the two mints. Godesbrand is a confirmed moneyer for Shaftesbury in Dorset and is almost certainly the same person who struck at Malmesbury in Wiltshire, making Bath the most likely location.

This coin ex-
Beaworth Hoard 1833
A Durlacher 6 pt, Sotheby 20/3/1899
PWP Carlyon-Britton 722 pt, Sotheby 17/11/1913
SNC 11/1914
R C Lockett 960 pt, Glendining 9/6/1955

There are 5 known, all from the Beaworth hoard. A full write up and inventory of the Beaworth hoard is given in Ruding vol.1 p.151-161 (1840).