Medieval Monday!

I'm a bit late to the celebration of one year of Medieval Monday, but I would like to echo what @+VGO.DVCKS said and thank all of the other posters on here that have made this thread the main reason I still check in on CT.

I'll add two coins, the first one is my newest medieval and the other is my favorite from my collection.

Edward III Treaty Period Half Groat

I picked up this half groat of Edward III because the coin was struck from a reverse die that has a spelling error. The outer legend reads +POSV/IEVM/AIVTO/RE:MEV which is missing the letter D from the word ADIVTORE. Not wanting to waste a good die, the London mint used it anyways and thus created a rare legend variety.

Edward III Treaty Period Groat - Calais mint

A treaty period groat of Edward III from Calais was always one of my white whales. It's a coin that is directly tied to the battle of Crecy in 1346, the year long siege of Calais, and the Treaty of Bretigny of 1360. As a collector of groats of Edward III it's one of the key coins in the series too.

As a way to celebrate one full year of Medieval Monday please post one of your favorite medieval coins from your collection and a few lines as to why it is a favorite.

 

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I don't think we should let the thread go, wouldn't you agree?

Here is an interesting titulature employed by Raymond V de Saint Gilles (de Toulouse) at Pont-de-Sorgues in the Margraviate of Provence:



R[amundus] COMES PALACI / DVX [Narbonensis] MARCh[io] P[ro]V[incie]

Raymond, Count Palatine / Duke of Narbonensis (the Roman province), Margrave of Provence

In the late 12th century this sounds already antiquated and snobbish to be certain. The coinage is introduced as a denier in ca. 1177 at the height of Raymond's power, so there is no threat to his overlordship and/or legitimacy to meet. This legend is not thus meant as a warning to transgressors, but rather an affirmation of an old tradition.

Occitania and Narbonensis were still very much connected with the Roman world of the antiquity. The tradition was kept by the Merovingians and used by the Carolingian nobility and in the 10th to 11th century as means of civic propaganda -- the counts of Toulouse would style themselves as consuls, Fulk Nerra of Anjou was himself a consul, while the Trencavels were proconsuls at Albi and Beziers. Dux Narbonensis was also a late Roman artifact, marking not the actual authority in Narbonne (the viscount ruled the city) at the time but the overlordship in the coastal area, oftentimes himself Count of Toulouse beforehand.

Raymond was not alone in employing a combination of Frankish (feudal) titles with late Roman mechanisms of power and Carolingian prestige -- the Count Palatine was not just a regular baron, but one of the chosen few of the Emperor. Pons de Toulouse was Count Palatine in 1047 and so was Alphonse Jourdain in the 1130s.

In southern France, prior to the Albigensian Crusade, the antiquated world was still kept around and alive as means for lords to signal not only power but a deeper connection with the history of their allodial lands.

 

I’m okay with keeping this thread alive, but I was stretching myself to provide new coins of interested, and I haven’t really done a proper write-up on a coin since this thread began. As for my favorite, at first I wasn’t sure I had one, and then I remembered this beautiful Norman coin from Southern Italy, and thought to myself ‘how could it not be my favorite’? I posted this in October of last year, so nearly a year old is enough time, right?

Norman Italy - Calabria
Roger I, r. 1072-1101 (1098-1101)
Mileto Mint, AE Trifollaro, 28.04 mm x 8.3 grams
Obv.: ROG [ERVS] COME +S. Roger, mounted left wearing Norman helm, holding kite shield and striped banner
Rev.: + MARIA [MATE]R DNI (’N’ retrograde). Enthroned nimbate Virgin Mary holding on lap Christ child, nimbate and in swaddling clothes right
Ref.: NCKS 131var., MEC 14.93, De Wit 3789

 

Here's one. Not a dyed-in-the-wool favorite (too much else happening on this front, right now), but recent enough to be unposted. Frisia: Groningen, Heinrich IV and Wilhelm I, Bishop of Utrecht. Dated to Wilhelm's tenure as bishop, 1054-1076 (including Heinrich's minority as 'King of the Romans').
Obv. Heinrich facing. The bearded portrait suggests that the obverse die was a carryover from Heinrich's father, Heinrich III, or that, for Wilhelm, this was a relatively late issue. (Prototypes of the motif occur repeatedly in the issues of Heinrich III.) +HEINRICVS RE[X, or '+'].
Rev. Bishop Wilhelm to right, with crozier and crosslet in right field. +VVIIHEINIVS ['WILHELMVS'].
Ilisch 18.6; Dbg. 546 (for type).

 

I would hate to see the run of regular posts come to an end and while I'm a little late the holiday weekend should be a good scapegoat. My newest coin is a bit of a milestone for me. The coin itself is rather common, a penny of Edward I from the Lincoln mint, but it is my 120th English penny from the Plantagenet period of Henry II thru Edward I.

So why is 120 important? Well, in theory it represented one half of a pound of silver as the penny was supposed to be minted at a rate of 240 per pound Sterling. In actuality it was closer to 244 pennies, but that is delving into technicalities. More interestingly is the question of what 120 pennies, or 10 shillings, could purchase in the late 13th century/early 14th century. Digging into an old textbook of mine titled "Standards of Living in the Latter Middle Ages" I found some very interesting options for my money. My 120 pence would be enough to hire a labourer for about 3 months of work or a maidservant for one year. The amount could also purchase a draught horse or 5 pigs. If I wanted to stock my larder I could buy 80-90 gallons of first-rate ale, 10 pounds of pepper, or 200 lbs of cheese. If I wanted to put a roof over my head I could rent a cottage for one year. So, 120d is clearly a good some of money by the standard of the late 13th/14th century, but far from enough to make me a wealth person. Maybe I'll have to add up my quarter nobles, groats, half pennies, farthings, and cut fractions before I start to really live the medieval life in style.

 

Anglo-Saxon pale gold thrymsa
Ca. 650-675
“Two Emperors” type
S. 767

This early British coin has degenerative Roman symbolism, particularly the reverse, which shows two seated figures and winged victory between.

The first Anglo-Saxon coins were gold, with designs imitating late Roman and contemporary Frankish coins. Gold coinage in England only lasted a few decades, after which silver coins became the main currency of the economy for centuries.

 

Two deniers of Chartres -- a grand denier 21mmx1.17g of the first half of the 11th century anonymous series vs a denier 17mmx0.83g of 1300/1305 for Charles de Valois as Count of Chartres:



Both are somewhat scarce -- the type of the grand denier was recorded in Poey d'Avant just as an obole and it's very likely a Middle Eastern find linked to the surge of 'nostra moneta' in 1099/1100 while the specimen minted for Charles de Valois is one of the more interesting legends: K COM CART CIV.

 

My entry for Medieval Monday;

Anglo-Saxon sceatta, secondary series K - type 32a. Struck c. 720-750. Obverse: diademed bust right with hair in knot and crude hand clutching cross before. Reverse: wolf-headed serpent (wyrm) with gaping mouth and elongated tongue, coiled right with part-pelleted body and knopped tail.

"The water was infested with all kinds of reptiles.
There were writhing sea-dragons,
monsters slouching on the cliff slopes.
Serpents and wild things that often surface at dawn to roam the sail-road, and doom the voyage"

Beowulf (trans. S Heaney), lines 1425-1430.

 

Not Monday , but I’ll post it anyway . I have been looking for this type for a long time and was lucky to win this coin last Sunday at a very pleasant price . Sent from Germany on Monday and received in the United States today .


Italy. Sicily . The Norman Kings. William II of Sicily 1166-1189. AR Tercius apuliensis
15mm/ 0.83g. Palermo mint.
Palm tree with dates; W and (ligate Rx) across upper field
+ TERCI7 APVLENSIS :, “The king/William/the second” in Arabic in three lines.

Spahr 112-113; MEC 14 - 397 .

 

That’s a nice looking specimen!

 

@VD76, that's absolutely brilliant. The convergence of the unusual legend (the denomination, fully in Latin) and motif with the clarity of the strike make this a serious coup. Congratulations!!! I can't remember seeing this type before, online or in print. Doh, sounding like a scarce issue. ...I'm needing the 'chamber of commerce' emphasis on the palm tree.
Last week, I finally landed one of this type. Mostly just because I'd never had one; it was time. (Right, several people here have posted full follaros, including at least one recently.) I have a couple of other fractional follaros, making this a good complement.

Unlike you (congratulations, again), all I have for references in print is Andrea, The Normans's [sic] Coins of the Kingdom of Sicily [but including the whole series, from the 11th century, including the early mainland issues]. Acquaviva Picena, 2015. ...It's pretty good --especially at the price. The listing for this (#373) has small photos of seven examples, with the Arabic as well as the translation ("The King /William /the Second"), citing MEC and Spahr, along with several other, increasingly Italian, correspondingly (from here) arcane references, which I may or may not ever see.
The entry notes that this is undated, but "is included [along with the follaros of the same type; #372] in second coinage (after 1180 or 1185)."
For whatever it's worth, Andrea dates your issue (#362) to the first coinage, "after 1166 - c. 1180/1185."
Many thanks, starting with nudging me to look at Andrea again!

 

This is an enjoyable, and useful, thread. It's not Monday, and I don't really collect medieval, but every once in a while a medieval crops up in the Ancients section on eBay and I succumb to temptation.

Here it is, my first Richard II penny. I spent a lot of time trying to attribute it - York "local dies" type, I think:


England, Richard II Penny
(c. 1391-1396 A.D.)
York Mint
+RIC[ΛRD]VS xx [RЄX] xx ΛnGLIЄ crowned draped bust facing, pellet on each shoulder, cross on breast (worn) / [CIVI] TAS ·ЄB[O RΛCI], long cross pattée, trefoils in quarters, quatrefoil in centre.
Spink 1692 (see notes).
(1.01 grams / 18 x 17 mm)
eBay Oct. 2021

Attribution Notes: Obverse looks a lot like this:

CNG 93, Lot: 1878, 5/22/2013
Estimate $500. Sold for $700.
Richard II. 1377-1399. AR Penny (18mm, 1.05 g, 4h).
York mint, local dies, Group A.
Purvey Obv. die 3; North 1330a; SCBC 1692. Rare, ex-Lockett
Note: double saltire Stops (xx)
(Duncan Russell, "A Richard II Early Type IB Penny from York")

"This coin was struck during the tenancy of Archbishop Thomas Arundel (1388-1396). Potter suggests that the large issues from local dies at York occurred during a 'lean' period at London, from 1391-1396. During this time either an insufficient quantity of dies or no dies were provided from London, necessitating the production of local dies. The relative chronology of the phases of coinage he saw at York supports this theory."
Notes to CNG Electronic Auction 209; Lot 485; 22.04.2009

If not a die match, my obverse seems very close to that one in the CNG 93 sale (on right; mine on left) - the same "artist" perhaps? The reverse does not match mine; mine has a pellet stop rather than a saltire.

https://www.cngcoins.com/Coin.aspx?CoinID=232492




From what I gleaned from Wikipedia, Richard II was a mediocre king at best, but Shakespeare gave him some terrific lines:

Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs.
Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.
Let's choose executors and talk of wills.
And yet not so, for what can we bequeath
Save our deposed bodies to the ground?

 

I hope this is not too late for you medieval aficionados

BOLOGNA Anonymous Bentivoglio Grosso n.d (1446-1506)

Sante Bentivoglio (1445-62) and Giovanni II Bentivoglio (1462-1506) held power -Conservatori- under the nominal authority of the Popes. They issued an anonymous coinage for Bologna with their arms. During the same period the Popes Pius II, Paolo II, Sisto IV, Innocent VIII , Alessandro VI, Pius III and Giulio II issued gold coins for Bologna. In 1506, when Giulio III brought troops to regain control of the city, the people opened the gates and Giovanni II Bentivoglio and his family were forced to flee.

Obv.: .BONONI_A.DOCET (Bologna teaches). Lion rampant l. holding flag with Bentivoglio arms
Rev.: S.PETR_ONIVS. St.Petronius seated holding crozier and city
21 mm 1.59 g

 

I hope this is not too late for you medieval aficionados

BOLOGNA Anonymous Bentivoglio Grosso n.d (1446-1506)

Sante Bentivoglio (1445-62) and Giovanni II Bentivoglio (1462-1506) held power -Conservatori- under the nominal authority of the Popes. They issued an anonymous coinage for Bologna with their arms. During the same period the Popes Pius II, Paolo II, Sisto IV, Innocent VIII , Alessandro VI, Pius III and Giulio II issued gold coins for Bologna. In 1506, when Giulio III brought troops to regain control of the city, the people opened the gates and Giovanni II Bentivoglio and his family were forced to flee.

Obv.: .BONONI_A.DOCET (Bologna teaches). Lion rampant l. holding flag with Bentivoglio arms
Rev.: S.PETR_ONIVS. St.Petronius seated holding crozier and city
21 mm 1.59 g

 

Love that Lion!

 

A secondary phase sceatta (ca. 720-750) from East Anglia, Anglo-Saxon England.
Issuer unknown but issued during the time of king Aelfwald
S. 806C
Series QIG
From the Tony Abramson collection

 

Excellent

Excellent sceatta! I keep meaning to save for one. I’ve only a humble styca.