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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;svessien, post: 5454503, member: 15481&quot;]Yay, Medieval Monday!</p><p><br /></p><p>I was very happy to receive this coin a week ago:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1237499[/ATTACH]</p><p>Charles VII 1422-1461 Blanc a la Couronne 1ere emission 28 Janiver 1436</p><p>Obverse: + KAROLVS FRANCORVM REX</p><p>Reverse: + SIT NOME DNI BENEDICTVM, Cross cantonee with two crowns and two fleur de lis within quadrilobe.</p><p>POINT 5e ATELIER TOULOUSE POIDS 2.77g / NUMERO CATALOGUE: DUP519 / QUALITE: TTB.</p><p><br /></p><p>Charles VII sure didn’t have an easy way to the top. Read some fun facts about his miserable family life and struggle to re-establish control of the realm here:</p><p><a href="https://www.factinate.com/people/charles-vii/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.factinate.com/people/charles-vii/" rel="nofollow">https://www.factinate.com/people/charles-vii/</a></p><p><br /></p><p>Growing up with a father named «the mad» and a mother known to be of «loose morals» did make good old Charles used to handle diversity, though. And the issue of the Blanc a la Couronne was one of his measures to deal with the calamities his father had brought upon France:</p><p><br /></p><p>«Charles VI had started with a coinage of gold and good quality billon, but no silver, and the monetary consequences of the disasters of the early years of the century can best be illustrated by the history of the florette, the billon coin which in October 1417 replaced the guenar. It had initially a value of 20dt, weighed 3.06g and had a fineness of 425/1000. By July 1422, after 21 issues, its weight had fallen to 2.04g and its fineness to 26/1000,the lowest of any French coin in the Middle Ages. This was exceptional, but the «silver» and billon coins in general varied a great deal in fineness. There was, indeed, only only one denomination of good silver (917/1000), the gros-de-roi of Jaques Coeur (1447), struck at all in the century: most coins were substantionally below 500/1000 fine. The types were for the most part banal, usually one or more fleur-de-lis, or the shield of France in a tressure of some kind, though occasionally there would be a crowned K (for Karolus) or L (for Ludovicus). Charles VII carried out a general reorganization of the coinage in 1436, after his recapture of Paris, with an Ecu neuf of 25s having crowned fleurs de lis flanking the crowned shield of the obverse type and a <u>blanc de couronelles of 10d with three small crowns around a shield in a threfoil. The worst was over by then for the French coinage</u>.»</p><p><br /></p><p>P. Grierson, «Coins of Medieval Europe», p. 192-93.</p><p><br /></p><p>In addition to adding a fine coin with some historical significance, I can now enjoy one of my childish little quirks, which is to have two opponents side by side in my collection. There’s Cnut vs. Aethelred and now Henry VI vs. Charles VII, «the Victorious»[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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