Featured Medieval - Some Thoughts on the Normans and their Coins

Somebody say Launceston? Cool Castle Alert:
https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/launceston-castle/
http://www.gatehouse-gazetteer.info/English sites/240.html

 

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Seeing the many beautiful coins added, I'm not sorry I revived this thread now. Here's Roger of Salerno (of the Principate) as Prince of Antioch:

 

Very nice, going to keep my eye out for one of those Roger I coins I haven't seen those before and I really like the design of it.

 

Come tomorrow, this thread will be four years old. I have certainly added to my Norman coin collection since posting. Most of the coins from this year I haven’t photographed yet (but there have only been a couple). But here’s a few bad photos showing the current state of the collection:

 

What is that Lincoln irregular issue? Is it a "baronial" coinage, like that assigned to Patrick of Salisbury during the Anarchy? That looks like a highlight of your collection.

 

An amazing range, @FitzNigel. ...Ah, yes, you've got the North reference for 'local variant' of Stephen. Your William Longsword is Amazing. What's the mint of the Carolingian imitation?
...Okay, most of my Norman coins have been posted recently. The Anglo-Norman ones are all cut fractions, and the pics are old and awful, even by my notoriously lax standards. Here's the best one, on both counts. Standard brand Stephen 'Watford,' conspicuously lacking moneyer and mint. Ironically, the most legible part is the 'ON.' As in, Yeah, we knew that part. The portrait and sceptre were enough to sell it.

 

Few coins from my collection :
Norman issue follaro ( imitating Byzantine follis class C ) for the Giorgio Maniace campaign




Extremely rare first follaro of Roberto II Guiscardo minted in Reggio Calabria , soon after city had been captured by the Normans in 1060 AD

26 mm/ 7.5 gr.



Ruggero Borsa 1085-1111 follaro . Salerno mint .

MEC 14, 104

26 mm /4,99 gr .

 

I don’t believe it is considered a baronial issue, as it was issued anonymously/intentionally obscure. If I recall, this issue was only found at Lincoln and one other mint (I think Norwich, but I am unsure, and do not have the books near me). It is definitely a highlight! I never did a write-up for this coin, but I had already done one for Stephen anyway.
England
Irregular Issue (1138-1153)
Lincoln Mint, AR Local Issue Penny, 20.01mm x 1.02 grams
Obv.: [STIEFNE R] Bust facing crowned and diademed
Rev.: +[?GODWIN]E : ON : L[INC], lozenge with incurved sides, star at center, trefoil at each end, annulet in each corner
Ref.: North 897, SCBC 1301

Unknown - the legends are blundered. I suspect it is based off the Curtisasonien due to the spacing, but no way to know for sure (it may not even be Norman, to be honest).
Early Medieval - Carolingian Imitation
Viking / Frisian?, 10th c. (900-920s)
AR Denier, 20.92 mm x 0.9 grams
Obv.: Blundered legends surrounding Degenerate CAROLVS monogram
Rev.: Nonsense legend surrounding cross pattee. Perhaps imitating an issue of Curtisasonien
Ref.: Moesgaard, ‘A Survey of Coin Production and Currency in Normandy,’ 99-109
Ex. Todd Hansen Collection, purchased from Superior Stamp and Coin
Note: Imitating a GDR (Gratia Dei Rex) denier of Charles the Bald (but likely an immobilized issue of Charles the Simple)

 

That seems to have been the case with Salisbury also: the guy minted briefly in the name of Stephen but then moved to the camp Matilda and ended up close to Henry Plantagenet. One of his coins minted for Stephen sold at CNG 90 for 13k USD: https://www.cngcoins.com/Coin.aspx?CoinID=209993

If what happened at Salisbury could be extrapolated to other places with shifting loyalties during the Anarchy (like Lincoln?) then your coin could come in the same category. An outstanding coin indeed.

 

I can say with certainty that I did not pay anywhere near that amount for my coin! I do believe Lincoln was a prominent spot that was fought over during the Anarchy, but it has been a while since I studied this (and suffer from having to keep my library at work...)

 

Yipes, @VD76, that is an Amazing Robert Guiscard (slumming there). More or less defies comment.

 

@FitzNigel, the other mint North lists (right, 897; back to 1994 --who knows what detectorists have turned up since then?) is Norwich. ...But I'll bet you got back to North by now.
Linclon is indeed key to the whole war. The battle there (1141) is where Stephen was taken prisoner by Matilda. Here's Matthew Paris's rendering of an episode just prior to the battle, from about a century later. Stephen is addressing Baldwin FitzGilbert, younger brother of Richard 'Strongbow,' Earl of Pembroke (who later initiated the Anglo-Norman /Angevin invasion of eastern Ireland), on the hill with the axe. Stephen is asking Baldwin to address the troops on his behalf, since Baldwin apparently had the stronger speaking voice. (The only secondary source I have that mentions Baldwin at all --and likely the best of the lot-- is Crouch (2000). Matthew Paris includes a soldier with the chevrons of the Clare earls of Pembroke, Clare and Hertford. (This time Matthew isn't committing an anachronism: the Clares were early proponents of heraldry.)

And, sure, here's my c. mid-late 10th c. Norman immobilization of Charles le Chauve of Bayeux (Dumas 6047 -exact die match):

...And the protoyype: