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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;seth77, post: 8096813, member: 56653&quot;]The story of the <i>emporium </i>at Quentovic is interesting and controversial in itself -- I really recommend S. Coupland&#039;s <i>Trading Places: Quentovic and Dorestad reassessed, </i>Early Medieval Europe, Nov. 2002 to anyone familiar with the theme of the maritime <i>limes </i>of the late Carolingian realm and not just from the uni-dimensional perspective of Viking encroachment and interconnection.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1407454[/ATTACH]</p><p>AR23x22mm 1.13g silver grand denier, ca. 750-700/1000, Quentovic mint, ca. 950-980.</p><p>+ GRAT[IA D-I R]EX (legend starts at 9 o&#039;clock); Carolingian monogram H R L S</p><p>+ QVVENT[OVVICI]; cross with bezant in 2nd quarter and annulet in 3rd quarter</p><p>cf. Depeyrot 812, cf. Poey d&#039;Avant 6591; Fecamp 6277-6323</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>At this time, around the middle of the 10th century and after, Quentovic&#039;s denier is based on the coinage introduced after the Edict of Pitres in 864, but with obvious 10th century characteristics, like a wider flan, the bezant and the annulet in the quarters of the cross and the variation of the monogram based on H R L S (or perhaps L H R S with a possible hint in the fact that the legend starts at 9 o&#039;clock). The mint at the <i>emporium </i>of Quentovic minted these immobilizations extensively between ca. 920 and 980 and the coins were widely circulated from the continent to Anglo-Saxon England and (of course) Scandinavia. This specimen seems to be of the later part of the series, with lower weight and a less cared-for overall appearance, like flat strikes, legend variations and possibly over-used dies. Similar examples, very likely from the same general issue <a href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=6354418" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=6354418" rel="nofollow">here</a>, <a href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=684441" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=684441" rel="nofollow">here</a>, <a href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=5901339" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=5901339" rel="nofollow">here</a>, <a href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=6920432" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=6920432" rel="nofollow">here</a> etc. A similar coin was also in the De Wit Collection (Kunker 121 p. 88 245). In &#039;tresor de Fecamp&#039; there were ca. 510 similar coins of different variations, dated mostly 920 to ca. 980 when the hoard was possibly closed (980-5, so the full extent of the 10th century mintage), in Anglo-Saxon England 6 similar coins were in the Cuerdale Hoard (Dhenin, Leclercq - The Coins of Quentovic from the Cuerdale Hoard in the museum of Boulogne-sur-Mer, BNJ 1982, pp. 104-7).</p><p><br /></p><p>A very interesting and problematic aspect regarding these very late immobilizations of the &#039;Edit de Pitres&#039; denier deals with the authority that disposed the minting and benefited from the <i>seigneuriage</i>. With these very late issues where the monogram degenerated from the name of Charlemagne, replacing the C (and K) with an H, a hint could be in the reading of the &#039;new&#039; re-worked monogram, which could be alluding to King Lothaire III of West Francia, which in turn could point to the influence and authority that Herbert &#039;le Vieux&#039; de Vermandois (ally of Lothaire and the most powerful power broker in Picardie and the Flemish coast) had over Quentovic at this time. Herbert had coins minted with Lothaire&#039;s name (at Troyes for instance) while a re-worked Carolingian monogram for Lothaire keeping this basic and generic form, carried over from Charlemagne&#039;s time, is recorded to ca. 980 at Bourges (see <a href="https://www.cgb.fr/lothaire-denier-tb-,bca_703158,a.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.cgb.fr/lothaire-denier-tb-,bca_703158,a.html" rel="nofollow">here</a> for an example).</p><p><br /></p><p>These circumstances would turn this coinage -- or at least this late phase of the series -- into a &#039;feudal&#039; series, thus marking the difficulties of assigning issues to the end of the Carolingian period or the beginning of feudal coinage.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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