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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;+VGO.DVCKS, post: 7983950, member: 110504&quot;]This OP is long overdue (...well, along with another one that got long enough --with footnotes and bibliography-- to get really scary).&nbsp; But lately I&#039;ve found a couple of coins that riff on one of the &#039;ODO&#039; monograms of the &#039;Carolingian&#039; (more like Robertian /proto-Capetian, and only by marriage) Odo.</p><p>(With thanks to [USER=56653]@seth77[/USER], See This Thread: <a href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/in-need-of-help-identifying-coin.382805/#post-7727992" class="internalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/in-need-of-help-identifying-coin.382805/#post-7727992">https://www.cointalk.com/threads/in-need-of-help-identifying-coin.382805/#post-7727992</a>)</p><p>Odo /Eudes had defended Paris from the famous Viking siege of 885-6 (given conspicuous mention in a recent thread here, on the hoard of earlier Carolingian coins found in Poland a couple of months ago).&nbsp; This level of competence netted him election to the crown of France, at a point when the aristocracy were desperate enough to revert to the older Frankish tradition of elective monarchy, after several generations of Carolingian dynastic rule.</p><p>Just lately, this one turned up.&nbsp; Yep, dealer&#039;s pics; better than I&#039;ll ever do.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1385453[/ATTACH]</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Carolingian /Robertian France.&nbsp; Odo /Eudes, king of the West Franks 887-898.&nbsp; Denier of Limoges.&nbsp; 1.81 grams; a correspondingly big, fat 24 mm.</p><p>Obv. &quot;ODO&quot; monogram, running top to bottom, incorporating cruciform, lozegy &quot;O&quot;s; two crosslets in the middle left and right fields.</p><p>(From 8 o&#039;clock: ) +GRATIA D-I RE[X; the initial cross serving both as the beginning of the legend, and the last letter of the end].</p><p>Rev.&nbsp; +LIMOVICAS CIVIS; the concluding &quot;S&quot; retrograde.</p><p>Depeyrot (3rd ed., 2008) 511; cf. Nouchy, Eudes 24 (several legend variants).</p><p>The listing by .cgb (<a href="https://www.cgbfr.com/eudes-et-monnayage-immobilise-a-son-nom-denier-ttb-,bca_602306,a.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.cgbfr.com/eudes-et-monnayage-immobilise-a-son-nom-denier-ttb-,bca_602306,a.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.cgbfr.com/eudes-et-monnayage-immobilise-a-son-nom-denier-ttb-,bca_602306,a.html</a>) cautions that this issue could be an early immobilization, into the earlier 10th century.&nbsp; But the weight compares very favorably to those noted by Depeyrot, in the penultimate edition of his survey.&nbsp; With 1,123 examples examined, the higher end ranges from 1.80 g, proceeding to a middle range in the 1.70s to the 1.50s, winding down to .93 --from an example in a major French collection.&nbsp; ...Depeyrot also cites hoards, noting that 105 examples were found in the Cuerdale Hoard, deposited c. 905 --leading one to think that a regnally contemporaneous issue should hardly be discounted out of hand.</p><p>Please also note the obverse legend, &#039;Gratia D[omin]i Rex;&#039; by the grace of God, King.&nbsp; This perpetuates the formula adopted by Charles II in his massive issue following the Edict of Pitres in 865.&nbsp; (Please see below for more on that.)</p><p>...Granted, this was immobilized in Limoges, as an anonymous issue (feudal or civic? ...definitions of each? --See? More Work), well into the 13th century.&nbsp; And, along with several comparable French feudal issues, the original monogram suffered further indignities (more often the &#039;KAROLVS&#039; of Charlemagne, perpetuated by his grandson, Charles II /&#039;the Bald,&#039; especially from the Edict of Pitres in 865) as it went along.&nbsp; Here&#039;s an example from the 11th century.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1385454[/ATTACH]</p><p>Immobilization of Limoges, <i>vers</i> 1020-1100 (Duplessy).</p><p>Obv. &#039;+ODO+&#039; monogram mostly reduced to four crosslets; &quot;D&quot; (very lightly struck in my example) still in the center.</p><p>+GIATIA D-I IE[X].</p><p>Rev. +LIM+VICAS CIIS.&nbsp; (Both legends degenerate versions of the issue of Odo.)</p><p>Duplessy 847 (...noting a couple of more common variants in 847A).</p><p>Over a comparable interval, the monogram went through more interesting permutations farther from home.</p><p>Here&#039;s a denar of the German boy emperor Otto III and his last regent, Adelheid.&nbsp; It&#039;s commonly dated c. 984-985, although it might be a decade later.&nbsp; Fun for being a coissue of Otto and the last of his sucessive regents; this time his grandmother, Adelheid, during an interval corresponding more closely to 991 until his eventual majority (at 14) in 994.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1385455[/ATTACH]</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1385473[/ATTACH]</p><p>German empire; Otto III and Adelheid; denar (of Goslar?).</p><p>Obv.&nbsp; &quot;ODDO&quot; monogram.&nbsp; (...Coolly evoking the range from Otho to Odo to Otto to the modern French Eudes, along with the adaptation of the &#039;ODO&#039; monogram in the more immediate context.)</p><p>(From 9 o&#039;clock: ) +D-GR-A+REX.</p><p>(An interesting riff on the original Carolingian formula, &#039;GRATIA D-I REX,&#039; from Eudes back to the Edict of Pitres in 865.)</p><p>Rev.&nbsp; Wooden church facade.</p><p>[+] ATE AHLHI (Adelheid).</p><p>Circle back nearer to home, but most of a century later, and you get this further permutation of the same monogram, from Guy I, Count of Ponthieu (in northeastern Francia), 1053-1100.&nbsp; (Yep, at least one of these was posted recently.)</p><p>In both the monograms on these examples (dealers&#039; pics in both cases), you can just squint out the &quot;O [/] T [/] O [/] ( device, occuring twice around a central crosslet.&nbsp; ...I suspect that since Guy, a vassal of William of Normandy (Bastard, Conqueror, and many other things, I&#039;m sure), was already issuing coins in his own name (cf. some post of mine, which I&#039;m too lazy to look up) --and could pick and choose his prototypes-- he wanted a measure of distance not only from living monarchs, but from any issue from his immediate neighborhood.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1385475[/ATTACH]</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1385476[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Please feel good about post anything involving monograms.&nbsp; Heck if I know... Byzantine (maybe with some lead seals); Hellenistic... or, better yet, something I never heard of.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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