Money and Coinage in the Middle Ages

376 Pages·2018·6.516 MB·English

by  Rory Naismith

Money and Coinage in the Middle Ages
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Reading Medieval Sources
volume 1
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/rms
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Money and Coinage in
the Middle Ages
Edited by
Rory Naismith
LEIDEN | BOSTON
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This is an open access title distributed under the terms of the CC-BY-NC 4.0 License,
which permits any non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any
medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
An electronic version of this book is freely available, thanks to the support of libraries
working with Knowledge Unlatched. More information about the initiative can be found at
www.knowledgeunlatched.org.
Cover illustration: Figure brandishing an outsized coin of Charlemagne (768–814), of a new type introduced
792/3: St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 731, p. 111 (Burgundy?; completed 1 November 793). Reproduced with
kind permission of the Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Naismith, Rory, editor.
Title: Money and coinage in the Middle Ages / edited by Rory Naismith.
Description: Boston : Brill, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018037394| ISBN 9789004372467 (hard back) |
 ISBN 9789004383098 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Money–Europe–History–To 1500. |
 Numismatics–Europe–History–To 1500. | Economic history–Medieval,
 500-1500. | Commerce–History–Medieval, 500-1500.
Classification: LCC HG925 .M667 2018 | DDC 332.4/940902–dc23
LC record available at https:// lccn.loc.gov/2018037394
Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/b rill- typeface.
ISsN 2589-2509
ISBN 978-90-04-37246-7 (hardback)
ISBN 978-90-04-38309-8 (e-book)
Copyright 2018 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi,
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Contents
List of Figures and Tables vii
Notes on Contributors ix
1 Introduction 1
Rory Naismith
Part 1
Thinking about Medieval Money
2 Money and Currency 21
Gaspar Feliu
3 Money Orders— and It’s Done! Activating Theories of Money’s Origins
and Orders 41
Bill Maurer
Part 2
Key Phases of Medieval Money and Coinage
4 From the Fall of Rome to Charlemagne (c.400– 800) 63
Alessia Rovelli
5 From Charlemagne to the Commercial Revolution (c.800– 1150) 93
Andrew R. Woods
6 From the Commercial Revolution to the Black Death
(c.1150– 1350) 122
Richard Kelleher
7 From the Black Death to the New World (c.1350– 1500) 151
Philipp Robinson Rössner
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vi Contents
Part 3
Themes in the Study of Medieval Money and Coinage
8 Money and Society 179
Rory Naismith
9 Money and the Economy 203
Nick Mayhew
10 Money, Coins, and Archaeology 231
Nanouschka Myrberg Burström
11 Money and Literature 264
Elizabeth Edwards
12 Art in the Round: Tradition and Creativity in Early Anglo- Saxon
Coinage 287
Anna Gannon
13 Coins and Identity: From Mint to Paradise 320
Lucia Travaini
Bibliography 351
Index 358
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Figures and Tables
Figures
1.1 Woodcut illustration of a minting scene, from Emperor Maximilian I, Der
Weisskunig. 3
1.2 Cut halfpenny of Harthacnut (1040– 1042), Winchester mint, uncertain
moneyer, found at Kimpton, Hampshire. 13
1.3 The “Wilton Cross”, consisting of a lightweight solidus of Heraclius (610– 641)
mounted in a gold cross inlaid with garnets, found at Wilton, Norfolk. 14
2.1 Valuation of piccolo relative to the grosso at Venice, 1200– 1500. 29
2.2 Grams of silver per penny at Florence and Venice. 30
2.3 Number of pennies in different florins of account at Florence 1430– 1500. 35
4.1 Constantine I (306– 337), gold solidus, Ticinum mint. 65
4.2 5th- / 6th- century minimi from the Basilica Hilariana (Rome). 68
4.3 Theoderic (493– 526), silver quarter- siliqua. 72
4.4 Bronze follis of King Theodahad (534– 536). 73
4.5 Gold solidus of King Theodebert (534– 548). 74
4.6 Gold tremissis of King Cunincpert (688– 700). 76
4.7 Silver denier/d enarius of Charlemagne (768– 814). 82
5.1 Silver denier of Pepin the Short (751– 768). 96
5.2 The Spillings hoard. 101
5.3 Silver “Otto- Adelheid” penny. 107
5.4 Silver bracteate of Conrad I of Meissen (1130– 1156). 109
5.5 Silver penny of King Cnut (c.900), York. 112
6.1 a) Archbishops of Cologne, silver pfennig of Adolf I (1193– 1205), diameter
19mm; b) archbishops of Mainz, Henry I of Haarburg (1142– 53), silver
bracteate struck at Erfurt, diameter 33mm. 127
6.2 12th- century anonymous silver denier of Blois diameter 20mm. 128
6.3 Map showing location of hoards of the Short Cross (1180– 1247) period found
in Continental Europe. 135
6.4 English silver penny of Edward I (1272– 1307) struck at Bristol
(c. 1280– 1282), diameter 20mm. 136
6.5 Silver gros tournois of Louis IX of France (1226– 1270), diameter 26mm. 138
6.6 a) Sicily, William I (1154– 66), gold tarì, Messina mint, 1154, diameter 11mm;
b) Castile, Alfonso VIII (1158– 1214), gold maravedí alfonsí, Toledo mint, 1191
diameter 28mm. 141
6.7 Gold florin of Florence, 1252. 143
10.1 Scandinavian Viking- Age beads from Birka, Sweden. From graves 550 (top)
and 1067 (below). 235
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viii Figures and Tables
10.2 French antiquarian and collector Charles Patin, seated in front of his medal
cabinet with a coin in his hand, a medal around his neck, and other art and
naturalia items surrounding him. Engraving by Theodor Roos in Thesaurus
Numismatum (Patin 1672). 240
10.3 Reconstruction and documentation of a hoard from Neftenbach, Switzerland.
The coins were deposited in a bronze jug, some singly and some wrapped
into rolls, covered by cloth and hidden below the floorboards of a building.
Mixed with and on top of the coins there was foxtail millet. 248
10.4 A Khazar coin inscribed “Musa rasul Allah” (Moses is God’s messenger),
found 1999 in a hoard from Spillings, Gotland, Sweden. The coin (dated
c. 837) is unique and the only physical proof of the Khazars’ conversion to
Judaism before A.D. 800. 251
10.5 Lead token mould found in Akko, Israel (IAA 2002– 294). 254
12.1a “Pada”, Type PIb. Obv. helmeted bust right. Rev. banner containing tot / xx,
“pada” in runes to right. 297
12.1b “Pada”, Type PIIa. Obv. diademed bust right. Rev. “pada” in runes in
circle. 298
12.2 Series R, Type R1. Obv. “epa” in runes before radiate bust right. Rev. standard
containing tot / ii, cross below and pseudo- letters to either side. 299
12.3 “Two Emperors” type. 303
12.4 Series V, Type 7. 304
12.5 “Cross and Rosettes”, Type 106 variant. 309
12.6a monitascorvm type, Type 9 variant. 310
12.6b monitascorvm type, Type 14 variant. 311
12.7 Archer Group, Type 94. 313
13.1 Silver denarius of Bolskan. 4.11 g, diameter 18 mm. 327
13.2 Count Ermengol V of Urgell (1092– 1102), billon denier. 0.91g,
diameter 18mm. 327
13.3 Sancerre, billon denier of Count Steven II of Champagne and I of Sancerre
(1152– 1191). 328
Tables
9.1 Estimated total value of coins in circulation in the British Isles. From
M. Allen, “Sterling area” (less- 17% data added by author). In £ millions. 212
9.2 Available stocks of gold and silver. From M. Allen, “Sterling area”. 213
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Notes on Contributors
Elizabeth Edwards
is Professor of Humanities at the University of King’s College in Halifax, Nova
Scotia, Canada, where she is currently the director of the Contemporary Stud-
ies Programme. She is the author of The Genesis of Narrative in Malory’s Morte
Darthur (2001) and a former president of the Canadian Society of Medievalists.
Her publications on the relation of medieval literature and economy include
“The Economics of Justice in Chaucer’s Miller’s and Reeve’s Tales” (2001) and
“The Cheerful Science: Nicholas Oresme, Home Economics, and Literary Dis-
semination” (2011).
Gaspar Feliu
is retired Professor of History and Economic Institutions at the University of
Barcelona and a member of the Institut d’Estudis Catalans, the Catalan acade-
my of sciences and humanities. He has worked in particular on money, prices,
banking, weights and measures, demography, and agrarian history.
Anna Gannon
is an early medieval art historian and works at the University of Cambridge,
where she is an affiliated lecturer in the History of Art Department, an Honor-
ary Research Associate at the Department of ASNC, and an associate member
of the Coins and Medals Department at the Fitzwilliam Museum. She special-
izes in and has published widely about the iconography of early Anglo- Sax-
on coinage and various aspects of Insular Art. Her research spans the trans-
mutation of Late Antiquity with the advent of Christianity, the world of the
Anglo- Saxon and other Germanic people. She is currently working on Iron Age
British coinage.
Richard Kelleher
is Assistant Keeper in the Department of Coins and Medals at the Fitzwilliam
Museum, Cambridge. Richard specializes in the coinage of medieval and early
modern Europe, particularly that of Britain and the Crusader States of Edes-
sa and Antioch. His research interests include archaeology, monetisation and
coin use, and the secondary use of coins.
Bill Maurer
is Professor of Anthropology and Law at the University of California, Irvine.
His research focuses on money’s infrastructures and materiality, ranging from
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