The American Journal of Numismatics, 1866–1920.
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The American Numismatic Society. Catalogue of the International Exhibition of Contemporary Medals. March, 1910. New and revised edition.
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Copyright, 1933, by
The American Numismatic Society
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In 1929 a hoard of deniers was purchased in Beyrout. It was said to have been found at Tripolis, a town in
1046
Obv. +STEPɧAN COƆ. Cross pattée with stars in first and second quarters.
Rev. +
Billon deniers. Plate I, 4.
These coins, minted in great quantities, enjoyed wide commercial favor in the XII and early XIII centuries. It is, therefore, impossible to assign them to any particular person or persons who might be responsible for their appearance in the East.
The variety of these deniers in the hoard is very great and exact parallels for all cannot be found in either Poey d'Avant or Bigot (Monnaies de Bretagne).
The great majority, (ca. 750) belonging to the type illustrated by P. d'A., pl. XXVII, No. 9 and Bigot, pl. VIII bis, No. 5, are assigned by the latter to
The problem now is to explain the presence of so many of these coins in the hoard. There seems to be general agreement that the cross with two stars which appears on all of our deniers indicates a date before 1200. Such dating would probably indicate that these coins were brought to the East in the Third Crusade. Had this been the case one would not expect them to make up the dominant element in a hoard buried after the Fifth Crusade.
If, however, we suppose these coins to be of later date and brought out on the Fifth Crusade, there remains the problem of why none of the coins of Alain is included.
On both the Third and Fifth Crusades Brittany was well represented.
Taking part in the Third Crusade we find:
André de Vitry, nephew of the same, and brother-in-law to
Viscount Adam de Léon.
On the Fifth Crusade:
Juhel, Count Mayenne.
Hérvé de Léon (Hérvé was at Damietta in 1218).
Eudes de la Roche Derien got money from Godefroy, Viscount de Rohan, when he went to Damietta in 1218.
These coins were probably brought to the East during the Third Crusade when Richard the Lion-hearted was Count of Anjou.
These coins may have been taken on the Third Crusade by
Louis, Count of Blois and Chartres took the Cross in 1199 and went on the Fourth Crusade.
Billon denier. (Similar to P. d'A. 1839 but of size of No. 1838.)
From general character and wear this would seem contemporary with the Chartres obols.
A viscount of Chateaudun was at Damietta in 1190. The editor of
(See Rev. Num. 1883, p. 228)
The two deniers of type P. d'A. 1963, show much greater wear than the Caron 130 variety.
André de Chauvigny who married the daughter of Raoul VI, and whose heirs became Lords of Chateauroux, was a companion of Richard on the Third Crusade. He became legendary for his deeds of valor.
The deniers of William de Chauvigny for Déols (Caron 130) and the one listed above for Issoudun are entirely similar except for the reverse inscription. Can their rarity be explained as a special issue struck for the Crusades?
Billon deniers. A. de Barthélemy (Rev. Num., 1885, p. 359.) (P. d'A. 1998.) Plate III, 5.
For explanation of these deniers in the East see above.
As both E's on the reverse are round, this is more probably of the type illustrated by P. d'A. than that by Caron (Pl. VII, 4).
Billon deniers. (P. d'A. 1896.) Plate II, 2.
The similarity of these coins to those of
The deniers of type P. d'A. 2026 show a good deal of wear and may be attributed to
A Jean de Vierzon accompanied
These coins are conspicuous for their disparity of weight. The first weighs 0.7 gramme, the second 1.4 grammes. P. d'A. gives 0.9 gramme as average.
The House of Blois was further represented on
the Third Crusade, by a nephew of Thibaut's,
The condition of this coin suggests that it may have been minted in the time of
One of these coins has the device on both sides obliterated; the cross completely, the sickle not quite so thoroughly.
The Dampierre family seems to have been inbued with the spirit of the Crusades.
There is a record of Guy II, Lord of Bourbon, who took part in the Third Crusade. If the record was written after the fact this may refer to our Guy who became Lord of Bourbon in 1196 on his marriage to Matilde, or four years after
A
Before Damietta in 1219 we find three Dampierres listed as being from Champagne,
Following the classification given by
Billon denier. (P. d'A. 2768.) Plate IV, 3.
In Le Monnayage de Richard Cæur-de-Lion,
The C in the first line of the reverse is above the alignment of the LI and I and may be the upper half of an S the lower half of which is obliterated. The spelling LISIGNAN was a common form of the name Lusignan—and the final N we suppose omitted for lack of space.
De Cessac (Mélanges Num., 1878, p. 361) and Caron (p. 143) tentatively attribute coins reading LODOVICVS ECOLI∾∾IME (formerly attributed by P. d'A. to Angoulême) to Hugh IX de Lusignan count of La Marche.
Their reasons are that Hugh IX is known to have minted money which was not inscribed
The coins here illustrated are, I believe, unpublished. Except that they were not found in their home district, they fit admirably as coins of
P. de Cessac (Rev. Num., 1886, p. 61) states that Hugh went to the Crusades with Richard the Lion-hearted and was devoted to John Lackland during the first years of his reign, but became his mortal enemy when the King carried off Isabelle, only daughter and heir of Aimar count of Angoulême. Hugh then became a partisan of Philip Augustus to whom he remained loyal until 1214 when he again turned to John.
No charter has been found showing that
The presence of these coins in the Holy Land in a condition showing as much or more wear than the deniers of
A suitable type for Hugh to have minted under such a grant was the METALO type described above. It is the traditional type for Poitou, and bears the star. Melle, at which such coins would most logically be struck, probably belonged to the Lusignan family at that time. (
Caron and Poey d'Avant, assuming that Hugh IX died in 1208, (according to L'art de verifier les dates) ascribe the following coin to Chronique de Saint Martial de Limoges by Bernard Itier as the new money of La Marche dating from 1211.
If, however, we follow de Cessac, Rev. Num. 1886 and Engel et Serrure Numismatique du Moyen Age and assume that
The coins of Savary are rare and only two types have been recorded, the METALO deniers listed here and coins with the name MALLEONIS in circular inscription and an ∾ in center (P. d'A. No. 2603). We add here a third type with the inscription PICTAVIENSIS.
There are two documents relating to this coinage, both coming from John Lackland and dating from May and August 1215. The first of these implies that Savary had already been minting and merely instructs the seneschals of Poitou, Anjou and Gascony to accept the deniers of Savary as legal tender if of Poitevin
In 1205 (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1911 ed. XVII p. 904) Savary was appointed seneschal of Poitou by
Savary is supposed to have minted at both La Rochelle and Niort. I would ascribe the PICTAVIENSIS coin to the years 1209–1212, when Savary was seneschal of Poitou, and to the mint at La Rochelle, though coins of this type were minted at both Niort and La Rochelle under Richard. The METALO deniers may then have been struck 1212–1215 at Niort which is near Mauléon, the modern Chàtillon-sur-Sèvre, and in the district of Melle. After 1215 and the reconciliation with
For attribution to
When
Possibly brought to
The asterisk indicates that the issuer of the coin or someone in his immediate family or entourage was present in the East.
There is also one silver denier which is illegible, but probably
Many of the
The table on page 28 shows the probable dates at which the various
From this summary we see that with the exception of the deniers of Guingamp, the coins found in the greatest number all seem to date from the Third
From the extraordinary number of Cypriote coins in the hoard, we may not be far wrong in assuming that the owner of this hoard had his letter-of-credit to someone in
Before listing the coins of
From 1186–1192,
From May 1192–April 1194
In his dealings with the lords
As King of
The remarkable thing about the history of
While King of
The type with the gate which we have in this hoard, I think, was probably struck by
As for the reason for
There are in this hoard eleven anonymous deniers of
It is probable that when the coronation took place negotations were already under way for his marriage to Isabelle. In the interval between his coronation and marriage it is possible that there were coins inscribed with his name and title, King of
After re serie, t. V, p. 136-137) says the regent had every kingly privilege but the right of coinage. Hugh's deniers bear two types of inscription, some have the legend HVGONIS REX and the others read simply HVGO REX or REX HVGO. The first are cruder in workmanship and have on the reverse DE CIPRO as did the earlier coins of
All deniers bearing the name of Numismatique des Croisades. Subsequently, on evidence presented by de Voguë, Schlumberger attributed them to
There remain
The third argument is more easily met. In the Numismatique de l'Orient Latin it is pointed out that the rare deniers of Guy as King of
And as we have shown deniers of the same standard were minted in the two places. The reason for the reduction in weight and the increase in the percentage of silver is difficult to account for unless it was due to the legal necessity or a personal desire to meet the standard of fineness of the coins of
The question as to whether these coins were current only for the mainland or for both the mainland and
It is probable that Amaury raised the percentage of silver in order to mint coins of the same standard as those of Baldwin on the mainland and reduced the weight of those struck in
The question as to whether these coins were current only for the mainland or for both the mainland and
In ascribing these coins to History of the Byzantine Empire, vol. II, p. 81 and
Livre d'Eracles, p. 423.
Struck in the name of Guy.
Where obverse or reverse are not entirely legible I have assigned the coin to class 1 or 2 according to reverse arrangement.
Three other coins of Class III
1 type 9 struck on obverse only.
1 type 11.
Rev. +·CY.Y.PRI. The two Y's struck by same punch.
1 in which I is substituted for R.
Obv. +·ɧVGO·IЄX.
Rev. +·CYPII.
The classes into which the coins of Hugh are divided are arranged in their probable chronological sequence.
The 652 deniers of Numismatique des Croisades, and by Schlumberger (under Amaury I) in the Numismatique de l'Orient Latin. Schlumberger examined about 200 specimens and found them all of one variety (No. 1 below) with insignificant variations. Here, too, the varieties are only minor ones but they are perhaps sufficiently marked to warrant the following classification:
(These coins may belong to class I and the pellet be the result of a worn punch; they might well have been so considered except for the fact that the relative position of annulet and pellet is constant.)
Because of the poor striking, the extensive clipping and the wear, the majority of these coins can be divided only into general groups. All doubtful coins are assigned to Class I. In all classes A's and M's appear both with and without cross bars, but only in Classes I and IV do the A and M appear in monogram form (
At least six other varieties in which number of dots in punctuation after IOɧЄS and RЄX varies from one to three in number. Plate VII, 6.
Thirty-three coins were too worn to be classified.
Total for this type is 194 billon deniers.
There is no variation in the twelve examples of this coin but they come from eight different dies—two each from four dies, and one each from four dies.
Billon deniers.
This makes a total of 1734 coins minted by the
Crusaders in the East.
There is one Arabic coin, silver, denier size probably belonging to Ayyub dynasty at Mayyafarikin, El Awhad Nejmeddin Ayyub (596–607 A.H.) or 1199–1210.*
Plate VIII, 6.
From the number of
It is impossible, at this date, to determine the reason for the burial of the hoard. Although found at Tripolis, only one coin of Tripolis was included among the 3537, so that it is incredible that this find represents the savings of a resident of that city. It seems more likely that the owner, overcome by sickness, or perhaps attacked by pirates off the coast of Tripolis buried his hoard with hopes of unearthing it at some future time, but was prevented, with the result that the hoard remained buried for seven hundred years.
Kindly identified for me by
I wish to express my thanks to Professor
Because of the nature of this hoard and because, so far as I know, no exact analysis has ever been attempted when dealing with the coins of the Crusaders, a certain number of coins were weighed and analyzed.
To make the series more complete I have added a denier of an earlier Baldwin (
+RC(X) BAL
Weight 1.02 grammes (no analysis but copper content not obvious).
Four coins of
Supposing the denier of Baldwin II to be of approximately the same fineness we get .354 gramme fine silver to the denier which corresponds closely to the current continental denier of the first half of the XII century, or ¼ of a sterling of 1.40 grammes. The deniers of
Two deniers of
Five deniers of
The discrepancy between this and the silver in the deniers of Baldwin (about 2½%) is not too great to suppose them to be of like standard.
The weights of the deniers of Amaury in this hoard in no wise correspond to those given above. Fifty undoubtedly complete coins were weighed and averaged .55 gr., varying from .290 gr. to .721 gr., only the one coin weighing .7 gr. or over. (In many cases it is difficult to state definitely whether a coin was struck on an irregular planchet or has been clipped. These coins have not been considered.) One hundred clipped deniers showed an average weight of .4799 gr. (varying from .275–645 gr.) which though less than the weight of the complete coins is by no means in proportion to the extent of the clipping. A number of badly clipped deniers weigh between .6 and .64 gr. The deniers of Amaury here illustrated weigh as follows: Plate VII, 1 weighs .56 gr.; 2, .45 gr.; 3, .54 gr.; 4, .565 gr.
There are two possible explanations for the difference in weight of the coins in this hoard and those from the collections. The first is that the heavier coins were issued by
Deniers in the name of Guy vary from .533–1.120 with an average weight of .771 gr. (though the norm seems to be ca. .8 gr.) 20.3% silver—fine silver, in one denier = .157 gr.
Unclipped denier of Amaury (.55 x 32.3%) = .178 gr.
Clipped and unclipped averaged together give silver in denier (.502 x 32.3%) = .162 gr.
The latter seems to be the intended weight for not only does it more nearly agree with the value of the earlier coins for
Deniers of Hugh I vary from .455-1.035, average weight = .758 gr.
21.2% silver, silver per denier = .163 gr.
22% silver, silver per denier = .163 gr.
These last figures are convincingly consistent. In relation to these it is interesting to bear in mind the use of the letter-of-credit. The principal issuers of these were Italian bankers in Monnaies à légendes arabes frappées en Syrie par les Croises. Henri Lavoix, p. 1). Many
In an act of 1201 under Alberto Malaspina the Genoese pound = 82.355 gr., the Genoese sol = 4.11775 gr.
The sol had 3.97363 gr. fine silver and was worth 4.7 gr. bullion (La moneta Genoese, Pier
Enough data on Crusaders' coins has not been available to make any conclusive statements about the varying weights of these coins, nor have I made any thorough study of existing material on Medieval standards. The above argument is offered only as a reasonable and possible explanation of the weight of Cypriote and Damietta deniers.
Mixture of alloy was extremely crude and in all cases the two halves of the coin were assayed separately and an average taken.