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Money and Coinage in the Middle Ages
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Reading Medieval Sources
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/rms
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Editedby
Rory Naismith
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Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/ brill- 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, Brill Sense and Hotei Publishing. Koninklijke Brill NV reserves the right to protect the publication against unauthorized use and to authorize dissemination by means of offprints, legitimate photocopies, microform editions, reprints, translations, and secondary information sources, such as abstracting and indexing services including databases. Requests for commercial re-use, use of parts of the publication, and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill NV. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change.
This book is printed on acid- free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.
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
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List of Figures and Tables vii Notes on Contributors ix
1 Introduction 1 Rory Naismith
Part1 Thinking about MedievalMoney
2 Money and Currency 21 GasparFeliu
3 Money Orders— and It’s Done! Activating Theories of Money’s Origins and Orders 41
BillMaurer
Part2 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
Part3 Themes in the Study of Medieval Money and Coinage
8 Money and Society 179 Rory Naismith
9 Money and the Economy 203 NickMayhew
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
AnnaGannon
13 Coins and Identity: From Mint to Paradise 320 Lucia Travaini
Bibliography 351 Index 358
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Figures andTables
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/ denarius 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 andTables
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, Type7. 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, Type94. 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).
GasparFeliu 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 ofcoins.
BillMaurer 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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x Notes on Contributors
coins to mobile phones and computer databases. He is the author of How Would You Like to Pay? How Technology is Changing the Future of Money (2015), among otherworks.
NickMayhew is the former Deputy Director (Collections) at the Ashmolean Museum, Ox- ford. His research focuses on British and European medieval monetary history and numismatics. His major publications include Sterling: The Rise and Fall of a Currency (2000) and Changing Values in Medieval Scotland: A Study of Prices, Money, and Weights and Measures, with Elizabeth Gemmill(1995)
Nanouschka Myrberg Burström is Docent (Reader) in Archaeology in the Department of Archaeology and Clas- sical Studies, Stockholm University. She specializes in Viking and medieval Eu- rope as well as archaeological and numismatic theory and method. Her recent works include the co- edited volume Divina Moneta (2017), “Things of quali- ty: possessions and animated objects in the Scandinavian Viking Age” (2015), “Things in the eye of the beholder: a humanistic perspective on archaeological object biographies” (2014), and “Re- thinking numismatics: the archaeology of coins” (2011, with Fleur Kemmers).
Rory Naismith is Lecturer in Medieval History at King’s College London. Prior to moving to King’s in 2015, he was a research fellow at the University of Cambridge. He has written widely on medieval history; his major publications include Money and Power in Anglo- Saxon England: The Southern English Kingdoms 757– 865 (2012) and Medieval European Coinage, with a Catalogue of the Coins in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, vol. 8: Britain and Ireland c. 400– 1066 (2017).
Philipp Robinson Rössner is Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Manchester. He holds a PhD in economic history from the University of Edinburgh and a Ha- bilitation/ Dr. phil. habil. in social and economic history from the Universität Leipzig. He has written monographs on early modern British (Scottish) com- merce and economy, late medieval German monetary history, numismatics, and the history of economic thought (Martin Luther, Cameralism, and mer- cantilism). He is a former Heisenbergstipendiat/ Heisenberg Research Fellow of the German Research Foundation, and in 2016 was co- opted into the Young Academy of the Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften/ Saxon Academy of Sciences. His monograph Deflation– Devaluation– Rebellion. Geld im Zeitalter
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Notes on Contributors xi
der Reformation (2012) was awarded the Walter Hävernick Prize by the Federal Commission of Numismatists, Federal Republic of Germany, for best mono- graph on monetary history and numismatics.
Alessia Rovelli is Associate Professor in Numismatics, University of Tuscia, Viterbo (Italy). Her main research interest is late antique and early medieval monetary history. She studied numismatic finds from several important Italian archaeological sites, such as the Crypta Balbi (Rome), the Basilica Hilariana (Rome) and San Vin- cenzo al Volturno (Molise). Her major recent publications include Coinage and Coin Use in Medieval Italy (2012), “Contextes urbains vs. ruraux: l’Italie centrale et septentrionale durant le haut Moyen Âge”(2015), and “The circulation of late Roman bronze coinage in early medieval Italy: an update” (2015– 2016).
Lucia Travaini is Associate Professor in the Dipartimento di Studi Storici at Milan University, Statale. She works on medieval coins. Her publications include volume 14 of Medieval European Coinage, with a Catalogue of the Coins in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, on South Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia (1998, with Philip Grierson); Monete, mercanti e matematica. Le monete medievali nei trattati di aritmetica e nei libri di mercatura (2003); Le zecche italiane fino all’Unità (2011; winner of the 2014 Prix Duchalais); I capelli di Carlo il Calvo: indagine sul ri- tratto monetale nell’Europa medievale (2013); and La monetazione nell’Italia normanna (2016). She was the 2012 winner of the annual medal of the Royal Numismatic Society, London.
Andrew R. Woods is Senior Curator for the Yorkshire Museum (York Museums Trust), with re- sponsibility for the numismatic collections. His research focuses upon the use of money in the Early Medieval period. This work has particularly focused upon the interpretation of hoards, single- finds, and metal- detected assemblag- es from the BritishIsles.
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© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | DOI:10.1163/9789004383098_002 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC-BY-NC 4.0 License.
Chapter 1
Rory Naismith
This volume is about ways of studying medieval money, and especially the most direct manifestation of money: coinage. It is intended to introduce read- ers to a range of approaches to a subject that has traditionally been seen as somewhat specialized; a domain of highly technical study which often seems to sit at some remove from the mainstream of historical and archaeological research. One important aim of the chapters offered here is to show ways in which money can be incorporated into analysis of the Middle Ages more broadly, both for particular periods and in specific thematic contexts such as art, literature, and economic analysis. Case- studies, surveys and comments on critical literature all contribute to this end, and the book closes with a general bibliography that includes works selected by the authors as especially helpful and important.
With such a wealth of discussion of all aspects of medieval money else- where in the volume, the scope of this introduction is modest. It sets the scene on a basic level, examining some of the key terms, ideas, sources, and scholarly trends in the field from a more general point ofview.
Forms ofMoney
Money in the Middle Ages meant many things. As in modern times, the same terms could be applied to coins, quantities of precious metal, and abstract val- ues used to reckon credit and accounts, as well as goods in themselves or as substitutes for coined money. Some sense of this diversity is conveyed very well in Gaspar Feliu’s contribution to this volume. The practical weaknesses of medieval money could also contribute to its conceptual strength: it is clear that across the Middle Ages, there was a strong tradition of thinking in terms of money, often in very subtle ways, even when actual cash was in short supply or unsuitable for the majority of transactions.
In an important sense, then, coined money is a small part of the story, al- though until the appearance of extensive financial records in the later Middle Ages it is the one which by default receives most attention. Pieces of metal stamped with a design that validated them as the trustworthy product of a
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2 Naismith
given authority had been made for over a millennium before the end of Roman rule in western Europe during the fifth century. Even in northern and central Europe, coins had been minted and used before the coming of the Roman Em- pire. As such, the general principle of metallic coinage was deeply engrained in medieval Europe. It was not just a matter of rulers issuing coins to make and receive payments in a regulated fashion; coinage had become a hallmark of ordered society.
A time- traveller taking a tour of medieval Europe would have had a bewil- dering variety of moneys to negotiate. The details that he or she might have found in various periods and places are set out elsewhere in this volume in the chapters by Alessia Rovelli, Andrew Woods, Richard Kelleher, and Philipp Robinson Rössner. If travelling back from modern times, he or she would have noticed a lack of monetary means of exchange besides coin. People certainly thought in terms of coin for all sorts of purposes, but there was no equivalent to the credit card, PayPal, or the like. Instead, many transactions depended en- tirely on trust: buying things on a very simple credit basis, for instance, when coin was not available.1 This worked well enough in the small face- to- face com- munities in which most medieval people lived – any unpaid debt could easily be pursued – but it meant that travellers (not least putative time- travellers) often had a hard time and needed cash even more than others.2 Neither was there a widespread near- equivalent to the cheque. Ingots or objects of gold and silver fulfilled some of the same roles: with precious metals being so close- ly tied to concepts of value they were a natural form of storing wealth, and under some circumstances could serve as a high- value means of exchange. At times uncoined precious metal was used in preference to coin in exchange set- tings, as in Viking- Age Scandinavia, but it persisted alongside coined money on some level throughout the Middle Ages as a higher- value alternative.3 In the later Middle Ages, more formal written financial instruments started to develop, above all the bill of exchange. By the 14th century, merchants at the apex of international commerce could do most of their business without using coin at all. But there were important limitations to paper finance at this stage. It could not easily be transferred between parties other than those named in the document, and was concentrated in Italy, especially in the cities; elsewhere it spread slowly beyond outposts of the Italian banking companies.4
1 Bougard, “Le crédit dans l’Occident du haut MoyenÂge”. 2 Naismith, “The social significance of monetization in the early Middle Ages”, pp. 24– 25. 3 Skre (ed.), Means of Exchange; Phillips, “The monetary use of uncoined silver in western Eu-
rope in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries”. 4 Spufford, How Rarely Did Medieval Merchants Use Coin?. Cf. Bell, Brooks, and Moore, “The
non- use of money in the MiddleAges”.
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Introduction 3
Under these circumstances the emphasis would have fallen on coins. These would have looked very familiar at first glance, and on a basic level worked in much the same way as those of the 21st century: they represented an easy, rela- tively reliable means of storing and transferring value. Yet on closer inspection there were important differences from modern currency. First, all medieval coins were handmade at every stage of the process, from the casting and carv- ing of the die to the shaping of individual pieces of metal for striking. Hence, although a time- traveller would normally have found coins to be interchange- able in practice, there were small…
Reading Medieval Sources
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/rms
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via free access
Editedby
Rory Naismith
via free access
Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/ brill- 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, Brill Sense and Hotei Publishing. Koninklijke Brill NV reserves the right to protect the publication against unauthorized use and to authorize dissemination by means of offprints, legitimate photocopies, microform editions, reprints, translations, and secondary information sources, such as abstracting and indexing services including databases. Requests for commercial re-use, use of parts of the publication, and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill NV. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change.
This book is printed on acid- free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.
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
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List of Figures and Tables vii Notes on Contributors ix
1 Introduction 1 Rory Naismith
Part1 Thinking about MedievalMoney
2 Money and Currency 21 GasparFeliu
3 Money Orders— and It’s Done! Activating Theories of Money’s Origins and Orders 41
BillMaurer
Part2 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
Part3 Themes in the Study of Medieval Money and Coinage
8 Money and Society 179 Rory Naismith
9 Money and the Economy 203 NickMayhew
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
AnnaGannon
13 Coins and Identity: From Mint to Paradise 320 Lucia Travaini
Bibliography 351 Index 358
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Figures andTables
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/ denarius 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 andTables
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, Type7. 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, Type94. 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).
GasparFeliu 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 ofcoins.
BillMaurer 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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x Notes on Contributors
coins to mobile phones and computer databases. He is the author of How Would You Like to Pay? How Technology is Changing the Future of Money (2015), among otherworks.
NickMayhew is the former Deputy Director (Collections) at the Ashmolean Museum, Ox- ford. His research focuses on British and European medieval monetary history and numismatics. His major publications include Sterling: The Rise and Fall of a Currency (2000) and Changing Values in Medieval Scotland: A Study of Prices, Money, and Weights and Measures, with Elizabeth Gemmill(1995)
Nanouschka Myrberg Burström is Docent (Reader) in Archaeology in the Department of Archaeology and Clas- sical Studies, Stockholm University. She specializes in Viking and medieval Eu- rope as well as archaeological and numismatic theory and method. Her recent works include the co- edited volume Divina Moneta (2017), “Things of quali- ty: possessions and animated objects in the Scandinavian Viking Age” (2015), “Things in the eye of the beholder: a humanistic perspective on archaeological object biographies” (2014), and “Re- thinking numismatics: the archaeology of coins” (2011, with Fleur Kemmers).
Rory Naismith is Lecturer in Medieval History at King’s College London. Prior to moving to King’s in 2015, he was a research fellow at the University of Cambridge. He has written widely on medieval history; his major publications include Money and Power in Anglo- Saxon England: The Southern English Kingdoms 757– 865 (2012) and Medieval European Coinage, with a Catalogue of the Coins in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, vol. 8: Britain and Ireland c. 400– 1066 (2017).
Philipp Robinson Rössner is Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Manchester. He holds a PhD in economic history from the University of Edinburgh and a Ha- bilitation/ Dr. phil. habil. in social and economic history from the Universität Leipzig. He has written monographs on early modern British (Scottish) com- merce and economy, late medieval German monetary history, numismatics, and the history of economic thought (Martin Luther, Cameralism, and mer- cantilism). He is a former Heisenbergstipendiat/ Heisenberg Research Fellow of the German Research Foundation, and in 2016 was co- opted into the Young Academy of the Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften/ Saxon Academy of Sciences. His monograph Deflation– Devaluation– Rebellion. Geld im Zeitalter
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Notes on Contributors xi
der Reformation (2012) was awarded the Walter Hävernick Prize by the Federal Commission of Numismatists, Federal Republic of Germany, for best mono- graph on monetary history and numismatics.
Alessia Rovelli is Associate Professor in Numismatics, University of Tuscia, Viterbo (Italy). Her main research interest is late antique and early medieval monetary history. She studied numismatic finds from several important Italian archaeological sites, such as the Crypta Balbi (Rome), the Basilica Hilariana (Rome) and San Vin- cenzo al Volturno (Molise). Her major recent publications include Coinage and Coin Use in Medieval Italy (2012), “Contextes urbains vs. ruraux: l’Italie centrale et septentrionale durant le haut Moyen Âge”(2015), and “The circulation of late Roman bronze coinage in early medieval Italy: an update” (2015– 2016).
Lucia Travaini is Associate Professor in the Dipartimento di Studi Storici at Milan University, Statale. She works on medieval coins. Her publications include volume 14 of Medieval European Coinage, with a Catalogue of the Coins in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, on South Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia (1998, with Philip Grierson); Monete, mercanti e matematica. Le monete medievali nei trattati di aritmetica e nei libri di mercatura (2003); Le zecche italiane fino all’Unità (2011; winner of the 2014 Prix Duchalais); I capelli di Carlo il Calvo: indagine sul ri- tratto monetale nell’Europa medievale (2013); and La monetazione nell’Italia normanna (2016). She was the 2012 winner of the annual medal of the Royal Numismatic Society, London.
Andrew R. Woods is Senior Curator for the Yorkshire Museum (York Museums Trust), with re- sponsibility for the numismatic collections. His research focuses upon the use of money in the Early Medieval period. This work has particularly focused upon the interpretation of hoards, single- finds, and metal- detected assemblag- es from the BritishIsles.
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© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | DOI:10.1163/9789004383098_002 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC-BY-NC 4.0 License.
Chapter 1
Rory Naismith
This volume is about ways of studying medieval money, and especially the most direct manifestation of money: coinage. It is intended to introduce read- ers to a range of approaches to a subject that has traditionally been seen as somewhat specialized; a domain of highly technical study which often seems to sit at some remove from the mainstream of historical and archaeological research. One important aim of the chapters offered here is to show ways in which money can be incorporated into analysis of the Middle Ages more broadly, both for particular periods and in specific thematic contexts such as art, literature, and economic analysis. Case- studies, surveys and comments on critical literature all contribute to this end, and the book closes with a general bibliography that includes works selected by the authors as especially helpful and important.
With such a wealth of discussion of all aspects of medieval money else- where in the volume, the scope of this introduction is modest. It sets the scene on a basic level, examining some of the key terms, ideas, sources, and scholarly trends in the field from a more general point ofview.
Forms ofMoney
Money in the Middle Ages meant many things. As in modern times, the same terms could be applied to coins, quantities of precious metal, and abstract val- ues used to reckon credit and accounts, as well as goods in themselves or as substitutes for coined money. Some sense of this diversity is conveyed very well in Gaspar Feliu’s contribution to this volume. The practical weaknesses of medieval money could also contribute to its conceptual strength: it is clear that across the Middle Ages, there was a strong tradition of thinking in terms of money, often in very subtle ways, even when actual cash was in short supply or unsuitable for the majority of transactions.
In an important sense, then, coined money is a small part of the story, al- though until the appearance of extensive financial records in the later Middle Ages it is the one which by default receives most attention. Pieces of metal stamped with a design that validated them as the trustworthy product of a
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2 Naismith
given authority had been made for over a millennium before the end of Roman rule in western Europe during the fifth century. Even in northern and central Europe, coins had been minted and used before the coming of the Roman Em- pire. As such, the general principle of metallic coinage was deeply engrained in medieval Europe. It was not just a matter of rulers issuing coins to make and receive payments in a regulated fashion; coinage had become a hallmark of ordered society.
A time- traveller taking a tour of medieval Europe would have had a bewil- dering variety of moneys to negotiate. The details that he or she might have found in various periods and places are set out elsewhere in this volume in the chapters by Alessia Rovelli, Andrew Woods, Richard Kelleher, and Philipp Robinson Rössner. If travelling back from modern times, he or she would have noticed a lack of monetary means of exchange besides coin. People certainly thought in terms of coin for all sorts of purposes, but there was no equivalent to the credit card, PayPal, or the like. Instead, many transactions depended en- tirely on trust: buying things on a very simple credit basis, for instance, when coin was not available.1 This worked well enough in the small face- to- face com- munities in which most medieval people lived – any unpaid debt could easily be pursued – but it meant that travellers (not least putative time- travellers) often had a hard time and needed cash even more than others.2 Neither was there a widespread near- equivalent to the cheque. Ingots or objects of gold and silver fulfilled some of the same roles: with precious metals being so close- ly tied to concepts of value they were a natural form of storing wealth, and under some circumstances could serve as a high- value means of exchange. At times uncoined precious metal was used in preference to coin in exchange set- tings, as in Viking- Age Scandinavia, but it persisted alongside coined money on some level throughout the Middle Ages as a higher- value alternative.3 In the later Middle Ages, more formal written financial instruments started to develop, above all the bill of exchange. By the 14th century, merchants at the apex of international commerce could do most of their business without using coin at all. But there were important limitations to paper finance at this stage. It could not easily be transferred between parties other than those named in the document, and was concentrated in Italy, especially in the cities; elsewhere it spread slowly beyond outposts of the Italian banking companies.4
1 Bougard, “Le crédit dans l’Occident du haut MoyenÂge”. 2 Naismith, “The social significance of monetization in the early Middle Ages”, pp. 24– 25. 3 Skre (ed.), Means of Exchange; Phillips, “The monetary use of uncoined silver in western Eu-
rope in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries”. 4 Spufford, How Rarely Did Medieval Merchants Use Coin?. Cf. Bell, Brooks, and Moore, “The
non- use of money in the MiddleAges”.
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Introduction 3
Under these circumstances the emphasis would have fallen on coins. These would have looked very familiar at first glance, and on a basic level worked in much the same way as those of the 21st century: they represented an easy, rela- tively reliable means of storing and transferring value. Yet on closer inspection there were important differences from modern currency. First, all medieval coins were handmade at every stage of the process, from the casting and carv- ing of the die to the shaping of individual pieces of metal for striking. Hence, although a time- traveller would normally have found coins to be interchange- able in practice, there were small…
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