Barry & Darling Medieval Coins

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Collecting Medieval Coins
By John Darling

The fascinating series of Medieval coinage represents a roughly thousand-year period in which the Celtic tribes of Europe learned the art of civilization after the demise of its great Greco-Roman teachers and replaced their own tribal polytheism with the monotheism of the Church of Rome. It takes in large mythic and historic forms such as knights, chivalry, King Arthur and the Grail quest, the romantic Troubador period of France, Plague, Martin Luthur, Joan of Arc, witch persecution and the near loss of the Classical body of knowledge.

Medieval coins are generally considered to be European coins running from the Fall of Rome in 476 CE to the time of three big events: the Fall of the Constantinople in 1453, the invention of printing in Germany, 1454 or the European discovery of the New World in 1492. For our numismatic purposes, we would like to extend this to the displacement of hammered coinage by milled coinage, which took place in Britain about 1662.

Medieval coinage technically can embrace Byzantine (491-1453), Islamic (Hegira of 622-1500) and Indian (500-1500), however we will give these series their own distinct grouping. Sassanian coins (226-637), pre-1500 Indian and other pre-Islamic coinages are grouped as Ancient Near East.

Medieval coins are often much thinner than ancients and are fraught with images and honorifics of Christ. Medieval obverses often feature a monarch bust with a legend around. A Christian cross is often interlaced with legends on the reverse. Legends usually make a nod to Mother Rome by being in Latin, a tongue not spoken in any of the subject lands, and often are scriptural, e.g., "JESUS AUTEM TRANSIENS PER MEDIUM ILLORUM IBAT, "But Jesus passing through the midst of them, went His way." -Luke 4:30.

The obverse legend usually ran, e.g. HENRICVS VII, D.G. ANG.FRA.ET.HIB.REX = Henry VII, by the Grace of God (Dei Gratia), England, France and Hibernia (Ireland), King. The oft-seen D.G. indicates the doctrine of "divine right" to rule. Medieval letters are a mix of Roman and Gothic. Often, A is crossed at the top, E may be rounded, H may be lower case, N can be backwards, Z can look like 3 and countless other improbable shapes, which require much fascinating research. As in Roman, U = V. The number 9 was often used as an apostrophe to indicate letters left out. Letters became more rounded (uncials) in the late Medieval. A dot or colon often separates words. One must learn the Latinization of names such as LVD or LVDOVICVS for Louis, GVILIELMVS for William, IACOBVS for James and CAROLVS for Charles. Some titles are PRINCEPS for Prince, DUX for Duke and COMES for Count. This all is part of the larger process by which Latin became the basis for many modern European languages.

Medieval coins were often victims of "clipping," the trimming of edges to harvest silver. This practice obliterated many legends. The artistic level of medieval coins helps one understand the term Dark Ages. Greek numismatic art was fabulous, Roman was good and medieval is often almost childlike, perhaps a reflection of medieval Christianity's rejection of the worldly. The Renaissance, which drew much of its inspiration from Classical myth and esthetics, brought a renewal of beauty in coins.

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