JeandAcre

@CPK, I've got to vicariously revel in your sheer joy at this.  The obverse, with the unmistakable profile and the, YOW, 'GALBA CAESAR' legend --leaping in your face like the family dog, if you were the first one to get home-- defies the upper spectrum of the Cool-O-Meter.  You defintely were Owed this!  Congratulations.

Major props to you, @Anaximander, for venturing this deep into these weeds. 

I'm going to need to focus on the issues of Maine.  Your example is very solid, looking like it's from the early phases of immobilization, still 11th century.  I have a couple of those; on the basis of hoard evidence, Duplessy can date the principal variations (subtle, but still readily noticable) to the 11th century; the early 12th; and later in the 12th, noting that the type is continued all the way up to 1266 (...after more than a half-century of royal, Capetian occupation).

Especially from your line drawing, it's easy enough to parse the monogram.  First, you need to proceed from the fact that, in this milieu of already neo-Carolingian monograms, these people don't blink at using the same letter more than once.  So in the first, left half of the monogram, within the large 'E,' you get 'ERBER.'  On the right half, you get 'TVS;' the 'V' elided with the initial 'T.'  Thank you, so you get ''ERBERTVS.'

...Meanwhile, Right, for a whole region notorious for appalling issues and strikes, the Norman ones get the award for being at the absolute nadir.  (...Oop, that rhymes with 'denier.'  ...I'm scared....)

(Edit: Woops, well, actually it doesn't.  I just wanted it to, for a minute.  Sorry for that.)

"The many patterns displayed on the shields seems to indicate that each unit had a custom design. The notitia dignitatum illustrates these in its list of soldiers of the line and auxiliaries. 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f1/Bodl_Canon.Misc.378_roll159B_frame28.jpg

"There was a practical aspect in this since units could be identified in battle by their shields, useful for Roman on Roman combat I would suppose."

(@Ancient Coin Hunter, 5 April)

"What's interesting about the rectangular scutum design is that it was specific to the roman army, supporting one of their battlefield tactics - the "testudo" (tortoise) formation, where the rectangular scutum allowed a group of soldiers to hold their shields side-by-side, both in front and above them, giving protection from arrows/spears raining down on them, or other projectiles thrown at them during siege warfare. Rome's enemies, not using this tactic, used smaller round/oval shields that were presumably more convenient to the thrust and parry of man-to-man combat.

"Here's a depiction of the testudo formation being used from Trajan's column (which also shows the oval shields of the enemy), and another from a reenactment group.

"

(@Heliodromus, 9 April)

Thanks to both of you for these posts!  From a medieval kind of place, both of them immediately invite comparison to later developments.   ...Wish you could stop me!  But identification on the battlefield is generally seen as the origin of heraldry.  Kind of a no-brainer.  And even with the ostensibly Norman 'kite-shaped' shields, transitioning directly from oval ones, the 'shield wall' was a common tactic among Vikings and Anglo-Saxons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shield_wall#/media/File:Bayeux_Tapestry_4.jpg

(Summary edit:)  @O-Towner, kindly humor me with a belated welcome to the forum!  ...Looking as if you've been posting in places I don't hang out in alot.  (Not that broadening one's horizons ever hurt anyone.) 

Right, to needlessly echo @Hrefn's point, these grossos have pronounced Byzantine influence all over them.  Effectively the only inherently Western elements are the Latin legends.  Along with their continuation in Venice, there was also a long run of Serbian imitations --from memory, a fair ways into the 14th century.  ...Wish I could get any traction with the possible occasion for the clipping.  It looks as if it could have been a deliberate, perhaps quasi-official reduction, to serve as a lower denomination ...somewhere or other.  That's likely to be an interesting story in its own right.

As you might suppose, given that this was Venice, they had close mercantile ties to the Byzantines before the conquest of the Fourth Crusade.  Nonetheless, it's a little surprising that the the grosso, with these very neo-Byzantine motifs, may predate the crusade  --and the ensuing flood of Byzantine silver.  Granted, under the presiding Doge (cf. 'DVX'), Enrico Dandolo, but possibly from a handful of years earlier.  (Cf. Stahl, Zecca: The Mint of Venice in the Middle Ages, pp. 16 ff.)  There are certainly examples in Dandolo's name (p. 18, Fig. 3).

This is the earliest one I could get.  Yep, holed; nope, I didn't blink.  Pietro Ziani; successor of Dandolo, Doge 1205-1229.   

(@Hrefn, I also needed one of Iacopo Tiepelo, especially as context for Jean de Brienne.  Pics of that are eluding capture at the moment.  But it doesn't hold a candle to your example; no one's missing a lot!)

With some recent, very cool exceptions, notably by @Hrefn, @Anaximander, and some of the (other?) distinguished European members of the forum, the Medievals section has been looking kind of thin for a while.

I was moved to do something about this.  But instead of finishing an OP that aspired to cover the early phases of the Reconquista (around 26 pages, in this font size), or digging up and rehabilitating excerpts from documents going back even further than that, I thought it might be time to fulfill an old threat, and repost something from the old forum.  …Also with some rehabilitation, but on a less epic scale than would be called for in the other cases.

The eventual coins are of Guy I, Count of Ponthieu 1053-1100. ....And, like that much of the period, from this corner of Europe (northeastern France, across the Low Countries to NW Germany), they’re the kind of coins that only a mother, or a collector who’s already too far gone, could love.  If you’re that invested in the historical context, this is kind of what you get.

But first, some background.  Ponthieu was a small county just northeast of the duchy of Normandy, under Norman ducal suzereignty. ...More effectively so than usual for the period, particularly in comparison to contemporary Capetian monarchs. The Norman dukes, not least William I, knew how this was done.
Here’s a map.  Normandy is to the west (with Le Mans /Maine south of it), with the county of Flanders and part of the Capetian royal demesne (Beauvais) in the near vicinity, northwest and south.

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponthieu#Histoire 
…No, promise, I’m getting to the coins.  But for Guy of Ponthieu (/Gui/ Gvido/ VVIDO), a serious draw is that he shows up not only in several chronicles of the earlier 12th century (including Orderic Vitalis, a major primary source for the Norman Conquest), but also, more than once, on the Bayeux Tapestry.  

We can start with Harold Godwinsson getting shipwrecked on his coast. Guy holds Harold for ransom; (spoiler:) it takes Guy’s suzerain, William (only ‘The Bastard,’ so far) to bail him out. (...Later, at William’s court, Harold swears on sacred relics to acknowledge William’s succession to the English throne, setting the stage for William’s invasion, after Harold’s ensuing coronation. As some Victorian memorably said, ’1066, and all that.’  Meanwhile, in this medium, the narrative is almost proto-cinematic.)

‘Here Guy (VVIDO) Apprehends Harold.’ (Harold has the moustache.)

‘...Where Harold and Guy Confer [discussing Harold’s ransom].’

‘...Where the emissary [nuncio] of William [...confronts Guy, apparently in scale armor, holding a Viking-style battle axe.].’

(This last picture (the others were from a thumb drive): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tapisserie_agriculture.JPG.) 
 

...Typically terrible coins ensue.  The legends are often retrograde.  That is, Frank(ish)ly Backward; we’re not in Julio-Claudian /Flavian Kansas anymore.  As if that wasn’t good enough, you get further, effectively illiterate legend blundering, complemented by the kind of strikes that invite you to wonder how hungover the mint worker was. 

...The gestalt is less about the kind of dialogue you can get from the expansive and, may we just say, competent legends on, for instance, later Hellenistic or Roman coins.  It’s along more starkly forensic lines: ‘what’s here?’ and, ‘what did they mean?’

Then you can add the paucity of current, responsible references for coins from the region. Now you’re looking at a perfect storm. With the sheer chaos of the myriad, largely illiterate variants, published and not, it’s easy to sympathize with Duplessy’s hesitance, in his ongoing series, Monnaies Féodales, to get to the volume for this part of the country.  Poey d’Avant  acknowledges his own ignorance, in light of the profusion of examples and variants, while they were coming to light in real time, already as of 1863 (Monnaies Féodales, p. 387, note).




Gui, Comte de Ponthieu 1053-1100. Denier of Abbéville.
Obv. (from 1 o’clock: ) +VVIDO COMES. (‘Count Guy,’ rendered with the same double ‘V’ that you see on the Bayeux Tapestry.)
Rev. A frankly appalling rendering, ostensibly of the legend: +ABBATIS VILLA (Abbéville). With a central design, likely riffing on the Robertian monogram of Odo (/Eudes), as king of Francia, c. early 10th century.
(This corresponds best to Poey 6696. Other variations are listed in Boudeau no. 1925; Caron 632 and pl. XXVI: 3; and Roberts 4381-3. But all Roberts does is parrot Caron and Poey, especially Poey’s no.s 6693-5. ...Nope, sticking with Poey this time.)

This one has legends which are frankly retrograde on both sides.  Apart from that, though, they provide only clearer renditions of Poey’s version than in the preceding example. As such, it’s a less ambiguous match to Poey 6697.

The reverse features a further degradation of the likely neo-Robrtian ‘ODDO’ monogram.  But more funly, the obverse legend (right, ‘VVIDO COM[I?]S (‘comitis?’), has a distinctive rendering of the ‘M,’ looking more like ‘O).’  This shows up occasionally on coins into the 13th century, but it’s not common.  

One instance, from a couple of generations earlier, is found in the early deniers of of Herbert I, Count of [Le] Mans /Maine c. 1015-1032/5.  On the basis of hoard evidence, the examples with this letter form are the only ones which can be reliably dated to Herbert’s lifetime.  In contrast to the plethora of immobilizations (and variants) that persist into the early 13th century. 

County of [Le] Mans /Maine.  Herbert I, 1015-1032/5.

Obv. 'EBERTVS' monogram.  (Evoking the 'CAROLVS' monogram; but a common convention through the 10th and 11th centuries, across a comparable range of media.)  +COMES CENOO)ANIS.

Rev.  Cross; pellets in upper angles; Alpha and Omega suspended from the arms of the cross. 

+SIGNVM DEI VIVI  (Sign of the Living God.)  Duplessy 397. 

[No, Really, in spite of very recent precedent, this is lifted from the original post.]  ...People here have been making whole threads, just recently, out of variously atrocious coins. Whether for wear, or strike, or crudity of the engraving. You would be cordially welcome to start from there. ...Maybe, or not, with medieval examples. (...If there are ancients as bad as this, um, I’d frankly enjoy the schadenfreude. ...You Were Warned!!!)
 

Many thanks, @Anaximander, and a hearty belated welcome to the forum! 

As you note, given the rarity, your example is Definitely nothing to sneeze at.  I got stuff from Andy Singer back when he listed on VCoins; he's got to be one of the smallest handful of American dealers in medieval who are still around.

...But, with your leave, the story behind my example is worth retelling.  Got it from a French dealer on Delcampe, with two other very evidently 10th-century coins, all unattributed as the driven snow.  At his prices, I snapped up all of 'em, including the worst example, about which I was clueless.  That was this one. 

Hugo Magnus, Ct. of Paris and Duke of Francia 923-956.  Denier of Senlis, formerly attributed to his son, Hugh Capet.  

This CNG listing gives the full (re-)attribution, more succinctly than I could.

https://www.cngcoins.com/Lot.aspx?LOT_ID=4470&BACK_URL=%2fLots.aspx%3fIS_ADVANCED%3d1%26ITEM_IS_SOLD%3d1%26ITEM_INVENTORY_NUMBER%3d%26CONTAINER_NAME%3d%26ITEM_LOT_NUMBER%3d%26ITEM_DESC%3dsenlis%2bdenier%26SEARCH_IN_CONTAINER_TYPE_ID_1%3d1%26SEARCH_IN_CONTAINER_TYPE_ID_3%3d1%26SEARCH_IN_CONTAINER_TYPE_ID_2%3d1%26SEARCH_IN_CONTAINER_TYPE_ID_4%3d1%26VIEW_TYPE%3d0  

And this one.

You're invited to peruse this post --at your express leisure!

Many thanks, @Hrefn.  --Yikes, forgot all about the recommendation!  Too bad Depeyrot didn't do anything with Deshazo's recommendation.  ...Yike, I attributed the issue of Lothaire to the wrong abbey of St. Philibert!  (The one in Jumiéges is in Normandy --which would have opened up another can of worms, relative to Lothaire's solitary jurisdiction.)

...Speaking of Andy Singer (Oops, that was @Anaximander; a draft of a reply to him just got vaporized), another guy who's posted here, @TheRed --a maven on Angevin /early Plantagenet coins-- mentioned that at the last Baltimore coin show, he'd expressed extreme skepticism about whether various French publications, especially Duplessy's on feudal coins, would advance far beyond their present, yawningly inclomplete state.  Guess that more or less applies to Depeyrot.

YOW!!!  @Hrefn, I gave up after the third edition of Depeyrot.  If you wanted to do someone a huge, that's,

HUGE favor,

could you look up the issue corresponding to No. 883 of his 3rd edition (2008)?  I would be profoundly in your debt.  

Here's my example.  

Normandy; Richard I, Count of Rouen 942-996.  A sloppy strike with minimal circulation.  (Luck of the draw.)

Rev. Monogram; RxOTOMAGVS;

Obv. +RICARDVS. (More or less; both 'S's couchant.)

Depeyrot (3rd ed.) 883 (attributing it to Hugh, the archbishop); Dumas, Trésor de Fécamp 3260 et seq. (doing the same, with a question mark); Duplessy, Féodales  18 (noting that the attribution to Archbishop Hugh 'est très contestable').

This takes us back to three articles which the American numismatist Alan Desahazo contributed to The Celator,  The first two in vols. 23 #11 (Nov. 2009), and 24 #2 (Feb. 2010):

https://social.vcoins.com/files/file/273-vol-23-no-11-november-2009/  (p. 32);

https://social.vcoins.com/files/file/276-vol-24-no-02-february-2010/   (p. 41).

I have to think that Deshazo's thesis is very cogent.  It boils down to the argument that the monogram isn't for Archbishop Hugh, but for the late Carolingian king Lothaire (r. 954-986).  ...Sorry; a picture of his monogram, online or elsewhere, is eluding capture.  But there's a definite resemblance, not to mention the prototype issued in Lothaire's name, from Jumiéges, with the same monogram, characterized as Lothaire's 'insignia'' in the reverse legend.  (Deshazo 1st article, p. 32; Depeyrot 1029).  Deshazo associated this issue with a treaty between Richard and Lothaire in 965, mentioned by Dudo of St. Quentin.

Huge thanks, @Broucheion!  Summarily bookmarked and followed.  Looking forward to getting into some of this!

AV tari of al-Mustansir billah, emir of Sicily /Siqillîyah AH 427-487 /1036-1094 CE.  Palermo mint.  Album 722.  I still can't read the Arabic, but the kalima seems to gets along nicely with the Star of David.

This late, on the eve of the initial Norman campaigns against Sicily, al-Mustansir was nominally subject to the Fatimid caliphate.  But this far west to their center of gravity, he was effectively autonomous.  

If this sounds as pompous as it probably is, Sorry; please don't throw anything too ripe.  But I like that as a demonstration of an enduring principle, universal enough to transcend any given context.  People can always be distinguished from the political (edit: worse yet, politico-religious) agendas which are arbitrarily associated with them.

That was when I needed some oud.  You've got no obligation to sit through all of it.   But I did, and might do it again.

1. @theotokevoithi, I'm not seeing a picture of the coin.  Had you put it in an earlier post?  I didn't look through all of them.

    

   Last edited: Oct 23, 2020

   +VGO.DVCKS, Oct 23, 2020Report

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   PlanoSteve, tibor, Sulla80 and 16 others like this.

Cool on you, @JAZ Numismatics, for actually looking it up!  I was wondering what the reverse legend said, and found a listing with the translation.  (I was thinking it might have something to do with 'Nike' /Victory.)

As @JAZ Numismatics said, apparently ones with this reverse were issued during a good part of the Severan dynasty; this one is from the earlier emperor, Elagabalus.  https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces119285.html 

Hi @Szabi89, and welcome to the forum!  Some of the funnest posts here are from metal detectorists!

The reverse (your top picture) looks a lot like a Roman provincial issue, vaguely from the broader Balkans region, circa Alexander Severus, or another Severan, c. earlier 3rd century.  It shows four legionary standards, with the lettering between them.  

I mostly collect medieval rather than Roman, and can't help you about the details.  But this forum is full of people who specialize in Roman, including provincial issues.  They will instantly know much more about this, including the legend, between the legionary standards.  If you add the tags, "Roman Empire" and /or "ID Help and Authentication," you'll have much better luck!

Yeah, allow me to second @DonnaML.  Terrific to see you back here, @Alegandron!!!

And your return may have been propitious, since I missed this post the first time.

@Väinämöinen, all I could say was,

'Oh. 

My. 

God....' 

This will be no surprise, but I couldn't have guessed in a lifetime that there were coins of Cicero.  Right, in a colonial post.  Isn't there a tradition of exile, of one sort or another, among major literary figures of the period?  And (edit:) the full (the <--edit: no, not there; I was too excited) legend, clear as you would ever need, In. Latin.  Despite the continuation of the original design.  This is all you could ask for.  As far as the forum in general is concerned, this summarily made my day, if not week.  Please receive my most profound congratulations on being the very evidently Worthy owner.

Truly great, @quant.geek.  Looking forward to what you do next with this.  

...In my pure-as-the-driven-snow (please read, vacuous) ignorance, I associate footprints, as a motif, more with the Buddha than with Vishnu.  --Thank you, Vishnu proceeds directly from the Buddha's religious background; guessing there have to be some cool details in the progression (--if I'm not making this up), even at this late a remove.

One that often gets assigned to William 'the Bastard,' although Duplessy is cagier about it.  It's the latest Norman denier I have with a coherent, never mind legible legend (if you really squint).

Normandy, "Richard II (996-1026) et Successeurs [up to the 12th century; this from Duplessy]."  Denier of Rouen; the obverse triangles still preserving a vestige of the 'temple' issue of Richard I, imitating the 9th-c. ones of Louis I, with the prominent triangular pediment.

Obv. Crosslet in a central circle, bordered by annulets and triangles.

Rev. Cross, with the distinctively Norman pellet in each angle.

+[R]OTOMAGVS; 'S' couchant.  Duplessy 29.

...It's hard not to think that the title refers to Billie Holiday, but the coin was the nearest I could get.

(Edit:)  Since this is juxtaposing things French with Charlie Parker, the story must be told.  Parker was notorious for being able to talk anyone under the table about any number of subjects.  Once, when he and the band were on tour in Paris, he met the Existenialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre.  He's of record saying to him, 'I like your playing very much.'

@Parthicus, you get points for one as late as that!  Surely they're that much scarcer, and the late phase has its own distinctive drama.

Oh, No!  From here, the Youtube isn't accesssible! 

...But Wait!  There's More!  I clicked on the 'play' button anyway, and got some very cool internal links --some Augustus Pablo, interviews with Miles and Zappa, etc.  Tabbed; going there next.  Beats the rerun of local NPR that's playing now. 

Sorry to hear that you don't still go that way.  ...But surely, you'll remember back to the 2000s, when, especially for feudal, it was the Wild West, in the best possible sense.  People would list stuff with no attempt at attribution, and you'd walk off with an average closing price of E25.  At the time, all I had for references was Boudeau (which a collector very kindly xeroxed and mailed) and Roberts.  --Right, and Cgb already had a magnificent online archive.  But that's where the spine of my feudal collection came from.

Thanks, @seth77.  It was from French ebay; I can't even remember how complete the attribution was.  Regardless, it was mostly luck.

Thanks for the heads up about Numista!  I've never stumbled onto them; that'll be fun to look up.

...Now I'm wondering if my next one here will be some of the old-timey Crusaders.  Earlier on, they were all instrumental.

(Edit:)  Just Wiki'd Randy Crawford.  If I ever heard of her, it was only as a name.  Interestingly, though, she has collaborated with Joe Sample, the keyboardist for the Crusaders.  If you did get around to posting some of her stuff, I wouldn't argue!

Yowie, @expat, that's what we needed all this time!  It's been dormant a while, but I'm a Crusaders fan.  But only c. mid-late '70's, along with one cassette maybe all the way back to the '60's, when they were still the Jazz Crusaders.  Love the horns.  But who is the singer on this?!!!?  ...Think I'll just have to look it up.

Congrats on the very solid Hetoum & Zabel; I can't not be impressed how comprehensively you arrived at the attribution, outside your usual collecting field.

Sure enough, @expat, you nailed it!  A solid example, too; you get extra points for detail on all three faces.  ...The strikes on these aren't awful, but run to being less than inspired.

I don't have anything in print for these.  But here's mine, an eventual (......) upgrade to one that's orders of magnitude homelier than yours. 

(Instant edit:) It's cool how Hetoum's reign is an exact match, year to year, to Louis IX's.  --Rats, there's no mention in my abrifged translation of Joinville's 'Chronicle' (really a memoir), but I'm sure if you went deeper, you'd find some connection or other.

Yesss!  To @idesofmarch01's original point, when the line gets crossed between mere stylization of a motif, and abstraction for its own sake, you've got the essence of what the earlier phases of Picasso and Braque were about.  You're well beyond 'naive realism;' this stuff is following its own, independent esthetic.

Yow, @Edessa.  I'm used to production values for German coins as of the 11th century, but not as late as this!  And Rudolf von Habsburg, no less.  You have to wonder if the sloppy strikes were largely a symptom of how high the original mintages were.  ...A little like how, in the 18th century, when printing really starts to accelerate, the books often replace the copperplates of the 17th century with frankly shoddy woodcuts.