Search

Even at the beginning of his long and turbulent reign (978–1016), AEthelred II's coinage was an impressive institution. Mint-places across the kingdom issued silver pennies of identical design, each sporting an image of the king surrounded by his name and title while the reverse named both the man responsible for manufacture (the moneyer) and the location where he produced the coin. AEthelred and his subjects inherited this currency from Edgar (959–75) and Edward the Martyr (975–8), but were not content to rest on their laurels. Indeed, the reign of AEthelred saw the evolution of the most ambitious form of coinage yet seen in England. Nationwide recoinages became frequent for the first time since the ninth century, and the coinage emerged as a potent tool of symbolic expression. It probably also helped attract the attention of Viking aggressors, and facilitated the collection and transfer of tribute.

The Rhodian plinthophoroi dated to the beginning of the 1st century BC, were struck in considerable quantities because of the huge expenditure demanded, as the Rhodians were facing Mithridates’ danger. We may estimate the date of striking before the siege of the island by pontic forces to ca. 90 BC. The plinthophoric hemidrachms were adapted to the weight of Roman sestertii, given that this denomination had been introduced again in silver. It seems that the eventual financial difficulty of the Rhodian State was remedied by the support also of a part of inhabitants, not citizens (foreigners etc., members of associations or not). So the coinage needed was ensured according to epigraphic and numismatic evidence., Les monnaies rhodiennes plinthophores, du début du Ier siècle av. J.-C., ont été émises massivement pour faire face aux énormes dépenses des Rhodiens confrontés à la menace pontique. La date du siège de l’île par Mithridate permet de préciser que cette production doit se placer vers ca 90 av. J.-C. Les hémidrachmes plinthophores rhodiens ont la valeur des sesterces romains qui sont alors frappés de nouveau en argent. Lors de ces difficultés financières de Rhodes, certains habitants de l’île (non-citoyens, réunis ou non en associations) contribuèrent eux aussi, semble-t-il, à fournir l’argent monnayé, comme le suggèrent les documents épigraphiques et numismatiques., Apostólou Éva. Les plinthophores rhodiennes, les Romains et la première guerre mithridatique. In: Revue numismatique, 6e série - Tome 173, année 2016 pp. 123-138.

During the principate of Augustus Caesar, a series of 'asses' (RIC I2 Augustus 390–396) were minted bearing the image of Augustus on the obverse and Numa Pompilius on the reverse. Discussion of this coin in the context of Augustan ideology has been limited (Evans, 1985; Grant, 1953). Although one aspect of the coin’s message relates to the promotion of the moneyer’s family, a closer analysis of its iconographical and historical context provides important evidence for the early public image of Augustus, particularly in regard to religion. To that end, this article intends to establish the traditional use of kings in Republican coins and the development of religious iconography in early Augustan coinage. Examination of these asses can be divided into two groups of coins which were minted at different times, first in 22 BCE (RIC I2 Augustus 390–393) and then again in 12 BCE (RIC I2 Augustus 394–396).

Roman Republican coins have been of considerable interest to antiquarians, collectors and historians for several hundred years. Perhaps their greatest attraction has lain in the great variety of designs used, sometimes with an obscurity appealing to the antiquarian mind and sometimes with a more obvious series of allusions to some of the famous personalities of the late Republic, since the Renaissance one of the principal areas of interest in antiquity. Since that time there have been three main lines of enquiry into Republican coins. First, there has been the collection and publication of as many different and new specimens of the coinage as possible. Nowadays, this is not a very important aspect of the subject, since the result of the intense interest in these coins over such a long period has been that something like 99 per cent of the coinage is already known, to judge by the fact that very few new types ever turn up, despite the continuing large quantity of new material that comes to light from hoards, excavations and old private collections. The new pieces are generally confined to 'gap-fillers', for instance, the discovery of a particular bronze denomination for a moneyer for whom it had not previously been recorded. This is not very exciting. Only occasionally have more interesting pieces come to light, for instance the denarius of Octavian of 43 B.C. with the head of Caesar on the reverse, or the unique aureus from the Castagneto hoard (now in Berlin) with a portrait of Octavia, the first portrait of a Roman woman. The second main focus of interest has traditionally been on the designs used and their interpretation. This is an area that has not attracted so much interest in contemporary British scholarship, though it has been taken much more seriously in the continental tradition, its main modern proponents being Alf6ldi and Weinstock. Even if their conclusions and indeed methodology have sometimes seemed questionable, their intentions and approach were undoubtedly correct, namely to use the designs of coins to help explain and illuminate contemporary history, and vice versa. The prerequisites for such correct historical interpretation are an accurate description of each coin design and the establishment of the date at which it was minted. Dating the coins has been the third very important aspect of the subject. Many methods have been used, based on style, metrology, hoards or nomenclature. Far and away the most important of these is the study of hoards, since the absence of a coin issue or group of common issues from a particular hoard will normally provide an objective indication that it was produced after those issues that were included in the hoard. The study of enough hoards, all with slightly different terminal dates, should in theory enable one to work out with a reasonable degree of precision the order in which the moneyers made their issues. An appreciation of this methodology and the importance of hoards for establishing the correct sequence goes back a long way, beginning in the nineteenth century. The process begun then is still far from completion, as there are several periods where even today there is hardly any relevant hoard evidence: within the last decade three large hoards have thrown much light on the coinage of about I25, ioo and 55 B.C., respectively. These three aspects, the collection of material, its interpretation and its dating, dominated the subject in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The two landmarks in twentieth-century study were the publication of the British Museum Catalogue in I9IO by H. A. Grueber (although in fact this was mainly the publication of work carried out a generation before by Count de Salis), and the publication in I952 of The Coinage of the Roman Republic by E. A. Sydenham. Sydenham's book was not very advanced, even by the standards of its day, but it remained the standard reference book for two decades until the publication in I974 (actually I975) of Crawford's Roman Republican Coinage (=RRC). The recent publication, in I985, of another major book on Republican numismatics from the same pen, Coinage and Money under the Roman Republic (=CMRR), provides the opportunity to look at the development of the subject over the last decade or so, and to assess the very substantial impact that C. has made on

T -I HE study of medieval coinage is of far more than numismatic significance. In comparison with modern conditions, an economy based on a silver coinage, with no paper currency and very limited credit facilities, seems simple indeed. But by means of various simple operations governments could effect considerable changes in the monetary system. In I 895 Crump and Hughes suggested that the amount of coin in England increased roughly fourfold during the reign of Edward I.2 This conclusion has attracted little comment, but if such an increase did take place, then both government finances and the economy as a whole must have been very considerably affected. In what ways could governments at this period alter currencies? By means of recoinages it was possible either to debase or to improve the standard of the coinage. The proportion of base metal in the alloy could be altered, and the weight of the coins might be changed. By means of alterations in the rate of profit charged by the mints, the price of silver could be raised or lowered, with an attendant effect on the flow of bullion in or out of the country. It was the intention of every medieval government that only those coins minted under its own auspices should be current within its territory. But as trade was financed by the export of coin from one country to another in payment for goods, this was hard to enforce, although attempts were made by legislation to prohibit the export of bullion and to forbid the use of foreign coin as currency. The monetary policies of governments might be designed to ensure that there was a strong and stable currency, or in time of acute need the currency might be manipulated in order to increase revenue, with no regard for the detrimental effects that this might have. The first recoinage of Edward I's reign was begun inI 279. The king made the primary motive for it very clear. The currency was in a poor state, debilitated by the number of worn and clipped coins in circulation, as was only natural since it was some thirty years since the great recoinage of Henry III's reign. The initial measure was to place a prohibition on the export of plate and clipped coin: this was necessary, as merchants might have found it more profitable to take such bullion abroad rather than have it recoined in England.3Judicial commissions were set up to inquire into offences concerning the currency,4 the Jews suffering most of all from their activities. 5 New wardens of the mints were appointed, and the technical side of the operations put in the hands of William de Turnemire, an expert moneyer from Marseilles. Accounts survive only for the London and Canterbury mints, and not for the various provincial mints that were opened to

Résumé. — This article proposes that some of the names of Anglo-Saxon moneyers found on English coinage from Of fa of Mercia (757-796) to Edward the Confessor (1042- 1066) can be identified with persons mentioned in contemporary documents (charters or wills). If this is correct it throws important light on the status of moneyers at this period, since several of the names in the documents are those of ministři (king's thegns). In one case, at the end of the eighth century, there is a possible identity between a moneyer and a bishop, reminiscent of the case of Eligius in the first half of the seventh century in France., Stewart Ian. Ministri and Monetarii. In: Revue numismatique, 6e série - Tome 30, année 1988 pp. 166-175.