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TH
NNU L
OF
TH
BRITISH SCHOOL
AT THENS
No. 55
196
THE BRITISH SCHOOL
AT ATHENS
31-34
GORDON
SQUARE
LONDON
W.C.
1
Published
by
the
Managing
Committee
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THE
CURRENCY
OF
DENIERS
TOURNOIS
IN
FRANKISH
GREECE'
THE base silver deniersof the type from Tours which in the thirteenth century were the common
currency
of
large parts
of
France2
served as the
model for the later
coinage
of
Frankish
Greece.
From the
mid-thirteenth
century
onwards,
for
more than
a
hundred
years,
deniers
ournoiswere
the
standard
coin of
Attica,
Boeotia,
the
Peloponnese,
and some of the
Aegean
islands.
They
were struck in
very
large
numbers
by
the
princes
of Achaia and the dukes of
Athens,
and in
smaller
quantities
by
the rulers of several
other
territories. Three
examples
are illustrated in
FIG. I
d-f,
from which
it can be seen
that the
design
of all the coins was
virtually
identical,
a
b C
d
e
f
FIG. I. Top row. (a) Ninth-century prototype of the denier ournois.A coin of Louis I (814-40) with the
design
of a Christian
temple
and the
legend
XPISTIANA
ELIGIO.
b)
French denier f
Tours,
early
thirteenth
century.
(c)
Denier of Charles
I
of
Anjou,
count of Provence
I246-85,
of the tournois
ype.
Bottom
row.
(d)
Frankish denier ournois
f
Guy
II,
duke of Athens
(struck
I294-13o8
at
Thebes). (e)
The
same,
of
Philip
of
Taranto,
prince
of Achaia
1307-13,
struck at Clarentzia.
(f)
The
same,
ofJohn
II
Angelus
Comnenus
Ducas,
Sebastocrator of Great Wallachia
I303-18,
struck at
Neopatras, probably
before
I308.
except
for
the names of
the
issuing
authorities and
of the
places
of
mintage.
On one
side was
a
cross,
and on the other the so-called 'castle of
Tours',
really
a
degenerated
version of
the
design
of
a
ninth-century
coin
showing
a Christian
temple
(see
FIG.
Ia).
There
is
a
long
series
of Achaian coins
bearing
the
names
of
Prince William
of
Villehardouin,
Charles
I
king
of
Naples,
Charles
II,
Prince
Florent, Isabel,
Philip
of
Savoy, Philip
of
Taranto, Louis,
Maud,
John, and Robert.3 Their dates of issue can therefore be readily determined. Most of the
Athenian coins are from the
reigns
of William
and
Guy
II
de
la
Roche.
All
the
coinages
of Frankish Greece were described
by
Gustave
Schlumberger
n
his
Numis-
matique
e
'orientatin.
Although published
n
1878,
it is still the standard
work,
and
it
was based
1 I
am much
indebted to Mrs. I. Varoukha-Khristo-
dhoulopoulou,
the
Curator of the Greek National Numis-
matic
Collection,
for the kindness with
which
she received
me,
and for her
help
in
discussing
the hoards
of the
Frankish
period.
2
For a
description
see T. N.
Bisson,
'Coinages
and
royal
monetary
policy
in
Languedoc
during
the
reign
of Saint
Louis',
Speculum
xxii
(i957)
443
ff.
3
A list
of the dates of the various
princes
who
struck
deniers
ournois
n
Greece is
appended
to the
catalogue
of
hoards
at the
end
of the
article.
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THE
CURRENCY
OF
DENIERS
TOURNOIS IN FRANKISH GREECE 39
on such
thorough
researches that
it has been
supplemented
or
corrected
at
very
few
points.
Schlumberger
made little
attempt,
however,
to use the numismatic
information
which he had
collected as evidence for
monetary
and economic
history,
nor have later scholars tried to do so.
What is known from
documentary
sources about the use of
coinage4
in thirteenth- and four-
teenth-century
Greece could
be
set out
in a
very
short
space,
since
it
rests
largely
on three
references from the Chronicle of the Morea, Sanudo, and Pegolotti. Neither the coins them-
selves nor the documents throw much
light
on
the
problems
one would like to be able to
resolve.
What was the relative
importance
of the various
mints?
How
long
did the coins remain in
circulation? How
freely
did
they
move
from one
part
of Greece to another? For what kind
of
payments
were
they
used? The answers to these and other
questions
can be
given,
if at
all,
only
through
a
study
of the hoards which have been discovered from time to time in
various
places
in
Greece,
and
which
are
mostly
now in the Athens museum. Some of them are here
published
in
detail for the first time.
They
include in
varying proportions
the
types
which
Schlumberger
listed
and
described;
by
comparing
those
proportions
in different
hoards,
a
good
deal can be
deduced about
the
monetary
affairs of Frankish Greece.
The first
part
of this
article is devoted
to
a
discussion of the
proportions.
The coins
in
any
one tournois
hoard
are a small
sample
of the
currency
which was in use at the
time when the
hoard
was concealed.
That
they
are a random
sample,
at
any
rate
in
certain
significant
respects,
is the
premiss upon
which
any
conclusions about the
currency
must rest.s
There is no reason to think that the
hoarding
would have been
selective,
and the
proportions
are in fact so consistent
among
themselves that
they
could
hardly
have occurred other
than
by
random
hoarding.
One denier tournois ooks
very
much like another.
Many
of them
were so
indifferently
struck that
they
have to be examined
closely
before the name of the
prince
who
issued them
can be
read.
The nominal value
of all of
them was the
same,
and it was so
small,
and the amount of silver
in
the coins was so
little,
that one cannot
imagine
that it was worth
while,
in
day-to-day
transactions,
to do more than
reject
the most
obviously
worn
pieces.
The
study of a hoard-seriessometimes enables one to see that a particularhoard is unusual in its
composition.
It
may,
for
example,
consist of
carefully
selected
pieces,
in
which
case one would
suppose
that it
was
a
savings-hoard. Again,
it
may
consist
very largely
of
a
single
issue,
when
there would be
a
number of
possible explanations, among
them that the coins had not been in
general
circulation since
leaving
the
mint. The
only
candidates,
among
the hoards from
Greece,
for a
special explanation
are the Corinth
find
of
1934,
about which
a
good
deal will be said
below,
and the
Delphi 1894
B
hoard,
which
may perhaps
have been a
savings-hoard.
An actual
example
will show
the
uniformity
of the
hoards,
and
will
demonstrate
that
they
are indeed
reliable
samples
from which conclusions
may safely
be drawn.
Philip
of Taranto
during
his
reign
as
prince
of Achaia struck coins at two
mints,
Clarentzia and
Lepanto.
In the
hoards
they
occur
in
the
proportions
shown
in
TABLE
I.
There
may
be
an
element
of
coincidence
in
them,
but the proportions are so strikingly regular that one feels quite confident in concluding that the
Lepanto
mint struck
between
10
and,
at the
most,
20
per
cent. as much
coinage
as
that
at
Clarentzia over the
years
I3o7-I3.6
4
There are a
good
many
more references to
money,
but
one cannot
safely
base conclusions about the
coinage
on
them,
since some
of them name
only moneys
of
account,
and
others describe
payments
which
may
have been made
in other
coinages
or
in kind.
s
Even a random
sample
must,
for statistical
reasons,
be
of a sufficient size if the
proportions
which it
gives
are to be
reliable. The same
theory
which I discussed
in
'Statistische
Analyse
bei der
Auswertung
von
Miinzfundmaterialen',
Jahrbuch
iir
Numismatikund
Geldgeschichte
x
(1958)
I87 ft.,
can be
applied
to hoards.
6
Twenty per
cent.,
which
may
seem an
unnecessarily
high
upper
limit,
is
suggested
because of the
greater
occur-
rence of the
Epirote
coins in their local
region,
discussed
below.
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40
D. M. METCALF
Since the earliest
types
of
tournois
re still to be found in hoards
deposited
late
in
the fourteenth
century,
and as
they
seem to occur in
roughly
the same
proportions
in all but the latest
hoards,
it does not
look as
though
the old coins ceased to be used to
any great
extent. Three
of
the
com-
mon
types
which
can be attributed without
any
doubt are
compared
in TABLE
,
in
order
to
Hoard
Mint of
Clarentzia
Mint of
Lepanto
Delphi, 1929
Attica
(?), '95'
Orion,
'959
Tritaea,
'933
Atalandhi,
194o
Patras,
1955
Elevsis,
1952
100
100
100
I00
100
100
100
IO
'3
14
'4
II
'4
16
TABLE
I. Proportions
of coins of
Philip
of Taranto from
his two mints of Clarentzia and
Lepanto (Schl.
XIII,
26
only).
The
figures
have been
adjusted
so
that
Clarentzia
=
ioo in each case.)
show how earlier
and later coins occur
in
hoards of
early
and
late
deposit.
The inconsistencies
in
the
figures
are
partly
the result of
regional
variations
in
the
currency,
discussed below.
They
do
not
reveal
any
trend,
however,
for the
early type
to be
scarcer,
or the late
type
to be
commoner,
in the hoards of late
deposit.
This
suggests
that
during
most of the fourteenth
century
there was
in
general hardly
any
wastage according
to
age
from
the
tournois
currency.
Hoard
Deposit
1280-7
(Thebes,
XIII,
2-3)
1294-1307
(Lepanto,
XIII,
20)
1307-13
(Clarentzia,
XII,
s21)
Delphi, 1929
Attica
(?),
1951
Orion,
1959
Tritaea,
1933
Atalandhi,
1940
Delphi,
I894
B
Delphi,
I894 R
Patras,
1955
Elevsis,
1952
Delphi, 1894
A
I311?
I3I8-20
1320-5
1320-35
I325-30
I325-40
I339-44
1343-55
I365-8o
1400-20
30
28
3'
21
41
34
33
27
28
32
36
33
26
42
22
27*
30*
35
35
36*
34
39
43
37
38
39
37
38
37
32
TABLE 2.
Proportions
of
types
of different dates of
issue,
in
hoards of
early
and
late
deposit. (The
three
figures
for each hoard add to loo. The
figures
marked
*
are
estimates made
by reducing
the
total for
XIII,
20
and 26
by
one-eighth.)
If
coins,
once
they
were
issued,
remained in
circulation,
then
the
age-structure
of the hoards
should
give
a
good
idea of the
relative
output
of the mints over the
years.
The
age-structure
of
the
Orion hoard is illustrated
in
FIG.2. Three features which are noticeable from the
graph
are
that the
volume
of
coinage
falls off
around
1310o,
well before
the
date
of
deposit:
that
there
is a
sudden and
very large
increase in the
years
1316-18:
and
that the
number of
coins
per
year
before
I28o
is
relatively very
small.
Leaving
aside the first
two,
let us look at the third of these
unexpected things.
There are
various
possible
reasons for
the small
numbers of
early
coins.
After
sixty
years'
use it
might
be
that most of them were so worn that
they
would
not be
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THE
CURRENCY
OF DENIERS
TOURNOIS
IN
FRANKISH GREECE
41
hoarded.
A
comparison
with earlier
hoards shows that the
proportion
is,
perhaps,
somewhat
low
in
the
Orion find
(see
TABLE
3),
but that it
does not differ
from the
general
run
sufficiently
to stand out on the available evidence.
If the
graph
reflects
the
mint-output
accurately,
the
straightforward explanation
is that
the volume of
coinage
struck
in Frankish Greece
increased
ten- or
twenty-fold
very
soon after
1280.
Other
possible
reasons are that
Schlumberger's
date of
I250 for the beginning of the tournois oinage may be in error-as I think it is-or that there may
Hoard
Deposit
Before1278
(XII,
zz-st)
1289-13o0
(XII,
18-19)
Delphi, 1929
Attica
(?),
195I
Orion,
I959
Atalandhi,
1940
1311?
1318-20
1320-5
1325-30
35
'9
25
33
100
100
100
100
TABLE
3. Proportions
of the earliest Achaian
tournois,
elative
to
those of Isabel
and
Florent,
in hoards of
early deposit.
have been a recall of
the
coinage,
so that
only
a
few
stray
finds of earlier date
remained
in
the
currency.
The latter is somewhat awkwardto dismiss.
Any
such recall must
presumably
have
been
before about
128o.
The first
four substantive Achaian
issues,
from the
years
before
1289,
occur
in
quantities
large enough
to
be
statistically
at all reliable
in
only
five
hoards
among
those so
far
published.
Their
numbers,
as
well
as
the
proportions,
are set out
in
TABLE
4,
SO
s to
Hoard
Deposit
William
XII, II XII,
12
Charles
XII,
i6
Charles
I
XII, 17
Quantities
Xirokhori,
'957
Delphi, 1929
Orion,
1959
Delphi, I894 B
Delphi,
x894
A
Proportions
Xirokhori,
'957
Delphi,
1929
Orion,
1959
Delphi, 1894
B
Delphi, 1894
A
I285-7
1311?
1320-5
1325-40
1400-20
I285-7
1311?
1320-5
1325-40
14o00-2o0
152
13
7
3
39
21
68
54
3
95
127
8
6
o
i8
42
46
o
766
2
2
13
Io
Io7
II
'5
'4
24
715
'9
13
90
4I
I00
I00
I00
I00o
100
TABLE
.
Quantities
and
proportions
of the first four
issues of
Achaian tournois.
(Schl.
XII,
17 =
Ioo.)
providean examplewhere the reader can see the kind of evidence on which the tables through-
out
the article
are based.
The
coins
attributed to
Charles
I,
which are
regularly
much fewer than
those
of
Charles
II,
outnumber
them
in
the Xirokhori
find, where,
also,
Charles
II's coins are
more
numerous,
compared
with those
of
William,
than
they
normally
are.
The
obvious
explanation
is that this
hoard,
while
containing
a
preponderance
of
recent
issues,
was concealed
before
many
of Charles
II's
coins
were
current,
that
is,
early
in his
reign.
The virtual absence
of
early
coins
from
Delphi
1894
B
suggests
that
it
may
have been
a
savings-hoard
consisting
of
good
coins
carefully
selected;
at
any
rate,
Delphi
1929,
Orion,
and
Delphi
1894
A
seem
to be uniform
enough
for a
special explanation
to
be needed
for
Delphi
1894
B. If those three
hoards
are
accepted
as
typical,
one
can
say
that the total
output
of
coinage
under
William
was about the
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42
D. M.
METCALF
same as that
under
Charles
II,
while Charles I's issues were between
Io
and
25
per
cent.
as
great
in
quantity.
As Charles II's
reign
was
comparatively
short,
there was thus an
increase
in
mint-output
from about
I285.
(But
see
the
notes on the
types:
should the attribution of
XII,
I6
and
17
be
regarded
as
certain?)
If these
early
coins
were
strays
which had
escaped
a
general
recall of
the
coinage,
I
doubt
whether the proportions would tally so well. Nothing final can be said until some more hoards
deposited
before
I3oo
have been
discovered and
published,
but
the available evidence
already
suggests
that there was no recall. The
beginning
of the Athenian
tournois
ssues, therefore,
seems
to have coincided with a
large
increase in the volume of the
coinage
of
Frankish
Greece.
The
column-graph
in
FIG.
2
represents
an even more
striking
rise in
mint-output during
the
sole
reign
of
Maud,
which lasted
only
for
twenty
months
(July
1316-March
1318).
It is
reason-
Coins/Year
25
20
15
10
5
Deposit
?
1250
1260 1270
1280 1290
1300 1310
1320
1330
FIG. 2. COLUMN-GRAPH
SHOWING
THE
AGE-STRUCTURE OF
THE
ORION HOARD ACCORDING TO
SCHLUMBERGER'S
ATTRIBUTIONS. (Note
that
some
of these are
questioned below.)
able to
suppose
that the
Orion hoard was
deposited
quite
early
in
John's
reign,
so that the
large
number of
Maud's coins
might
be
no
more than
a
preponderance
of recent issues.
In
hoards
which
were
certainly deposited
many years
later,
however,
the
same
unexpected proportions
are
found.
There is
no known reason
why
the
coinage
of this short
reign
should
be so
abundant,
and
the
graph
in
fact
provides
an
argument
for
attributing
some
of Maud's
coins to her
joint
reign
with
Louis of
Burgundy
(1313-16),
and others to
the first
three
years
of the
reign ofJohn,
before
Maud was
finally deprived
of
her
fief.
If
the
coinage
in
the name of Maud
was
struck for
eight years,
the
proportions
in
which it
occurs
in
the
hoards
appear
more reasonable.
They
fit
in
better, also,
with the
pattern
of a
decline in the
output
of
coinage
in
the second
decade of the
fourteenth
century.
Coins in the name of Isabel, like those of Maud, are commoner than would be expected from
the
length
of
her
sole
reign;
it seems
possible
that
they,
similarly,
were struck
during
much or
all
of
the
period I289-1307.
Quite
the
most
intriguing
fact
revealed
by
a
comparative study
of
the hoards
is that
coins
issued
at the
mint of
Lepanto
in
the
years
around
I300
could still be much commoner
in
the
currency
of the
near-by region
than
they
were
elsewhere,
forty
years
later.
The
regional
circula-
tion
of
coinage
often
provides
interesting
clues
to
the
purpose
for
which
it
was
used,
especially
when
the
output
of a number of
different
mints
can be
distinguished.
Whereas,
broadly
speak-
ing,
the
tournois of
Athens,
Achaia,
and
Epirus
circulated
freely
in each
other's
territories
throughout
the
whole
of
Greece,
they
did
not,
even over a
long
period,
become
completely
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THE
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GREECE
43
intermingled
in the
currency.
In the Patras
hoard,
for
example,
the coins of the mint of
Lepanto
(which
is
only
a
short
distance
away,
across the Gulf of
Corinth)
are
unusually heavily
repre-
sented
(see
TABLE
5).
If
they
were still concentrated in their
region
of issue after
forty years'
circulation,
how
much the more so must
they
not have been
shortly
after
they
were struck? The
figure
of5o
for the
Epirote
coins
in the small Tritaea hoard
helps
to confirm that the
proportion
in the Patras hoard is not accidentally large. These two proportions may be contrasted with the
figures
of 26 and 21 in the
provenances
farthest from
Lepanto.
Similarly,
the two
early
hoards
from
Delphi, deposited only
a
few
years
after the issue of the
type,
show a low
proportion.
Here
the
explanation
is that
the coins
had not had time to circulate
beyond
their
region
of
issue in
large
numbers.
The
Delphi I894
B
hoard,
in
this as
in
other
respects,
is somewhat
puzzling.
The relative
proportions
of Athenian
and Achaian coins
vary,
as can be seen
by
a
study
of
TABLE
,
almost
entirely according
to the time-interval between the date of issue and the
date
Hoard
Deposit
Clarentzia
1278-1307
(XII,
16-20o)
Lepanto
1294-1307
(XIII,
20)
Thebes
128o-13o8
(XIII,2-9)
South-westernrea
Tritaea,
'933
Patras,
1955
Central rea
Delphi, 1933
Delphi, 1929
Delphi,
1894
B.
Delphi, 1894
r.
Delphi,
1894
A.
North-eastern
rea
Orion,
1959
Atalandhi,
1940
1320o-35
I343-55
1301-5
I3II?
I325-40
I339-44
14oo00-20
1320-5
1325-30
69
86
44
52
89
7'
76
66
71
50
59
22
29
31*
36*
43*
26
21
100
100
100
100
100
100
100
100
100
TABLE
. Proportions
of the coins of the three chief mints from the
years 1278/80-
1307/8
in hoards from different
regions. (Thebes
=
ioo.
The
sign
*
indicates an
approximation, assuming
that
seven-eighths
of
the
Epirote
coins of
Philip
are
of
type
XIII,
20.)
of
deposit.
In
the
earliest hoards
in
the
list,
namely
those from
Delphi,
which was outside
Achaian
territory,
the
figures
for the Clarentzia mint are at their lowest. In later
hoards,
the
distance
from Clarentzia does not seem to be
of
much
account.
Thus
the
proportion
is
higher
in
the distant
Orion hoard than
in
the
roughly contemporary
Attica
find,
and
again
it is
higher
in the
distant Atalandhi hoard
than in
the
contemporary
Tritaea hoard.
The
beginning
and
end
of
the
reigns
of the rulers of Achaia and Athens coincide
quite
con-
veniently, so that it is possible to compare the output of the Athenian and Achaian mints over
almost
exactly
the same
period
(Athens
I280-1308;
Achaia
I278-1307).
The more
equal pro-
portions
of the later
hoards,
which were drawn from a
currency
that had had time to become
more
fully intermingled,
are the better
guide.
If we
say
that Clarentzia was
striking 70-80
coins
for
every
Ioo
from
Thebes,
we shall
probably
not be
far
wrong.
The
output
of each of the mints did
not, however,
remain
steady throughout
these three
decades. If the
figures
are broken down
further,
it can be seen that between
I278/80
and
I287
the
dominance
of the Athenian mint was much
greater
than over
the
period
as a
whole;
from
I287
to
1294
it
apparently
almost ceased
production;
and from
I294
to
1318
its
output
was in
keeping
with the
average.
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44
D. M.
METCALF
Even the
hoards from
the
Peloponnese
do not
show
proportions rising
significantly
above the
figure
of
70-80
which
has been
mentioned. There is
one
exception,
the
Xirokhori find. It
was
concealed not
long
after
1285,
that
is,
at the
time when the
Athenian
mint was
striking perhaps
as much
as three times
as
much
money
as the
Achaian. Yet
for
I
oo
Athenian
coins
of
1280-7
the
hoard contains
234
Achaian of
the
years
I278-85.
It
seems
that the
coinage
issued at Thebes
had not had time to penetrate very much into the western Peloponnese.
How
many years
was
it,
one
wonders,
after
its date of
issue,
that an
Athenian
coinage
assumed
roughly
the
same
proportions
in
Achaia as
existed
between the
outputs
of the two
mints?
If
one could
follow the
movements of the coins
struck
in
the
year
130oo,
what
percentage
of the
coins
from
Clarentzia
would
have
found their
way
to
Attica
in
twelve
months? in
five
years?
There is
not
enough
suitable
evidence to be
able to
say very
much.
Epirote
coins at
Delphi
had
reached about the
same
proportion
after
ten
years'
circulation
as
they
had on the
north-eastern
coasts after
twenty-five
years
(TABLE 5).
The
proportion
of Achaian
coins in the
currency
of central
Greece
seems still
to have been
increasing
after
they
had
been in
circulation
for
twenty
years.
Several
more
large
hoards
of
early
deposit
from
localities
appropriate
to the
problem
will
have to be
published
before
it will be
possible
to estimate
the rate of
circulation
at all
accurately.
Perhaps
something
of the order of
20
per
cent. of the
currency
of Achaia
would be
carried into
Athenian
territory,
and
vice
versa,
in ten
years.7
The
coins of
the minor
mints,
Neopatras,
Arta,
Tinos,
and
Chios,
which
normally together
make
up
less than
2
per
cent.
of a
hoard,
were
quite probably
commoner than
that in their
respective
regions
of
issue. Even
so,
their
role
in
the
monetary
history
of
Frankish
Greece
was
obviously
a small
one. There
is at
present
no
way
of
guessing
how much of the
currency
of the
outlying
regions
was
supplied by
the local
mints. The
discovery
of a
large
tournois
hoard,
deposited
in
the second or
third decade
of
the
fourteenth
century,
in
Thessaly,
or north-western
Epirus,
or the
Cyclades,
or
the coasts of
Asia
Minor,
could
hardly
fail to
add some
interesting
information
to
our
knowledge
of
the Frankish
currency.
At Neopatras, the most active of the minor mints, coins were struck for John II of Great
Wallachia.
He
began
his
reign,
in
1303,
as a
child,
and was
placed
under the
protection
of
Guy
II
of
Athens,
whose
own
interest
in a
flourishing coinage may
account
for
the
volume of the
Wallachian
copies.
It
seems
likely
that the death of
Guy
in
1308
and the Catalan
Company's
raid
of
1309
brought
their
issue to an end.
TABLE 6
shows the
proportions
of
coins of
Neopatras
to the
contemporary
issues of
Guy
II
(1294-1308)
in
various
hoards.
The
figures
suggest
that
the
volume
of
John's
coinage
was,
roughly,
between
2
and
5 per
cent. of the
Athenian.
If
its
issue
was
confined to the
years
1303-8,
the
output
of the
mint
per
annum must
have
been at
least
5
per
cent. of the
Athenian
amount.
The
mint
of
Tinos,
which
was
working
in
the same
period,
seems,
by
comparison,
to have
issued
far
less
coinage.
A hoard of unknown provenance, discovered in i858, yielded Lambros some Chiote tournois,
together
with the then
unique
coin
of
Damala.8 No other hoard
is
known in
which more than
7
The
following rough
calculation will
show how a cer-
tain rate
of
regional
circulation
would
be reflected in the
proportions
of
the
types
in different
areas.
Assuming
that
the mints in
territories A and B issued
similar
quantities
of
coinage,
Iooa
and
Ioob,
and that the rate
of
regional
exchange
was
20
per
cent. of the
currency
each ten
years,
the
subsequent
occurrence of the
coinage
of that
particular
date would
be: after
Io years,
in
territory
A,
8oa+20b,
in
territory
B,
2oa+
8ob. In the next
o years
the
process
of
mingling
would
be
slower,
since
the
coinage
moving
from A to B
would be
I6a
plus 4b,
and vice
versa.
Thus,
after 20
years,
A
=
68a+32b,
B =
32a+68b.
After
30
years,
A =
6Ia
+
39b,
B =
39a
+
6ib.
After
40 years,
A =
56a+44b,
B
=
44a+56b.
These
figures, although
they
are
very
much
of a
simplification,
draw
attention
to
the
differences
which one should
expect
between
hoards
deposited
shortly,
and
those
deposited
a
long
time,
after
the
issue
of
the coins
they
contain.
8
See
P.
Lambros,
Milanges
de
Numismatique
i
(1877)
246
ff.,
and
Schlumberger,
under the
appropriate types.
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THE
CURRENCY
OF
DENIERS
TOURNOIS
IN
FRANKISH
GREECE
45
one Chiote coin
was
present,
so
that
it is
a
matter for
regret
that the
1858
hoard was not
properly
published.
It
may simply
have
been
a
very large
hoard similar
in
composition
to
those from
Orion and
Atalandhi,
but it seems
more
likely
that
it was of
an eastern
Aegean
provenance,
and
was
drawn from
a
currency
in which
Chiote coins formed
an
appreciable
proportion.
The
evidence
from
the
find is so
vague
that
it would be considered
worthless
were
it not the best
that there is.9
There were
four coins of the
mint of
Arta
in the Atalandhi hoard.
The
large
deposits
of
Delphi
1894
B
and
A
each
contained
only
one similar
piece,
while
there were
two
in
the Patras
hoard.
Thus,
there was
an
unusually
high proportion
of
the
type
in the Atalandhi
find.
If
the
discovery
of
another
north-eastern
hoard
brought
more coins
of Arta
to
light,
the
numismatic
evidence
would
point
to trade
along
a route
between Arta
and
Thessaly.
Hoard
Deposit
Neopatras
(XIII,
17-19)
Tinos
(XIII, 29)
Delphi, 1929
Attica
(?), '95'
Attica, 1950
Orion,
1959
Delphi,
1894
B
Delphi, I894
r
Patras,
1955
Elevsis,
1952
Delphi, I894
A
1311
1318-20
1318-25
132o-5
I325-40
I339-44
I343-55
1365-80
1400-20
I.6
4'7
(20)
1.7
2.5
2 I
(8.3)
4.3
2 0
0 2
(8.3)
1.4
TABLE
6.
Proportions
of
coins
of
Neopatras
and Tinos to those of
Guy
II
(XIII,
9
=
zoo)
in hoards of various dates.
(The figures
in
brackets
are
based
on
quantities
which are
too small to be
reliable.)
The
battle of the
river Kifissos
in
1311
brought
to an end the
Frankish
coinage
of
the
duchy
of Athens, and marked the beginning of the decline in the currency of denierstournois n the
whole
of Greece.
Although
that
decline
is
an
interesting topic
for
study,
the
problems
to be
resolved
in the
first
place
are
those of
the
period
before
131
I,
when
the
monetary system
was
supplying
the
needs of
a
prosperous
economy
in a secure
state,
and when as
many
as three
large
mints
were at work.
Unfortunately,
the
distribution
of the evidence
does
not match
that
of
the
interest,
since
almost
all the hoards
come
from the
fourteenth
century,
and
provide
only
retro-
spective
evidence
about
the earlier
period.
The
importance
of the
Delphi
hoards
and,
even
more,
of the
Xirokhori
hoard
arises
from
their
early
date
of
deposit.
They
are
early,
however,
only
in
relation
to
the other
finds. The
Xirokhori
hoard
was not concealed
until
tournois
had been
in
circulation
for
at least
twenty years.
The
origin
of
the tournois
oinage
and
its relation
to
the
early
issues
in
other
styles
are
the most
important, and difficult, two problems in the monetary history of Frankish Greece. Schlum-
berger
submitted
without
reservation
that
tournois
were
first struck in Achaia in
125o
as
a
result
of an
audience
which
William of Villehardouin
had
with
King
Louis IX
in
Cyprus
in
I249;
the
coinages
in other
styles,
he
said,
were
struck
doubtless before
that
date. This
view needs to be
re-examined
in some
detail,
since
it involves a number
of difficulties
which
Schlumberger
did
not take
sufficiently
into
account.
The
text which
he
accepted
as crucial
comes
from
Marin
Sanudo's
Istoria del
regno
di
Romania,
where
it is recorded
that
William
sought
and obtained
permission
to issue
coinage,
with the
9
A similar
shred
of evidence
for the
circulation
of
later
Chiote
coins
(not
tournois)
s
provided
by
the
parcels
auctioned
in the
Hoffmann
sale
(Collection
H.
Hoffmann:
Mddailles.
Drouot, May
I
Ith,
I898,
lots
2826
ff.).
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8/9/2019 The currency of "deniers tournois" in Frankish Greece / [D.M. Metcalf]
11/24
46
D.
M.
METCALF
following
words:
'Signor
Sir,
tu sei
maggior Signor
di
me,
e
poi
condur Gente dove vuoi e
quanta
vuoi senza denari: io non
posso
far
cosi.'Io
William's
request
of the
right
to strike his own
coins
(Achaia
was
certainly
not without a
currency
of
foreign
coins after
the
conquest
and
before
the
autonomous issues
began)
was
made
on
the
grounds
of his
need to
pay
his
military
forces.
Hopf
concluded from the
text,
logically
enough,
that all the Achaian
coinage
was
struck
after
I250.
Schlumberger's nterpretation,which was that the coins not in the tournoistyle were
struck before
I25o,
seems
inconsistent,
since William's
argument
would have
been
very
dis-
ingenuous
if
he were
already issuing
coinage.
Sanudo was
writing
about
an
incident which
had
happened
sixty
or
seventy
years
before. It
is
likely
that
he
may
have
had
good
sources
of
information,
even
if he was not
working
from
a
document
giving
a
contemporary
verbatim
report
by
an
eyewitness,
and in
any
case one should
never dismiss
puzzling
evidence without
good
reason. On the other
hand,
even
if
William
secured the
king's permission
in
I249
to strike
coinage,
he
may
not
necessarily
have used the
arguments
which Sanudo sets
down,
and even
if he
did
they may
not
have
expressed
all the
advantages
of
a
coinage
as
the
prince
saw
them,
or
as
they
in fact were. For
example,
it
seems
clear that the Frankish
coinage
in
general
was
used
mainly
for
purposes
of
commerce,
rather
than for
paying
the
military
forces.
Medieval
coinage
provides
a
good many
instances of two
authorities,
whose
territorieswere
adjacent
to
each
other,
issuing
coins
very
similar
in
fabric, value,
and
design.
Sometimes the
copying
of a
type
led
to
resentment,
and
a document
may
have survived
through
which one
authority
makes
a
complaint,
or seeks to
limit the circulation of the rival
coinage
or to ensure
that its intrinsicvalue is maintained at
a
certain standard.
At other times a
jointly
issued
coinage
resulted from
an
agreement
between
the
authorities,
which
may
be attested
by
the survival
of
a written
reference,
or which
may
be known
only
from
the
evidence
of the
coins.
It
is a
not
uncommon
experience
in numismatic
study
to realize that
a
parallel coinage
has been
'sitting',
unobserved,
in
front
of
one's
eyes:
thus,
for
example,
the
significance
of the obvious
parallels
between the Achaian and Athenian coinages,about which unfortunatelyno survivingdocument
comments,
has
escaped
consideration
n
the
past.
As
well
as deniers
ournois,
oth
series include
coins modelled on Genoese denariwith
a
gateway
as
their
type.
Whether
or not the Frankish
parallel
coinages
were
authorized
by
a formal
agreement,any problempresented
by
the Achaian
series
obviously ought
to be studied in the
light
of
the Athenian
coinage
as well.
The Athenian
coinage
in
what
may
for convenience be called the
'Italian'
style
is more
varied than the
comparable
series
from Achaia.
As
well as
the 'Genoese
Gateway' type,
it
includes others which show a
fleur-de-lis,
a
monogram,
a
castle,
or
the de la Roche arms.
Most
of these coins
are
of
copper,
unlike the
tournois,
which are
almost
always
of
billon
(base
silver). They
were
perhaps
all of the same nominal
value,
but it is not known
how
many
of them
went to a denier ournois.
It is certain that coins in the 'Italian' style were issued in the territoryof Athens, if not in
Achaia,
well after
I25o,
and it is also
certain,
leaving
aside Sanudo's
statement,
that such
Athenian
coins were struck
after the
beginning
of the tournois
oinage
in Achaia. Before his visit
to France in
I259-60,
Guy
I
(1225-63) styled
himself
megaskyr
f
Athens,
but afterwards duke.
The coins which have
G.DNS
dominus)
nd
G.DVX
n their
legends
must
have been issued before
and after
I260
respectively.
Guy
II,
who became duke as a
child,
was
known
as Guiot. The
10
M.
Sanudo,
Istoria del
regno
di
romania,
d.
K.
Hopf,
in
Chroniquesrdco-romaines
niditesou
peu
connues
187o)
1o2.
11
e.g.
Luschin's
recovery
of the
Konventionsmiinzung
t
Ptuj;
see A. Luschin von
Ebengreuth,
'Friesacher
Pfennige.
Beitrige
zu ihrer
Miinzgeschichte
und zur Kenntnis ihrer
Gepriige', .Numismatische
eitschrift
1922,
89
fft.,
and
I923,
33
ftf.
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12/24
THE
CURRENCY OF DENIERS TOURNOIS
IN
FRANKISH GREECE
47
coin
in
the 'Italian'
style
with
GVIOT
n the
legend (there
is also a rare
tournois
ype
with
the
same
name)
doubtless
belongs
to
the
years
of
his
minority
(1287-94).
There was never much
doubt
that the Achaian tournois nscribed G.PRINCEPS
ere
struck before
1278,
and the Xirokhori
hoard makes the
dating quite
certain.
The same hoard
makes
the
dating
of the Athenian tour-
noiswith
the
legend
G.Dvx
o
I280-7
equally
indisputable.
In
the
duchy
of
Athens,
then,
'Italian'
and tournoisoinageswere being struckat the same time, and unless their circulation was very
limited,
which
is
improbable,
tournois nd 'Italian'
coins must have been in
use side
by
side
in
parts
at
any
rate of Achaia.
The
Achaian issue
of
the
'Genoese
Gateway'
type
was
found
in
unexpectedly large
numbers
during
the
American
excavations
of
Acrocorinth.
Bellinger
asso-
ciated the fact with the
building
and
repairs
which William
(1246-78)
carried out on
Acro-
corinth,
and
suggested
an attribution of the
type
to his
reign
on
those
grounds.IZ
This
piece
of
evidence
suggests
that the
type
should
probably
be dated to after rather
than before
1250.
Enough
has been said to indicate that the
two
main kinds of
coinage
were
not
straightforwardly
successive,
as
Schlumberger thought.
Only
once
have
coins in the 'Italian'
style
been
recorded
from a Frankish
tournois
oard,
and
then there were
merely
two
among
2,500
coins in a
fourteenth-century
hoard
(Delphi
1894
B);
nor has a hoard of
'Italian'-style
coins ever been
published.
They are not as rare, however, as
the
evidence of the hoards
might
mislead one
to
suppose,
for
among
the
many stray
finds in
the
American
excavations
at Corinth and
Athens,
they easily
outnumber
the
deniersournois. he vast
majority
of
the
tens of thousands of coins of
all
periods
which have been
discovered
there,
nearly
all one
by
one,
is made
up
of
pieces
of small
value. When
someone
dropped
a
gold
or
silver
coin,
he went on
looking
for
it until
he found it: if a
petty
coin was
dropped,
it
seems that
it
was not
always
thought
to be worth a
protracted
search.
The
high proportion
of coins in the
'Italian'
style
among
the
stray
finds,
and their absence from
the
hoards,
shows that
they
were
used
as
a
petty
coinage.
The
currency
of
Frankish
Greece
during
most of the second half of the thirteenth
century
probablyconsisted of a standardcoinage of billon with a petty coinage of copperin use along-
side it. The
copper
coinage
may
have
remained
in use for
many years
after
it ceased to be
struck,
as the
two
coins
in
Delphi 1894
B
must have done.
One
may
doubt whether there was a time
before the introduction of the
Achaian tournois hen
the little
copper pieces
were the
standard
coinage.
It
may
turn out that the lack
of
evidence from
the
years
1250-85
is not
complete,
for there is
one
hoard,
discovered
in
Corinth
in
May 1934,
which
was
deposited
some
years
after
1253.
It
consisted
largely
of
French deniers
ournois,
ogether
with a few
English
and Venetian
coins,
and
one
gold
nomisma
f the
empire
of Nicaea. On
publication,
it was
described as a crusader's
hoard. Half a dozen
crusading
hoards are known from
the
Balkans.
They may
be characterized
by
saying
that each
deposit
is
recognizably
a sum of
money put together
at some
place
in
western Europe, and carried more or less intact to the East. Thus, for example, a hoard dis-
covered
(again)
in
Corinth,
in
1907,
consisting
of
119
coins of Clermont and one of Le
Puy,
together
with
one
Byzantine
nomisma,'3
bviously
was the
money
of a
crusaderwhose home was
in
or near
Clermont;
one
may
even
go
on to
guess
that
at the
beginning
of his
journey
he made
his
petitions
to
our
Lady
of Le
Puy,
and
kept
a
maille
du
Puy
as a
souvenir
of
the
pilgrimage.'4
The
currency
of
France in the
1250's
and
I260's
was
in a
state
of
rapid change,
and
it is
merely
unfortunate that if the
Corinth
1934
hoard
had been
put
together
at some
particular place
in
12
See Corinth
ii/
i:
Acrocorinth...
1926,
66
ff.,
by
A. R.
Bellinger.
13
See Corinth
Reports
VI:
Coins,
r896-1929,
by
K. M.
Edwards,
1932.
'4
On the
dispersal
of the mailledu
Puy
as a souvenirof
pilgrimages
ee Blanchet-Dieudonn6v.
x5,
246.
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48
D. M.
METCALF
France,
there
would
be less
chance of
recognizing
the fact than if its
deposit
had
been
fifty
or
a
hundred
years
earlier.
It
seems
possible
that the Corinth
find
was not
a
crusader's
hoard,
but
was,
in
fact,
a sum
of
money
intended for
local
currency.
While
any
find which can be associated
with the
Crusades
is of
lively
interest,
the Corinth hoard would be
of
much
more
significance
if it
could be
shown
not to be so, for it would suggest that the currency of Frankish deniers ournoisreplaced or was
supplemented by
an earlier
currency
of French denier ournois.If the coins
were
shown to be a
sum
drawn from the local
currency,
the hoard would
virtually prove
that
Frankish
tournoiswere
not
yet
current at
some
date
after
1253
when the hoard was concealed.
Clearly
it will be
impor-
tant to
demonstrate
the character
of the hoard as
fully
as
possible;
at
present,
the
two
explana-
tions for it
which
seem most
likely
are that the
money
was drawn from the local
currency,
or
that it
had
recently
been
brought
to Greece
by
a merchant or traveller
from
Provence. The
presence
of
Venetian
and Nicaean
coins favours the
former,
but until at
least one
more hoard
from the
i250's
or
I260's
has come
to
light
in
Greece,
nothing
conclusive can
be
said. There
are,
in
the
meantime,
two
arguments
which
suggest
that
the hoard of
I934
may
well
have
been
destined to be added to the
currency
of
Corinth,
even
if
it was not drawn from
it.
(i)
French
tournois ccur in
very
small
proportions
in some of the Greek hoards.
They
made
up
I
8
per
cent.
of the
Xirokhori
hoard,
I'4
per
cent. of the Attica
195I
hoard,
0o2
per
cent.
of the Orion
hoard,
and
0.3
per
cent. of the
Delphi I894
B hoard. On the
other
hand,
similar coins
have
been
found
at Corinth
in
very
much
larger proportions.
Over the
years
1896-1939,
141 stray
finds
of the French
types
listed in
TABLE
7
were
discovered,
while the Frankish tournois
amounted to
only
twice as
many.'s
The
early
Frankish tournoisare
relatively
commoner
among
the
stray
finds than
they
are in the hoards.
This is no doubt
partly
because the
chances of a
coin's
being
lost are
proportional,
inter
alia,
to
the
length
of time for which it remained in
circulation;
it has
already
been shown
that coins did
not fall
out of use to
any great
extent. This
factor,
it
will be
realized,
may completely
dominate the
pattern
of
proportions
among
a
series of
stray
finds.
Although the quantity of French tournois rom the Corinth finds may, therefore, give an exag-
gerated
impression
of their
place
in
the
currency,
it
suggests strongly
that at some time
they
were
commoner
than
one would have
supposed
from the Frankish hoards.
(2)
Some of the
stray
finds
are
coins which
are
known
to
have
been struck after
1251,
and others are
only
a little
earlier.
Many
of
the coins
of Louis
IX,
which are
not
easy
to date
exactly,'6
are
probably
also from
the
same
time,
so that a fair
proportion
of the French tournois annot have been
brought
to
Greece
until
after the middle of the
century,
and must have been current there in the
I250's
or later.
The
single
coin
of
Philippe
III
among
the French tournois
n
the Xirokhori hoard
shows that
the French coins were still
finding
their
way
to Greece after
I270,
but also that the
movement
had
largely
come to an end
by
that date. The
eight
French
coins
in
the
Delphi I894
B
hoard,
deposited
after
c.
1325,
were all struck before about
I270.
The unexpectedly high proportion of Provengal coins in the same hoard and in the Corinth
hoard
and
stray
finds
suggests
that some
quite
permanent
connexion between
Provence and
Greece
may
have
played
a
part
in
Frankish
monetary
history.
In
the
large
French
hoards
of
Saint-Clair-sur-Elle'7
and
Sierck,'8
the
proportions
derived from which
are
in
reasonably
close
15
Because
of
the
summary
form in which
the finds were
published,
it is not
possible
to
give
complete figures.
Excluding
the
tournois
f
William
of
Achaia,
but
including,
no
doubt,
some
non-tournois
oins from
Athens,
there were
299.
16
Coins
with
TVRONVS
IVIS
ere
probably
struck late in
the
reign
of Louis
IX
(Blanchet-Dieudonn6
ii.
229).
In
any
case,
the
hoard
has
not
yet
been
published
in
detail.
17
A.
Dieudonn6,
Revue
numismatique908,
499
if.
18
E.
Gariel,
Mdlanges
de
numismatique
ii
(1882)
80 ft.,
and
E.
Caron,
ibid.
240
f. The
quantities
of the
royal types
were
given
in
kilogrammes,
so
that
the
figures
which I have
given
are
only approximate.
Nor have I
attempted
to
correct
any
attributions in the
light
of
subsequent
research,
in
either this or the Saint-Clair hoard.
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THE
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TOURNOIS
IN
FRANKISH GREECE
49
agreement
with each
other, Provengal
coins made
up
less
than
2
per
cent. of
the
total,
among
the
types
listed in
TABLE
7. By
contrast,
the
figures
for the three Greek sources are all over
8
per
cent. Charles
I
of
Anjou,
count of
Provence,
was also
prince
of
Achaia,
from
1278
to
I285.
Both
in
Provence and
in Achaia he
struck
deniers ournois.The administrative link between the
two
territories,
which no doubt occasioned various official
journeys
and
may
have stimulated
trade,
is sufficient to explain the occurrence of Provenal currency in Greece.
Conclusionsof wider
significancespring
to mind.
By
the
treaty
of Viterbo
in
1267
William of
Villehardouin
willingly accepted Angevin overlordship
of Achaia.
Might
not the
Achaian
tournoiswhich bear his name have been issued
only
after that date? Were the coins inscribed
G.
PRINCE.ACH,
for
example,
modelled
not on those of Louis IX but on the
Provengal
coins
reading
K.COMES.P.?
If the
beginning
of the Achaian tournois
coinage
could be
placed
as late
as
1267,
several
aspects
of the numismatic evidence
which on
Schlumberger's dating
seem rather
French
royal
and
eudal)
tournois
types
Corinth
'934
Corinth
finds,
1896-1939
Xirokhori
'957
Saint-
Clair
(1257-)
Sierck
(c. 1325)
Tours,
late
XII-early
XIII c.
Philippe
II,
1180o-I223
Louis VIII and
IX,
1223-70
Philippe
III,
127o-85
Charles of
Anjou,
count of
Provence,
1246-85
Raimond
VII,
marquis
of
Provence,
I222-49
Alphonse,
marquis
of
Provence,
1249-71
-
count of Toulouse
-
count
of Riom
count of Poitou.
i8
8
63
2 4
6
0o5
1.4
0.5
100
(369)
22
64
9
2 8
2I1
100
(14I)
17
2
6o
17
7
100oo
(42)
16
5
77
0o5
I'I
O'I
0.3
o0I
100
(1853)
22
8
6o
9
0o7
I'I
0o5
0o5
0o2
100
(c.
13,ooo)
TABLE
7. Proportions
of
French
deniers
ournois rom the Corinth
1934
hoard and from various other sources.
(The figures
in
brackets
in
the bottom
row are the numbers of coins on which the
proportions
are
based.)
unsatisfactory
or
unexpected
would
fit better into
place.
The
apparently
very
low
output per
annum of the Clarentzia mint under William would be increased
by
the altered attribution.
The interval before the
duchy
of Athens
began
to
copy
the
Achaian
type
would
be
lessened. The
lack of
early
hoards would be
explained,
as would the use of French tournois
up
to
c.
127o.
The
treaty
of
Viterbo,
by
which
Achaia became an
Angevin
fief,
draws attention
to another
puzzling
feature of the anecdote from Sanudo's
Istoria.
William
is
represented
as
asking
his
feudal overlord for a
grant
of the
right
to strike
coinage.
He held his
fief
of
Achaia, however,
not
from the
king
of
France,
but from the Latin
emperor
of
Constantinople: why
should
he
have
made
his
request
to
King
Louis?
There
is,
until more hoards are discovered and
published,
a
lack
of conclusive evidence about
the
origin
and
early history
of the
deniers ournois n Greece. Sanudo's narrative does not com-
mand
confidence,
and all the numismatic evidence there is
points
to a later
date.
The
treaty
of
Viterbo seems
a
very plausible
occasion;
I
submit,
provisionally,
that the tournois
oinage began
soon after that
date.
On
this
view,
Sanudo was in error. His anecdote
may originally
have been
intended to
explain
the
similarity
between
Frankish
coins
and the
very
common
tournoisof
Louis IX. The
memory
of that
king's monetary
reforms
may
have lent some colour to the
confusion.
The first clue about the economic
background
to the
currency
of
deniers ournois
n
Frankish
Greece is to
be
found
from the
stray
discoveries at Corinth and Athens.
Their
proportions
are
B
8491
E
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50
D. M.
METCALF
set out
in TABLE
8.
In
the
light
of the
hoard-evidence,
which is
fairly
consistent no
matter
what
the
provenance
of
the
hoard,
the
stray
finds indicate a
remarkably great
difference
between
the
currency
of the two towns. In
Athens,
Athenian
tournois
ar
outnumber
the
Achaian,
while in
Corinth the
position
is
reversed,
and it
is
Achaian
coins which
are
the
more
plentiful.
In order
to contrast the evidence of the hoards and
stray
finds more
conveniently,
TABLE
9
has been
prepared, in which the proportions in rows (c) and (g) of
TABLE
8 are adjusted to compare as far
Corinth
finds,
1896-1939
Athens
inds,
1931-49
Achaiancoins
(a)
Charles
I
and II
(b)
Florent, Isabel,
and
Philip
of
Savoy
(c)
TOTAL
Achaia
I278-1307
(d) Philip
of
Taranto,
Maud
and
John
Athenian
oins
(e)
William
(f)
Guy
II
(g)
TOTAL Athens
I280-1308
I9
30
49
io
?
24
'7
?
4r
Ioo00
(288)
6
II
'7
8
8
67
75
IGO
(263)
TABLE .
Proportions
of
tournois f Achaia
and Athens
among
the
stray
finds from
Corinth and Athens.
(On
queried
figures
see
note
in
text.)
as
possible
with
the ratio of
mint-output
of
70/80
:Ioo
suggested
above for Clarentzia and
Thebes
in the
years 1278/80-1307/8.
The form of
publication
does not allow this to be done
exactly,
as
the
number
of tournois f William de
la Roche is not
always
stated. If the facts
diverge
from the
approximation,
they
cannot alter the
point
I am
making,
and would
probably
be
in
the direction
to
strengthen
it.
The
stray
finds show
that in the
currency
of the town itself of
Achaian coins
of
1278-3o707
Athenian oins
of
128o-r3o8
Corinth
inds
Hoard-evidence
Athens
inds
Io20
70/80
23
I00
I00
I00
TABLE
9.
The
evidence
of the hoards and of the
stray
finds
compared:
the
proportions
of Athenian
and
Achaian coins of
1278/80-1307/8. (See
note
in
text.)
Athens the local issues
were
far more
heavily represented
than
in
the
currency,
or at
any
rate
the
hoards,
from Attica. One
may
draw the
conclusion that the local transactions
of the market-
place made up an important proportionof the exchangesin which money passedfrom hand to
hand, or,
in other
words,
that
over
a
given period
an
important
proportion
of the
currency
which
happened
to be in the town of Athens
stayed
in
Athens,
while a much smaller
proportion
was
carried
into the rest of the
country
and into other
towns. This
suggests
that the deniers
tournoiswere to
a considerable
extent,
perhaps
primarily,
a
city-coinage,
and that the use of
coinage
was
to a similar extent concentrated
in
the towns.
The role of the towns in the
geo-
graphical pattern
of
monetary
circulation
no doubt
explains
the
length
of time for which local
coins could be
more common
in their
region
of issue than
elsewhere,
and also the
gradual
pro-
gress by
which
their
proportions
n
the hoards
approached
those of the relative
output
of the
mints.
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THE
CURRENCY
OF DENIERS TOURNOIS
IN FRANKISH
GREECE
51
The
purchasing power
of a
denier
tournois
cannot
be
expressed
at all
accurately
in
terms of
present-day
coins,
since
money
is
used
in the
exchange
of so much wider a
range
of
commodities,
whose relative values
may
be
very
different from those of the thirteenth and fourteenth cen-
turies. All the
same,
it is
helpful
to know that a denier
was,
very
roughly,
worth rather more than
sixpence
of current
British
money,
while a Venetian
grosso
(which
looks about the same as a
modern sixpence) would by the same calculation purchase roughly as much as seven shillings
and
sixpence
will
today.'s
Thus the Xirokhori hoard was the
equivalent
of
perhaps
+75,
and
the
Orion hoard of
+20.
In
comparison
with
many
medieval coins the tournois
was
of low
value.
Chio
s
~Orion
Arta
Neopat
ras
ElatinrL
A
Lepanto ADeih
4'beA
Pat~rai
E
evsi~~it
i
At
a
Cci~rentloa
Corinth
>_PclHAIAS
Z
lno;
,7irokhori
.Sporta
FIG. 3.
MAP TO SHOW
THE PROVENANCE OF
HOARDS OF DENIERS
TOURNOIS,
AND
THE
MINTS
AT
WHICH
THEY
WERE
STRUCK.
(Mint
towns are marked
by circles,
and
find-spots by triangles
(hoards)
or
by
three
dots
(stray
finds).)
It was suited to the
needs
of
the
market-place
rather
than those of
the
merchant,
so
that,
although
it was
supported
by
a
copper coinage
of even
lower
value,
it
was
little better
than
a
petty coinage.
The
use
of
the
Venetian
grosso
n Greece
may
be
partly
explained by
the
need
which
was felt for a coin of
higher
value than the
tournois,
a
need which
had been met in
France
by the
introduction of the
gros.
The
geographical
distribution of the
hoards
provides
other clues
about the use of
coinage.
From the
map (FIG.
3)
one can see
that
nearly
all
the
hoards come
from a
relatively
small
part
of
Greece,
namely,
the area
extending
from Corinth
and the
shores of
the Corinthian
Gulf,
through
Attica and
Boeotia,
to Atalandhi and the
region
of the Gulf
of Volos on the
north-east.
The 'laws'
which
govern
the
deposit
of
hoardszo are
very
different
from those
which
apply
to
stray
finds:
how far can one assume that the main
region
of
circulation of
the
tournois
was that
indicated
by
the distribution
of
hoards?
In
general,
more
archaeological
discoveries
are
reported
19
For the basis of these calculations see C.
Clark,
The
Conditions
f
Economic
rogress
1951).
20
See B.
Thordeman, Numismatic
Chronicle
948, 188 f.
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8/9/2019 The currency of "deniers tournois" in Frankish Greece / [D.M. Metcalf]
17/24
52
D.
M.
METCALF
from Attica and central Greece than from other
parts
of
the
country.
May
not the list of hoards
reflect
nothing
more than this? It is well
known,
if
regretted,
that
far more hoards of tournois
have been discovered than have found their
way
to
the National Museum
in Athens.
Especially
in
the
past,
many
have
been
put
into
the
melting-pot,
to secure the miserable amount of silver
which
they
contain.
Fortunately,
there seems
to be a
way
of
showing
that factors such as these
have not obscured the evidence. The list of tournoishoards can be compared with that of Byzan-
tine
scyphate
bronze hoards of the twelfth
century.
From the
point
of view of the
peasant
or the
antique-dealer
there
is not
very
much to choose between tournois nd
scyphate
bronze,
and their
original purchasing power
was
of a
similar
order. When one
sees, therefore,
that
scyphate
bronze
hoards have
been
reported
mostly
from northern Greece and from the
Aegean
islands
and
the
Peloponnese,
and
hardly
at all from central
Greece,
while the
pattern
for
tournois
s
just
the
opposite,
one
may
feel able to
accept
the evidence of the hoards at its
face
value.
The
proviso
must be made that the limits of
the
region
over
which tournoishave
been found
are
somewhat wider than
those of
the area where
they mainly
occur.
Many stray
finds have
Excavations Byzantine oins
Frankishand Venetian
Levantine oins
Sparta,
I924
Sparta, 1925
Athens,
1931-49
Corinth,
1896-1929
Corinth,
1930-5
Corinth,
1936-9
100
500
100
100
500
I00
6
6
IO
9
8
IO
TABLE
IO.
Frankish
coins
at
Sparta: quantities compared
with those
of
Byzantine
coins. The
proportion
of Venetian Levantine coins is
probably
small in
every
case
except
Corinth,
1936-9.
been discovered, for instance, during the excavations of the British School at Sparta. If their
quantities
are
compared
with
the
Byzantine
coins from the same
source,
and these
proportions
with the ones from Corinth and Athens
(TABLE
IO),
a
slight
difference is revealed.
The
Frankish
currency may
not have been in use for so
long
in
Sparta
as
in
central
Greece.
The
evident
reliability
of the
proportions
is,
once
again,
most
striking.
The classes of coins
which
can be
compared,
however,
are
too
large
for
very
useful
conclusions
to be drawn: one
would like
to
have seen these
forty-two
Frankish and Venetian coins from
Sparta published
in
full.
They
might,
for
instance,
show
an
interesting preponderance
of
Achaian
issues.
A
remarkable number of tournoishoards has been found
at
Delphi, deposited
at
various dates
in the fourteenth
century.
In
one
sense,
the
explanation
lies in the
prolonged
and
extensive
excavations which have been made
there,
but on the other hand
Delphi
must have been a site
near which a great many deposits were concealed over the years, seeing that there are half a
dozen which
their
owners failed to recover.
The
route
from
Boeotia to the Gulf of Corinth seems
to have been in common
use,
on the numismatic
evidence,
during
the fourteenth
century.
One or
two other hoards-Tatoi
and
Kapandriti,
for
example-may
be
associated
with
routeways.
The
largest
group
of
find-spots,
however,
if
they
are divided
according
to
type,
con-
sists of those associated with
ports.
Corinth, Elevsis,
and Patras fall into this
class,
and it
may
be not
without
significance
that the
Xirokhori, Atalandhi,
Kapareli,
Orion
and, indeed,
Delphi
hoards were concealed so close to the sea. The economics of
commodity-transport
in
the Middle
Ages
are
reflected
in
the distribution of these coin-finds from Greece: there was
hardly
a
place
in
the
duchy
of Athens that was as much as
twenty
miles from the sea.
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8/9/2019 The currency of "deniers tournois" in Frankish Greece / [D.M. Metcalf]
18/24
THE
CURRENCY
OF
DENIERS
TOURNOIS
IN FRANKISH GREECE
53
The
weight
of
the evidence
links the
currency
of deniers ournoiswith
the
duchy
of Athens and
especially
with the
coast
from
Athens to Corinth and its hinterland. The
period
of
greatest
mint-output
in
Greece as a whole coincides with the
vigorous
administration of
the Athenian
duchy by
William and with the
majority
of
Gu