The ''politikon'' coinage is a series of

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

billon coins, struck around the middle of the 14th century, which are distinguished by the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

inscription Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the w ...

+ΠΟΛΙΤΙΚΟΝ ("of the city, civic"). The iconography of many examples, with the legend surrounding a large

cross A cross is a geometrical figure consisting of two intersecting lines or bars, usually perpendicular to each other. The lines usually run vertically and horizontally. A cross of oblique lines, in the shape of the Latin letter X, is termed a sa ...

or a bust of the

Virgin Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother of ...

, follows Western European models rather than those of traditional

Byzantine coinage Byzantine currency, money used in the Eastern Roman Empire after the fall of the West, consisted of mainly two types of coins: the gold solidus and a variety of clearly valued bronze coins. By the end of the empire the currency was issued only in ...

, and most of them do not identify the

Byzantine emperor This is a list of the Byzantine emperors from the foundation of Constantinople in 330 AD, which marks the conventional start of the Byzantine Empire, Eastern Roman Empire, to Fall of Constantinople, its fall to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 AD. On ...

under whom they were struck.. They conform, however, to the general type of the widespread ''

tornese The tornesel, tornesol, or was a silver coin of Europe in the Late Middle Ages and the early modern period, early modern era. It took its name from the ', the of Tours. Marco Polo referred to the tornesel in recounts of his travels to East Asia ...

'' coins, with a weight of 0.6–0.8

gram The gram (originally gramme; SI unit symbol g) is a unit of mass in the International System of Units (SI) equal to one one thousandth of a kilogram. Originally defined as of 1795 as "the absolute weight of a volume of pure water equal to th ...

s, a diameter of 17 mm and silver content of 0.200–0.250. Initially they were concave but later issues are flat. They apparently form the continuation of the Byzantine ''tornese'' issue (known in Greek as ''tournesion'') of Emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos (r. 1282–1328), and like them were probably rated at 96 to the gold ''

hyperpyron The ''hyperpyron'' ( ''nómisma hypérpyron'') was a Byzantine coin in use during the late Middle Ages, replacing the '' solidus'' as the Byzantine Empire's gold coinage. History The traditional gold currency of the Byzantine Empire had been the ' ...

''. Some bear the name of Andronikos III Palaiologos (r. 1328–1341) and can thus be dated to the 1330s, the anonymous series could be dated to the 1340s (marked by a destructive

civil war A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

), and the last issues, featuring

John V Palaiologos John V Palaiologos or Palaeologus ( el, Ἰωάννης Παλαιολόγος, ''Iōánnēs Palaiológos''; 18 June 1332 – 16 February 1391) was Byzantine emperor from 1341 to 1391, with interruptions. Biography John V was the son of E ...

(r. 1341–1376 and 1379–1391) would date to the 1350s, after which time the type was discontinued. There are a few exceptions however. A ''politikon'' currently in the ''

Cabinet des Médailles The BnF Museum or Museum of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, formerly known as the Cabinet des Médailles, is a significant art and history museum in Paris. It displays collections of the ''Département des Monnaies, Médailles et Antiques ...

'' in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

weighs 1.4 grams and has a silver content of 0.785, far higher than the ordinary ''tornese'' but still below the main Byzantine silver coin, the ''

basilikon The ''basilikon'' ( el, βασιλικόν �όμισμα}, "imperial oin), commonly also referred to as the (Greek: δουκάτον), was a widely circulated Byzantine silver coin of the first half of the 14th century. Its introduction marked t ...

''. A few others conform to two of the billon ''politikon'' types, but are large, thick, and heavy (circa 2 grams)

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...

coins, whose function is unclear. The meaning and rationale behind the unique +ΠΟΛΙΤΙΚΟΝ inscription, as well as the place where the coins were minted, have been long debated. It seems that the inscription indicates that these coins were struck to pay some public need (like contemporary French coins marked BVRGENSIS). Earlier scholars, starting with

Gustave Schlumberger Léon Gustave Schlumberger (17 October 1844 – 9 May 1929) was a French historian and numismatist who specialised in the era of the crusades and the Byzantine Empire. His ' (1878–82) is still considered the principal work on the coinage of the c ...

, advocated a use as tickets for the bread dole, but today they are seen as true coinage. The coins are generally considered to have been minted at

Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya ( Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis ( ...

, but due to their "Western" appearance it has been variously suggested that they were struck at a provincial mint in the vicinity of the Frankish states of southern

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders ...

. The type, however, is entirely absent from local finds in this area, and its Constantinopolitan origin seems secure..

References

Sources

* * * {{Byzantine coinage Silver coins Coins of the Byzantine Empire