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The tremissis or tremis (
The tremissis or tremis (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 ...
: τριμίσιον, ''trimision'') was a small solid gold coin of Late Antiquity
Late antiquity is the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, generally spanning the 3rd–7th century in Europe and adjacent areas bordering the Mediterranean Basin. The popularization of this periodization in English h ...
. Its name, meaning "a third of a unit", formed by analogy with semissis (half of a unit), indicated its value relative to the solidus
Solidus (Latin for "solid") may refer to:
* Solidus (coin), a Roman coin of nearly solid gold
* Solidus (punctuation), or slash, a punctuation mark
* Solidus (chemistry), the line on a phase diagram below which a substance is completely solid
* ...
. It was introduced into Roman currency
Roman currency for most of Roman history consisted of gold, silver, bronze, orichalcum and copper coinage. From its introduction to the Republic, during the third century BC, well into Imperial times, Roman currency saw many changes in form, denom ...
in the 380s by the Emperor Theodosius I
Theodosius I ( grc-gre, Θεοδόσιος ; 11 January 347 – 17 January 395), also called Theodosius the Great, was Roman emperor from 379 to 395. During his reign, he succeeded in a crucial war against the Goths, as well as in two ...
and initially weighed 8 siliquae (equivalent to 1.52 grams).Philip Grierson
Philip Grierson, FBA (15 November 1910 – 15 January 2006) was a British historian and numismatist, emeritus professor of numismatics at Cambridge University and a fellow of Gonville and Caius College for over seventy years. During his long an ...
, "Tremissis", in Alexander Kazhdan Alexander Petrovich Kazhdan (russian: Алекса́ндр Петро́вич Кажда́н; 3 September 1922 – 29 May 1997) was a Soviet-American Byzantinist. Among his publications was the three-volume ''Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium'', a com ...
, ed., ''The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium'' (Oxford University Press, 1991 nline 2005, vol. 3, p. 2113.
Roman tremisses continued to be commonly minted into the reign of Leo III (717–741), but thereafter they were only rarely struck in the east of the empire, probably only for ceremonial uses, until the reign of Basil I
Basil I, called the Macedonian ( el, Βασίλειος ὁ Μακεδών, ''Basíleios ō Makedṓn'', 811 – 29 August 886), was a Byzantine Emperor who reigned from 867 to 886. Born a lowly peasant in the theme of Macedonia, he rose in the ...
(867–886), after which they disappeared. Nevertheless, the coin continued in common use in the Sicilian theme until the fall of Syracuse in 878. The trachy, introduced in the 11th century, was equivalent in value to the old tremissis. Although it was not made of gold, it was one third of the standard golden 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 ' ...
. It was not, however, called tremissis.
Outside of the Roman empire, tremisses were minted by the Anglo-Saxons
The Anglo-Saxons were a cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo-Saxons happened ...
, Burgundians
The Burgundians ( la, Burgundes, Burgundiōnes, Burgundī; on, Burgundar; ang, Burgendas; grc-gre, Βούργουνδοι) were an early Germanic tribe or group of tribes. They appeared in the middle Rhine region, near the Roman Empire, and ...
, Franks
The Franks ( la, Franci or ) were a group of Germanic peoples whose name was first mentioned in 3rd-century Roman sources, and associated with tribes between the Lower Rhine and the Ems River, on the edge of the Roman Empire.H. Schutz: Tools ...
, Frisians
The Frisians are a Germanic ethnic group native to the coastal regions of the Netherlands and northwestern Germany. They inhabit an area known as Frisia and are concentrated in the Dutch provinces of Friesland and Groningen and, in Germany, ...
, Lombards
The Lombards () or Langobards ( la, Langobardi) were a Germanic people who ruled most of the Italian Peninsula from 568 to 774.
The medieval Lombard historian Paul the Deacon wrote in the ''History of the Lombards'' (written between 787 an ...
, Ostrogoths
The Ostrogoths ( la, Ostrogothi, Austrogothi) were a Roman-era Germanic people. In the 5th century, they followed the Visigoths in creating one of the two great Gothic kingdoms within the Roman Empire, based upon the large Gothic populations who ...
, Suevi
The Suebi (or Suebians, also spelled Suevi, Suavi) were a large group of Germanic peoples originally from the Elbe river region in what is now Germany and the Czech Republic. In the early Roman era they included many peoples with their own names ...
and Visigoths
The Visigoths (; la, Visigothi, Wisigothi, Vesi, Visi, Wesi, Wisi) were an early Germanic people who, along with the Ostrogoths, constituted the two major political entities of the Goths within the Roman Empire in late antiquity, or what is k ...
between the 5th and 8th centuries. The word tremissis was borrowed into Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th ...
as '' thrymsa''.
In Frankish sources, the tremissis is sometimes called a triens, a term likewise meaning "a third", which originally referred to a bronze coin worth a third of an as. The historian and bishop Gregory of Tours
Gregory of Tours (30 November 538 – 17 November 594 AD) was a Gallo-Roman historian and Bishop of Tours, which made him a leading prelate of the area that had been previously referred to as Gaul by the Romans. He was born Georgius Floren ...
calls the Frankish tremissis a ''trians'' or ''treans''. The German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
form is also attested. In French historiography the term ''tiers'' (third) or ''tiers de sou'' (third of a solidus) is often used. The French, in general, prefer to call the coin of the Merovingian
The Merovingian dynasty () was the ruling family of the Franks from the middle of the 5th century until 751. They first appear as "Kings of the Franks" in the Roman army of northern Gaul. By 509 they had united all the Franks and northern Gaul ...
kings a triens (but avoiding the plural form ''trientes''), while British scholarship prefers tremissis.
It was still used as an accounting currency until at least the 12th century in Sardinia. It appears as ''tremisse'' in the '' condaghe''.Il condaghe di Santa Maria di Bonarcado / a cura di Maurizio Virdis. - Nuoro : Ilisso, 2003
References
Further reading
* Metcalf, William E. (ed.). ''The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage''. Oxford University Press, 2012.External links
* {{Byzantine coinage Coins of ancient Rome Coins of the Byzantine Empire Gold coins