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 silver stavrata and minor copper coins with no gold issue.
The solidus or nomisma was a highly pure gold coin issued in the Late Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire. The early 4th century saw the solidus introduced in mintage as a successor to the aureus, which was permanently replaced thereafter by the new coin, whose weight of about 4.5 grams remained relatively constant for seven centuries. In the Byzantine Empire, the solidus, or nomisma, remained a highly pure gold coin until the 11th century, when several Byzantine emperors began to strike the coin with less and less gold. The nomisma was finally abolished by Alexius I in 1092, who replaced it with the hyperpyron, which also came to be known as a "bezant". The Byzantine solidus also inspired the originally slightly less pure dinar issued by the Muslim Caliphate. In Western Europe, the solidus was the main gold coin of commerce from late Roman times to Pepin the Short's currency reform in the 750s, which introduced the silver-based pound/shilling/penny system.
The ducat coin was used as a trade coin in Europe from the later Middle Ages to the 19th century. Its most familiar version, the gold ducat or sequin containing around 3.5 grams of 98.6% fine gold, originated in Venice in 1284 and gained wide international acceptance over the centuries. Similarly named silver ducatons also existed. The gold ducat circulated along with the Florentine florin and preceded the modern British pound sterling and the United States dollar.
The Patriarchal cross is a variant of the Christian cross, the religious symbol of Christianity, and is also known as the Cross of Lorraine. Similar to the familiar Latin cross, the patriarchal cross possesses a smaller crossbar placed above the main one so that both crossbars are near the top. Sometimes the patriarchal cross has a short, slanted crosspiece near its foot. This slanted, lower crosspiece often appears in Byzantine Greek and Eastern European iconography, as well as in other Eastern Orthodox churches. In most renditions of the Cross of Lorraine, the horizontal bars are "graded" with the upper bar being the shorter, though variations with the bars of equal length are also seen.
The denier or penny was a medieval coin which takes its name from the Frankish coin first issued in the late seventh century; in English it is sometimes referred to as a silver penny. Its appearance represents the end of gold coinage, which, at the start of Frankish rule, had either been Roman (Byzantine) or "pseudo-imperial". Silver would be the basis for Frankish coinage from then on. The denier was minted in France, Cyprus and parts of the Italian peninsula for the whole of the Middle Ages, in states such as the patriarchate of Aquileia, the Kingdom of Sicily, the Republic of Genoa, the Republic of Siena, Kingdom of Cyprus, and the crusader state Kingdom of Jerusalem, among others.
The hyperpyron was a Byzantine coin in use during the late Middle Ages, replacing the solidus as the Byzantine Empire's standard gold coinage in the 11th century. It was introduced by emperor Alexios I Komnenos.
The tremissis or tremis was a small solid gold coin of Late Antiquity. Its name, meaning "a third of a unit", formed by analogy with semissis, indicated its value relative to the solidus. It was introduced into Roman currency in the 380s by the Emperor Theodosius I and initially weighed 8 siliquae.
Mancus was a term used in early medieval Europe to denote either a gold coin, a weight of gold of 4.25g, or a unit of account of thirty silver pence. This made it worth about a month's wages for a skilled worker, such as a craftsman or a soldier. Distinguishing between these uses can be extremely difficult: the will of the Anglo-Saxon king Eadred, who died in 955, illustrates the problem well with its request that "two thousand mancuses of gold be taken and minted into mancuses".
Vino Greco is the name of a wine style which originated, at least 2,150 years ago, as an Italian imitation of the sweet, strong Greek wines that were exported to Italy at the period of the Roman Republic and Roman Empire. Its names in other languages were: Latin vinum graecum; English Greek, greke, wine greke; French vin grec. The earliest recipe for vinum Graecum is in Cato the Elder's manual of farming, De agri cultura, compiled around 150 BC. Salt is added to the must. Once sealed in amphoras, vinum graecum is matured under the sun for two years before sale. Incidentally, the name did not necessarily cause confusion with real exported Greek wine, which was called vinum transmarinum in classical Latin. Methods have changed totally over the long history of vino greco, but the name still survives in a few Italian wines, notably the sweet white Greco di Bianco and Greco di Gerace from southern Calabria.
Histamenon was the name given to the gold Byzantine solidus when the slightly lighter tetarteron was introduced in the 960s. To distinguish the two, the histamenon was changed in form from the original solidus, becoming wider and thinner, as well as concave (scyphate) in form. Later usually shortened to stamenon, it was discontinued after 1092. In the 12th and 13th centuries, the name stamenon came to be applied to the concave billon and copper trachea coins.
The Byzantine economy was among the most robust economies in the Mediterranean for many centuries. Constantinople was a prime hub in a trading network that at various times extended across nearly all of Eurasia and North Africa. Some scholars argue that, up until the arrival of the Arabs in the 7th century, the Eastern Roman Empire had the most powerful economy in the world. The Arab conquests, however, would represent a substantial reversal of fortunes contributing to a period of decline and stagnation. Constantine V's reforms marked the beginning of a revival that continued until 1204. From the 10th century until the end of the 12th, the Byzantine Empire projected an image of luxury, and the travelers were impressed by the wealth accumulated in the capital. All this changed with the arrival of the Fourth Crusade, which was an economic catastrophe. The Palaiologoi tried to revive the economy, but the late Byzantine state would not gain full control of either the foreign or domestic economic forces.
The gold dinar is an Islamic medieval gold coin first issued in AH 77 (696–697 CE) by Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan. The weight of the dinar is 1 mithqal.
The sol, later called a sou, is the name of a number of different coins, for accounting or payment, dating from Antiquity to today. The name is derived from the late-Roman and Byzantine solidus. Its longevity of use anchored it in many expressions of the French language.
A tarì was the Christian designation of a type of gold coin of Islamic origin minted in Sicily, Malta and Southern Italy from about 913 to the 13th century.
The coinage of the Visigoths was minted in Gaul and Hispania during the early Middle Ages, between the fifth century and approximately 710.
The tetarteron was a Byzantine term applied to two different coins, one gold circulating from the 960s to 1092 in parallel to the histamenon, and one copper used from 1092 to the second half of the 13th century.
The first mention of a "Serbian dinar" dates back to the reign of Stefan Nemanjić in 1214. Until the fall of the Serbian Despotate in 1459, most of the Serbian rulers minted silver dinar coins.
The Carolingian monetary system, also called the Carolingian coinage system or just the Carolingian system, was a currency structure introduced by Charlemagne in the late 8th century as part of a major reform, the effects of which subsequently dominated much of Europe, including Britain, for centuries. It is characterised by having three denominations with values in the ratio 240:12:1, the units of which went under different names in the different languages, but which corresponded to the Latin terms libra (pound), solidus (shilling) and denarius (penny), respectively.
The Lombard coinage of Benevento, part of the more general Lombard coinage, is the set of coins minted between about 680 and the end of the ninth century in the duchy and principality of Benevento. Solidi and tremisses, both gold coins that imitated those of the Eastern Roman Empire, were first minted; later followed the issuance of coins in the names first of the dukes and then of the Benevento princes. Toward the end of the 8th century alongside the gold coins were minted silver coins, which gradually took the place of the earlier ones, as moreover happened in the rest of Western Europe. Silver became the prevalent coinage metal only from the mid-9th century.
