Byzantine Scyphate Bronze coinage in Greece

The Byzantine coinage in the twelfth century was of three kinds. There were gold nomismata , with a purchasing power which must have been a good deal greater than that of a present-day five-pound note, and also nomismata of ‘pale gold’—gold alloyed with silver—of lower value; at the other extreme there were bronze coins, smaller than a modern farthing, which were the coinage of the market-place; intermediate, but still of low value, there were coins about the size of a halfpenny, normally made of copper lightly washed with silver. The silvered bronze and the gold were not flat, as are most coins, but saucer-shaped. The reason for their unusual form is not known. Numismatists describe them as scyphate, and refer to the middle denomination in the later Byzantine system of coinage as Scyphate Bronze, to distinguish it from the petty bronze coinage. Scyphate Bronze was first struck under Alexius I (1081–1118). Substantive issues were made by John II (1118–43), and such coinage became extremely plentiful under Manuel I (1143–80) and his successors Isaac II (1185–95) and Alexius III (1195–1203). After the capture of Constantinople in the course of the Fourth Crusade, the successor-states to the Byzantine Empire at Nicaea, Salonica, and in Epirus continued to issue scyphate bronze coinage, although in much smaller quantities, until after the middle of the thirteenth century

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Bronze · Byzantine architecture · Archaeology and Historical Studies · Byzantine Studies and History · Historical and Religious Studies of Rome · History

• German cathedrals and the monetary economy in the twelfth century

  Judith Barrow, Julia Barrow•Journal of Medieval History•1990

  Add to list

• The conditions of economic progress

  Colin Clark•The conditions of economic progress•1983

  Add to list

• The Athenian Agora

  Alfred R Bellinger, Margaret Thompson•The American Journal of Philology•1955

  Add to list