No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Frankish and French Coins from Ayios Stephanos, Laconia
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 September 2013
Extract
The site of Ayios Stephanos, a low hill at the NW. edge of the coastal plain in southern Laconia, was excavated in 1959, 1960, 1963, 1973, 1974, and 1977, under the direction of Lord William Taylour, and the auspices of the British School at Athens. The excavations have revealed a prehistoric settlement directly overlain by medieval buildings. Pottery of this latter period is difficult to date, but fortunately study of the numismatic evidence yields a terminus post quern in the mid thirteenth century, and the coins continue to c.1320 a.d. There was no subsequent occupation of the site. Since the medieval coins are of some historical and numismatic interest, the excavator has agreed that this article should appear in advance of the main publication of the site.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1982
References
1 For a general description of the site, see Taylour, W. D., BSA 67 (1972) 206 ff.Google Scholar; also Archaeological Reports 1975, 15–17; 1977. 31–2.
2 The coins are kept in Apotheke Beta at the Archaeological Museum, Sparta. I wish to express my thanks to Lord William Taylour for his kind permission to publish them, and to Dr D. M. Metcalf and Professor P. Grierson for helpful numismatic advice.
3 Lafaurie, J., Les Monnaies des rois de France (1951) 22, no. 195.Google Scholar The legend CIVIS was already in use by 1266, when St. Louis used it on the new deniers gros. But the deniers tournois may have continued to reach Greece after 1266 (Metcalf, , ‘The Berbati hoard, 1953’, NumChron 14 (1974) 122).Google Scholar
4 Schlumberger, G., Numismatique de l'orient latin (Paris 1878).Google Scholar Cf. Metcalf, , ‘The Pylia hoard: deniers tournois of Frankish Greece’, Amer NumSoc Museum Notes 17 (1971), 173–227Google Scholar, at 181, variety b. On the dating, ibid. 180.
5 The Registri Angioini inform us that Isabella did not strike coinage in her own name until 1299 (Metcalf, , Coinage in Southeastern Europe, 820–1396 (1979) 252).Google Scholar
6 For this dating, rather than to her sole rule in 1316–21, see Metcalf, , ‘The currency of the deniers tournois in Frankish Greece’, BSA 55 (1960) 42.Google Scholar
7 Bon, A., La Morée franque, Paris 1969, p. 129 ff.Google Scholar See also Longnon, J., ‘Topographie et archéologie de la Morée franque’, Journal des Savants 1969, 193–242Google Scholar (a map of Frankish Laconia is at 214).
8 Bon, op. cit. 144 f., 498.
9 Ibid. 167.
10 Ibid. 498; Zakythinos, D. A., Le Despotat grec de Morée, revised Maltézou, Ch. (London 1975) ii 273 f., 397.Google Scholar
11 Bon, op. cit. 224; Zakythinos, op. cit. i 81.
12 Zakythinos, op. cit. i 90 f., 334; Runciman, S., Mistra: Byzantine Capital of the Peloponnese (London 1980) 52.Google Scholar
13 Metcalf, , BSA 55, 39 n. 5.Google Scholar
14 Metcalf, ‘Pylia hoard’ 210 ff., Coinage in South-eastern Europe 249 f., with n. 9.
15 Metcalf, , BSA 55, 56 (hoard L)Google Scholar; NumChron 14, 122, where he suggests that the French coins may have been withdrawn from circulation once the Clarentia issues began. But, as he says, the crucial early hoard evidence either way is lacking. Moreover, would the withdrawal apply to the Byzantine province?
16 Note that this coin is from a different part of the site, from the top of the hill rather than the limited area on its SW. slope whence the rest derive (see the map in BSA 67 (1972) 206: area Λ3 is NW. of B12 and SE. of Γ1).
17 Metcalf, Coinage in South-eastern Europe 238–9. This may well be because the site was in use only in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries: the Byzantine and Venetian coins at Sparta are respectively earlier and later in date than that. Prof. Grierson remarks that the absence of these deniers at Sparta may be evidence that it was then unoccupied.
18 Ibid. 234–6.
19 This is a broad strap-handle from the neck of an amphora, in the fine pink micaceous fabric that is characteristic of the site (whether or not it is local deserves investigation). It bears the letters R F surrounded by a rectangle. From trench N2 (1974), no. 74–219.
20 Cf. Zakythinos op. cit. ii 256, 266f., and 245–69 on the economy in general; and on the currency, Metcalf, op. cit. 291 f.