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2 County of Melgueil Coins

Started by RoyalCoinage, February 17, 2024, 03:17:50 AM

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RoyalCoinage

Hello, I am new to coin collecting and I have a few questions about two coins I recently bought. I purchased two County of Melgueil coins, but I have no clue on how to tell if they are an Obol or Denier. (Coin 1 left side) weighs 1 gram and has a diameter of 17.78 mm. (Coin 2 right side) also weighs 1 gram and has a diameter of 19.2 mm. Something I noticed about the two coins is the right-side coin has a bigger cross and circle.

Tirant

Hello, RoyalCoinage, welcome to the forum.

With those weight and size, they're both deniers. Oboles are 0'50grs and nearly 14mm.

About the cross size, don't worry; medieval coins are irregular, and it's almost impossible to find two identical pieces.

Manzikert

I notice though that the right one has a nearly literate inscription (looking a little like METVLLO) whilst the left one has a series of sort of double E's (I don't know how else to describe them) instead of the letters. This is presumably a later version with more degenerate inscription?

Alan

Tirant

Quote from: Manzikert on February 17, 2024, 09:19:41 AMI notice though that the right one has a nearly literate inscription (looking a little like METVLLO) whilst the left one has a series of sort of double E's (I don't know how else to describe them) instead of the letters. This is presumably a later version with more degenerate inscription?

Alan

I'd say so. Maybe somebody with the Duplessy catalog could confirm.

Figleaf

Here is everything Duplessy has to say about Melgueil
Dy Melgeil.jpeg

I looked up Narbonne also, wondering why the count of Melgueil would imitate the coins of the viscount of Narbonne. It turned out that the Narbonne coin nearest in time to the estimated dates of the Melgueil coins is Dy 1544, issued by Alphonse Jourdain (1134-1142), who was also count of Toulouse.

I like Manzikert's reading of METVLLO, which was Charlemagne's most active mint, but note that Duplessy's reading does not seem to be an effort to write anything in particular. Off to Poey d'Avant for a double check. Will let you know if that yields anything.

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.

Figleaf

Disappointingly, plate LXXXV is missing from my electronic copy of P.A.. Fortunately, the author devotes quite some place to discussing them and their legends (pp 286-292).

P.A. assigns a number of coins with NARBONNE in their legend to Melgueil. Duplessy lists the coins with a cross under Narbonne and those with a mast with two pennants to Melgueil, which at first sight looks more logical. P.A.'s approach makes it appear as if the unreadable legends on the coins assigned to Melgueil are RAIMVND and NARBONA as on the coins (Dy 1535) of Raymond I of Narbonne (966-1023). Looking at the transcription of the legends in Dy, I must admit that this is a feasible possibility, but would the counts have had access to Raymond's coins at least a century after they were issued?

That was the relatively easy part. Now for something more difficult.

The county of Melgueil depended on the counts of Toulouse. The pope complained in a papal bulla that the counts had made coins with the name of Mohammed on them. P.A. says they were imitations of Arabic coins and they haven't been found or identified. The pope dispossessed the counts of Toulouse of Melgueil, where apparently these imitations were struck. However, it took a good while before the counts of Toulouse gave up on Melgueil. The coins were apparently struck in this period.

Would it be thinkable that the legends were dumbed down so the pope couldn't claim they were in the name of the count of Toulouse? By the same token, couldn't the change of the cross be meant to say that the design was actually a bishop's staff with two mitres, while at the same time, they could be interpreted as the boring old cross used by the counts of Toulouse, depending on who you were talking to?

If so, the remaining question is why would the counts of Toulouse insist on minting in Melgueil when they could just as well have minted in Narbonne. P.A. notes how a large number of contracts from the South of France stipulated payment in coins of (probably meaning "struck in") Melgueil. In other words, the coins of Melgueil were popular and a source of income for the counts of Toulouse. Could it be that the Narbonne mint was working at full capacity and could not be expanded without large investments, while there was a mint in Melgueil doing nothing?

More questions than answers.

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.

Manzikert

LXXXV is in my electronic copy, but the illustrations seem to be essentially the same as used by Duplessy.

Alan