Money And Currency In Medieval Greece 233
interest to isolate those moments when coins were produced within the ter-
ritories under consideration here. There were different kinds of monetary
production in medieval Greece. I will apply terms such as “official” issue or
“counterfeit” loosely, since such definitions are very difficult to prove either
way. There is nevertheless one clear division into issues which bear unani-
mously the identity of their issuers, and others that do not.
Beginning the analysis with the first of these categories, the first coin-
age issue in question are the billon trachea of Arta in the name of Despot
Michael ii Komnenos Doukas. According to the latest opinion there were two
separate and distinctive issues, in the 1230s and/or 1240s, and from 1249. All
in all, these were small, although they may have held a relatively high profile
for a decade or two in the area between Arta and Ochrid. At the time that
Artan coinage came to end, two centres within our area began to produce coin-
age more or less simultaneously, namely Thebes and Corinth. The lordship of
Athens and the principality of Achaea took the bold step of issuing coins at
these respective mints, with a probable secondary Achaean minting operation
on Euboea. These coins, which resemble low quality pennies, may have been
issued according to diverse standards and as different denominations (possi-
bly two). They are nevertheless all termed “petty denomination issues” since
much work remains to be carried out specifically in this regard. It is difficult
to ascribe the precedence in minting this coinage to either of these states,
although it is certain that the first issues pre-date 1249. Even if the initial thrust
in conceiving these coinages still needs to be established, it appears that they
were mostly deployed and moved around in military contexts, the Achaean
venture in the Levant and the war between Achaea and Athens during most
of the 1250s. This phase of minting at Athens and Achaea probably ended in
1258/59. For about a decade vast numbers of coins were therefore emitted by
the Achaean and Athenian mints. These issues were present in good quantities
especially in the eastern Peloponnese, in Atticoboeotia, and on Euboea. Petty
denomination issues had a long afterlife as a form of petty cash, as already
described here above, especially in urban contexts. There were very sporadic
issues of petty denomination coins at Thebes and Glarenza in the late 13th and
early 14th century, which will be discussed in the overview below.
About a decade after petty denomination issues were first produced another
coinage of our area emerged: the coins bearing the legend MAYNFRIDVS R
SICILIE / ET DOMINVS ROMANIE have been discussed as far back as in the
works of De Saulcy and Schlumberger, but in recent times a number of finds
“Salona”, “Tebe”, “Teno,” in Guida. My forthcoming Coinage and Money in Medieval Greece
1200–1430 will contain detailed considerations of each one of these minting operations.