238 Baker
group of mints, either from feudal France or from northern and central Italy
(specifically Verona and Lucca). Most of these coins came to Greece during
the first three crusades and were part of a larger phenomenon which mani-
fested itself also in the Balkans, Anatolia, and in the Levant, or they are the by-
products of western trading interests in Greece. It is possible that a small
number of coins of this category, such as the issues of Champagne, were of
12th-century production but came to Greece as a secondary movement via
south Italy in the first half of the 13th century, or even later. Another group of
coins of France is of uncertain late 12th or early 13th-century dating and might
possibly have reached Greece with the Fourth Crusade and subsequently. The
second kind of western coinage dating to before 1200 in evidence in Greece are
the copper issues of Norman Sicily.
There is an analogous body of eastern coins dating to before 1200 which
came to Greece as part of the same east-west movements. The coins in ques-
tion were either of copper or billon, and were of Islamic or Christian mint-
age in Syria and Palestine. Whether of relatively early or late dating within the
11th/12th centuries, it is likely that in 1200 and later some of these western and
eastern coins were still being handled, hoarded and lost. Overall, our evidence
for such coins is from urban sites in the Peloponnese and the eastern mainland.
In the first half of the 13th century other miscellaneous coins from the West
and East were added to this mix: pennies of Hohenstaufen Italy because of
the geographical proximity to Italy and maybe Venetian piccoli destined for
the newly-acquired Venetian colonies. The early Mongol conquests in Europe
(1230s/40s) might have facilitated the movement of specie in the Balkans and
the Black Sea: note that there are issues of Hungary and of the Golden Horde
recorded in the Peloponnese. Also coins of Cilician Armenia might have had
a secondary outlet through the Black Sea, although they usually describe the
general movement between Italy and the Levant, via Greece and southern
Anatolia. The coinage of the Seljuks of Rum had a more limited penetration
into the Aegean area, mostly confined to the islands.
Nevertheless, the greatest impact on the monetary affairs of Greece
between c.1200 and 1250 was made by a threesome of western European silver-
based coins: English pennies of the sterling standard, French deniers tournois,
and Venetian grossi. The first two of these, taken largely out of north-western
European circulation and enjoying a natural exchange-rate of 1:4, were certifi-
ably brought to Greece during the Latin conquest itself, and also subsequently.
The sterlings were initially the more important of the two, even if they had a
more confined circulation pattern in the area of the primary territory under
consideration which is turned towards the Aegean. The early role of Venetian
grossi in Greece is more difficult to fathom, since there are few numismatic