Money And Currency In Medieval Greece 249
periodisation, and divided into a number of phases: (1) the 10th and 11th cen-
tury, ending in the accession of Alexios i (1081); (2) the period of the emperors
of the Komnenos and Angelos dynasties (to 1204); (3) the first Frankish period,
covering three quarters of the 13th century until the death of William ii de
Villehardouin in 1278; (4) the period of Angevin and Aragonese domination
from 1278/1311; (5) followed by a final phase which was marked by economic/
demographic crises, disaffection by the western powers involved in Greece, and
the rise of the Despotate of Morea. This phase lasted about a century, until the
latter political entity fell to the Ottomans in 1460. A couple of generations ago,
even the Komnenian period was considered decadent by many scholars as com-
pared to phase (1), a view which has been altered, from the monetary perspec-
tive, most fundamentally by the work of Michael Hendy.43 In turn, a consensus
has been reached more recently, for instance during the mentioned symposia
marking the anniversary of the Fourth Crusade in 2004, that phase (3) was in
fact economically more sophisticated than the previous Byzantine one. The
numismatic data which I was able to assemble for Greece suggest emphati-
cally that there was a rise in monetisation, quantitatively and qualitatively, not
only during phases 1–3, but also phase 4, and to some extent during phase 5.
One may have expected such findings had one considered general European
trends in the economy, and in the production and usage of money as described
by Peter Spufford, but the historiography of medieval Greece has to a large
degree been conditioned by a narrative whereby the era of the Villehardouin
and de la Roche dynasties was a “golden period” which came to an end with
foreign domination and exploitation, and the mismanagement by absentee
rulers. There are in fact very few sources relating to medieval Greece which
can provide us with a consistent and diachronic picture of economic realities,
especially of commercial relations, and it is in this area that the numismatic
data offer a fundamental contribution. These show clearly that the early years
of the 14th century were the height of the silver importation into Greece from
the West, and of the production of silver coins at the Greek mints. The numis-
matic findings for the subsequent period are perhaps the most controversial.
As indicated here above, in the years around 1380–1420 a very large quantity
indeed of Venetian torneselli was present in Greece. Even though we must
assume that, like in previous periods, most western currency reached Greece
43 See, in addition to the numismatic monographs of 1969 and 1999 which have already been
cited: Michael F. Hendy, “Byzantium 1081–1204: An Economic Reappraisal,” Transactions
of the Royal Historical Society 20 (1970), 31–52, repr. in idem, The Economy, Fiscal
Administration and Coinage of Byzantium (Northampton, 1989), ii; idem, “Byzantium
1081–1204: The Economy Revisited, Twenty Years On”, in ibid., iii, 1–48.