242 Baker
coinage which would have increased further the stock of high quality metals in
Greece already in the last two to three decades of the 13th century was the gold
florin, which was used, still in relatively humble quantities, in the administra-
tive and commercial domains. Because of the increasingly healthy and regula-
rised monetary situation in Greece there was much less scope than in the first
half of the century for the infiltration and usage of diverse, lower quality, spe-
cie. It is possible that some of the aforementioned coins—issues of Armenia,
the Golden Horde, Champagne, etc.—still came to Greece in small quantities
after 1250. The single most important groups of coins to penetrate Greece after
that date were from late Hohenstaufen and early Angevin Sicily, and piccoli
and their multiples from the Venice mint.
For the period after 1300 it becomes increasingly difficult to detect whether
12th-century tetartera were still in usage, or were still being counterfeited. The
most likely context in which both would have occured is Atticoboeotia during
Catalan domination (from 1311). Freshly minted Byzantine coins were already
largely absent from Greece during the first half of the 14th century. One may
suppose that gold hyperpyra from Constantinople were still to some extent
available, although there are no hard data to support this. The large and suc-
cessful silver coinage of the Trapezuntine offshoot of the empire is represented
at merely one Greek find dating to the 1310s, a hoard of uncertain provenance
now in the Athens Numismatic Museum. The 14th century began as the 13th
had ended, with Glarenza and Thebes as the most important tournois mints
and the most important source for monetary specie in Greece. However,
important changes were underway. At Glarenza, between 1301 and 1304, tour-
nois were issued in good numbers in the name of Prince Philip of Savoy, who
had married Isabelle de Villehardouin against the wishes of her Angevin over-
lords. Philip also produced the first Achaean petty denomination issues since
the 1270s, Metcalf type 13, which stressed in its design the Villehardouin and
Savoy lineages.39 It was probably during Philip of Savoy’s princeship that a very
large wave of tournois counterfeiting affected the principality. This caused an
Angevin reaction. During the 1301–04 period Philip of Taranto, the despot of
Romania and son of King Charles ii of Anjou, issued tournois at a rival west-
ern Greek mint at Naupactus, which managed to attract a substantial propor-
tion of the incoming bullion. It is possible that, as was the case when minting
first began at Thebes (see above), the minting standard that was being applied
39 On this issue, see Orestes H. Zervos, “The Little-Known Obols of Philip of Savoy,”
Νομισματικά Χρονικά 14 (1995), 83–87; Anastasios P. Tzamalis, “Some Thoughts on the Obol
of Philip of Savoy,” Νομισματικά Χρονικά 14 (1995), 89–98.