Antivari — modern Bar, in Montenegro — operated as a semi-autonomous commune under Angevin suzerainty through much of the fourteenth century, which explains why its municipal coinage exists at all. The city struck small copper fractions to fill a gap that royal and papal silver simply could not reach at the lowest levels of daily exchange. The obol circulated alongside Ragusan and Serbian issues in a coastal economy where multiple monetary systems overlapped without resolution.
Antivari — modern Bar, in Montenegro — operated as a semi-autonomous commune under Angevin suzerainty through much of the fourteenth century, which explains why its municipal coinage exists at all. The city struck small copper fractions to fill a gap that royal and papal silver simply could not reach at the lowest levels of daily exchange. The obol circulated alongside Ragusan and Serbian issues in a coastal economy where multiple monetary systems overlapped without resolution.