Catalog
Denier - Anonymous Siege coinage
| Issuer | Kingdom of Jerusalem |
|---|---|
| Year | 1100-1200 |
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| Value | 1 Denier |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Latin |
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| Reverse description | A patriarchal cross — distinguished by its double traverse arms — mounted on a stepped or arcaded pedestal, flanked on either side by a stylized palm frond and a star in the field. The composition evokes the iconography of the True Cross and Jerusalem's sacred topography. The design is rendered in low relief with bold, schematic lines consistent with hammered billon production. No legend appears on the reverse, leaving the field largely open around the central device. The overall arrangement is symmetrical, lending the type a hieratic, devotional character appropriate to crusader religious imagery. |
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| Additional information |
The anonymous deniers of the Kingdom of Jerusalem were struck without royal attribution by deliberate policy — the Crusader states relied heavily on trade with Muslim merchants and Byzantine intermediaries, and coins naming a Christian king were commercially unwelcome in much of the eastern Mediterranean. Anonymity was economic pragmatism, not administrative oversight.
Metcalf's classification of this type within his broader Crusader coinage corpus placed it firmly in the 12th century, though the precise mint — whether Jerusalem itself, Acre, or another Latin stronghold — remains unresolved in the literature.