Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
Denier anonymous with blessing hand
| Issuer | Archbishopric of Arles |
|---|---|
| Year | 1200-1240 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Variable alignment ↺ |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Central field dominated by a large manus Dei (blessing hand) depicted in relief, fingers extended upward in the gesture of benediction, set upon a stylized architectural base with three pellets. The hand is surrounded by scattered Gothic letters forming the abbreviated legend in the field. The overall style is characteristic of Romanesque ecclesiastical coinage, with bold, somewhat crude hammered relief typical of southern French feudal deniers of the early 13th century. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Central cross pattée within a beaded inner circle, dividing the field into four equal quadrants. A bold circular Latin legend surrounds the inner circle, reading ARELATEN, referring to the city of Arles. The cross is strongly struck and well-centered, with the beaded border and legend distributed evenly around the circumference. The style is consistent with anonymous episcopal coinage of the Archbishopric of Arles from the early 13th century. |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
The archbishops of Arles exercised temporal coinage rights inherited from Carolingian privilege, but their monetary authority was perpetually contested by the counts of Provence throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. This anonymous type — carrying no archbishop's name — was likely a deliberate political choice, grounding the coin's legitimacy in ecclesiastical office rather than in any individual prelate who might be vulnerable to that dispute.
Poey d'Avant's cataloguing of this type under 4091 draws on a relatively thin corpus of surviving specimens, and attribution to the 1200–1240 range remains partly inferential from hoard evidence.