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Sterling - John II of Avesnes
| Issuer | County of Hainaut (French States) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1297 |
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| Composition | Silver |
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| Obverse description | Facing bust of the count, depicted in a schematic, archaic style typical of late 13th-century Low Countries sterlings, crowned with a chaplet of roses rendered as stylized trefoil ornaments. The effigy occupies the central field, enclosed within a plain inner circle surrounded by a beaded border. The peripheral legend in uncial Latin characters reads +⋮I⋮COMES⋮hANONIE, identifying the issuer as Count of Hainaut. The flan is irregular and slightly lobate, consistent with hammered coinage of the period. |
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| Mintage | 1297: ND (1297) |
| Additional information |
John II of Avesnes became Count of Hainaut in 1280 following a protracted dynastic struggle with the House of Dampierre over control of Flanders and Hainaut — a conflict ultimately settled by the 1287 arbitration of Edward I of England, who awarded Hainaut to the Avesnes line. This sterling was struck in the decade after that settlement, as John leveraged English commercial ties and imitated the sterling pennies then circulating across the Low Countries in enormous volume.
The type is catalogued by Mayhew as one of the Continental sterling imitations, a coinage phenomenon driven by the dominance of English silver in northern European trade during the late thirteenth century.