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Tremissis - Grimoald III and king Charlemagne
| Issuer | Principality of Benevento |
|---|---|
| Year | 788-792 |
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| Value | 1 Tremissis = ⅓ Solidus |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Facing bust of Grimoald III, crowned and draped, with a short beard rendered in a stylized Late Antique manner. The effigy is depicted frontally in the Byzantine tradition, with the prince holding a cross in his right hand. The bust is enclosed within a circular Latin legend reading GRIM - VALD. The overall treatment of the portrait is schematic yet expressive, characteristic of Lombard Beneventan coinage of the late 8th century. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Latin |
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| Additional information |
Grimoald III came to power in Benevento as a Frankish client after Charlemagne's Italian campaigns dismantled Lombard independence, and this joint coinage reflects that uneasy arrangement precisely. Benevento had resisted full Carolingian absorption, and Grimoald's acknowledgment of Charlemagne on his own tremissis was less an act of loyalty than a calculated survival strategy — one that bought the principality a degree of autonomy it would spend the next century defending.
The electrum composition places it in a transitional tradition stretching back through Byzantine south Italian monetary practice, increasingly debased from the pure gold of earlier tremisses.