Medieval Mondays: The Byzantine Solidus

In these days of financial crisis, it's important to have your investments in hard currency like the pound or the dollar. This has always been the case.

The later Roman Empire saw serious economic upheavals and a debasement of the coinage. Emperors tried to pay their expenses by minting more coins with less valuable metal, but of course people noticed and this led to inflation.

The Emperor Justinian (ruled 306-337 AD) reversed this trend by creating the solidus, a pure gold coin set at 1/72 of a Roman pound (about 4.5 grams). This helped stabilize the economy, but didn't save the Western Roman Empire from being overrun by Germanic tribes in the following century.

In the east, Rome continued as the Byzantine Empire, and the solidus was the benchmark currency. The solidus was trusted everywhere, and has been found as far away as India and China. It remained unchanged until the 11th century, when Byzantium started having economic problems of its own and the coin was debased. Even so, the old solidi remained in circulation through most of the Middle Ages. We have lots of examples of this coin because, unlike many other coins, it was such a trusted currency nobody wanted to melt it down for its metal.

For more on medieval money, check out my post on small change in the Middle Ages.

Photo of a solidus from the reign of Julian (reigned 361-363 AD) courtesy Wikipedia.

Medieval Mondays: Byzantine Silver in an Anglo-Saxon Burial

We've all heard of Sutton Hoo, that amazing treasure-filled ship burial of Anglo-Saxon royalty. One interesting aspect of the hoard buried with this man was there was a large amount of silver from the Byzantine Empire. This was the eastern part of the empire centered on Constantinople that survived nearly a thousand years after the last emperor in Rome was overthrown in 476 AD.

The most splendid example is the Anastasius Platter, a large decorated platter that bears the reign stamp of Anastasius I,  who ruled 491-518 AD. This was basically a control stamp guaranteeing the purity of the silver, something you still see on good silver today. Here are some shots of this work of art courtesy the British Museum.

By the time of the Sutton Hoo burial in the early 7th century, this platter was already more than a century old. so it certainly had time to make it all the way to England. The Byzantine Empire was famed for its power and artwork, and even as far away as England, people craved to have something from its workshops.

Central decoration

One of four control stamps of Emperor Anastasius I on the back

Rim decoration

Medieval Mondays: Saint Lucy with her eyes on a plate

Perhaps it's because I wasn't raised Catholic, but I still do a double take at some of the images of saints. Take Saint Lucy, for instance, who is commonly portrayed holding a pair of eyes on a plate, as you can see in this Spanish painting from the late 15th or early 16th century.

They're actually her eyes, despite the fact that in this picture she has a pair of perfectly good ones in her head. Hey, she's a saint, she can do that sort of thing.

Saint Lucy or Lucia was a Christian martyr who lived from 283-304 and was killed during the great persecution of Christians under the Roman emperor Diocletian. Like many Christian martyrs, she was killed after refusing to make sacrifices to the Imperial cult.

She was said to have been killed by a sword, but a much later tradition grew up that she had her eyes gouged out first. In another story, she took out her own eyes because they were so pretty they were attracting unwanted attention for this woman who taken a vow of chastity. Today Saint Lucy is venerated as the protector of good sight.