Norman Sicily - Unheralded Source Of Numismatic Innovation

Long before the Crusades, and decades before the more famous Norman landing at Pevensey on the English coast, Norman knights arrived in southern Italy intent on conquest.

By 1066 members of the Norman Drengot and Hautville families had wrested the principalities of Capua, Calabria and Apulia from their previous Lombard and Byzantine overlords, and had gained a foothold at Messina for a prolonged struggle to take the island of Sicily from the Islamic caliphate. Pope Nicholas II had lent an air of legitimacy (or at least inevitability) to these endeavors when, in 1059 he invested Robert Guiscard (Hauteville) with the Duchies of Apulia and Calabria, and, aspirationally Sicily, should he be able to take it.

The monetary landscape encountered by the Normans when they arrived would have seemed alien, coming from the silver-based Carolingian monetary system of their homeland. The northern part of their realm (toward Naples) used Byzantine (or Byzantine inspired) coppers and gold, and to some extent the small imperial (Holy Roman Empire) silver denari struck at Pavia and Lucca that circulated in nearby Papal realms. Southward, toward the tip of "the boot," and into Sicily, the circulating coin likewise included copper follari for small change, but also tiny (0.25 gr) billon kharrubas and Islamic quarter dinar gold coins of about 1 gram called robai (later tari), for larger transactions. The Emirate of Sicily had adapted the normal system of gold dinars / silver dirhams / copper fals to their local needs

So, local models for coin designs were largely Byzantine (varied images and Greek inscriptions) or Islamic (no images, only Arabic inscriptions). For deeper background, see Grierson and Travaini, Medieval European Coinage, Volume 14 (1998).

The remainder of this post and subsequent ones will list (with examples) some "firsts" or at least notable features of the coins struck by these rulers between their coming into power around the time of the Norman conquest of Engand, and their replacement by the Hohenstaufen in 1194. When the coin is not mine, copyright of the image owner is acknowledged.

1. Dated coins. Robert Guiscard was perhaps the first "western" ruler of the second millenium to date some of his coin types. As early as 1072 gold taris were struck in his name with their AH year spelled out in words (MEC 14, 66; N#558092):

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The central legend on the obverse has been translated as "By the great duke Robert, lord of Sicily," and the marginal inscription "Palermo year 464" though I expect the year is written out as four and sixty and four hundred.
This type imitated the design of earlier 11th century taris struck by recent Fatimid rulers of the island, for example this tari of Al-Zahir (1021-1036; Spahr 25, #457156):

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Mid-12th century, Guiscard's nephew Roger II struck copper follari dated AH533 (1138-1139), possibly the first European coin struck with a numeric date, albeit in the Hijri system (the 33 is easily recognizable at the bottom right reverse, the 5 less so):



Next up: radically bicultural coin types.
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