The gros grand and the gros petit of Hugh IV of Cyprus. - article ; n°27 ; vol.6, pg 130-175

D.M. Metcalf

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Revue numismatique - Année 1985 - Volume 6 - Numéro 27 - Pages 130-175
Summary. — The silver gros grands and gros petits of Hugh IV of Cyprus (1324-59) can be classified into two main series, distinguished by a double line or a small cross at the throat. It is probable, but debateable, that these series are from two mints, and if so we may suppose that they were located at Nicosia and Famagusta respectively. Coins with a large letter С in the field, and others in a crude, irregular style, may be from other, minor mints but this is not certain. The large letter В in the field is not a mint-mark. In all, the gros were struck from fewer than 150 obverse dies, and the gros petits from about 40 obverse dies. The article includes a detailed list of the coins of Hugh IV in the Galini hoard, and also those in a hoard from the Limassol district, together with metrological data.
46 pages
Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.

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• Publié par: REVUE_NUMISMATIQUE
• Publié le: 01 janvier 1985
• Nombre de lectures: 25
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

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D. M. Metcalf
The gros grand and the gros petit of Hugh IV of Cyprus.
In: Revue numismatique, 6e série - Tome 27, année 1985 pp. 130-175.
Abstract
Summary. — The silver gros grands and gros petits of Hugh IV of Cyprus (1324-59) can be classified into two main series,
distinguished by a double line or a small cross at the throat. It is probable, but debateable, that these series are from two mints,
and if so we may suppose that they were located at Nicosia and Famagusta respectively. Coins with a large letter С in the field,
and others in a crude, irregular style, may be from other, minor mints but this is not certain. The large letter В in the field is not a
mint-mark. In all, the gros were struck from fewer than 150 obverse dies, and the gros petits from about 40 obverse dies. The
article includes a detailed list of the coins of Hugh IV in the Galini hoard, and also those in a hoard from the Limassol district,
together with metrological data.
Citer ce document / Cite this document :
Metcalf D. M. The gros grand and the gros petit of Hugh IV of Cyprus. In: Revue numismatique, 6e série - Tome 27, année 1985
pp. 130-175.
doi : 10.3406/numi.1985.1876
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/numi_0484-8942_1985_num_6_27_1876METCALF* D.M.
THE GROS GRAND AND THE GROS PETIT
OF HUGH IV OF CYPRUS
(PL VI-VIII)
can Summary. be classified — into The two silver main gros series, grands distinguished and gros petits by a of double Hugh IV line of or Cyprus a small (1324-59) cross at
the throat. It is probable, but debateable, that these series are from two mints, and if
so we may suppose that they were located at Nicosia and Famagusta respectively.
Coins with a large letter С in the field, and others in a crude, irregular style, may be
from other, minor mints but this is not certain. The large letter В in the field is not a
mint-mark. In all, the gros were struck from fewer than 150 obverse dies, and the
gros petits from about 40 obverse dies. The article includes a detailed list of the coins
of Hugh IV in the Galini hoard, and also those in a hoard from the Limassol district,
together with metrological data.
Resume. — Les gros grands et les gros petits de Hugues IV de Chypre (1324-1359)
sont ici classés en deux séries, selon que le buste royal porte une double ligne ou une
croix. Il est probable, mais peut-être discutable, que ces séries proviennent de deux
ateliers qui auraient été en ce cas situés à Nicosie et Famagouste respectivement. Les
monnaies avec С dans le champ et d'autres de style grossier et irrégulier peuvent
appartenir à d'autres ateliers, mais ce n'est pas sûr. Le grand В dans le champ n'est pas
une marque d'atelier. L'ensemble des gros grands fut frappé par moins de 150 coins
de droit et les gros petits par une quarantaine seulement. L'article comprend une
liste des pièces de Hugues IV dans les trésors de Galini et de Limassol ainsi que des
données métrologiques.
The gros of Hugh IV (1324-59) are the most plentiful of Lusignan
coins today, but that is not because they were minted in exceptional-
* Ashmolean Museum, Heberden Coin Room, Oxford, 0X1 2PH.
Acknowledgements. Work in Cyprus was made possible by a research grant from
the British Academy. I am grateful for the courteous encouragement and assistance
of Dr. V. Karageorghis, the Director General of Antiquities and of Dr. I. Nicolaou of
the Cyprus Museum. Among the hospitable members of the Cyprus Numismatic
Society who discussed Hugh's coins with me and offered every help, special mention
must be made of Mr. A. G. Pitsillides, the President of the Society, and of
Mr. B.E.A. Vlamis and Mr. S.A. Georgiades.
Revue numismatique, 1985, 6e série, XXVII, p. 130-175. GROS OF HUGH IV OF CYPRUS 131 THE
ly large quantities. Rather, they have had a high survival-rate
because so many hoards were concealed from 1373-4 onwards as a
result of the Genoese attacks on Cyprus. In fact, Hugh's gros
grands were struck from fewer than 150 obverse dies, and the gros
petits from about 40 obverse dies. Knowing this confers three
benefits. First, and obviously, it offers some measure of the scale of
the Cypriot currency and allows us to consider how the commerce and
the economic prosperity of Cyprus affected the island's money
supply. Secondly, if we have compiled a list of most of the dies, it
allows us to feel that we have got more or less to the bottom of things,
— and that what remains unknown is measurable, and unlikely to be
full of surprises. Thus, for example, we can deal more confidently
with the scarce varieties on which extra symbols have been added
to the dies. We can make statements of the kind, «Only two dies
out of twenty in this group have a crosslet added in the field». This
may not take us much nearer to an interpretation of the extra
symbols, but it certainly brings the stylistic analysis of the series into
sharper focus. Thirdly there is the potential benefit of being able to
list hoards in terms of individual dies, rather than merely varieties.
New come to light year by year, and it should be possible
within the foreseeable future to make elaborate comparisons between
them, probably employing computer programmes in order to study
topics such as clustering, unequal use of dies, wastage, and regional
variations in the currency. And in practical terms, if hoards are
published by reference to their obverse dies, it is easy to rearrange the
material in light of any future revisions. In short, the gros of
Cyprus hold the potential to be one of the show-pieces of medieval
numismatics, because they are struck from such a manageable
number of dies, and because hoards from the 1370s and 1380s are so
plentiful. This study seeks to clear the ground by establishing a
corpus of obverse dies for the reign of Hugh IV. It is based on a
very careful check of a random sample of some 350 coins1 including
those in the Paralimni hoard2, plus a listing by obverse dies only of a
further 192 coins of Hugh in the Galini hoard3.
In their design, weight, and alloy both the gros grand and the gros
petit correspond closely with the later issues of Hugh's predecessor,
1. These include the holdings of the British Museum, the American Numismatic
Society, the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge,
and I must thank the curators of these collections for their ready help. The largest
collection, however, is that of the Bibliothèque Nationale, and I am grateful to
Mrs. Nicolet, Conservateur en chef, and to Mr. Michel Dhénin for permission to consult
it.
2. I. Michaelidou- Nicolaou, «The Paralimni hoard of silver Lusignan coins»,
Num. Report 1977, 39-44.
3. Unpublished hoard in the Cyprus Museum. See Appendix II. D. M. METCALF 132
Henry II. The obverse shows the king enthroned, while the reverse
type is the heraldic cross and crosslets of the kingdom of Jerusalem,
to which the kings of Cyprus had a titular claim. The legend, in the
vernacular and continued from the obverse over onto the reverse, is
bveve rgi dg / + ieRvsAL/m e De cbiPRe, with minor
variations. Nearly half the specimens have a conspicuous letter В
or В in+ the obverse field, while about a tenth have similarly a large
letter Č.
Significance of the letters В or Č IN THE FIELD.
The significance of these letters has intrigued students. Henry's
coins had similar field-marks or sigla, commonly a star, but
occasionally a cross, a cinquefoil, three fleurs-de-lis, or a letter F.
There is some+ reason to suppose that the F stood for Famagusta4.
Could В and С similarly refer to the names of the towns where the
coins were minted ? Edwin King speculated that В might stand for
Baffo (Paphos) and С for Cérines (Kerynia) while the unmarked coins,
he thought, were to be divided between Nicosia (Lefkosia) and
Famagusta5. This is far from persuasive, as it is hard to imagine
that Paphos could have been such an important mint as to strike
nearly half the coinage. Further, the letter I which appears on coins
of Peter I is unlikely to signify the name of a place.
No serious attempt has ever been made to argue from the style of
Hugh's coins or from their distribution in hoards that they were
struck at more than one mint. Their workmanship, with the
exception of one small group of specimens, is rather uniform.
Certainly the stylistic variation that occurs is no more than would be
natural at a single mint over a thirty-five year period. And in view
of the size and the historical geography of Cyprus it is not obvious
that more than one mint would have been required.
A different interpretation of the letter В and С which has been
suggested is that the В signifies the numeral 2, and С stands for 3,
while the unmarked coins are to be understood as if they were marked
with an A, standing for the numeral 1. Taking into account the
quantities in which the different varieties survive, one might then go
on to suggest that the coins were produced by three officinas of a
single mint, but that the third officina was needed only rarely6.
4. D.M. Metcalf, «The Gros grand and the Gro