What Is The Relationship Between Early Medieval Coins, Their Preservation And Society?

'Change in the availability and the use of money is . one of the keys to explaining the changing fabric of rural society, as well as of urban society, in the Middle Ages.' From the fifth century onwards, the use and availability of money steadily declined. After the collapse of the fiscal system of the Roman times - when the wealth of a city was measured in tributes and taxes -, wealth was mostly based on land and peasants would generally pay the rent and tithes in services and in kind, highlighting thus the little need of cash of medieval people, according to Le Goff. However, Le Goff himself argued that it is impossible to conceive, even in the Early Middle Ages, a society that lived in a totally 'natural economy', based solely on self-sufficiency and exchanges in produce and services. Money circulated even among the peasantry. Lucia Travaini claims that despite the use of coinage dramatically dropped, coinage continued to be a 'reality', if anything at least as a value unit. With the aid of archaeological finds, this essay will explore the use of coinage in the Lombard society of the first half of the eighth century.

When the Longobards came to Italy in the sixth century, they had no basis for a monetary culture. Coins were commemorative or representing the owner's status, rather than being used as a medium of economic transaction. This might have been true in the sixth and perhaps the seventh century, but later evidence from the eighth century suggests that by then this was by no means a common practice. The disappearance of grave goods from burial place in the eighth century provides us with a valid example. Grave goods were carefully chosen, and, therefore, they could reveal the social status of the interred. Over the centuries, the Church had encouraged spiritual qualities and good morality over material affluence. These new ideals were widespread across Europe, as shown by the fact that in eighth-century Anglo-Saxon England the practice of burying money and grave goods had similarly died out. If tokens of high status have not been discovered in eighth-century graves as they had been before, one is inclined to argue that upper classes would not have used coins in their life solely as symbol of status. The absence of grave goods altogether is symptomatic of the decline in the tradition of displaying one's status, which in all likelihood led to the abandonment of the use of coins as symbolic objects. Coins - and wealth - still represented the social status of an individual, as King Aistulf's law concerning merchants testifies, yet not merely as symbolic objects, but as being media of exchange. Nevertheless, there are some rare examples of coins buried along with the dead. The rich Lombard lady buried in Castel Trosino (T115) had 5 solidi, 4 tremisses and a roman coin. Travaini, however, argues that due to the presence of an ancient coin, this was related to some magical rituals rather than representing a symbol of status. Symbolic coins have been minted from time to time too, but this has to be regarded as an exceptional event. When King Aistulf conquered Ravenna in 751, he issued bronze coins bearing his name. Christie noted that this coinage did not circulate outside Ravenna, hypothesising thus its symbolic purpose. The very fact that he issued lead coins suggests that these issues were exceptional.

Bronze coinage, previously used for everyday transactions, had indeed disappeared when the Lombards came to Italy: Ermanno Arslan suggests that it was replaced by exchange in kind or services. Gian Piero Bognetti, on the other hand, hypothesised the use of substitutes of coins (the panis and the scutella di cambio) for everyday transactions. This reflects the on-going debate between 'natural economy' and 'monetary economy' that is worth outlining briefly, in order to give perspective to this analysis. Patrick Geary claimed that the Middle Ages were dominated by a 'natural economy', in which rural economy was based on barter and self-sufficiency, and urban economy on limited trade. Rural areas dominated over urban ones, and therefore copper coins, whose primary function had been 'to provide for the enormous number of extraordinarily small payments that are a natural part of urban living . play[ed] so much smaller a part in a thoroughly rural society'. Grenville Astill noticed the difference in exchanges between luxuries and products connected with subsistence and that 'prestige goods were given as gifts and reciprocated by other luxuries that were regarded as equivalent'. In the conception of natural economy, self-sufficiency of the peasantry was opposed to the gift-culture of the elite. On the other hand, evidence of the use of coins from archaeological excavations supplanted the idea of the Middle Ages as a totally 'natural economy'. One of the aims of this essay is to assess the importance that coinage held in the Lombard society of the eighth century, by supporting the thesis that, although one cannot deny that rents were often paid in kind or services, commerce was not limited as previously believed and markets were supported by a - at least partially - 'monetary economy'.

Gold coins continued to circulate, and solidi seemed to be the dominant coin in the laws. As a matter of fact, in all legal documents, such as the Rothair's Edictum or the laws of King Liutprand or King Ratchis, only gold coinage seems to appear. However, it can be argued that, following Travaini's suggestion that coinage might have been used as value unit, in fact, compositions and other payments might have been made in the equivalent in tremisses, in silver issues or perhaps even in kind of the sum expressed in solidi. For the commercial use of the gold coinage, on the other hand, Neil Christie draws our attention to the differences between the Southern Duchy of Benevento and Northern Italy. In the eighth century, Benevento was deeply involved in trade with the Arabs and the Byzantines, and this is shown by the minting of good quality solidi and tremisses, which continued, in spite of the progressive debasement, until the mid-ninth century. In Tuscany and Northern Italy, on the other hand, mints issued almost exclusively gold tremisses. Duke Gisulf I of Benevento (689-706) issued pseudo-imperial gold solidi, with the name and bust of the Byzantine Emperor and Gisulf's own initials. At roughly the same time, King Cunincpert (688-700) issued tremisses bearing solely his own bust and name. The Emperor's bust on the Beneventan issues indicates the need for a more 'international' coinage, which implies a more active participation in the Mediterranean trade of the Beneventan merchants than the Northern Lombard merchants. Nonetheless, this international trade does not seem to be represented by material evidence in the excavations in the Benevantan area, but Christie believes that that is simply due to restricted urban excavations.

Despite the decline of international commerce in the North, everyday exchanges of foodstuffs, timber and livestock obviously continued. At the end of a conference in 1992, Chris Wickham stated that the Early Medieval commercial exchanges were founded on interregional exchanges of everyday items rather than international trade of luxuries. However, the 715 pact between Liutprand and the Comacchiesi (the inhabitants of Comacchio, situated at the delta of the Po River) symbolises the survival of both interregional and international trade. Gina Fasoli defined the vigorous trading system between the delta of the river Po and Pavia as 'the most important market in the kingdom'. King Liutprand allowed the Comacchiesi to conduct business (peragere negotium) along the coasts of the kingdom, upon payment of monetary tolls or in kind. For example, in order to use the port called Parmisiano (around Parma) the merchants had to pay one solidus and give one pound of oil, one pound of garum, and two ounces of pepper. Ross Balzaretti argues that the text does not indicate how frequent the passage of ships and merchants was, and that 'there were probably not many of them and their activities did not therefore have much impact on local agricultural practice', as the goods mentioned were mostly luxuries destined mainly for the court. However, for the purpose of this essay, Balzaretti's theory that the goods that were transported along the Po River were luxuries for court use suggests that exchanges were done using coinage as a medium of exchange, since the upper classes were likely to have gold issues to pay for such expensive luxuries. Merchants were not members of the upper classes and, therefore, gift-exchange with the court members - the buyers in Balzaretti's theory - does not seem to have been a plausible option. Moreover, if local exchange could be done in kind, it is much more unlikely that international trade was not monetised. Stefano Gasparri noted that the presence of garum and pepper in the pact suggests that there was an active trade route with the East, contrary to the general assumption reported by Christie of the loss of international trade. This document is particularly interesting, as it is one of the first documents that testify the trade of salt in the North-East of Italy that was widely conducted by the Venetians, thus widening the scope of commercial activities in the Northeast.

Like in all legal documents, in the 715 pact there is no mention of the silver coinage. Silver coins, however, survived in the form of fractions (quarters, eighths, or even sixteenths) of siliquae, bearing the royal monogram instead of the name of the Emperor from the time of King Perctarit (672-688). The Biella hoard attests the presence of silver fractions of siliquae attributed to King Perctarit and King Cunincpert (679-700, until 688 associated with his father Perctarit). These silver issues continued to be minted - with a fossilisation of the type - up to the 730s, since the hoard contained also gold tremisses of King Liutprand (712-44), during whose reign the hoard was deposited. Christie, according to the traditional view, claimed that 'there is nothing to show their use in everyday exchange', as these silver coins were 'well in excess of simple day-to-day purchase requirements.' The fragility and scarcity of silver finds had led to the assumption that these coins had a secondary role in the economy of the kingdom. Yet we must bear in mind that the scarcity of these finds may well be related indeed to the fragility of the coins, which are hence very likely to deteriorate under the earth. Also, it is worth pointing out that number of specimens that survived to the present day is not necessarily indicative of the number of coinage that existed at a certain time and, in Metcalf's words, 'estimates based on the numbers of coins known today are a worse than dangerous guide.' Moreover, recent archaeological excavations in Austria, Slovenia, at Luni, around Salerno, in Molise at the necropolis of Campochiaro, in Puglia, in Basilicata, and in the Duchy of Benevento have brought to light other fractions of siliquae - or at least fragments of it.

It is very important at this point to briefly turn our attention to the different meanings attached to the different types of findings, in order to fully understand the importance of the finds mentioned above. Generally, coins have been discovered in hoards and single-finds. Hoards are less representative of the money circulation than single-finds, as they were a very common way of protecting money, and may not reflect the various types of coins that might have been exchanged in a particular area. Single-finds, on the other hand, indicate individual accidental losses and represent a random sample of the coins in circulation in a particular place, as they are not necessarily related to political events - hoards were often created in times of trouble. As a general point, the greater is the number of coins that circulated in one area, the greater is the chance of an accidental loss of coins, and this chance further increases in areas in which the circulation of coinage is more rapid. Single-finds are thus very much more related to commercial activities than hoards. The majority of the Lombard finds mentioned above are single-finds, and therefore directly related to commerce and monetary transactions. This indicates that the silver fractions of siliquae circulated, and were likely to be used in some commercial transactions. Mark Blackburn suggested that Lombard silver issues were purely for local use, but finds in Austria, Slovenia, and Byzantine Luni suggest that silver coinage was used also for international trade

As further evidence that silver coinage were used in commercial activities, while the gold coinage began its steady fall during the reign of Liutprand - connected to the debasement of the Byzantine mints of Ravenna and Rome -, silver issues continued to be minted for the whole of the eighth century. The only possible explanation is that the economic sector that made use of such coinage remained alive, despite the growing economic crisis. As Carlo Cipolla put it, the degree of liquidity of coinage 'depends in large part on the degree of efficiency of the market'; this proves that a certain kind of coin would survive only if it meets market needs. The fact that silver issues continued to exist for the whole of the eighth century means that these coins were needed, and consequently used in the eighth century by the Lombards, for commercial purposes and even for some kinds of everyday transactions. This view is compatible with Ernesto Bernareggi's theory, shared by many historians, that the Lombards used gold coinage for capital outlay such as the purchase of agricultural land, but received rents in kind or services, inasmuch as it gives us freedom to situate silver coinage in a commercial framework. But if we deny this view by arguing that silver coins retained too high a value to be used in any kind of everyday commercial transactions, we necessarily have to deny Toubert's theory that the introduction of Carolingian denarii eliminated the 'great blind corner of Early Medieval currency that was the everyday economy, with its need for cash with low purchasing power', that enabled people to buy basic commodities such as bread, meat, and salt, since the Carolingian denarii were much heavier than the Lombard fractions of siliquae.

We have seen that Lombard coinage was bimetallic, but the disappearance of bronze coinage did not necessarily mean that everyday transactions were made only in kind or services, as the fractions of siliquae could have carry out that role. Gold was the official coinage, as it appears in laws and official documents in the form of solidi and tremisses. The decline of commerce with the Middle East affected the gold supply in the West, which led to a progressive debasement of the gold issues. At the time Charlemagne conquered the Regnum, Lombard gold issues were greatly deteriorated in fineness (only a quarter gold, and three-quarters alloy). Yet gold issues continued to exist and continued to be exchanged, and so did the silver issues. Among the upper classes, gift-culture might have developed, but the purchase of expensive luxuries was often necessarily made in coinage. Similarly, the peasantry might have generally relied on self-sufficiency on a regular basis, but purchased goods at the local markets with coinage, or at lease using coinage as value unit. Barter would not allow exchanges when one party had something to dispose at one time of the year and the other at a different time, which was very common in local rural markets. Commerce represents thus the key to assess the importance and the availability of coinage in society, and the combination of written and archaeological evidence analysed in this essay suggests commerce continued to exist in the form of interregional exchanges throughout the Regnum Langobardorum, and international trade across the Mediterranean. The Lombards were not living in a totally natural economy. BIBLIOGRAPHY

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