Ernst H. Kantorowicz (1895-1963) was a most extraordinary scholar who infused his writings with an almost poetic, soaring aesthetic. Recently, when re-reading his masterful tome, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology, originally published in 1957, I was reminded of my deep appreciation for his work. A quick distillation of the work is nigh impossible, but a summarization from The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought c. 350- c. 1450 (1988, Ed. J.H. Burns) provides a necessary, if overly simple, foundation for this post: “Germanic custom subjected the prince to the law and limited his authority to govern without the consent of his subjects. Christian thought and classical jurisprudence and philosophy stressed the divine origins of kingship and the sacral nature of political authority. Kantorowicz demonstrated that this tension in the thought of the lawyers led them to distinguish between the prince’s private body that was subject to the law and his public body that was not” (pp. 426-427).
Early in The King’s Two Bodies, Kantorowicz reminded me of his more than capable aesthetic sensibilities when he so ably demonstrated his theme by discussing Shakespeare’s Richard II and catoptromancy, which is the ancient art of divination using mirrors.
Before quoting the portion of The King’s Two Bodies which inspired today’s post, I provide, for those unfamiliar with the play Richard II, the following summary: Richard II, who reigned as king of England from A.D. 1377-1399, banished his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, son of the Duke of Lancaster for his involvement in a dispute with another lord. While Henry was in exile, his father, the Duke of Lancaster died, and King Richard seized the Duke of Lancaster’s lands and monies, which he then used to help fund his war in Ireland. While King Richard was waging war in Ireland, Henry Bolingbroke returned to England with an invading force to seize his inheritance. Many other lords joined Henry in opposition to King Richard so that by the time Richard returned to England from Ireland, he was compelled to relinquish his crown to the usurper Henry Bolingbroke, who had him imprisoned. After Richard’s supporters conspired to restore Richard, Richard was murdered.
In The King’s Two Bodies, after Kantorowicz has walked us through much of the play, he describes the scene in which Richard is compelled to split his natural body from his public body through words of renunciation and acts of deposition:
The scene in which Richard ‘undoes his kingship’ and releases his body politic into thin air, leaves the spectator breathless. It is a scene of sacramental solemnity, since the ecclesiastical ritual of undoing the effects of consecration is no less solemn or of less weight than the ritual which has built up the sacramental dignity. Not to mention the rigid punctilio which was observed at the ousting of a Knight of the Garter or of the Golden Fleece, there had been set a famous precedent by Pope Celestine V who, in the Castel Nuovo at Naples, had ‘undone’ himself by stripping off from his body, with his own hands, the insignia of the dignity which he resigned – ring, tiara, and purple. But whereas People Celestine resigned his dignity to his electors, the College of Cardinals, Richard, the hereditary king, resigned his office to God – Deo ius suum resignavit. The Shakespearian scene in which Richard ‘undoes himself with hierophantic solemnity,’ has attracted the attention of many a critic, and Walter Pater has called it very correctly an inverted rite, a rite of degradation and a long agonizing ceremony in which the order or coronation is reversed. Since none is entitled to lay finger on the Anointed of God and royal bearer of a character indelibilis, King Richard, when defrocking himself, appears as his own celebrant:
Am I both priest and clerk? Well then, amen. (IV.i.173)
Bit by bit he deprives his body politic of the symbols of its dignity and exposes his poor natural body to the eyes of the spectators:
Now mark me how I will undo myself:
I give this heavy weight from off my head,
And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand,
The pride of kingly sway from out my heart;
With mine own tears I wash away my balm,
With mine own hands I give away my crown,
With mine own tongue deny my sacred state,
With mine own breath release all duteous oaths:
All pomp and majesty do I foreswear…. (IV.i.203ff)
(pp.35-37)
However, as breathless as the scene above was, it is not the most compelling, nor the genesis of today’s post. Rather, the following is:
The mirror scene is the climax of that tragedy of dual personality. The looking-glass has the effects of a magic mirror, and Richard himself is the wizard who, comparable to the trapped and cornered wizard in the fairy tales, is forced to set his magic art to work against himself. The physical face which the mirror reflects, no longer is one with Richard’s inner experience, his outer appearance, no longer identical with inner man. ‘Was this the face?’ The treble question and the answers to it reflect once more the three main facets of the double nature – King, God (Sun), and Fool:
Was this the face
That every day under his household roof
Did keep ten thousand men?
Was this the face
That, like the sun, did make beholders wink?
Was this the face, that faces so many follies,
And was at last outfaced by Bolingbroke? (IV.i.281)
When finally, at the ‘brittle glory’ of his face, Richard dashes the mirror to the ground, there shatters not only Richard’s past and present, but every aspect of a super-world. His catoptromancy has ended. The features as reflected by the looking glass betray that he is stripped of every possibility of a second or super-body – of the pompous body politic of king, of the God-likeness of the Lord’s deputy elect, of the follies of the fool, and even of the most human griefs residing in inner man. The splintering mirror means, or is, the breaking apart of any possible duality. All those facets are reduced to one: to the banal face and insignificant physis of a miserable man, a physis now void of any metaphysis whatsoever. It is both less and more than Death. It is the demise of Richard and the rise of a new body natural.
Bolingbroke: Go, some of you, covey him to the Tower .
Richard: O, good! Convey? Conveyers are you all,
That rise thus nimbly by a true king’s fall. (IV.i.316ff)
Plowden: Demise is a word, signifying that there is a Separation of the two Bodies, and that the Body politic is conveyed over from the Body natural, now dead or removed from the Dignity royal, to another Body natural.
(pp.39-40)
The brilliance of the above is Kantorowicz’s allusion to catoptromancy. It called to mind that art of divination as reportedly practiced at the sanctuary of Demeter at Patras:
Before the sanctuary of Demeter is a spring at Patras, the spring separated from the temple by a wall of stones. Here there is an infallible oracle, not for all events, but for the ill only. They tie a mirror to a fine cord and let it down, judging the distance so that it does not sink deep into the spring, but just far enough to touch the water with its rim. Then they pray to the goddess and offer incense, after which they gaze into the mirror, which shows them the presage of death or recovery according to the face appearing healthy or ghastly in the reflection.
Pausanias, Description of Greece, Achaia, Book VII, Ch. 21, lines 12-13.
For surely, Richard, upon gazing in the mirror, reacted so strongly as to shatter the mirror because he saw a reflection which presaged the death of his natural body, not just the reality of his demise from the body politic.
ROME. 75 B.C. AR Denarius. MAXSVMVS – Bust of Cupid right, with bow and quiver over shoulder; before, countermark. Border of dots // C·EGNATIVS·CN·F CN·N III – Distyle temple; within, statues of Libertas and Jupiter (Jupiter holds staff in right hand); above Jupiter on left, thunderbolt; above Libertas on right, pileus ; on left, control mark. Border of dots. ANS 1944.100.1970
In Greek mythology, Cupid is known as Eros and is amongst the first gods. Hesiod records the following:
The First Gods
In the beginning there was only Chaos, the Abyss,
But then Gaia, the Earth came into being,
Her broad bosom the ever-firm foundation of all,
And Tartaros, dim in the underground depths
And Eros, loveliest of all the Immortals, who
Makes their bodies (and men’s bodies) go limp,
Mastering their minds and subduing their wills.
Hesiod, Theogony, 116-122
Of course, in contemporary culture, Eros, or Cupid, has become associated with Romantic love, and thus, the modern contrivance of Valentine’s Day.
Cross Denar similar to those found in the Słuszków Hoards CROSS DENAR: Anonymous, ca. 1070-1100, AR pfennig (0.79g), Gumowski-59; Dannenberg-1341, Bishop’s crozier surrounded by pellets // cross with pellets and crescents in quarters, raised rims of the randpfennig type, possibly struck at Halle-Giebichenstein or Merseberg, Fine to VF, S. The early pfennige of Saxony have seen a number of different attributions over the years. Some were known as “wendenpfennige” from the native Slavic peoples of eastern Germany and Pomerania and others as “randpfennige” (rim pfennigs) from their up-raised edges and attributed to the early Polish bishoprics and kingdoms. More recent studies have concluded they were civic issues of various eastern cities, with places such as Bremen, Halle-Giebichenstein, Meissen, Merseberg, and Naumburg being cited as points of origin. Ex Stephen Album Rare Coins Auction 31, Lot 1309 (2018).
The first hoard from the village of Słuszków near Kalisz was discovered accidentally in 1935. Krzysztof Dąbrowski, head of the archaeological department of the Institute of the History of Material Culture of the Polish Academy of Sciences (Kalisz), and later director of the State Archaeological Museum, secured the hoard for the state, thereby preserving it for study. The hoard, as it currently survives, is presently located in the Muzeum Okręgowe Ziemi Kaliskiej (District Museum of the Kalisz Region). The deposit has over 13,000 pieces, largely comprised of the later varieties of cross denarii, but also large module denars of the palatine Sieciech, Western European coins, and silver ornaments and “silver cakes”. The content and deposit date of this hoard provided scholars with the opportunity to address the issue of the origin of the later types of cross denars, which were the most common circulating coin in eleventh-century Poland. The reader is encouraged to review the sources linked below for a survey of the advances which the hoard has allowed. I have included an English translation of one of the most important articles for your convenience.
Surprisingly, the actual discovery location of the 1935 hoard in Słuszków is still unknown, despite repeated efforts by archaeologists to relocate it. Recently, however, it was reported by Archeologia Żywa (see articles cited below) that archaeologists from Kalisz and Warsaw were successful in finding an additional deposit of 6,500 silver coins in a corn field near the village of Słuszków, arranged in linen pouches, along with silver cakes, fragments of lead, and four gold rings, while searching for the original discovery location in November 2020.
Adam Kędzierski, an extraordinary scholar and archaeologist with the Interdisciplinary Center of Archaeological Research (Kalisz) of the Polish Academy of Sciences, reported the circumstances of the find: “According to the official version, the [original 1935 hoard, Słuszków 1] was hidden at the intersection of the border of three plots, located in the northern part of the village. This information turned out to be false, which is why during this year’s exploration work, attention was focused on the field closer to the road. This place was identified by the Rev. Jan Stachowiak, who obtained the information from the original finders of the hoard in the early 80s.” Kędzierski said the new hoard of denars was found within two days of the commencement of archaeological work in a well-preserved clay vessel “filled to the brim” located about 12 inches below the surface.
From my perspective, one of the gold rings in the recent hoard is most historically intriguing and raises the most interesting questions. The ring at issue is inscribed, in Cyrillic, Господ]ипомъзи [ра]бесвое[и] Марии. Adrian Jusupović, of the Institute of History (Warsaw) of the Polish Academy of Sciences, translates this inscription to “Lord help your servant Maria.” Kędzierski, after reviewing the coins in the latest hoard, which is now called Słuszków 2, has determined that, as the deposit can be dated to around 1105 A.D., the ring hypothetically can be attributed to the wife of Duke Casimir the Restorer of Poland, Duchess Maria Dobroniega (1010/1016 – 1087 A.D.), daughter of Grand Duke Vladimir of Kiev.
I hope to prepare a comprehensive summary of all the pertinent literature, with appropriate pictures, in the near future, outlining the understanding of the role of cross denars in Polish numismatic history by scholars.
SOURCES/REFERNCES:
Blue buttons are linked to the articles referenced. The first article is a new translation, in English, of the article immediately below it. If you have suggestions for improvements in the translation, please do not hesitate to contact me at nca@northcoastantiquarian.com.
In The Origins of Money (Philip Grierson. The Origins of Money. Research in Economic Anthropology, Vol. 1, 1978, pp. 1-35), Grierson, in discussing the origin of monetary values, noted that monetary values pre-existed market economies and that monetary values were well-attested as existing in “customary” and “command” pre-market societies. He stated that “[i]n such societies [monetary values] provided a scale for evaluating personal injuries in the institution which the Anglo-Saxons termed the wergild, and it is in this institution that the origin of money as a standard of value must, I believe, be sought. The practice of wergild, that of paying a compensation primarily for the killing of a man but the term by extension covering compensations for injuries to himself or his family and household, is most familiar to us in its Indo-European setting” (p.12). Grierson proffers various supporting evidence for his thesis, but one linguistic and one quite trivial and ancillary struck my fancy.
Grierson’s linguistic argument presents concisely and rather convincingly the connection between monetary value and its compensatory use in its opening paragraph (although, I note, that his evidence, linguistic and otherwise, does not, of course, dilute other arguments for the origins of money that are often discussed that are unrelated to markets):
“Our best approach to the problem is through the testimony of language, often the most revealing key to the structure of early societies. It has naturally not been neglected by writers on early money. Everyone is familiar with the connection of pecunia and pecus – this was known to the Romans themselves – of fee and O.E. feoh, cow (mod. Germ. Vieh), of the derivation of shilling and rouble (rubl’) from verbs meaning to cut (skilja, rupit’. i.e., pieces of precious metal), of the relationship of talent, lira, and pound with the process of weighing metal. What we are concerned with, however, are not particular units but the notion of money in general and how it was first used. Much of our own vocabulary is borrowed from Latin by way of French and is not relevant to Germanic antiquities, though one may note in passing that pay comes through Fr. Payer from Lat. pacare “to pacify” ‘to make peace with,” and that behind the idea of appeasing your creditor lies the more revealing pacere, to come to terms with the injured party. Si membrum rupsit, ni cum eo pacit, talio esto, “If a limb is injured, unless peace is made with him (i.e., with the injured party, by paying compensation), there shall be retaliation,” was the Roman doctrine, as set out in the Law of the Twelve Tables” (footnotes redacted, pp. 15-16).
After exploring his linguistic argument, Grierson noted that it might be difficult to generalize from the available “compensatory law codes” for the pre-market Germanic, Celtic and Russian societies to other early pre-market Indo-European societies but he noted that the available codes provide an extraordinary wealth of detail. In this regard, he noted that the compilers of the codes “sometimes seem to be trying to provide for every contingency, of however improbable a nature.” “The other is their occasional frivolity, for some of their provisions, especially in the Celtic codes, must have been inserted more or less in fun. How else can one explain … the responsa of Cormac Mac Art and Cennfaeladh in the Book of Aicill providing compensations for bee stings – Irish bees were apparently of unexampled ferocity – but allowing a deduction of the value of a bee from the compensation if the bee was killed by the injured party? Clearly such provisions were not meant to be taken seriously” (p 17).
The unexampled ferocity of Irish bees had me immediately scampering to find out more about the Book of Aicill, its authors, and precisely what it said about Irish bees and how their attacks were to be compensated. Having examined the Book of Aicill, I would disagree that frivolity was intended. Either the section was intended in earnest or was intended as an example of how an arbiter should reason through similar, but perhaps more likely and just as serious, injuries. For here is what the pages dedicated to the ferocious Irish bees said in the book:
Injuries in the case of bees. That is, a hive is the fine for the blinding, and two hives for the killing of a person; and a book mentions the hive for the blinding, and it does not mention two hives for the killing; but as there is twice the ‘eric’-fine due from a person for killing a person that there is for blinding him, it is right from this, that it is twice the ‘eric’-fine which is due from a bee for blinding him that should be due for killing him. A man’s full meal of honey is the fine for drawing blood; a fifth of the full meal for an injury which leaves a lump, three-fourths of it for a white blow which leaves a sinew in pain, or green, or swollen, or red; if it be one or two of these injuries that are present, it (the penalty) is one-fifth with half one-fifth; one-fifth only for his natural white wound. A hive is the fine for the death-maim necessitating the removal of a limb, but if there be no removal of a limb, it (the fine) is a hive, less one-seventh; two-thirds of it for a ‘cumhal’-maim; one-third of it for a tent-wound of six ‘seds’; one-sixth or one-seventh part is to be added to it for the tent-wound of seven ‘seds.’
From the owners of the bees these fines are due for the persons. What shall be due from the persons for the bees? If the person has killed the bee while blinding him or inflicting a wound on him until it reaches bleeding, a proportion of the full meal of honey equal to the ‘eric’-fine for the wound shall be remitted in the case; the remainder is to be paid by the owner of the bee to the person injured. If the person killed the bee while inflicting a white wound upon him, they (the fines) shall be set off against each other. If the person killed the bee while inflicting a lump-wound on him, four-fifths of the fine shall be remitted, and one-fifth paid. If it was while inflicting a white wound which left a sinew under pain, or green, or swollen, or red, he killed the bee, three-fifths of the fine are to be remitted, and two-fifths paid. If it was while inflicting one or two of them (the wounds) he killed the bee, half one-fifth is to be remitted, and one-fifth paid. From the owners of the bees these fines are due for the persons, and from the persons for the bees. What shall be due from the owners of the bees for the animals injured, and from the owners of the animals for the bees? If the bee has blinded or killed the animal, what shall be the fine for it? The proportion which the hive that is due from the owners of the bees bears to the fine for their blinding the person, or which the two hives that are due for their killing him bear to the natural body-fine of the person, is the proportion which the full natural dire-fine of the animal shall bear to that fine which shall be due from the bee for blinding or killing it (the animal). One-half of what is due for killing it is due for blinding it, or inflicting a death maim which necessitates the removal of a limb; if there be no removal of a limb, it (the fine) is one-half, less half one fifth, if it be a quadruple animal; or one-half, less the half of one-half, if it be an animal of double. Two-thirds of this are due for a ‘cumhal’-maim; one-third for a tent wound of six ‘seds’; and an equivalent of a sixth or seventh part is to be added to it for a tent- wound of seven ‘seds,’ over and above what shall be due for the tent-wound of six ‘seds.’
What shall be due from a bee for making the animal bleed? The proportion which the full meal of honey that is due from a bee for making a person bleed bears to the hive that is due from it for killing him, is the proportion which the ‘eric’-fine for blinding or killing the animal bears to that which will be due from a bee for making it bleed, i.e. four-fifths is the proportion for its lump-wound, three-fifths for its white wound which leaves a sinew in pain, or green, or swollen, or red. If it be one or two of them that are inflicted, it (the fine) is two-fifths and half one-fifth. Two-fifths is the proportion for a natural white wound. From the owners of the bees these fines are due for the animals. What shall be due from the owners of animals for the bees? If the animal killed the bee while in the act of blinding it, or killing it, or inflicting a wound upon it until it reaches bleeding, a proportion of the ‘eric’-fine for the wound equal to a full meal of honey shall be remitted, and the remainder shall be paid by the owner of the bee to the owner of the animal. If it was while in the act of causing the animal to bleed it (the animal) killed the bee, they i.e. the bleeding of the animal and the killing of the bee, shall be set off against each other; or else, indeed, according to others, the difference which is between causing a person to bleed and causing an animal to bleed is the difference that shall be paid by the owner of the animal to the owner of the bee. If it was while inflicting a lump-wound on it the bee was killed, four-fifths shall be remitted, and one-fifth, the difference, paid. If it was while inflicting a white wound which left a sinew in pain, or green, or swollen, or red, the bee was killed, three fifths shall be remitted, and two-fifths, for the difference, paid. If the bee was killed while inflicting one or two of them (the wounds), two-fifths and a half shall be remitted, and two-fifths and a half, for the difference, paid. If the bee was killed while inflicting a natural white wound on it (the animal), one fifth shall be remitted, and four-fifths, for the difference, paid.
If there were many gardens, or if there were many bees, lots are to be cast to discover from which garden the injury was done; and when it shall have been discovered, if there were many possessions in that garden, lots are to be cast on them till the particular possession be discovered from which the injury was done; and when it shall have been discovered, if there were many hives’ in that possession, lots are to be cast upon them until the particular hive from which the injury was done shall have been discovered. And the reason why this is done is, that a bad hive may not be given in place of a good hive, or that a good hive may not be given in place of a bad hive; but that the very hive from which the injury was done may go for the injury. If it was intentionally or inadvertently in unlawful anger the person killed the bee, a man’s full meal of honey shall be given as compensation, and four full meals as dire-fine. If it was inadvertently in lawful anger he killed the bee, a man’s full meal of honey is given as compensation, and two full meals as dire-fine. If it was through unnecessary profit he killed the bee, only a full meal of honey is given as compensation. This is due from the bees of a native freeman for a person; the half thereof from the bees of a stranger; a fourth of it from the bees of a foreigner; there is nothing due from the bees of a daer-person, until it reaches sick maintenance or compensation, or, according to others, even when it does. From the bees of a native freeman this is due for a person; four-sevenths thereof from the bees of a stranger; two-sevenths and one-fourteenth from the bees of a foreigner; there is nothing due from the bees of a daer-person, until it reaches sick maintenance or compensation, or, according to others, even when it does. From the bees of a native freeman this is due for a cow; the half thereof from the bees of a stranger; a fourth of it from the bees of a foreigner; and there is nothing from the bees of a daer-person until it reaches sick maintenance or compensation, or, according to others, even when it does. From the bees of a native freeman this is due for a horse; half thereof from the bees of a stranger; a fourth of it from the bees of a foreigner; and there is nothing due from the bees of a daer-person until it reaches sick maintenance or compensation, or, according to others, even when it does. From the bees of a native freeman this is due; a fourth thereof from the bees of a stranger; a half and a seventh from the bees of a foreigner; an exact half from the bees of a daer person.
The sophistication of the compensatory structure regarding damages for injuries from bees discussed in the Book of Aicill does not strike me as being as frivolous as Grierson suggested when one considers that the temperature of a cup of coffee from a fast food franchise which spills onto an elderly woman, an incident deemed by many frivolous, can justifiably make a successful $2.9 million tort claim in the American legal system (Andrea Gerlin. A Matter of Degree: How a Jury Decided That a Coffee Spill Is Worth $2.9. Wall Street Journal. September 1, 1994). So perhaps the sagacity and foresightedness of authors of the Book of Aicill were greater than Grierson and others perceived.
As to the authors, Laurence Ginnell (Laurence Ginnell. The Brehon Laws: A Legal Handbook. T. Fisher Unwin, London, 1894), provided a colorful, even if antiquated background, for them and the Book of Aicill in his legal handbook well over century ago. I quote liberally from therein:
The whole of the Book of Aicill is composed of the opinions or placita of two eminent men, illustrious in law and in other respects: The first was King Cormac mac Airt, otherwise called Cormac ua Cuinn; the second was Cennfaeladh the Learned. Cormac was one of the most deservedly celebrated of the monarchs of ancient Erinn. He was Ard-Rig from A.D. 227 until 266 (according to others from 218 until 260). He was, as his names signify, the son of Art and the grandson of Conn of the Hundred Battles, both monarchs of Erinn, and he was the father of Cairbre who may be said to have succeeded him, the very short reign of Eochaidh alone intervening. He was also the father of Grainne, celebrated in the Fenian poetry of Oisin and his contemporaries. In youth he was violent enough, perhaps unscrupulous in pursuit of power; but his subsequent life proved that his ambition rose from the solid basis of ability to rule men; and to this extent, as also by the use he made of power when acquired, he justified himself. He was a great reformer of the national institutions of his time, civil and military, including the Feis of Tara; and most of the traces of its former greatness now existing at Tara are attributed to his time. Consistently with his reforming spirit, he was a great patron of literature, art, and industry, the first of whose patronage we have undoubted evidence. He either wrote himself or procured the writing of several works on law, history, and other important subjects. Some of these works on subjects other than law were still extant so late as the seventeenth century, but appear to have been since destroyed or lost. Among the useful things for which the country was indebted to Cormac was the introduction of the water-mill. He had the first mill erected on a small stream on the slope of Tara. He was a man in many respects far in advance of his time. Though living long before Saint Patrick’s arrival, and king of a pagan nation, there is reason for thinking that he was a believer in Christianity before his death. He at all events ceased to believe in the pagan gods. …
According to one Gaelic authority Cormac was the author of the text of the Book of Aicill throughout, and Cennfaeladh afterwards modified and commented on the whole of it, besides adding some of the case law which had grown up in the interval. And I am inclined to think that this view is correct. However, the introduction to the Book of Aicill gives a different account, and naturally it is that usually accepted. It begins thus: “The place of this book is Aicill, close to Tara, and its time is the time of Coirpri Lifechair (Carbre of the Liffey), the son of Cormac, and its author is Cormac, and the cause of its having been composed was the blinding of the eye of Cormac by Aengus Gabhuaidech.” Owing to the loss of his eye, Cormac became incapable under the Irish law of retaining the sovereignty, “because it is a prohibited thing for one with a blemish to be king at Tara.” The sovereignty was transferred to his son, after a temporary usurper had been got rid of, and Cormac retired to Aicill, now called Skreen, near Tara. It is stated that in difficult cases he was consulted by his son the young king. However this may be, a great deal of the Book of Aicill is written as if in answer to questions submitted, and the answer in each case begins with the words, “My son, that thou mayest know.”
It was on account of this injury to his eye that Cormac expelled the Deisi from the district in Meath still from them called Deece, and drove them to Munster where they settled and gave their name to a district there also.
Having told where, when, on what occasion, and by whom, the book was first written, the introduction proceeds: “These were the place and time of it as far as regards Cormac. But as regards Cennfaeladh, its place is Daire Lurain (now Derryloran, in Tyrone), and its time was the time of Domhnall, son of Aedh, son of Ainmire; and its author was Cennfaeladh, son of Oilell, and the cause of its being composed was that part of his brain was taken out of his [Cennfaeladl1’s] head after it had been split in the battle of Magh Rath.” The Domhnall (Donal) in whose reign this occurred was monarch of Ireland and fought the battle of Magh Rath (now Anglicised Moira) in A.D. 634 (? 642) against Congal Claen, king of Uladh.
The foregoing statements are remarkably clear and explicit. They represent the Book of Aicill as the production of two authors, one writing in the third century, the other in the seventh. Notwithstanding this, Sir Henry Maine, the standard authority on ancient law, in his learned discoveries of “village communities” where they never existed, represents Cennfaeladh as assisting Cormac! Worse still, I find an Irish author saying gravely that Cormac was just the man to appreciate Cennfaeladh’s services! Granted that Cormac was highly endowed, still the power of appreciating services rendered more than three hundred years after his owndeath can hardly be conceded even to Cormac mac Airt; and if he had such power, any express recognition of Cennfaeladh’s services would then have been rather premature.
In future, after considering the above, when confronted with a ferocious Irish bee, you may have occasion to reflect on the Book of Aicill and the ultimate origins of money. And, more importantly, if in future you are injured by said ferocious Irish bee, you will know what compensation you may seek for redress for the injury inflicted from the owner of the hive of the mischievous bee.
Siculo-Punic AR Tetradrachm, c. 320-300BC, People of the Camp mint, 16.95g. Jenkins-161. Obverse: Head of Arethusa/Tanit left, wearing barley wreath and earring, four dolphins around, small shell below chin. Reverse: Head of horse left, palm tree with dates behind, Phoenician `MMHNT (mint name) below truncation. Stephen Album Rare Coins Auction 42, Lot 45. Realized $11,400 on $1,000-$1,500 Estimate.
Very few coins are, literally, breathtaking. The above coin is breathtaking. It sold at a Stephen Album Rare Coin auction for well-over its conservative estimate, and deservedly so, on January 20, 2022. It is most reminiscent of the slightly better example of the same type (also Jenkins 161) that sold for slightly less (8500 CHF, approx. $8,485) in Leu Numismatik’s 2019 Auction 4 as Lot 178.
Siculo-Punic AR Tetradrachm, c. 320-300 BC, People of the Camp mint, 17.00g. Jenkins-161. Numismatik Leu Auction 4, Lot 178 (2019). Realized 8500 CHF on 4000 CHF Estimate.
In the final decade of the fifth century BC, the Carthaginians launched a series of invasions of Sicily, conquering much of the western half of the island. The Carthaginian presence lasted for a century and a half, until Rome’s victory in the First Punic War obliged the Carthaginians to withdraw.
During their occupation of Sicily, the Carthaginians struck an extensive coinage for the purpose of financing their military operations and the maintenance of garrisons. Many of these coins were “military issues” and, surprisingly, labeled as such (i.e., as “camp” issues). The obverse and reverse types of the coins in the military series are mostly influenced by Sicilian prototypes, particularly those of Syracuse. The obverse of the Siculo-Punic Tetradrachm of which I am writing was inspired by the Syracusan AR decadrachm c. 400 BC signed by Euainetos. As noted by N.K. Rutter in Greek Coinages of Southern Italy and Sicily (Spink, London, 1997), it was copied by the Carthaginians because “… the reference to a Syracusan coin-type would have meant something to a Greek mercenary” (p.157).
Inspiration for the Siculo-Punic Tetradrachms: Syracuse AR (42.82 g.) Decadrachm by Euainetos, c. 405-400 BC. Obverse: Head of Arethrusa facing left with four dolphins around, ΣΥΡΑΚΟΣΙΩΝ, ΕΥAINE. Reverse: Below AΘΛΑ: Quadriga driven left by charioteer; above, Nike flying right, crowning charioteer; in exergue panoply of weapons. ANS 1997.9.64
G. Kenneth Jenkins studied these issues in his Coins of Punic Sicily (Parts I-IV, 1971-1978), and noted that the camp mint, once it was operating in Sicily, was most probably located in Lilybaion (Part III, p.11). This proposed location for the camp mint has been the object of debate for years and other locations have been proposed. For instance, Ian Lee, surveying the literature and reexamining the evidence for the earliest Punic coinage in Sicily, more recently concluded that the camp mint was located at Entella (LEE, IAN. “Entella: The Silver Coinage of the Campanian Mercenaries and the Site of the First Carthaginian Mint 410-409 BC.” The Numismatic Chronicle (1966-), vol. 160, Royal Numismatic Society, 2000, pp. 1–66, http://www.jstor.org/stable/42668259).
Siculo-Punic Tetradrachms, such as the one sold by Stephen Album Rare Coins, were ultimately destined to pay Greek mercenaries. The tetradrachms’ visual familiarity combined with its being struck to the Attic weight standard (c. 17.2 g.) rather than the Phoenician weight standard (c. 14.3 g. to the shekel or tetradrachm) usually used by the Carthaginians would have made it the perfect mechanism for payment to its intended recipients. [See Visonà, Paolo. “CARTHAGINIAN COINAGE IN PERSPECTIVE.” American Journal of Numismatics (1989-), vol. 10, American Numismatic Society, 1998, pp. 1–27, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43580385, p. 4, for discussion regarding adoption of Attic weight standard due to military exigency].
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