The articles translated originally were published in Rocznik Kaliski in 2005 and 2010. An author associated with both articles was A. Kędzierski, perhaps the foremost authority on cross denarii in Poland. The articles translated are:
Kędzierski, A., Miłek, S. 2005. Mennica denarów krzyżowych w Kaliszu. Rocznik Kaliski 31, pp. 227-236.
Kędzierski, A. 2010. Czy istnieją denary krzyżowe Władysława Hermana? Rocznik Kaliski 36, pp. 255-262.
Kędzierski’s more recent works, of course, supersede and supplement these articles, but I thought it was still worth translating for better understanding the later works. The articles were translated strictly for use in personal scholarship. The translations can be accessed at the links below.
The recent translation of Gerard van Loon’s Beschryving Der Nederlandsche Historipenningen, known as the sequel to his previous work, has been added to the library, showcasing the history of the Low Countries from 1716 to 1806. Despite occasional translation hiccups, such as the misinterpretation of “Excellency” as “Excellence,” and the term “volunteer corpses” instead of “volunteer corps,” the overall quality of the work and the translation is commendable. The volumes, filled with comprehensive content and illustrations, make a valuable addition to numismatic libraries. Despite these minor imperfections, the translation is recommended, and interested individuals can consider purchasing it from Kolbe & Fanning, the numismatic bookseller.
SEQUEL TO GERARD VAN LOON’S MEDALLIC HISTORY OF THE LOW COUNTRIES (1716–1806). Gerard van Loon. Available from Kolbe & Fanning
The translation of a work from one language to another is an arduous task, requiring both technical skill and artistry. It occasionally also requires, for long laborious works of translation, an especially attentive, well-educated reviewer or proofreader, preferably one whose native language is the language into which the work was translated.
A welcome, recent addition to my library, acquired from the numismatic bookseller Kolbe and Fanning, is a translation of Gerard van Loon’s Beschryving Der Nederlandsche Historipenningen. It was originally published between 1822 and 1869 by the Second Section of the Royal Dutch Institute of Science, Literature and Fine Arts. The translation, SEQUEL TO GERARD VAN LOON’S MEDALLIC HISTORY OF THE LOW COUNTRIES (1716–1806), was published in two volumes (740pp.) in 2022. This, and the original van Loon series in translation, is highly recommended for all serious numismatic libraries.
In any event, though well pleased overall with the quality of the work (binding, printing, plates) and the translation, I must note, if only because it has made an impression that the translation of the original van Loon series did not, that there are occasional lapses, or as suggested above, infelicities, in the translation, occurring throughout the Sequel that catch the eye, sometimes to inadvertent humorous effect.
As a trivial example of a translation glitch, the honorific Excellency is translated correctly through most of the two volumes but occasionally appears as Excellence, as in Vol. 2 of Sequel, on p. 2-111, in the phrase “His Excellence the Stadholder.”
Slightly more unfortunate is the translation appearing in Vol. 1, on p. 1-104, in the description of the reverse of medal number 201 which commemorates the Peace of Dresden in 1745. The translator stated the following: “The three principal streams of Germany, viz. the Danube (DANVBIS) the Elbe (ALBIS) and the Oder (VIADRUS) under the guise of Stream Gods; above them respectively the Eagle of the Empire, of Poland, and of Prussia.” That the Danube, Elbe, and Oder are described as streams gave rise to a chuckle. Clearly river was the word for which the translator was reaching. The river-gods would not approve of being masters of mere babbling brooks.
Finally, the translation that inspired this post appeared in Vol. 2, on p. 2-110. I can do no better that present it without introduction: “And then one heard and saw that all over the country so-called volunteer corpses were founded and taught how to handle arms, for which many retired military persons were used, who received very good rewards for their training.” The translator, encountering an irregular plural, not realizing that the plural for corps is also corps, caused me to smile broadly when I came across this gem as I envisioned in my mind’s eye quite the zombie thriller.
Volunteer Corpses?
Despite all the foregoing, the translation of the work is quite able, and the work is highly recommended. I have included links to Kolbe and Fanning and recommend a purchase if it is still available.
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.
A Dirham of the type found in hoards in Poland from the early 10th century. SAMANID: Isma’il I, 892-907, AR dirham (2.89g), Balkh, AH293, A-1443. Photograph courtesy Stephen Album Rare Coins.
Widukind of Corvey’s Deeds of the Saxons [Res gestae saxonicae], records the following: “They happily received Wichmann, who then wore down the barbarians, who lived even further away, with numerous battles. Wichmann defeated King Miesco, who ruled over the Slavs called the Licicaviki, in two battles, and killed his brother. He then extorted a great quantity of booty from them” (Widukind of Corvey, p. 140).
Widukind’s entry regarding Mieszko, typically attributed to the year 963 A.D., is generally identified as the earliest reference to Mieszko and the polity he reigned over, latterly known as Poland. However, some scholars have posited that the fragmentary reports on the Slavs prepared by Ibrahim Ibn Ya’Qub al-Isra’ili at-Turtushi, which were latterly preserved through their incorporation into Al-Bakrī’s Kitāb al-masālik wa’l-mamālik (Book of the Roads and Kingdoms), may have reflected travels that occurred as early as 961-962 A.D., not the usually posited 965-966 A.D., and thus antedate Widukind’s first entry regarding Mieszko and his Slavs (Zaborski, p. 8).
Miezko I, the historically attested founder of Poland’s Piast Dynasty
Ibrahim Ibn Ya’Qub reported the following regarding Mieszko and his realm: “The country of Mashaqqah [that is Mieszko, earlier in the text identified as ‘King of the North’] is the largest one among the countries [of the Slavs]. It abounds in food, meat, honey, and agricultural produce. The taxes are collected in market weights. Those are the salary of his men in every month, and each of them has a certain amount of them to get. He has three thousand warriors wearing coats of mail; a hundred of them is worth a thousand of other warriors in the battle. He gives those men clothes, horses, arms, and everything they need. If a child is born to one of them, he orders the child to be paid a maintenance, regardless of the latter’s sex. When the child grows, and he is a boy, he marries him and pays the dowry to her father. The dowry of the Slavs if very big, and they pay it in the same way as the Berbers do. If a man, thus, has two or three daughters, he gets rich, but if he has two sons, he becomes poor” (Mishin, pp. 187-188).
“Wichman defeated and mortally wounded, surrenders to Mieszko I, handing over his sword to the ruler” – illustration from “Album de Wilna” by Jan Kazimierz Wilczyński. (1787). Source: Muzeum Narodowe w Krakowie – Photograph by Karol Kowalik
What is of particular interest to the numismatically inclined, and has been of interest to generations of scholars, are the references to the taxes collected and paid by Mieszko to support the three thousand warriors, warriors that allowed Mieszko to expand, consolidate, and stabilize his realm and, as recorded in a second entry by Widukind, become friend of the emperor and enjoy ultimate victory over Wichman (Widukind of Corvey, pp. 143-145).
Denar of Boleslaus Chrobry of Poland, ca. 992-1000 A.D. Tree of life with arrow, inscription / cross. One of the contenders for the first coins struck in Poland. Photograph from Suchodolski 2015.
As current scholarship does not support that Mieszko issued any coinage of his own and reveals that his son, Boleslaw Chrobry, struck Poland’s first denars between 992 A.D. and 1000 A.D. (see Suchodolski 2019 and Suchodolski 2015 for a discussion of which denars are contenders for earliest denars struck in Poland), we must look elsewhere for what, exactly, Mieszko may have collected for taxes and used to pay his force of mercenary warriors.
Mishin, in his translation of Ibrahim Ibn Ya’Qub, indicated that Mieszko collected taxes in “market weights,” which were then used to pay his warriors a fixed monthly salary. This peculiar translation, “market weights,” is ultimately based on the scholarship of Tadeusz Kowalski, who proposed this translation (matᾱqῑl al-murquatiyya) (because the Arabic word for “dinar” (matᾱqῑl) was followed by a corrupted (?) or unattested Arabic word modifying it which has stymied the best attempts of scholars searching for an appropriate translation for generations but which some, including Kowalski, viewed as meaning market (al-murquatiyya) – and a market dinar would, hypothetically be most appropriately translated as a “market weight”.
In a paper prepared for a 2006 conference celebrating the 60th anniversary of Kowalski’s remarkable scholarship regarding the testimony of Ibrahim Ibn Ya’qub, Andrzej Zaborski discussed this translation issue at length, noting that alternatives proposed over the years have include Byzantine money (a proposal widely rejected), legal tender/money, and his own hypotheses, “good coins of fixed value” or “coins of diminished value.” Zaborski concluded that the translation issue required further investigation. (Zaborski, pp. 64-65). I suggest that the text has revealed all that it will yield and that the evidence on the ground, or rather in the ground, argues that “good coins of fixed value” should prevail as the preferred translation. To support this contention, I appeal to the numismatic hoard evidence.
Mateusz Bogucki discussed the use of dirhams in Slavic lands in 2011, based on hoard evidence, and divided the time periods during which the hoards went into the ground into seven phases. Bogucki’s Phase III most aligns with the period during which Mieszko is referred to as collecting taxes and paying warriors salaries. Here is, in part, what Bogucki has to say about that period: “Phase III (early tenth century). At the turn of the ninth and tenth centuries, an important change in dirham importation may be observed. A significantly greater number of hoards are known from the period 900-40, and they are much larger (up to 1,000 coins). They are found in eastern Poland, Great Poland and Pomerania. Dirhams are almost exclusively whole coins. Some complete (undamaged) ornaments also occur in the hoards. Analysis of the coins and ornaments demonstrates that, during this phase, two important routes were in use. Coins found in Pomerania came via the Baltic, whereas coins in the eastern parts of Poland and Great Poland arrived mainly via the eastern land-route” (Bogucki (2011), p. 136).
In 2016, Bogucki explicitly tied the influx of dirhams into Poland to Mieszko’s use of mercenaries to consolidate his realm: “Assuming the chronology of the deposits is solid, it may even be suggested that the influx of silver to Wielkopolska from the East preceded the Pomeranian route by more than a decade and was initially greater in importance. The issue of the commodity exchanged for silver in the early-Piast state is still difficult to ascertain. It is apparent that the metal was needed to pay for mercenary services and to develop a proper network of administration and infrastructure based on strongholds. Archaeological research proves that the first half of the 10th century, when the core of the state in Wielkopolska was being established, brought destruction to a large percentage of tribal stronghold centres. Juxtaposing these facts with the chronology of the influx of oriental silver into Wielkopolska (discussed above) and the information found in written Arab sources, we may conclude that the economic basis for building the earliest Piast state came from selling slaves – the inhabitants of the destroyed tribal centres of Wielkopolska. By eliminating their hostile neighbours, the Piasts acquired silver, which they could use to consolidate their power” (Bogucki 2016, p. 246).
Based on the above, we know that Mieszko had access to good quality dirhams, in quantity, and that the dirhams were not yet reduced to hacksilber (where they would need to be regularly weighed to be paid out as a salary) as they were in later phases (such as Phase IV, from 970-1010 A.D., which Bogucki noted often included coins and items that were “intensely fragmented”). This adds support to Zaborski’s hypothesis, and my contention, that the contentious translation should be “good coins of fixed value” rather than the unsatisfactory and less supportable “market weights.” I note that Bogucki, in a 2005 paper, made passing reference to the issue of the form of the warrior salaries (in an article that was poorly translated into English) without addressing the underlying translation issue being discussed in this post :
In my opinion buying meat by silver doesn’t hinder from buying by the silver politically loyalty. In the matter of salary and taxes it’s better to quote the words of Ibrahim: ‘Received by him (king Mieszko I) taxes are trade weights. They are used as payment for his mans (knights). Each month to each man it’s a known number of it’ (Kowalski 1946, 50). Here is necessary to comment the term trade weights –mataqil murquatiyya. Ibrahim might have known the name of dirhems, the western European denars he called Kinszar, so I think that Ibrahim noticed the hack silver, taken not for pieces, but for weight. This relation doesn’t mean that salary and taxes weren’t paid in animals, grain or any other goods. But it shows, that in this matter it isn’t possible to give only one single answer.
Bogucki (2005), p. 1152.
I suspect if Bogucki would reflect further on the issue, and consider the later arguments of Zaborski and the nature of the hoard evidence when Mieszko was doing the bulk of the consolidation of his polity, he might abandon his attachment from market weights to good coins of fixed value. Yet, it is important to take note of the hacksilber hoards and what they may represent and for that, I direct readers to the comments in the article below by Florin Curta.
And finally, as if in response to the 60th Anniversary Conference honoring Kowalski’s scholarship, an updated edition of his work, translated into English, will soon be released. The editor of the new edition was Mustafa Switat, a Research Fellow with the University of Warsaw. Of course, I am most eagerly awaiting to see how the most recent scholarship addresses the issue of the translation issue discussed above and whether Zaborski’s proposed resolution is adopted or perhaps another solution is at hand.
REFERENCES/SOURCES: (Blue boxes may be clicked to be taken to reference works available online for review. Red boxes indicate reference works are not available for online review. If a link for a blue box is no longer working, please advise me of such as nca@northcoastantiquarian.com. Thank you.).
Note: Zabroski’s work is a compilation of scholarly papers read at a May 2006 conference celebrating the 60th anniversary of the publication of the first and most critical edition of Ibrahim Ibn Ya’Qub’s reports on the Slavs, which had been prepared and published by Tadeusz Kowalski [Kowalski, Tadeusz. Relacja Ibrāhīma ibn Ja’ḳūba z podróży do krajów słowiańskich w przekazie al-Bekrīego (Relatio Ibrāhīm ibn Ja’ḳūb de itinere Slavico, quo traditur apud al-Bekrī). Cracow: PAU, 1946]. The May 2006 conference concluded by calling for an updated edition of Kalkowski’s work to be published, with appropriate emendations to reflect the latest scholarship, and for it to be translated into English. Fortunately, the conference’s appeal has been answered as the following is soon to be released: Kowalski, Tadeusz. Ibrāhīm ibn Yaʿqūb’s Account of His Travel to Slavic Countries as Transmitted by Al-Bakri with Contemporary Commentary. Ed. Mustafa Switat. Trans. Agnieszka Waskiewicz.
