Sachsenpfennig

The Sachsenpfennig ("Saxon pfennig"), sometimes called the Wendenpfennig or the Hochrandpfennig ("high rim pfennig"),[1] was a well-known coin of the pfennig type minted in the eastern part of the Stem Duchy of Saxony during the 10th and 11th centuries. It had an upturned perimeter and, next to the Otto Adelheid Pfennig was the most common pfennig type of its time.[2] Sachsenpfennigs are the oldest coins minted in Saxony. Its different names represent a lack of clarity within mediaeval numismatics about the coin.

Sachsenpfennigs of different types named after their designs which include the Holzkirchenpfennig ("wooden church"), Balkenkreuzpfennig ("bar cross"), Kleeblattkreuzpfennig ("clover cross") and Krummstabpfennig ("crooked staff")

Names

Julius Menadier called the pfennig type of the 10th and 11th centuries with an upturned rim the Sachsenpfennig because it was minted in eastern Saxony.[3]

Typical composition of a Viking Age hoard

The older name Wendenpfennig ("Wend pfennig") is inappropriate as a pfennig that the Wends minted, since they still regarded the coins as ingots or so-called hacksilver and did not mint any coins themselves. According to Menadier, the use of hacksilver and coins are mutually exclusive. East of the Elbe among the Slavs (Wends) and Scandinavians (Vikings), the merchants had developed a so-called bullion economy. When paying, silver was cut into the form of ingots, jewellery and coins and weighed with scales and weights.[4] Across the whole of the Slavic lands, hoards of silver weighing several kilogrammes have occasionally survived; they comprise German and West European denarii, Oriental dirhems and Scandinavian jewellery. The pieces were mostly chopped up, broken or cut up.[5]

In Polish and English texts, the term cross denier (Polish: denary krzyzowe, German: Kreuzdenare) appears. An indisputable modern name for these coins is Hochrandpfennig ("high rim pfennig")[6] or Randpfennig ("rim pfennig").

The different names indicate an unclear position in medieval numismatics. Their anonymity and their seemingly primitive coinage led to them being regarded as a separate coin group outside of the normal imperial coinage.[7]

Coin standard

The oldest Sachsenpfennigs were based on the minting standard of the Carolingian monetary reform under which 240 pfennigs were minted from the Carolingian pound of silver weighing 367 g. Twelve pfennigs made one schilling.[8] At that time, the schilling was not an actual coin, but the name of a dozen pfennigs, so it was just a unit of account. In theory, the pfennig weighed 1.5g, however, of the coins that have been found, the lightest were 0.95 g, the heaviest 1.90 g.[9] From Roman antiquity, the talentum was adopted for the pound, solidus for the schilling and denarius for the pfennig. The mintmasters used mine-pure silver as the minting metal. In addition, circulating Roman denarii were melted down. Only pfennigs and 1⁄2 pfennigs were minted. The 1⁄2 pfennigs were called obole (Hälblinge = "halflings"). 1⁄4 pfennigs (fertones) are mentioned, but they were only coins of account or were made by division, not by stamping.[10]

People were clearly happy to check the authenticity of a coin by biting it, as numerous deformed coins from this period show: if the metal gave way, the coin was genuine, if the tooth gave way, iron had been bitten.[11]

See also

References
  1. Haupt (1974), p. 12.
  2. Haupt (1974), pp. 12–13.
  3. Fengler et al. (1976), p. 334.
  4. Steuer (2003), p. 122.
  5. Haupt (1974), p. 17.
  6. Haupt (1974), p. 13.
  7. Beck et al. (2004), p. 62.
  8. Haupt (1974), p. 12.
  9. Hermann Dannenberg: Die deutschen Münzen der sächsischen und fränkischen Kaiserzeit, Band II, Berlin 1894, S. 512/513.
  10. Hermann Dannenberg: Die deutschen Münzen der sächsischen und fränkischen Kaiserzeit, Vol. I, Berlin 1876, p. 11.
  11. Walther Haupt: Sächsische Münzkunde, Berlin 1974, p. 12).

Literature
  • mcsearch: Sachsenpfennig of Carolingian design.
  • mcsearch: Sachsenpfennig with the name ODDO in a church portal and on the reverse with a cross with balls in the corners.
  • mcsearch: Sachsenpfennig with MAGADEBVRG on the obverse and IN NOMINE DNI AMEN on the reverse.
  • mcsearch: Sachsenpfennig, mint of the Archbishops of Magdeburg, Halle an der Saale. Vs. with Krummstab.
  • mcsearch: Upper Saxony, Imperial MintMagdeburg, Denar (Hochrandpfennig) undated (984–995), so-called Otto Adelheid Pfennig, (Dan. 1167).
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