New Issuer: Kingdom of the Franks?

14 posts

» Quick access to the last post

Hello! :`

I was looking for an issuer to add this coin under, but I did not find any:
https://www.biddr.ch/auctions/nac/browse?a=131&c=2277&l=114542

However, I am not sure how that place should be named. It could follow the "Kingdom of the Gepids" style, although I think that place's name should be changed so "Kingdom" does not come first. The other two styles I can think of is "Franks, Kingdom of the" or "Frankish Kingdom" (like how this coin is listed: https://www.cgbfr.com/royaume-franc-theodebert-ier-bronze-au-monogramme-ttb-,bmv_472413,a.html (oh, look, another Frankish coin!)).

And... yea. Thank you for reading! :D
Well, since you have started this, maybe we can find a solution on the forum.

For now, we have ancient/early medieval precedentors of more modern/medieval states in the ancient section.
(Lombard Kingdom for Italy, Visigothic for Spain) That is the starting point of our Gordian Knot.

Lets say we want to add Kingdom of Franks. Ok - (for the record - these Franks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francia)

- some of its coins are already in the France-Kingdom catalogue - split?- where it should be placed? If we follow the logic from our starting point, these should go away to Ancient section.

Kingdom of Franks ends in 843 by treaty of werdun. And subsequently splits into three:
  1. West Francia - which turns to Kingdom of France in 987 - that is by establishment of Capetian dynasty. Coins of these are already in France-Kingdom and as far as I can tell, these could remain there, as there is only dynasty change.
  2. East Francia - which basically turned into Germany, or more precisely, into HRE. Wikipedia states:

Any firm distinction between the kingdoms of Eastern Francia and Germany is to some extent the product of later retrospection. It is impossible to base this distinction on primary sources, as Eastern Francia remains in use long after Kingdom of Germany comes into use.

East Francia was itself divided into three parts at the death of Louis the German (875). Traditionally referred to as "Saxony", "Bavaria", and "Swabia" (or "Alemannia"), these kingdoms were ruled by the three sons of Louis in cooperation and were reunited by Charles the Fat in 882.

Some coins are already in German States - and it is probably best if they stay there. (https://en.numista.com/catalogue/index.php?mode=avance&p=1&l=etats_allemands&r=&e=etats_allemands&d=&ca=3&no=&i=&v=&m=&a=&t=&dg=600-900&w=&u=&f=&g=&c=&tb=y&tc=y&tn=y&tp=y&tt=y&te=y&cat=y)

3. Middle Francia
This is where it gets serious. So West and East stay under France and Germany in the main list and not in the ancient section.

Where to place Middle Francia - standalone in the main list of countries? Somewhere else? And no, we cannot just skip this short-lived kingdom, because we already have a coin of it! https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces96339.html

To make things considerably worse, this kingdom was split into three again.
  1. Kingdom of Italy - that is, as wiki says confusing period of when it became part of HRE (dismembered into xx parts) - we dont have HRE as a country and its parts are splitted, so here it is easy - any coins minted there should go to Italian States.
  2. Kingdom of Arles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Arles) - this also became part of HRE after one century. Where this should be placed, or if we have any coin from there, I dont know. It is an area I know very little of. Possible candidates are Italian States, Swiss Cantons, German States and French Feudal or it could be standalone. I would like to know opinions of referees of these countries.
  3. Lotharingia (https:/and maybe /en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotharingia) this was later transformed into various German states, Lorraine and duchy of Lower Lorraine, which is basically precursor to Low Countries Feudal in our catalogue. All these successors can be placed somewhere, but where to place coins from Lotharingia itself?

If we have nice answers to all these questions, then we can do this, but it must be done properly.
Catalogue administrator
Quote: "Jarcek"​Lets say we want to add Kingdom of Franks. Ok - (for the record - these Franks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francia)

- some of its coins are already in the France-Kingdom catalogue - split?- where it should be placed? If we follow the logic from our starting point, these should go away to Ancient section.

​Kingdom of Franks ends in 843 by treaty of werdun. And subsequently splits into three:

  1. West Francia - which turns to Kingdom of France in 987 - that is by establishment of Capetian dynasty. Coins of these are already in France-Kingdom and as far as I can tell, these could remain there, as there is only dynasty change.

​I'm not knowledgeable with Middle and East Francia, but if this split goes ahead I'd like to see the Merovingian coins at least (and also the Carolingian issues) moved there out of France - Kingdom. Use the 987 date (ascension of Hugh Capet) as the beginning for France - Kingdom.
"Some of it's coins are already in the France - Kingdom catalogue."
Oh, I did not see those! Maybe that is because they do not really belong there. ;) I would say to split it and move it to the Ancient section.

So there are essentially six issuers we need to deal with first? West Francia, East Francia, Middle Francia, Kingdom of Italy, Kingdom of Arles, and Lotharingia?

West Francia: I do not know much about the Capetian Dynasty or what dynasty changes mean for Numista's countries, but this place does not seem like the biggest problem. Either make France - Kingdom's cut off at 987 or at 843 (Capetian could either be made an issuer of France, or it can stay in France - Feudal, depending on what is decided).

East Francia: I think those would be best to keep in the German States, like they already are.

Middle Francia: that coin is listed under a German state. I would think to keep all German State coins together, so unless that coin is actually listed wrongly in the catalogue, I would think to keep it where it is.
 
Kingdom of Italy: I agree that the coins belong in the Italian States.

Kingdom of Arles: I have not been able to find a coin from this place. Arles was used as a mint of Rome, but that means nothing in this context. The Archbishopric of Arles has minted a few coins, but they are all listed under France - Feudal (and Numista has done the same with that place). But this is the Kingdom we are talking about, and if they did not issue a coin, I do not think they should be made an issuer.

Lotharingia: it looks like this place might have issued their own coins, but not while this place was whole. I have found a few anonymous coins listed as being in Lower Lotharingia, which are all past year 959 (like this one).
 
(And of course, like a lot of historical things I seem to come across listed as 'Lower', it is actually located above Upper Lotharingia.)

And Lower Lotharingia is also known as the Duchy of Lower Lorraine, but the issue is for Lotharingia as a whole. Either way, I think that is in the same situation as Arles: they did not issue a coin, meaning they should not be an issuer.
The kingdom of the Franks was established right at the end of antiquity (in the case of Europe) ... so way more medieval than ancient.
That is part of the problem - if Kingdom of the Franks go to normal list, what about Visigoths and Lombards?
Catalogue administrator
There should probably be a date made as the limit for what goes in the Ancient coins sections. To keep the Lombards, Visigoths, Franks, and so on together, I would say anything in that section would need to mint coins before year 1000, but of course, others would disagree with me. That year is a little late for even me to call ancient.

Unless the name of the Ancient section was changed to something like "Ancient and [whatever the time-frame before year 1000 is called] coins."

(Or these places can go in their own section between Modern and Ancient, (although that may make too many section).)
This division is exactly the core of the problem.
Catalogue administrator
It can't be a date : the Ancient history didn't end at the same time everywhere in the world.
If we fix a year to separate those categories we will hava to split some issuers for an arbitrary reason.

The Visigoths emerge during the late Antiquity and continue to exist after the fall of Rome, however i would rather sort out of the ancient section : they started to mint their own coins during the medieval period and adopted a feudal system.
Same about Lombard, Franks and the following ones : not Ancient but Medieval.

What I don't understand is why having an ancient section and not a Middle Ages/Renaissance one ?

We should have both section as we already do the separation inside the country list (France feudal, France kingdom, Italian states, Austrian states, Austrian Habsburg, German states, Indian states....) ; the separation between those 3 periods wouldn't be hard to determine and match with the main areas of collecting.
Yeah, I agree: not a fixed date.

But if a Medieval section was created, I feel like there would be more confusion. Right now, it is just a matter of what is ancient and what is not; if there was a Medieval section, it would be Ancient vs. Medieval and Medieval vs. Modern.

Now, when it comes to Medieval coins, I often hear they are classified as coins before 1600. While splitting issuers between that date might be... not difficult, I would not want to see some places moved to completely different sections. Take Livonia, for example: the Livonian Order's last coins were minted in 1561; Swedish Livonia's first coins were minted in 1621. Those places would be easy to separated, but I would prefer to see them together. But that may just be me. :`

So what if the "Ancient Coins" section was renamed to "Ancient and Early Medieval Coins"? No new sections are created and no specific date is given, meaning "Early Medieval" would be vague enough to just be a matter of opinion. The Lombards, Visigoths, and so on would fit in that section pretty well, I would think (plus, they are already there, so they would not have to be moved).
or, change the country list to countries that still exist vs countries that do not?
Catalog Master Referee & Referee for UAE
https://www.instagram.com/amer.coins
Amer Salmeh
I had a previous post regarding adding this new issuer about 1 or 2 years ago but I think that was in the referee forum.
1600 in Europe, definitely not the middle ages anymore
while no exact date exist, I guess this link comes relatively close to what it should be
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Ages
If you like coins, medals and tokens with ship motives follow my new instagram account with regular updates @numisnautiker
From time to time I sell some coins on Ebay make sure to follow me @apuking on Ebay.
I guesswe should not make more divisions, the one we have causes enough problems.
Catalogue administrator
Quote: "AmerSalmeh"​or, change the country list to countries that still exist vs countries that do not?
​We kind of already have that... just that the countries that don't are listed under their modern counterparts (if applicable) rather than in their own section called "no longer exist".

If you ask me, deciding which issuers go into the ancient/medieval section should be a case-by-case basis, e.g. pre-colonial issuers like the Kingdom of Kandy would apply even though they existed alongside countries like the Kingdom of Prussia, which given historical context should not be in ancient.

Just my two cents.

» Forum policy

Used time zone is UTC+1:00.
Current time is 12:13.