The Phenomenon of Imitative Byzantine Coinages in the Aftermath of the Fourth Crusade: Continuity and Changes in Monetary Use in the 12th and 13th Centuries Balkans

My master’s thesis at the University of Oxford investigated the production and circulation of imitative coinages in the 12th and 13th-century Balkans. These seemingly innocuous and aesthetically unpleasing coins imitate the designs of Byzantine emperors of the 12th century, but their chronology clearly places their production and circulation around and after the Sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204. The coins have been the object of over 50 years of debate and disagreement regarding who and why produced them. To attempt to conclusively answer these questions, I compiled the largest dataset ever assembled, including 150,000 coins from the Balkans and Asia Minor from the period c. 1150-1261/1277. The thesis argues for the attribution of the so-called “Bulgarian” and “Latin” imitative coinages to the Second Bulgarian Empire and Latin Empire respectively. These coins were minted in the immediate aftermath of 1204 to supplement the existing coins of 12th-century emperors, which were gradually falling out of circulation in the early 13th century. In the Latin Empire, the early Latin imitatives gradually gave way to a series of imitations that would be produced in lower and lower quantities until the destruction of the Empire in 1261. On the other hand, in Bulgaria, the Bulgarian imitatives were an initial solution initiated before the Fall of Constantinople in 1204 and would be produced into the early 1210s, when the Bulgarian market was fully penetrated by the early Latin imitative types. While the Bulgarian Empire did continue producing some coinage, including the celebratory issues of Tsar John Assen II from 1230, up until the reforms of Tsars Mitso and Konstantin I in 1256-1257, coin circulation in Bulgaria would be dominated by small-module Latin imitative types, in particular by the small-module of the earliest, Latin imitative, type A. The thesis also argues that this use of original issues of Byzantine and Nicaean emperors, as well as their Bulgarian and Latin imitations, across the entire expanse of the former united Byzantine Empire of the Komnenian dynasty is an indicator for the existence of an unofficial monetary union, whereby any single post-Byzantine polity would make use of any kind of Byzantine-style coinage. This union would survive the fragmentation of the Byzantine world and only disappear around the same time as the political fragmentation of the Empire, i.e., the Reconquest of Constantinople in 1261. If you would like to read this paper in full, discuss it, or use it in your own scholarly work, please feel free to reach out to me.