Medieval Coins
The Coinage of Medieval Coins
When Rome's monetary system collapsed in the West, nothing centralized replaced it — and that's the story medieval coinage tells. Kings, dukes, bishops, and free cities all struck their own coins under their own authority, often within the same kingdom at the same time. A single silver penny type might be struck by dozens of different moneyers across a realm, each identifiable to a trained eye by a mint signature most people today would need a reference book to decode.
For centuries, the silver penny — called a denier in France, a pfennig in German-speaking lands — was essentially the only coin most people ever used, worth so little individually that everyday transactions sometimes required physically cutting the coin into halves and quarters. Gold barely circulated in Western Europe at all until trade contact with the Islamic Mediterranean, and later the Crusades, reintroduced it — and even then, it took the mercantile republics of Italy to make gold coinage reliable enough for international trade to trust again.
Every coin below is organized by region and issuing authority, since “who struck it” matters as much in this period as “when.” Browse a category, or search for a specific ruler, mint, or reference number.
Explore Medieval Coins
Continental Feudal
Non-royal feudal coinage from across France, Germany, and the Low Countries — struck under minting rights held by counts, dukes, and bishops rather than kings, often in lower-purity “black money” billon rather than the better silver reserved for royal issues.
Coming soon
Crusader States
Coinage of the Latin Christian states established in the Levant after the First Crusade — the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Tripoli among them. Many crusader mints imitated Islamic dinars and dirhams to stay usable in regional trade, alongside more traditionally Western deniers.
Coming soon
English Hammered
Coins struck by hand, hammer, and die — the method used in England from the Anglo-Saxon period all the way through the mid-17th century. Covers everything from early Anglo-Saxon pennies through the larger groats and shillings of the later medieval kings.
Coming soon
Italian City-States
The mercantile republics — Venice, Genoa, Florence — that brought reliable gold coinage back to Western Europe in the 13th century. The Florentine florin and Venetian ducat became trusted international trade currency across the continent, centuries before any single European nation-state achieved the same.
Coming soon
Viking & Norse
Norse coinage and imitation issues — including Viking-era copies of Anglo-Saxon and Islamic coin types found in hoards across Scandinavia and the British Isles. Much of this economy ran on weight and silver purity rather than face value, a genuine hacksilver economy where coins were sometimes just convenient chunks of bullion.
Coming soon
Did You Know?
Small change was chronically scarce in medieval Europe, so English pennies were often struck with a deep cross reaching all the way to the coin's edge — not just for decoration, but as a literal cutting guide, so a penny could be quartered into halfpennies and farthings without a merchant needing a blade sharp enough to improvise the lines.
Coins in Medieval Coins
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