Search


CNG Bidding Platform

Information

Products and Services



Research Coins: Electronic Auction

 

Grandfather to Harthacanute and Cnut
Great Grandfather of William the Conqueror

340, Lot: 482. Estimate $100.
Sold for $160. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

FRANCE, Provincial. Normandie (duché). Richard I Sans Peur (the Fearless), with Lothaire, King of West Francia. 943-996. AR Denier (19mm, 1.16 g, 4h). Rotomagus (Rouen) mint. Struck circa 965-986. + RICΛRDVS (S sideways), short cross pattée, with pellet in each angle / + ROTOMΛGVS (S sideways), Lothaire monogram. Duplessy, Féodales 18; Boudeau –; Legros 209; Dumas, Fécamp 4147-6041; Poey d'Avant –. VF.


Richard was the son of William I Longsword and grandson of the Viking chieftain Rollo, the founder of the duchy. He was a child when his father was murdered by Arnulf of Flanders in 942, and was nearly killed soon thereafter, when the Carolingian king of France, Louis IV d'Otremer, invaded Normandie with Hughes le Grand, count of Paris. He faced another crisis when Louis' successor, Lothaire, invaded with the counts of Anjou, Blois-Chartres, and Flanders in the 960s. Richard made peace with his neighbors at Gisors in 965, and thereafter concentrated on solidifying his rule in Normandy by making family alliances with the various Scandinavian tribes in the region. He also gained ecclesiastical support by promoting Christianity and rebuilding a number of churches. Richard was first married to Emma, daughter of Hughes le Grand, but she died young, and childless. He had a number of children with his second wife, Gunnor, including his heir, Richard II le Bon, and Emma of Normandy. Through Emma's marriage to two kings of England, Aethelred II the Unready and Cnut the Great, Richard was grandfather of the English kings Harthacnute and Edward the Confessor. Through his son, Richard II, Richard was the great-grandfather of William ‘the Conqueror.’

Specimens of this particular type were found in substantial numbers in the Fécamp Hoard. A similar reverse found an issue of the Abbey of St. Philibert, where the central reverse symbol is explicitly named as the “insignia of King Lothaire.” Richard and Lothaire became aligned by the Treaty of Gisors in 965, and this issue appears to have been struck in commemoration.