Henri I Beauclerc of Normandy

346, Lot: 606. Estimate $100. Sold for $80. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

FRANCE, Provincial. Normandie (duché). Henri I Beauclerc. 1106-1135. AR Denier (20mm, 1.08 g, 1h). Rouen mint. Struck circa 1108-1130. +[NORMΛ]NNΛ, short cross pattée / Degenerated church façcade: central annulet with horizontal T’s radiating outward; pellet-in-triangle flanked by two pellets above, [one or three pellets below]. Dumas group C, pl. XX, 5 or 6; Legros 391 or 392; Duplessy, Féodales –; Poey d'Avant – . VF, toned, usual crude strike. Good metal.

Dumas ("Les monnaies normandes (Xe-XIIe siècles)," RN 1979) dates his group C to circa 1075-1130 on the strength of a denier derivative of the PAX issues of William I in England (pl. XX, 23). However, among the examples from hoards and single finds recorded Moesgaard (“Monnaies Normandes dans les régions Baltiques à l’époque viking,” RNN 2005), the only chronologically certain finds date to the mid-12th century. Group C also features an example with an obverse type copied from an obol of Louis VI or VII from the Semlis mint (Duplessy 152 = Lafaurie 158 = Ciani 113), which could only have been issued after 1108. As the Anglo-Norman coinage continued to circulate for some time following its issue, there is no reason to suppose it could not be copied as many as fifty years after its initial production, and that the issues of Group C date to the early 12th century.