A Cultural History of Money in the Medieval Age by Bloomsbury Publishing

Author:Bloomsbury Publishing [Publishing, Bloomsbury]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Social History, Business & Economics, Economic History, Money & Monetary Policy, Antiques & Collectibles, Coins; Currency & Medals, Europe, Medieval
ISBN: 9781350253483
Google: ePwoEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2021-03-11T16:11:34+00:00

FIGURE 5.4Byzantine silver hexagram of Heraclius, Constantinople, 6.47g. Photograph courtesy of Barber Institute of Fine Arts (B3057).

The design was not, however, wholly innovative, and its continuities reflect other communications which were considered valuable at a time of crisis and uncertainty. The cross on the reverse had been introduced by Tiberius II (r. 574–82) and became a standard depiction on Byzantine precious metal coinage, a powerful but simple symbol of a Christian empire. The obverse carries an image of Heraclius flanked by his son, Heraclius Constantine, later emperor Constantine III (r. 641). Heraclius Constantine, probably born in 612, shortly after his father became emperor, was almost immediately made co-emperor and depicted alongside his father on coins, presumably to indicate that upon Heraclius’s death there would be a smooth transition of rulership, unlike the violent coup that had brought him to power. As the years passed, Heraclius Constantine was presented in varying stages of maturity, starting as a small and chubby-cheeked child alongside a bearded Heraclius, becoming a young man of almost equal size to his father, either beardless or with a fuzz around his chin, and culminating in a portrait of a full-sized and bearded man beside a mature Heraclius, now sporting a lavish, chest-length beard with wide moustaches (Grierson 1982: 84–138; Arnold 2013). These changes, at a time when rulers on medieval coinage were often portrayed in an entirely stereotyped fashion without clear differentiation between individual, age or other aspects of personal identity, have generated suggestions that Heraclius sought to revive “portraiture,” in the sense of physical likeness, in order to convey elements of his personal identity. One speculation has tried to connect this to a possible Armenian origin for the emperor’s family (Douglas 1992: 141).

Representations of Heraclius and his family, however, are better understood in terms of modern developments in the analysis of medieval portraiture than efforts to match monetary images to personality traits. The modern concept of portraiture, which derives from a Renaissance and post-Renaissance idea of individuality, judges portraits by how closely they represent the physical likeness of the individual, their unique personal characteristics, and perhaps some intangible sense of their personality (West 2004). Research into medieval imagery, however, has shown that this individual likeness was not the primary goal of representation. Instead, portraits were valued for representing the social identity of the individual. The image was not expected to look like the physical body of the person represented but to show to an audience, using socially comprehensible visual codes, the social status and relationships of the individual: their age, sex, employment, social or marital status, and perhaps regional identification. Thus, representation might focus on dress, symbols of maturity or wealth, or images of religiosity. In the context of the coinage of Heraclius, the emphasis on beard length and height focuses on the relative maturity and therefore social status of the figures. The pair of images perhaps also emphasized initially that Heraclius had an heir, and therefore a viable plan for succession, and as time went on

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