Publication: Il Mancuso nelle fonti medievali: metamorfosi di un mito
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Date
2018
Authors
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Publisher
EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste
Abstract
The question of the term mancus present in the documentary sources of the 8th and 9th centuries is addressed, a question that in the last twenty years has seen the rekindling of the contrast between the two historical hypotheses, an Islamic dinar or a Byzantine light weight solidus, a contrast that seemed to have been overcome by unanimous acceptance of the 'Arabic' hypothesis. Starting from a totally different point of view, the author believes instead that both are not correct, but that the mancus represents only a device used by the Carolingians to count in their monometallic system based on libra (pound) – solidus (shilling) – silver denarius (penny) the gold currencies present in the accounting documentation of Central-northern Italy at the time of the conquest of the Lombard Kingdom (774). In practice it would have indicated a fixed value in denarii (certainly 30 from the reform of 793/794), payable both in silver denarii and probably also in gold coins valued by weight. Therefore, it could indicate both the Arab dinars and the Byzantine solidi, and probably also the Roman aurei, which were certainly found relatively numerous during the spoiling of the ancient monuments. In fact, the Carolingians, throughout their history, have always tried to build money systems that incorporate within them, as simple units of account, the coins previously in use: so it happened with the libra and the Merovingian solidus, transformed into the libra and the solidus of 240 and 12 denarii respectively, with the Lombard solidus of 3 tremisses, tied to the Frankish solidus of 12 denarii, and so it happens with the mancus of 30 denarii. Proof of this is the fact that almost all the amounts expressed in mancus, if multiplied by 30, are then always divisible by 12 (the solidus) and also give almost whole values dividing them into 240 (the libra): whole librae, half librae and quarters of librae.
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Keywords
Mancus, money of account, Early Middle Age, coinage, Carolingian
Citation
Andrea Saccocci, “Il Mancuso nelle fonti medievali: metamorfosi di un mito” in: Bruno Callegher and Arianna D’Ottone Rambach (Edited by), “5th Simone Assemani Symposium on Islamic coins. Rome, 29-30 September 2017”, EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste,Trieste, 2018, pp. 227-256