austrian gold ducat depicting Kaiser Franz-Josef, c. 1910 The ducat ( ) coin was used as a trade coin in Europe from the late Middle Ages from the 13th to 19th centuries. Its most familiar version, the gold ducat or sequin containing around 3.5 grams of 98.6 % ticket gold, originated in Venice in 1284 and gained across-the-board external acceptance over the centuries. similarly named silver ducatons besides existed. The gold ducat circulated along with the Florentine guilder and preceded the modern british ram greatest and the United States dollar. [ 1 ]
Predecessors [edit ]
| Silver ducat of Roger II of Sicily | |
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| +IC XC RC IN ÆTRN, nimbate bust of Christ facing, holding Gospels | R•R SLS, King Roger and, R•DX•AP, Duke Roger (son of Roger) standing facing, holding long cross between them; AN R X along staff of cross. |
| AG: scyphate ducalis or ducatum | |
The discussion ducat is from Medieval Latin ducalis = “ relating to a duke ( or duchy ) ”, and initially meant “ duke ‘s mint ” or a “ duchy ‘s coin ”. [ 2 ]
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The first offspring of scyphate billon coins modelled on Byzantine trachea was made by King Roger II of Sicily as region of the Assizes of Ariano ( 1140 ). It was to be a valid consequence for the whole kingdom. The first issue bears the figure of Christ and the Latin dedication Sit tibi, Christe, datus, quem tu regis iste ducatus ( meaning “ O Christ, let this duchy, which you rule, be dedicated to you ” ) on the obverse. [ 4 ] On the reverse, Roger II is depicted in the style of a Byzantine emperor and his eldest son, Duke Roger III of Apulia, is depicted in battle dress. [ 5 ] The mint took its common list from the Duchy of Apulia, which the younger Roger had been given by his forefather. Doge Enrico Dandolo of Venice introduced a silver ducat which was related to the ducats of Roger II. Later amber ducats of Venice, however, became indeed authoritative that the name ducat was associated entirely with them and the silver coins came to be called grossi .
Gold ducat of Venice [edit ]
In the thirteenth century, the Venetians imported goods from the East and sold them at a profit north of the Alps. They paid for these goods with Byzantine gold coins but when the Byzantine emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos backed a rebellion called the sicilian Vespers in 1282, he debased the hyperpyron. This was fair one more in a series of debasements of the hyperpyron and the Great Council of Venice responded with its own mint of arrant gold in 1284. [ 9 ] In 1252 Florence and Genoa introduced the gold guilder and genovino, respectively, both of 3.5 grams of 98.6 % fine gold ; the guilder preceded the ducat as Western Europe ‘s first standard gold coin. Venice modeled the size and burden of their ducat on the guilder, with a slight increase in burden due to differences in the two cities′ weight systems. The venetian ducat contained 3.545 grams of 99.47 % fine gold, the highest purity medieval metallurgy could produce. [ 10 ]
| Gold ducat of doge Michele Steno of Venice | |
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| Saint Mark standing giving gonfalone to the kneeling doge. S(anctus) M(arcus) VENET(I) DVX MICAEL STEN | Christ standing among stars in oval frame. SIT T[ibi] XPE (Christe) DAT[us] Q[uem] T[u] REGIS ISTE DVCAT[us] |
| AV, 21 mm; 3.50 g | |
venetian ducat designs followed those of the silver grossi, which were ultimately of Byzantine origin. The obverse shows the Doge of Venice kneeling before St. Mark, the patron saint of Venice. Saint Mark holds the religious doctrine, which is his common assign, and presents a gonfalone to the doge. The legend on the leave identifies the saint as S M VENET, i.e. Saint Mark of Venice, and the caption on the right identifies the doge, with his title DVX in the field. On the reverse, Christ stands among a field of stars in an ellipse inning. The reverse caption is the lapp as on Roger II ’ mho ducats. [ 11 ] Succeeding doges of Venice continued striking ducats, changing only their name on the obverse. The ducat had a varying price versus the silver Venetian lira, reaching 6.2 lire or 124 soldi ( shillings ) by 1470. At that point a ducat worth 124 soldi emerged as a new silver-based unit of account for quoting salaries and costs. continued disparagement in the ash grey currency during the sixteenth century, however, made the aureate ducat worth more than 124 soldi. At this point, the currency ducat of 124 soldi had to be distinguished from the higher-valued gold ducat, and the latter was finally called the ducato de zecca, i.e. ducat of the mint, which was shortened to zecchino and corrupted to sequin. [ 10 ] Leonardo Loredan extended the neologism with a half ducat and subsequent doges added a quarter, and respective multiples up to 105 ducats. All of these coins continued to use the designs and slant standards of the original 1284 ducat. even after dates became a common feature of western neologism, Venice struck ducats without them until Napoleon ended the venetian Republic in 1797. [ 13 ]
Adoption, 14th hundred [edit ]
When the Roman Senate introduced amber neologism either the guilder or the ducat could have provided an advantageous model to imitate [ when? ], but the Florentines who controlled the Senate ’ s finances ensured that their city ’ s coin was not copied. rather, the Roman mint showed a senator kneel before St. Peter on the obverse and Christ amid stars in ellipse frame on the reverse in aim imitation of the venetian ducat. The Popes subsequently changed these designs, but continued to strike ducats of the same slant and size into the sixteenth century. [ 15 ] Most imitations of the venetian ducat were made in the Levant, where Venice spent more money than it received. The Knights of Saint John struck ducats with thousand chief Dieudonné de Gozon, 1346-1353, kneeling before Saint John on the obverse and an angel seated on the Sepulcher of Christ on the reverse. subsequent deluxe masters, however, found it expedient to copy the venetian types more precisely, first at Rhodes and then on Malta. [ 16 ] genoese traders went further ; they struck ducats at Chios that could be distinguished from the venetian originals only by their craft. These corrupt ducats were debatable for Venice, which valued its money ‘s reputation for honor. The rarity of ducats that genoese traders struck at Mytilene, Phocaea, and Pera suggests that Venetians melted those they encountered .
hungarian ducats [edit ]
In Western Europe, Venice was an active agent trader but they sold more than they bought, therefore giving the Florentine florin an early foothold in the Rhine river valley in 1354. however, this rhenish guilder or gulden was debased over the centuries, from 3.43 g all right gold in 1354, to 2.76 g fine gold by 1419, and to 2.503 g fine gold by 1559. [ 18 ] After Henckels assassinated Amadeus Aba in 1311, Charles I of Hungary began a aureate neologism exploiting ores of Aba ‘s ancient gold mines. His son, Louis I of Hungary changed the designs by replacing the standing figure of Saint John from the guilder with a standing figure of Saint Ladislaus and late changing the lily of Florence to his coating of arms, but he maintained the honor of the gold. In faint of the fifteenth century degradation of the Rhenish guilder or goldgulden versus the master ducat, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V recognized this differentiation in 1524 when he made ducats of the venetian standard valid money in the Empire with a rate 39 % higher than the guilder. [ 21 ] His younger brother and eventual successor, Ferdinand I, brought this system to Hungary in 1526, when he inherited its throne. The still-pure aureate coins of Hungary were henceforth called ducats. [ 22 ] Their purity made the hungarian ducat satisfactory throughout Europe. tied the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland left records of the ones his king used for gambling. Hungary continued to strike ducats with 3.53133 grams of 98.6 % ticket gold. Unlike the static designs of the ducats in Venice, the coating of arms on the reverse of the ducats of Hungary was frequently modified to reflect change circumstances. In 1470, Matthias Corvinus replaced the coat of arms by a Madonna. Hungary struck ducats until 1915, even under austrian rule. These were used as deal coins and several of the later dates have been restruck. [ 25 ]
Adoption, 15th and 16th centuries [edit ]
austrian four ducats, c. 1915 ( official restrike ) In the 15th and 16th centuries, international traders in Western Europe shifted from the guilder to the ducat as their prefer currency, with ducats often co-circulating with locally minted gold coins like the rhenish guilder, french écu and spanish escudo.
As rulers reformed their currencies, they frequently used the ducat as a model ; the Mamluk ashrafi and the Ottoman sultani are examples. [ 26 ] In 1497 Spain reformed its amber excelente into a replicate of the ducat, and from 1504 it was renamed as ducado. [ 27 ] neologism reforms of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I initiated coinage of aureate ducats in Austria in 1511. [ 28 ] The Holy Roman Empire commenced the set of standards for gold ducats and florins in its Reichsmünzordnung ( minting ordinances ) of 1524, 1559 and future years, with the ducat of 3.442 g fine gold ( 3.49 g, 71⁄72 or 98.6 % all right ), and the Rhenish guilder of 2.503 g gold, with 8 ducats peer to 11 florins. [ 29 ] The german territories retained these standards until the nineteenth century .
Ducats of the Netherlands [edit ]
The Dutch Revolt gave its seven northern provinces control condition of their neologism. The collapse of the government of Francis of Anjou in 1583, however, left them without a built-in rule to name on those coins. They fell back on the longstanding regional custom of imitating well accepted extraneous coins. In this case they avoided political complications by copying disused coins. The amber coins Ferdinand and Isabella issued to the standards of the ducat were wide copied and called ducats. They besides imitated the hungarian ducat and those coins had more charm on the subsequent neologism of the United Provinces. Since the Netherlands became a dominant external trader, the influence of these ducats was global. [ 31 ]
Netherlands, 1724 Gold ducat, Utrecht At inaugural, ducats of hungarian type strike in the Netherlands had a standing figure on the obverse with the crown and conflict ax that St. Ladislaus carried on the hungarian prototype, but naming him with a different legend. Like the original, but not contemporaneous, hungarian ducats, the overrule had a carapace, which now showed the coat of arms of the issuing province These types evolved into a standing knight holding a sword and seven arrows representing the seven provinces in the union. The legend, CONCORDIA RES PARVÆ CRESCUNT, shortened in a variation of ways, says “ by agree little things increase ”. It besides names—or shows a symbol representing—the province that issued the coin. The overrule had a pill inscribe and constantly shortened in the lapp way : MOneta ORDInum PROVINciarum FOEDERatorum BELGicarum AD LEGem IMPerii, aureate money of the federate provinces of Belgium in accordance with the jurisprudence of the kingdom. [ 33 ] In the Napoleonic period, the Batavian Republic and Louis Bonaparte continued to strike ducats with these designs. These coins were not issued during the annexation of the Netherlands into the french Empire. Since Napoleon ’ sulfur frustration, the Kingdom of the Netherlands has continued to issue them as trade and bullion coins. The text in the table on the overrule now says MOneta AURea REGni BELGII AD LEGEM IMPERII. [ 34 ]
Silver ducaton [edit ]
The silver ducaton commenced in the italian states in the mid-16th hundred as a large coin of approximately 30 grams fine silver, worth slenderly less than the gold ducat or sequin. Similarly-named coins were besides minted in the gloomy Countries in the 17th and 18th centuries, which became popular negotiepenningen ( trade coins ) along with gold ducats : the spanish Netherlands ducaton in 1618 of 30.7 g fine argent, the Dutch Republic ‘s silver rider ducaton in 1659 of 30.45 g fine flatware, and ( bewilderingly ) the Dutch Republic ‘s smaller zilveren dukaat ( flatware ducat ) in 1659 of 24.36 g fine flatware .
decay [edit ]
Use of the ducat waned from the seventeenth hundred with the mint of freshly-mined romance american amber to iberian standards like the spanish doubloon and the portuguese moidore. In the nineteenth hundred ducats have been increasingly dropped as standard coin of several nations, most importantly the Latin Monetary Union of 1865 ( France, Italy, Switzerland ) and the Vienna Monetary Treaty of 1857 ( german Confederation, Austria-Hungary ). [ 35 ] By the twentieth hundred ducats have transitioned from craft coin used in daily commerce to bullion coin for collectors and investors. Austria continued to strike ducats until 1915, and has continued to restrike the last of them, [ 36 ] including some four ducat coins illustrated here. [ 37 ] Nevertheless, bullion for Spain ‘s american colonies allowed the spanish dollar to supersede the ducat as the dominant currentness of populace trade. [ 38 ] Around 1913, the gold ducat was worth the equivalent of “ nine shillings and four penny sterling, or slightly more than two dollars. The silver ducat is of about one-half this value. ” [ 39 ] evening immediately some home mints produce batches of ducats made after old patterns as bullion amber and banks sell these coins to private investors or collectors .
ducat mints [edit ]
The 1934 Czechoslovakia 10 Ducat gold mint ( on modal ) contains 34.9000 grams of amber ( 0.9860 fine ) and weighs 1.1063 ounces. This issue is extremely rare as only 68 coins were struck .
[note 1] Christina, Queen of Sweden, depicted on a 1645 Erfurt 10 ducat coin .
Sigismund III depicted as King of Poland on a 10 Ducat gold coin (1614).
- ^[42] and six 1645 10 ducat specimen.[43] between 1631 and 1648, during the Thirty Years ’ War, Erfurt was occupied by swedish forces, thus the effigy of Queen Christina appears on the 1645 Erfurt 10 Ducat ( Portugaloser ). There are seven gold coins known to exist bearing the effigy of Queen Christina : a singular 1649 five ducat, and six 1645 10 ducat specimen .
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Notes [edit ]
This article incorporates text from a issue nowadays in the public knowledge domain : Chisholm, Hugh, erectile dysfunction. ( 1911 ). “ Ducat “. Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 8 ( 11th ed. ). Cambridge University Press. pp. 628–629 .
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