Gros (coinage) in the context of "Bezant"

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⭐ Core Definition: Gros (coinage)

A gros was a type of silver coinage of France from the time of Saint Louis. There were gros tournois and gros parisis. The gros was sub-divided in half gros and quarter gros. The original gros created by St Louis weighed about 4.52 g of nearly pure silver, and was valued at one sou, that is 12 deniers or 1/20 of a livre tournois. Unlike the gold écu that was minted in small numbers, mostly for prestige reasons, the gros was a very common coin, and very widely copied by non royal mints.

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👉 Gros (coinage) in the context of Bezant

In the Middle Ages, the term bezant (Old French: besant, from Latin bizantius aureus) was used in Western Europe to describe several gold coins of the east, all derived ultimately from the Roman solidus. The word itself comes from the Greek Byzantion, the ancient name of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire.

The original "bezants" were the gold coins produced by the government of the Byzantine Empire, first the nomisma and from the 11th century the hyperpyron. Later, the term was used to cover the gold dinars produced by Islamic governments. In turn, the gold coins minted in the Kingdom of Jerusalem and County of Tripoli were termed "Saracen bezants" (besantius saracenatus), or "fake dinars" (dīnār ṣūrī), since they were modelled on the Fatimid dinar. A completely different electrum coin based on Byzantine trachea was minted in the Kingdom of Cyprus and called the "white bezant".

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