Extremely Rare Issue of Robert as Count

425, Lot: 699. Estimate $500. Sold for $300. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

FRANCE, Provincial. Normandie (duché). Robert II Courteheuse. As count, before 1087. AR Denier (20mm, 0.93 g, 8h). Rouen mint. ROB[...] COMES, cross pattée; pellets in angles / Norman-style two-towered cathedral façade; nave decorated with cross in pediment, and surmounted by cross on globe; pellet in pediment of towers; retrograde S and S flanking nave with central cross. Dumas Group B/C, pl. XIX, 17; Legros 338 var. (obv. legend); Duplessy, Féodales –; Poey d'Avant –; Roberts –. Good VF for type, typical crude strike. Extremely rare issue as count.

From the BRN Collection. Ex Triton XVIII (6 January 2015), lot 1517.

This rare Norman denier issue with the legend naming Count Robert has been the subject of great debate. Although Robert Courteheuse would be the most logical person this identifies, some numismatic scholars have suggested other counts named Robert who ruled under Guillaume I, such as Robert of Eu and Robert of Mortain. These scholars, however, fail to account for two problems that should discount anyone other than Guillaume’s son Robert. First, most of these other Roberts ruled in areas that struck their own coin types, so an issue from Rouen in their name makes little sense. Second, Robert Courtehouse, in at least five diplomas, is styled "comes normannorum" alongside his father, who is styled as "dux normannorum" (see G. Garnett, Conquered England: Kingship, Succession, and Tenure 1066-1166 [Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007], pp. 158-60). The earliest of these diplomas date to 1067, which is well within the timeframe of 1050-1075 that Dumas (confirmed by Mosegaard) gives to his Group B/C coins. Thus, it is quite reasonable to conclude that these coins of Rouen in the name of Count Robert are referring to none other than Robert Courteheuse.