Sale: CNG 72, Lot: 2677. Estimate $100.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 14 June 2006.  Sold For $340. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

ANGLO-GALLIC. Richard I, “the Lionhearted”. As Duke of Aquitaine, 1172-1189. BI Denier (0.98 g, 7h). Bordeaux mint. RICA/RDVS in two lines across field; cross above, w-like ornament below / +AGVITANIE, cross pattée. Elias 4; Poey d’Avant 2768. VF, double struck off-axis. Very rare.

This kind of mint error is very unusual in this series.

THE ANGLO-GALLIC COINAGE OF RICHARD I, “the Lionhearted”

Invested with Aquitaine in 1169 by Henry II, Richard soon tried to exert real authority over his territory against the wishes of the king. Though the rebellious Richard was nevertheless forced to capitulate, swearing renewed loyalty to his father and in 1185 forced to formally surrender his province to his mother, “the lawful duchess,” he nevertheless remained de facto ruler throughout the rest of the reign of Henry II. During this period, those deniers and oboles with the obverse legend RICARDVS were struck.

As king of England, Richard I spent only about six months of his reign in England; for the rest of the time he was engaged in foreign wars. In 1190 he departed for the east as one of the leaders of the Third Crusade. To pay for this enterprise Richard auctioned off all that he could: land, towns, castles, and even offices. The quote attributed to him, “I would have sold London itself, if I could have found a buyer” accurately reflected his great need for funds to carry out the crusade. None of his territories were exempt in contributing. The large number of billon deniers and oboles of Aquitaine struck during this time, bearing the obverse legend RICARDVS REX, demonstrate how desperate Richard was for ready cash.

Upon his return home from overseas, Richard was captured and imprisoned by the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI. Demanding a ransom of 100,000 marks for his release, the emperor continued to hold Richard until 1194. Once released from his captivity, Richard spent the remainder of his reign attempting to recover his possessions. His crushing of an attempted coup by John, and his sporadic wars with Philip II drained the royal treasury and only deepened Richard’s desperation for money. His unpaid mercenaries wreaked havoc throughout the countryside, and Normandy was on the brink of rebellion from the excessive taxation. Richard, though, casually dismissed such penury with a frivolous song, Savies qu’a Chinon non a argent ni denier (Chinon, you know, has no silver nor denier).

It was this great need for money that brought about Richard’s death. A peasant discovered a hoard of gold statuettes and coins at Châlus in Limousin, one of Richard’s territories. As that region’s liege-lord, Richard declared it his, and demanded it sent to him. When Richard’s vassal, the local viscount, proposed an unacceptable solution (in effect, he refused to hand it over straightaway to the king), and held it in his castle for safe-keeping, the enraged Richard laid siege to the castle. In the course of checking the progress of the siege one evening, Richard, at that time not in full armor, was struck in the shoulder by a crossbow bolt. Though not initially a mortal wound, the resulting complications from the bolt’s extraction proved fatal.