Monetary representations in Western Europe. From the German peoples to the Carolingian Renaissance. Between the ideal and the real. 5th-10th Centuries

Abstract

The fall of the Western Roman Empire (476) is traditionally seen as the beginning of medieval times in Western Europe, but that is not a total reality. On the monetary plane, the Roman system of Constantine's reform remained in force until the time of Charlemagne's reforms (pound-shilling-penny), and not only economically but also typologically, by imitating the Germanic peoples the old Roman typologies or the new Byzantines, with greater or lesser quality according to the groups, gradually adding some characteristic of their society and art, such as monogromas or some specific representations, but in any case always in an idealized way, disappearing realistic portraits and representations of monuments almost completely. All this changed with the Carolingian Renaissance, especially after the recognition of the imperial title by Byzantium and we will see it in the monetary portraits of the emperor and in some of his reversals, which would have little continuity between his successors, who are going to lose power in the X century.