Thrasemundus between Thomsen and

Peiresc: an enquiry into the pedigree

of some Merovingian coins

Arent Pol

Only four specimens are nowadays known of a

Merovingian tremissis of Maastricht of a rare type
with a helmeted bust on the obverse copied after a
late Roman coin. All four of these specimens were
documented for the first time between 1868 and
2004, but in fact the type itself was already described
before the 19th century. Apparently the famous
French scholar Peiresc was presented with a small
gold coin of a similar description by the duke of
Aarschot in 1606. Is this a fifth specimen of the type,
or is it identical with one of the four existing pieces,
namely the coin now preserved in Copenhagen?
In early medieval Western Europe, during the
sixth and seventh centuries, coinage was characterized by its uniformity in denomination and design.
In most cases only small gold coins, the so-called
tremisses (singular tremissis, equalling a third of a
solidus) were produced and they all showed a bust
on the obverse and either a standing Victory or a
cross on the reverse. Ostrogoths, Burgundians, Visi
goths, Franks and Frisians alike generally adhered
to the example supplied by the Byzantine emperor,
whose status was very high in the Germanic West
and whose coins circulated there as well. On the
imitations the (diademed) bust was originally surrounded by a legend that showed a more or less
blundered version of the emperors name. This element was later abandoned in favour of the name

of the place of production, and so the (still mostly

diademed) bust was changed into an anonymous
one. Although the execution of the designs on these
western coins varied considerably, in the end it all
came to the same general picture. And yet sometimes
another variation made its appearance.1
The Franks, in their national series of Merovingian gold coinage, a phase that lasted from c. 585 to
c. 675, saw a few examples of tremisses produced by
die cutters who were partly inspired by much older
coins. One of such inspired coins is a unique tre
missis of Toulouse which shows a she-wolf suckling
two children on the reverse. It was copied after a late
Roman bronze coin of the Urbs Roma type, struck
some three centuries earlier.2 At the very other end of
the Frankish realm, another variety was produced by
the Maastricht monetarius Thrasemundus: a tremissis
with an obverse on which the usual (bare headed,
diademed) bust was replaced by a non-conventional
bust wearing a helmet. This variety is an exact copy
of the design on the obverse of the same Roman
coin type that supplied the Toulouse wolf and twins
reverse, namely a small bronze of Constantine the
1 Grierson/Blackburn 1986, 118120; Lafaurie 1967,
4346.
2 THOLOSAFIT / MAGNOMONITARIO: Lafaurie 1969
and Lafaurie 1974, 138, 143 no.7.

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Fig. 1. Franks, tremissis c. 600, Toulouse / moneyer Magno

Paris. Bibliothque Nationale de France: inv. 1969444

Great that was struck in numerous mints in the years

330335.3 (Figs. 12)
The four Maastricht tremisses with helmeted bust
discussed here one of them once in the collection
of the Danish numismatist Christian Jrgen Thomsen and now preserved in the Royal Collection of
Coins and Medals at Copenhagen were all struck
from the same obverse and reverse dies. (Figs. 36)
On these Maastricht tremisses the obverse legend is segmented and runs clockwise, starting behind the head with two characters, continuing with
the larger part of the legend in front of the face
and ending with one character on top of the helmet: TRIECTOFIT. It consists of two words
and should be read as TRIECTO FIT (struck at
Maastricht). On the reverse the cross over a globe
is accompanied by two pellets. Its legend runs
TNRASEMVNDVSM; this should be understood
as THRASEMVNDVS Monetarius (moneyer
Thrasemundus), the letter N in the name of the
moneyer being an indifferently shaped H.4 Although
not all four specimens are equally well preserved
the Copenhagen and Mnster copies seem to show
some wear and tear it is still possible to conclude
that all were struck when the upper and lower dies
were in the same condition. Especially the die-crack
on the reverse running as a thin oblique line over
the globe can clearly be distinguished on all four
specimens.
In Maastricht, Thrasemundus was one out of
twelve moneyers active there in the nine decades or
so between the late 6th and the second half of the
7th century. This number, together with the fact
3 Outside the Frankish realm, in Anglo-Saxon England at the same time another die-cutter was inspired by a coin of the 4th-century caesar Crispus
showing a helmet as well: Gannon 2003, 5154.
4 Felder 2003, 326 refers to a different type of the
same moneyer (Prou 11751176 = Belfort 4435)
that shows the same orthography.

Fig. 2. Roman Empire, Constantine the Great 307337, small

bronze, Lugdunum 330335: VRBS ROMA
Utrecht, Geldmuseum: inv. 19500187

that more than 170 original Maastricht tremisses

have survived to the present day, makes it one of the
more important mints in the Frankish empire and
a very important one in its northern periphery. Of
Thrasemundus 15 coins are recorded which seem to
be originals, whilst a number even bigger than that
must be labelled as imitations made elsewhere. So
this moneyer had a slightly lower than average share
in the output of the Maastricht mint, and it almost
completely consisted of (varieties of ) the usual type.
Typology and comparison of the contents of hoards
suggest a dating of Thrasemundus activity around
the middle of the first half of the 7th century.5 The
analysis of the gold content of 14 out of 15 originals
seems to confirm this finding: they range from 89%
to 72%, the median being 79%.6 The two elements
in this moneyers name at first sight seem to have
a somewhat contradictory connotation: TRASE- is
probably related to the gothic and old-nordic Trasa
which means drohend strmen, whilst MVNDessentially stands for Beschtzer.7
Although in earlier periods the tremisses of Triectum were often ascribed to Utrecht (Traiectum ad
Rhenam) and even in Belfort the material is classified partly under Utrecht and partly under Maastricht (Traiectum ad Mosam), there has since long
been a widely shared consensus that it is the latter
place where these coins were produced.8
As remarked above, it happened only very rarely
that 7th-century Frankish die-cutters chose a non 5 Pol 1995, 188 and 194195.
6 Unpublished research by the present author.
7 Felder 2003, 268270, 326; in footnote 1808
other links are given that relate to wtend and
drohend.
8 Grierson & Blackburn 1986, 136137; after Belforts volume III appeared, a dispute arose between
Belfort, Cumont and Stephanik, which was settled
definitively in favour of Maastricht.

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Thrasemundus

Fig. 3. Copenhagen, Nationalmuseet: inv. (Thomsen 1157).

gold 1,27g 13mm 6h 80%

Fig. 4. Brussel, Koninklijke Bibliotheek: inv. (Vanhoudt 84).

gold 1,26g 13mm 6h 76%

Fig. 7. Bracteate, probably North German or South Scandinavian,

5th century; found 1981 at Undley Common near Lakenheath,
Suffolk London, British Museum: inv. P&E 1984, 111, 1
gold 2,24g 23mm
the runic inscription gaegogae maga medu possibly means [this
bracteate representing] a she-wolf [is] reward to a relative
copyright Trustees of The British Museum

standard design and the variety discussed here is the

only example of this phenomenon in the whole of
the Maastricht series. On an object of quite distinct
character, a piece of jewellery in the (round) shape of
a bracteate dating from a slightly earlier period, the
very same Roman coin type is encountered.9 Here
the helmeted bust and the she-wolf with twins both
are combined in the obverse design. The reason why

the maker chose this option seems to lie in the fact

that on the always uniface bracteates only one side
is available (Fig.7)
Of a (slightly) later date than the Thrasemundus
tremisses are some gold and silver coins struck in
Anglo-Saxon England which also show reminiscenses
of older Roman copper coins with a helmeted head
and a wolf and twins, one of the caesar Crispus and
another of the general Urbs Roma type.10 Neither
these coins nor the Undley bracteate bear a direct
relationship with the Maastricht coins, but they do
show us that in the early medieval period the copying of a coin design from an older example was not
an isolated phenomenon but was practised from
time to time outside the Frankish world as well.
Having discussed the outer appearance of the
helmeted Thrasemundus, we should now have a
look at the background of the four individual coins
in this group that are known to us today. Two specimens turned up in the 19th, one in the 20th and
one in the 21st century. The (approximate) findspot
and (approximate) year of the find is known of three
of the coins only the pedigree of the Copenhagen
one is not flawless.

9 Hines & Odenstedt 1987; Gannon 2003, 145146.

10 Gannon 2003, 5154 and 145147.

Fig. 5. Mnster, Westflisches Landesmuseum fr Kunst- und

Kulturgeschichte: inv. 18954 Mz.
gold 1,24g 13mm 12h 82%

Fig. 6. Zurich, private collection dr D. Faltin.

gold 1,29g 13mm 12h unknown% (not yet analysed)

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Copenhagen-NM:
Acquired in 1868, ex Thomsen-collection.
The numismatist Christian Jrgensen Thomsen,
collector and director of the Royal Collection of
Coins and Medals, died in 1865 without leaving a
single clue as to when and where he bought the coin
for his private collection (Erslev 18731876, vol. I,
99 no.1157); Thomsen visited Paris several times
between 1842 and 186111 and on one of these occasions he might have come across it. At least there
seems to be a Paris connection in the drawing that
is found in a recueil de dessins (brought together
by Anatole de Barthelemy over several decades in
the 19th century) where underneath the illustration
is written or, TIVECTO FI..T THRASEMVNDVS
M, Thomsen.12

Brussel-KBB:
Acquired in 1884, ex Garthe-collection (at auction Heberle / Lempertz, Cologne 10 Sept. 1884
no.3716) and said to have been found in the vicinity
of Dsseldorf some 40 years earlier (Cumont 1885,
7072 pl. V.3; Serrure 1886, 43 pl. VI.6; Belfort
18921895, no.4436; Vanhoudt 1982, 126 no.84;
Pol 1995, 196 no.4).

Mnster-WLKK:
Acquired in 1965, ex coin dealer H. Thormann,
Osnabrck, probably found not long before in
Emsland or Ostfriesland, possibly region Aschendorf13 (Berghaus 1980, 173 no.8).

Zrich private collection

drD.Faltin:
Acquired in 2003, ex finder: found 2003 at the socalled South Lincolnshire productive site (Bruins
11 Jrgen Steen Jensen has no recollection of the coin
being mentioned in Thomsens correspondence
(personal communication 2007); on Thomsen, see
Kromann & Jensen 1988.
12 BNF CdM Rs.Ms 12004 BAR folio; vol II
p.137 no.1636 represents the Copenhagen specimen.
13 Personal communication prof. Peter Berghaus,
1980.

& Faltin 2004; Allen, Abdy & de Jersey 2004, 205

no.50; Abdy & Williams 2006, 52 no.212).
In the usual works of reference for Merovingian
coins like Prou 1892, Belfort 1893 and Grierson
& Blackburn 1986, this type is only mentioned by
Adrien de Belfort 1893. Under no.4436 he refers
to two specimens in two different collections, i.e.
Cabinet de France and Muse de Bruxelles. However, among the four existing specimens there is none
in the Paris collection now nor was any specimen
mentioned by Maurice Prou 1892 as being there.
Still, Belfort is persistent by giving two illustrations
as well. The right-hand one is a fairly accurate representation of the Brussels coin at actual size as are
most other coins in Belfort. The illustration on the
left is much bigger and drawn in a distinct style.
With it goes a reference to Conbrouse, Atlas XLVI,3.
Guillaume Conbrouse published a number of items
on French numismatics, but he released his printed
matter often in loose sets of pages and plates. At
the beginning of a series he came up with a table of
contents that later appeared not to be exactly covering the plates that were actually published in the
end. He also left the choice to his readers to bind
the loose paperwork together in a volume or not.
Consequently bindings may contain different sets of
material, complete or incomplete. For Conbrouse
himself the project was a disaster or so it seems. In
the preface of one of his later publications he complained about the destruction of the larger part of
the engraved copper plates of his Catalogue (1839)
after only a few prints on paper had been made.14
Conbrouse then set out to bring out an Atlas (1840)
that partly redeemed the badly missed illustrations,
and next produced his Montaires (1843) that contains a few of the older plates that had been saved
from the disaster mentioned before. In the latter
work of 920 coins on 62 plates, it can be observed
that several plates here saw a secondary use and for
that purpose had been renumbered, all previous
numbers in the Atlas also being still shown at the top
of the plates (in most cases the contents of the plates
had been left unchanged). These circumstances can
make referring to Conbrouse a bit hazardous, or at
the least troublesome for those who wish to check
such references. In this case, too, I have been unable
14 See the report given by an anonymous reviewer in
Revue Belge de Numismatique 2, 1846, 423426.

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to find an illustration that matches the type with

helmeted bust discussed here in one way or another,
nor is there any text entry that unmistakably refers to
that type. Yes, there is a plate 46 in his Montaires
and on that plate at number 3 indeed an illustration of a Thrasemundus coin can be found, but it
is of a different type, i.e. Prou 1175 = Belfort 4435.
The same applies for number 808 on page 51 of
his Catalogue (1839) that refers to that same type
again.
In fact, at the number in Belfort preceding that
of the type discussed here, there is an identical reference to Conbrouse, with a normal drawing of the
coin of that normal type. Was Belfort led astray?
Did he mix up things? Belfort was not a specialist in
Merovingian numismatics and he only did the very
good job of putting together the notes and drawings
that Gustave de Ponton dAmcourt had assembled
for many decades. In this process several mistakes
were made, not only in the attribution of coin types
where he followed the often preliminary notes he
was confronted with after dAmcourts death, but
also in a more administrative sense. For example
more than once it happened that one and the same
coin was mentioned and illustrated at two, three or
even four different places throughout the voluminous four-volume reference work. Although far from
being flawless, Belfort is used till the present day,
since it contains the widest body of material for this
group in early medieval numismatics in a readily
accessible order. As we are unable to retrieve Thrasemundus helmeted bust in Conbrouse, this leaves
us with the question where Belfort i.e. Ponton
dAmcourt had come across the bigger of the two
illustrations given under Belfort 4436. The answer is
(surprisingly) given by Conbrouse hmself. He warns
his readers not to use the works of his predecessors
Le Blanc and Bouteroue, because their illustrations
were notoriously imprecise and their readings equally
inaccurate.15

In 1690 the first of several editions of Trait historique

des monnoies de France depuis le commencement de la
monarchie jusques a present by Frederic le Blanc was
published, but in his works there is no trace of the
Thrasemundus coin. Le Blanc contented himself with
incorporating one coin of every Merovingian mint
that he knew, irrespective of the moneyer. A quarter
of a century earlier, in 1666. Claude (de) Bouteroue
(dAubigny), conseiller en la Cour des Monoyes in
Paris, published his Recherches cvrievses des monoyes
de France depvis le commencement de la monarchie.
In this work on pages 364366 the Thrasemundus
coin with helmeted bust is described and illustrated.
(Fig.8) The bigger of the two line drawings in Belfort at 4436, does indeed totally match the illustration in Bouteroue, albeit that the outer contour line
is left out. Bouteroues illustrations are readily recognizable from the pearl border. The curiously shaped
F on the obverse and the P-like D on the reverse are
faithfully copied; only the second letter is made into
an H where on the coin it is clearly an N.
Here the story seems to end. Bouteroue was the
first in attempting a systematic survey of early French
coinage and before his book was published only
extremely few Merovingian coins had appeared in
print amongst these none of Maastricht were represented. However, a fortunate coincidence enables
us to proceed further into this detail by way of the
numismatic notebooks of Peiresc. Nicolas-Claude
Fabri de Peiresc (15801637) was of aristocratic descent, living in Aix-en-Provence for the larger part
of his life. He was a man of learning, interested in
a wide variety of topics like anatomy, archaeology,
astronomy, botanics, history, mathematics, natural
history, oriental cultures, philology and numismatics. Peiresc corresponded with many scholars and
(sometimes high-ranking) collectors from all over
Europe, exchanging news and views and at the same
time expanding his collections that also encompassed
a considerable library.16 Peirescs brother was his

15 Conbrouse 1839, 4: de ne recourir ni a Bouteroue, ni a Leblanc qui par linfidlit du dessin et

linexactitude des lectures, les entraineraient dans de
graves erreurs; Conbrouse nevertheless sometimes
copied types from their books where he had no actual coins at his disposal in this case he refrained
from doing so, for unknown reasons.

16 The result of this prolific writing without ever

giving a single page in print is preserved in his
massive archive that is largely kept in Carpentras;
part of Peirescs letters were published by Tamizey
de Larroque 18881898 and Lebgue 1976, whilst
an extensive use was already made by Peirescs bio
grapher Gassendi 1655; for a recent contribution on
Peiresc and his circles, see Miller 2000.

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Fig. 8. Bouteroue 1666, 364.

heir and only after the death of the latter his collections and papers were sold in 1645 or 1646. Large
parts of his impressive written legacy came to the
Bibliothque dInguimbert at Carpentras and some
groups of documents ended up in what is now the
Bibliothque Nationale de France. The two volumes
with numismatic notes, however, went astray and
possibly were for a while in the hands of Toussaint
Lauthier, later certainly to be acquired by Achille de
Harlay.17 They successively came into the possession
of Jerme Bignon, Jean Foi Vaillant, Claude Gros
de Boze, president de Cotte, Pieter van Damme and
Willem Hendrik Jacob van Westreenen. After the
latters death in 1848 his collections were turned
into Museum Meermanno-Westreenianum in The
Hague and the two manuscript volumes are there
till the present day.18
In the second volume entitled Nummi gallici,
gothici, italici, britannici, arabici et turcici, Peiresc
discusses Merovingian coins in the first chapter
called Nummi ex prima stirpe regum Franciae
(pp. 99133). However, in the second chapter
Nummi ex 2a stirpe regum Franciae on Carolingian coins he records a gift he once received. In 1606
he had made a well-planned tour, going via Paris
and London to the Low Countries where he visited
Amsterdam, Leiden, Delft, Rotterdam, Dordrecht,
17 Boeren 1979, 9091 no.10 C 3031, but compare
Gravit 1950, 59, 27 and 42.
18 The two manuscript volumes were brought to the
attention of numismatists by Delisle 1889, Prou
1890 and Dompierre de Chaufepi 1896, more recently the importance of the manuscripts for numismatic research was stressed by Van der Meer 1997
and Archibald 2006.

Antwerp, Louvain, Brussels, Ghent and Tournai,

heading to Paris again before returning home. At
this occasion he also visited the duke of Aarschot
in his castle at Beaumont near Mons in present-day
Belgium.19 The duke enjoyed Peirescs presence and
more or less forced him to accept a precious gift of
slightly less than 70 gold, silver and copper coins of
mixed Greek, Roman, Merovingian and Carolingian
origin (pp.159160).20 Under the heading gold and
silver coins given to me by prince Charles of Croy,
duke of Aarschot, on the 11th of september 1606,
Beaumont, eight gold coins are listed. Seven of these
are Merovingian: a coin of king Theudebert I is mentioned together with tremisses of Clermont-Ferrand,
Metz, Maastricht (2x), Troyes and Rodez (lines 28).
On the fifth line the description TRIECTO FIT,
caput galeatus, RASEMVNDVS MIN without any
doubt refers to the coin type discussed here, the
two words in the middle meaning helmeted head.
(Fig.9)
Considering the rarity of the type three out of
the four existing coins were definitely retrieved from
the soil only after the 18th century it is not difficult
to accept that the coin donated by Croy-Aarschot
to Peiresc must have been the same specimen as the
one that was mentioned and illustrated by Bouteroue
more than half a century later. This is the more probable because, on the sixth line in Peirescs manuscript
notebook, the Thrasemundus coin is joined by a
second Maastricht tremissis of Madelinus. Of the
latter coin Peiresc rendered the reverse legend incompletely as the first and final characters it should
read MADELINVS M must have been unclear or
missing on the original coin. In Bouteroue, on the
19 Gassendi 1655, 57 states that Peiresc had enjoyed
Croy-Aarschots hospitality at Beaumont for no less
than ten days.
20 The bigger group in the first chapter was published
by Prou 1890, 149168 after he had spent some
hours studying the manuscript in The Hague; however, he did not notice the few merovingian coins
mentioned in the Aarschot donation, because they
were incorporated in the second chapter on coins of
the carolingian period the type discussed here was
the subject of a paper given by the present author
(Pol 1983), but the section had been noticed before
by Dompierre 1896, 115116 and the fact of the
dukes generous gift had been mentioned already in
general terms by Gassendi 1655, 57.

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Fig. 9. Peiresc, manuscript notes (after 1606).

The Hague, Museum Meermanno-Westreenianum: inv. 10 C 31, p.159

same plate as the other coin, one finds a match in

illustration 4. I now propose to identify this coin as
one of the two of this Maastricht moneyer preserved
in the Cabinet des Mdailles et Antiques of the Bibliothque Nationale de France in Paris. At first sight
this seems difficult to accept because the shape of
the actual coin is so distinct from the illustration in
Bouteroue. However, it must be taken into account
that throughout Bouteroues plates all the items are
rendered as perfectly round and well-centered he
normalised every coin. (Fig.10) Nevertheless, in
his au lecteur preceding the main text, Bouteroue
states that all the coins described and illustrated in
his book he had seen himself and that he had taken
great efforts in making sure that the illustrations were
correct. He there also mentions the collections that
he consulted and chaque planche aura un chifre pour
marquer le lieu dou les pices auront t tires. Those
belonging to the king had a small fleur-de-lis and
those from the rich collection of Achille dHarlay
were given the interlaced characters DH: le public
verra quil doit sa generosit la meilleure partie de
mon ouvrage. Bouteroue then continues by giving a
list of 14 names, among which also those of M. de

Peiresc (DP) and himself (BB). However, many of the

illustrated coins are not accompanied by any mark at
all and this is difficult to explain. Usually on a horizontal strip three coins are represented next to each
other and it appears that in many cases there the DH
mark occurs only in the centre, apparently for the
middle coin only. This applies to those pages where
many coins are illustrated, e.g. 364, as well as those
where there are only a few. For example p.222 shows
three horizontal strips with one, three and one coin
each respectively. In all three strips there is only one
DH mark in the middle. In the central one where
three coins are illustrated, the mark seems to stand
for the ownership of the middle coin. However,
since this situation of missing indications occurs so
often, another suggestion might be useful. Possibly
Bouteroue meant the central mark to be valid for
all three coins in the strip. This would mean that in
many (most? all?) cases where a mark is lacking the
item must be seen as ex Harlay. This possibility
seems to be corroborated by the author where in his
au lecteur he explicitly refers to the extensive use
he had made of Harlays collection. In the light of
this circumstance it is likely that when Bouteroue
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Fig. 10. Paris, Bibliothque Nationale de Fance: inv. (Prou

1185)

took his notes and illustrations somewhere before

1666, both coins of Madelinus and Thrasemundus
were already in the collection of Achille dHarlay.21
However, this remains speculation and their precise
vicissitudes after Peiresc are unknown. It would
not have been unlikely for the Thrasemundus coin
to end up in the French national collection of coins,
medals and antiquities. At present it is not in the
Paris collection, nor was it a hundred years ago when
Prou made his catalogue of that collection. Neither
can it be found among the many illustrations in the
works of Lelewel, Conbrouse or others like Cartier
etc. who published so many merovingian coins in
the Revue Numismatique from 1836 onwards. And
although the Cabinet des Mdailles et Antiques experienced a serious loss by the theft of many gold
objects in 1831, it is not very likely that this coin
was there and was lost at that occasion.22 It must
therefore be assumed that Thrasemundus probably
never made it to the kings collection, or had strayed
from there as early as the 18th century. From that
period onwards not a single hint as to its where
abouts exists that deserves serious attention.
In 18th-century Dutch numismatic literature the
Thrasemundus with helmeted bust is encountered
twice, i.e. in the works of Frans van Mieris (1726)
and Gerard van Loon (1734) where Merovingian
coins struck in the present-day Netherlands are dis 21 For the complicated history of the Peiresc collection,
see Babelon 1901, 126127, 136 and 146; Gravit
1950, 58 and 27 and Yvon 1966, 130 n. 7.
22 Mersan 1838, 187188; it appears that mainly roman coins were lost at this occasion.

cussed. Van Mieris, however, only copied Thrase

mundus (and Madelinus plus some other ones)
from Bouteroue. Van Loon in turn copied these
from Van Mieris, adding some from Le Blanc as well.
Neither of the two authors mentions his source(s)
for the illustrations, let alone that the whereabouts
of the Thrasemundus coin itself are mentioned.
It is not difficult to see where the illustrations
had been taken from since all of Bouteroues coins
have a pseudo pearl rim where Le Blanc merely gave
them an extra contour line that is slightly thicker.
In Van Mieris, on each coin of the first plate the
areas surrounding head and cross (except the place
for the legend) is darkened by way of shading, an
element not seen on the illustrations of Bouteroue
or Le Blanc. (Figs. 1113) Most of the coins on
this plate are drawn in a more or less realistic way
and at a correct size, only two pieces are much bigger. Also in this respect Van Mieris and Van Loon
followed Bouteroue closely. In Merovingian gold
coinage two denominations are known, the bigger
solidus and the smaller tremissis, the latter being by
far the more numerous. In Bouteroues days Merovingian numismatics was still in its initial phase. He
therefore must not be blamed too much for labelling
some coins as demi sol instead of either sol or tiers
de sol. But remembering his explicitly mentioned
carefulness regarding the illustrations, it remains a
strange thing that he rendered most tremisses at their
(more or less) actual size, enlarging only some of
them without reason. Also the Thrasemundus and
Madelinus coins from his sixth plate on p.364 are
enlarged erroneously, since a solidus of these types
or of these moneyers or mint, for that matter has
never turned up!
Two centuries ago the Thrasemundus coin
popped up again, or so it seemed, in the collection
of the great international dealer and collector Pieter
van Damme. It was sold in Amsterdam on March
21, 1808 and the auction catalogue mentions on
p. 305306 no 71 a monnoye de la ville dUtrecht
avec nom du montaire, peu diffrente de celle dans
van Mieris pl I no 2. The latter indication clearly
refers to the helmeted Thrasemundus type, but the
words peu differente are ominous. Since this moneyer also produced coins with the usual bust without
a helmet, the coin in Van Dammes auction cannot
be identified as Peirescs Thrasemundus that had disappeared such a long time ago. Needless to add that

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Thrasemundus

Fig. 11. Van Mieris (1726) plate 1, detail

Fig. 12. Van Loon 1734, 28, detail

Fig. 13. Van Loon 1734, 28, actual size

nrs. 1+2+10 ex Le Blanc, no.11 ex Bouteroue, rest ex Van Mieris (and, except for 8, in turn ex Bouteroue)

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Arent Pol

all the gold coins in the Van Damme auction were

bought for the Dutch state and that there is not
nor ever has been any trace of a Thrasemundus
with helmet in the collection of the Koninklijk Penningkabinet that for a long time was housed at The
Hague, then for a short while at Leiden (19862006)
and now at Utrecht, being incorporated in the new
Geldmuseum.
We seem to have no other option than to conclude that Peirescs Thrasemundus has been lost. Or
could it be identical to Thomsens coin that first
occurs in the middle of the 19th century? For such
a suggestion there is not a single scrap of evidence
available: because of the long-standing absence of
Peirescs Thrasemundus from all sources, it seems
more safe to assume that Thomsens specimen is in
fact a more recent find of unknown place and
date.
Also, as for Peirescs specimen, nothing about
where and when it was found is known for certain.
However, since the collecting of medieval and modern coins is a relatively new phenomenon in the 16th
century whilst before that time all precious metal
would end up sooner or later in the melting pot,
one could suppose that it was a find not far outside
the circles of the duke of Aarschot.23 The best guess
then would be somewhere in present-day Belgium,
somewhere at the end of the 16th century. And
this of course applies to the other Aarschot coins in
Peirescs collection as well

Acknowledgements
I am very grateful for the various help of several
friends and colleagues: Michel Amandry (Paris),
Peter Berghaus (Mnster), Michel Dhnin (Paris),
Jrgen Steen Jensen (Copenhagen), Sonja Marzinzik (London), Gay van der Meer (The Hague),
Rickey Tax (The Hague) and Bouke Jan van der
Veen (Leiden).

23 Possibly the coin is mentioned in one or two inventories that seem to exist of the Croy collection:
according to Serrure 1880, xvi-xvii one is called
toutes les mdailles dpos es jadis au chateau de Hvre,
laquelle collection appartenoit la maison de Chimay
and dated 1st of January 1601 according to Piot
1845, 238.

Manuscript sources
Peiresc ms. 1606
N.C. Fabri de Peiresc, Nummi Gallici, Gothici, Italici,
Britannici, Arabici et Turcici, undated [Museum Meermanno-Westreenianum, s-Gravenhage: 10 C 31]
Peiresc ms. 1637
N.C. Fabri de Peiresc, Inventaire des m dailles, graveures,
pierres pretieuses et poidz antiques de cabinet de feu M.
de Peires, 1637 [Bibliothque Nationale de France,
Dpartement des Manuscrits, Paris: mss.ff. 9534]
de Barthelemy ms. 1894
A. de Barthelemy, Recueil de dessins de monnaies m
rovingiennes donn au Cabinet des Mdailles par M.
Anatole de Barthelemy, membre de lInstitut, en 1894,
1894 [Bibliothque Nationale de France, Dpartement des Monnaies Mdailles et Antiquits, Paris:
Rs. MS 12004 BAR folio]

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