Unpublished findings of medieval coins in Galicia

Abstract

This work wants to promote medieval mumismatic material found in Galicia, which still remained unpublished outside the institutions where it is preserved, aware of the importance of the knowledge of all possible data for historical interpretation, being the coin finds the truer testimony, along with the documentation, of the use and circulation of money at all times. We have visited numismatists funds from principal Galician museums and institutions who kindly opened us their doors, discovering, on occasions, medieval coins that had gone unnoticed or other badly catalogued. Sometimes, however, the cataloguing was perfect and the metrological work and photography was already done. This search was necessary because of the scarce published medieval coin finds for Northwest Spain, insufficient to draw firm conclusions. It has allowed us to conclude, among other things, that coins and money are already very present in rural areas in XII and XIII Galician middle ages, or that Portuguese coins had immense presence in medieval XIV and XV Galicia. Nevertheless, we know that recent archaeological activity in Galicia is discovering new specimens that will increase our knowledge, allowing us to know if there has been or not coin survival in several decades or if depression of the use of money after the fall of the Roman Empire has been so intense as it seems up to the recovery of XII century.