Aspron
The aspron (Greek: ἄσπρον), from Latin asper, was a late Byzantine name for silver or silver-alloy coins.
The Latin word asper originally meant "rough", but had gradually acquired the connotation of "fresh" and, especially when referring to silver, "white", by the imperial period.[1] It acquired a technical meaning in the 12th century, when the Byzantines began to refer to the billon trachy coin, which was issued in a blanched state, as aspron. The same name was also sometimes applied to the contemporary electrum trachy as well.[1]
The name re-appears in the 14th–15th centuries as a generic name for silver coinage, such as the Byzantine doukatopoulon or the Turkish akçe.[1] The 15th century account books of the Venetian merchant-banker Giacomo Badoer lists several cities and governments that coined aspers, which included Trebizond, Caffa, Simisso (or Samsun), Tana, and Rhodes.[2]
References
- ^ a b c Grierson 1991, p. 211.
- ^ Cecile Morrison, "Coin Usage and Exchange Rates in Badoer’s Libro dei Conti", Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 55 (2001), pp. 217-245
Sources
- Grierson, Philip (1991). "Asper". In Kazhdan, Alexander (ed.). The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. p. 211. ISBN 978-0-19-504652-6.
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