[gothic-l] Re: Runic Influences

[dirk at SMRA.CO.UK]

--- In gothic-l at y..., Tore Gannholm <tore.gannholm at s...> wrote:
> >----------
> >>From: Tore Gannholm <tore.gannholm at s...>
> >
> >>>>From: Tore Gannholm <tore.gannholm at s...>
> >>>
> >>>> The Goths are defeated in Italy. What remains of the ruling 
class has
> >>>> nowhere to go.
> >>>> Why not try Britannia?
> >>>> Tore
> >>>
> >>>Somehow, I have a hard time picturing it.
> >>>Didn't the Goths have a hard time with naval matters?
> >>>It would seem quite a stretch to imagine any exodus to
> >>>an island, IMHO, especially when it involves going
> >>>(from Ravenna, at least) around Southern Italy, past the
> >>>now enemy Sicily, then around Spain through the
> >>>Straight of Gibraltar, which they were previously not
> >>>even able to cross, then up to Britain.
> >>>
> >>>Gendler.
> >>
> >> As far as I understand the trade route went overland. It seems 
natural they
> >> took the same route if they went to Britannia.
> >> Tore
> >
> >well, even still, it can't be completely overland, can it?
> >Britannia wasn't part of the mainland last I checked.
> >I am interested as to where this trade route was,
> >did it involve travelling through the Franks?
> >
> >Gendler.
> 
> I qoutote
> American Early Medieval Studies 2
> Sutton Hoo: Fifty Years After
> Edited by Robert Farrell and Carol Neuman de Vegvar, 1992
> 
> The Mediterranean Perspective
> David Whitehouse
> 
> 
> The principal routes by which Mediterranean objects reached the 
other side
> of the North Sea and the English Channel were identified nearly 
thirty
> years ago by Werner on the basis of the find-places of two types of 
object;
> gold coins minted in the Mediterranean, especially those of 
Theodoric
> (493-526) and Justinian (527-65), 


Hi Tore,

Blackburn and Greason write in their book Early Medieval Coinage Vol. 
1, that one interesting feature of British coin hoards of the dark 
ages is the almost complete absense of any Ostrogothic coins in 
Britain. 









and bronze vessels. The 
distribution of
> the coins and the vessels led Werner to identify a trade route from 
Ravenna
> at the head of the Adriatic, through the Alps to the upper Rhine, 
and
> thence westward to northern France and the North Sea. The evidence 
suggests
> that the route may have been busiest in the second and third 
quarters of
> the sixth century, the period of Justinian´s reconquest of Italy, of 
the
> establishment of Ravenna as the seat of the Byzantine viceroy, and 
of
> relatively intense diplomatic activity between the Byzantines and 
the
> Franks. A second route followed the Rhone valley from Marseille to 
central
> France and beyond.
> The crossing to Kent and other entry-points is unlikely to have been 
the
> monopoly of any one group, although the Frisians are accorded pride 
of
> place in the literature, thanks partly to Bede, who noted their 
presence in
> London in 679. The importance of the Frisians is underlined by the 
relative
> abundance of Byzantine gold coins in Frisland; P.C.J.A.Boeles lists 
two
> coins of Justin I (518-27), eight of Justinian (527-65), two of 
Justin II
> (565-78), three of Maurice Tiberius (582-602), two of Phocas 
(602-10) and
> four of Heraclius and Heraclius Constantine (c. 613/4-30 or later) - 
more
> than from the whole of Francia.



When did this P.C.J.A. Boeles write? There have been by far more finds 
of Byzantine gold coins in Francia than in Frisia. In fact, some 
authors (Rigold) believes that an imperial mint continued to produce 
solidi in Marseille in the 5th/7th centuries. I think the graves of 
Frankish kings alone must have contained more solidi than those of  
all Frisian finds together. Clodowig's grave  alone contained several 
hundred solidi. In fact, the Franks had such a demand for large gold 
denominations because of their distant trade that they minted them 
themselves, long before the first Frisian or Anglo-Saxon solidi were 
made.


cheers
Dirk




> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]


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