Notae Numismaticae - Zapiski Numizmatyczne (11.2016)

PIOTR N. KOTOWICZ
Historical Museum in Sanok

DOI: 11.12797/ZP. 11.2016.11.08

GRZEGORZ ŚNIEŻKO
Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology ofthe Polish Academy
of Sciences in Warsa w, The Royal Castle in Warsaw
Clipped Prague groschen of John of Luxembourg
(John of Bohemia) from the Medieval hillfort
in Sanok - Biała Góra1

ABSTRACT: The present article is concemed with two clipped Prague groschen
of John of Luxembourg (John of Bohemia) found during the archaeological survey
led by Piotr N. Kotowicz, M.A., on the site of the hillfort of Sanok - Biała Góra,
dating to the latter half of the 13th and the first half of the 14th century. These finds
are analyzed against the background of a discussion on the problem of the clipping
of the edges of Prague groschen, a practice already known and recorded for
the territory of Red Ruthenia. To datę, the scholars involved in studying this
ąuestion have mostly concluded that this method was used for readjusting coins
to various denominations - from the Ruthenian ąuartensis minted by Casimir III
the Great, to the Golden Hordę issues, to later issues of Prague groschen with a real
value lower than that of the coins being clipped.
The article presents three different propositions. The most emphasis is laid
on the possibility that it was the ąuality of the groschen, often struck on a coin
blanks of a diameter lesser than the coin die, which may have induced the people
to clip them, as thus it would have been easier to avoid being punished. The second
proposition holds that the clipping would have been applied as a substitute method
of a recoinage used before the introduction of the Ruthenian ąuartensis by Casimir
III the Great. In this context, the so-called “clip” (obrzaz), as discussed by Roman

1 We would like to thank Prof. Dr Hab. Stanisław Suchodolski and Prof. Dr Hab. Borys Paszkiewicz
for their thorough reading of the article and insightful comments.