Notae Numismaticae - Zapiski Numizmatyczne (14.2019)

MICHAŁ ZAWADZKI

270

indicate Wschowa written either in Polish or in German (Fraustadt), while the Two-
Barred Cross is the coat of arms of Wschowa.28
We should regard the thesis which held for many years that half-groschen with
a Two-Barred Cross under the crown were produced in the Wschowa mint as having
been definitively refuted. There are a number of reasons for this: the character of
the Wschowa mint and the fact that it belonged to the Silesian system,29 as well as
the typological analysis of the reverses of the half-groschen of Vladislaus Jagiełło.
The combination of these factors clearly indicates that these coins were struck in
Krakow. What then do the letters F and W mean, not to mention the Two-Barred Cross?
The theory that attributes these letters to the minters is the only one that is possible to
accept, although it does have its weak sides, the most important of which is the fact
that before this (before 1406) the letters indicate the names of the minters and not their
surnames, which is what researchers are attempting to use on the coins with a cross
under a crown that come after this. Moreover, as S. Kubiak pointed out,30 the letters
P, N, S, and A indicated people who, in the sources, appeared as magister monetae,
which cannot be said about Falkinberg, Follisfessil, or Wenke. The return to attributing
the letters F and W to the minters is the correct solution; however, in order to fully
explain the meaning of these letters and the image of the Two-Barred Cross we must
once again interpret the written sources that are available to us and correlate them with
the new findings concerning the chronology of the half-groschen. We know of two
notes31 in which two of the minters appear - Mikołaj Falkinberg and Mikołaj Ungir. It is
significant that they are not described as magistri monetae, but the words used to describe
them differ from the records concerning many other minters, who were described as
monetarius. In the first note, which comes from 1412, Mikołaj Falkinberg was described
as monetarius domini Regis. In the second, from 1413, the minters mentioned above
appear together as Nicolaus Ungir (...) et Nicolai Falkinberg monetarii domini nostri
regis (...). Of fundamental importance is the fact that neither Falkinberg nor Ungir are
described as regular workers at the mint (monetarius) but as the king’s mintmasters
(domini nostri regis). In this way, one can provide an answer to the question as to what
these signs mean - the set of letters F and W and the symbol of the two-barred cross.
Falkinberg and Ungir are described as the mintmasters of the ruler, Vladislaus Jagiełło,
who is symbolized by the Two-Barred Cross. This symbol also indirectly confirms
the fact that the mint was directly administered by the king.32

28 KIRMIS 1892: 24; KUBIAK 1970: 29-32; more recently, KOZŁOWSKI 2018: 55-56.
29 PASZKIEWICZ 2010: 118.
30 KUBIAK 1970: 30.
31 In ibidem'. 233.
32 The mint probably lost its private lease after 1406 (following the end of the production of the oldest group
of half-groschen with letters), but the manner in which it functioned after this period remains unknown.