This paper was originally presented in a Cambridge symposium on interpretation of ritual context in early medieval Europe. It explores the presence of coins in medieval Italian graves in comparison with other ritual uses of coins, considering that funerary contexts cannot be properly understood without a full awareness of the role of coins in medieval mentality and religious sphere. The article proposes a role of coins as memory tokens, as well as chronological tokens (especially so when found in graves of saints), and similar interpretations are documented for coins offered in the foundation of buildings. This paper opened a discussion and further investigations of ritual uses of coins for the attention of archaeologists and Church historians.

Saints and sinners: coins in medieval Italian graves / L. Travaini. - In: NUMISMATIC CHRONICLE. - ISSN 0078-2696. - 164:(2004), pp. 159-181.

Saints and sinners: coins in medieval Italian graves

L. Travaini
Primo
2004

Abstract

This paper was originally presented in a Cambridge symposium on interpretation of ritual context in early medieval Europe. It explores the presence of coins in medieval Italian graves in comparison with other ritual uses of coins, considering that funerary contexts cannot be properly understood without a full awareness of the role of coins in medieval mentality and religious sphere. The article proposes a role of coins as memory tokens, as well as chronological tokens (especially so when found in graves of saints), and similar interpretations are documented for coins offered in the foundation of buildings. This paper opened a discussion and further investigations of ritual uses of coins for the attention of archaeologists and Church historians.
coins ; graves ; ritual ; church history ; archaeology
Settore L-ANT/04 - Numismatica
2004
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/2434/169975
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