EUROPEAN WRITTEN SOURCES ON THE COUNTERFEITING OF COINS IN THE MIDDLE AGES

Counterfeiting of coins is mentioned in a multitude of medieval written sources, manuscripts and books, starting with the Laws of the Visigoths in the mid of 7th century, through the Visitation of the Chapter of Esztergom in 1397, to the Inferno, first part of Dante Alighieri’s most important work, the Divina Comedia from the first two decades of the 14th century, which reached far beyond its age. The paper gives a selection of only partly used and often entirely unknown facts from medieval documents. This creates the pre-conditions for them to become more widely known and accessible.