⅛ Stavraton - Constantine XI Constantinopolis ND

Reverse

•-• (sigla) across fields / K/I-T/N, facing bust of Constantine XI, wearing crown with pendilia and maniakon.

Comment

Constantine XI Palaeologus (AD 1448-1453). The last Byzantine (and therefore the last Roman) Emperor, Constantine XI Palaeologus was nominated for the throne by his brother John VIII, who died childless in 1448.

Notes from Bendall "We know from eyewitness or contemporary reports of the siege of Constantinople, including those of Leonard, Archbishop of Chios and Nicolo Barbaro, that Constantine ordered holy vessels to be taken from the churches, melted down and struck into silver coins to pay the soldiers, ditch diggers and builders engaged in the defence of the city. It is more than likely that these coins would have been eighth-stavrata than the larger denominations, since they would have been used for day to day petty transactions during the last days. The authorities would hardly have been striking the higher denominations which, as can be seen from Giacomo Badoer's account books (1436-1440), were primarily used in trade. The eighth-stavrata in unworn condition and with many die duplicates are prime contenders for being the very last coins struck in the Byzantine Empire."

No coins of Constantine XI were known to exist until a single specimen was identified by Simon Bendall in the mid 1980s. In 1991, the discovery of a small hoard brought a handful of further pieces to light. These were examples of the silver stavraton, the standard coinage of the late Byzantine realm, and its fractions. Hastily struck and of crude design, the pieces are tangible evidence of how far the Empire had fallen since the heyday of Justinian nine centuries earlier.

Interesting fact