Folia archeologica 47.

István Gedai: Egy 13. századi pénzhamisító műhely

FOLIA ARCHAEOLOGICA XLVII. 1998-1999. BUDAPEST A FORGERS' WORKSHOP FROM THE 13™ CENTURY István GEDAI Counterfeiting money is contemporary with coin minting. The truth of this bon-mot, passing for an aphorism is corroborated by the rich choice of fakes in the museum collections. Naturally, modern falsification of coins do not fit into this category: this act is not forging money but making fakes of art objects. Hungarian minting was initiated by the birth of the Hungarian Kingdom established by the coronation of King Stephen I. The regalia of coin minting was rooted in state sovereignty and Hungarian kings could assert these rights

1

. The first bill dealing with counterfeiting is Nr. 40 from the year 1298, which codified this act. Forging coins, however, occurred earlier in Hungarian numismatical record than documented in written sources. According to the evidence in the collections^ forged mints occur

hin considerable number - though still not in mass - by the 12' ' century. In the 13 century, during the reign of Andrew II and Béla IV already several written sources mentioned forged minting. So far, however, no finds containing forged money only were known from this early period. The finds of Budapest, Remete hill have special importance from this respect

2. Unfortunately the early death of the archaeologist excavating the finds prevented the perfection of the documentation: the only existing document is the finds themselves. All we know about the exact location of the locality that the site was a filled-up cave, not marked on the 1970 survey. The find assemblage comprise 6 pieces of forged denars of type CORPUS NUMMORUM HUNGÁRIÁÉ I. (henceforth abbreviated CNH I.)309 (in the description, Nrs. 1-5) and 34 pieces of planchets used for counterfeiting (Nrs. 6-39), of which 3 pieces can be considered as regular circular shape (Nrs. 6-7, 12). The others are irregular, mainly slightly angular. The joint occurrence of forged money and the planchets support the idea that a workshop for counterfeiting money must have existed in the cave. The denar of type CNH I. 309 was attributed by László Réthy to Stephen V., while Bálint Hóman described it as a coin of Andrew II minted after 1222

3. This opinion was adopted also by Lajos Huszár

4. Due to the lack of authentic sources, none of these views could be corroborated or denied as yet. Data on weight and metal composition of the 39 pieces of forged money and the planchets are presented below: 1 Kahler F.: A magyarországi középkori pénzhamisítás (Mittelalterliche Falschgeldprägung in Ungarn). NK LXXV1-LXXVII (1977-78) 57-65. 2 The find assemblage is stored in the Budapest Historical Museum, at inv. nr. 79.6.1-39. 3 Hóman, 1919, 306-307. 4 Huszár, 1979, No. 280.