The royal coinages of Roger II are among the most enigmatic and visually distinctive in the medieval world. Throughout the course of his reign, the Norman king struck a series of trilingual coins that bore a mix of Latin, Greek and Arabic inscriptions and iconography. The coins are unique among the western currencies of the period, and constitute one of a series of appropriation projects undertaken by the Norman king to symbolize the creation of a populus trilinguis – a union of the three ethnic communities under Roger II’s supreme royal authority. This chapter will focus on one of the royal coins, the silver ducalis, and what an examination of its iconography and design may reveal about the development of the political and cultural identity of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily in the first decade of its creation.

The ducalis is a ‘scyphate’ or concave silver coin minted by Roger II in 1140 (Fig. 5.1). As part of his monetary reform, Roger issued the ducalis and its one third denomination, the tercia-ducalis, in order to fill the growing disparity between the gold tari and the debased bronze follaro in the duchy of Apulia. Given its relatively short period of circulation, the ducalis may appear to be a rather insignificant coin in the kingdom’s economic history. The only existing written evidence for the issue of the silver coin stems from the vitriolic account of the notary Falco of Benevento, who described how ‘all the people of Italy suffered and were reduced to poverty and misery by this terrible money; and as a result of these oppressive actions hoped for the king’s death or deposition.’ More recent studies have questioned whether the ducalis had any long-term impacts on the monetary system, other than displacing one of the local currencies of the Italian South, the romesinae. However, it is important to note that the demonetization of regional currencies tightened Roger II’s control of the monetary supply, and effectively placed a royal monopoly over coin issuance. The design of new coinage was placed in the hands of the royal mints of Palermo and Messina, and engravers actively drew upon their transcultural heritage in order to express the ideological and political ambitions of the new royal court.