Iris, dumb money, fat man: The beginnings of Czech minting were rough

The Celts were the first nation that used coins on our territory. They imitated the gold currency of the Macedonian rulers, which was called staters.

Celtic coins have the same name, but you may have never heard this name. A more popular name was adopted for them: irises. That's what they were called by people who mostly found old Celtic money in the fields. They believed that the coins spring from the earth in the place where the rainbow touched it, because they were most often discovered after a heavy rain, when the wet metal glittered in the first rays of the sun.

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Gold for irises was provided to the Celts by our rivers, which, unfortunately, long ago used to be gold-bearing. It is not for nothing that the region of South Bohemia Otava is called the California of antiquity. The mined sands there are reminiscent of the American gold rush. But the Celts were for a long time the last to practice coinage in the territory of today's Czech Republic. For a long time, our countries came under the sphere of influence of the Roman monetary policy, and we had to wait several long centuries for the next "own" money.

People broke low-quality coins and had to weigh them in markets

The mentioned coin was the denarius. Prince Boleslav I, known as Ukrutný, probably murdered his brother Václav in cold blood, but he led the Czech land to prosperity. And that's also thanks to the decision to start minting silver denarii, used all over Europe, in our country. Until that time, according to historical sources, some kind of scarves were paid here, which, given the fact that our country is located in the heart of Europe and practically all major trade routes crossed here, was not very advantageous for us.

On the obverse of the oldest Czech denarii, you would find an image of a cross and an inscription that leaves no doubt that it is precisely Boleslav's currency: BOLEZLAVS DUX. The reverse was decorated with the names of the places where the money originated. Prague was the first, then other mints were added. In the end, they were all replaced by the names of saints and patrons.

But the problem is that over time the purity of the products of the Czech mints began to decrease rapidly, which of course caused considerable problems in trading. Since the 13th century, people often used bracteates, one-sided thin coins that resembled a button, as a replacement for heavily depreciated denarii.

They were introduced by Přemysl Otakar I. Originally, they had a diameter of around 4 centimeters, but over time they shrunk to 28 millimeters. They were called dumb coins because they lacked the names of the rulers. But they soon met a similar fate as the denarii - they lost their purity. The result was that people did not count them, but weighed them, and twisted them in different ways to reach the desired value.

Real silver - real money

The suffering of people with the inscrutable quality of denarii and bracteates ended only with the coin reform of Wenceslas II. The monarch, who had the reform proposal drafted by Italian bankers and lawyers, had the famous Prague penny minted from 1300.

The coin, whose name is derived from the Latin term Denarius Grossus, "thick denarius", was also made of silver. However, denarii certainly could not compare with the weight and purity of the "fat boy". However, the precious metal used for the production of grosz was also mined in the rich silver deposits of Kutná Hora, which were newly discovered at the time. The face of the penny was decorated with the Czech royal crown. Around the perimeter was written the name of the sovereign and the text "by God's grace, King of Bohemia", of course in Latin. On the reverse, you could find a picture of the Czech heraldic lion.

Surprisingly, the shape of the coin has never changed significantly. Václav II himself. he very much wanted the pennies to remain "constant and eternal". And for a while it seemed that his wish would come true, because the heavy silver coins found their way beyond the borders of the Czech lands without any problems. Even so, their weight and purity began to fluctuate over time, until they reached almost half the value of purity than the original one. The curse of Czech money continued. In addition, there were other problems, such as the Hussite wars, as well as the pressure of the international market on gold currency, or at least on gold that is well linked and of constant quality.

The Luxembourgers responded to this demand with their gold florins and later, during the reign of Charles IV, with gold ducats. But then, in the first half of the 16th century, another Czech silver coin saw the light of day. And it finally went down in history, conquered Europe and gave its name to the currency that still moves the world today. It was our legendary tolar.