Clipped Prague groschen of John of Luxembourg (John of Bohemia) from the Medieval hillfort in Sanok – Biała Góra
Clipped Prague groschen of John of Luxembourg (John of Bohemia) from the Medieval hillfort in Sanok – Biała Góra

Summary/Abstract: The present article is concerned with two clipped Prague groschenof John of Luxembourg (John of Bohemia) found during the archaeological surveyled by Piotr N. Kotowicz, M.A., on the site of the hillfort of Sanok – Biała Góra, dating to the latter half of the 13th and the first half of the 14th century. These findsare analyzed against the background of a discussion on the problem of the clipping of the edges of Prague groschen, a practice already known and recorded forthe territory of Red Ruthenia. To date, the scholars involved in studying this question have mostly concluded that this method was used for readjusting coins to various denominations – from the Ruthenian quartensis minted by Casimir IIIthe Great, to the Golden Horde issues, to later issues of Prague groschen with a realvalue lower than that of the coins being clipped.The article presents three different propositions. The most emphasis is laid on the possibility that it was the quality of the groschen, often struck on a coin blanks of a diameter lesser than the coin die, which may have induced the people to clip them, as thus it would have been easier to avoid being punished. The second proposition holds that the clipping would have been applied as a substitute methodof a recoinage used before the introduction of the Ruthenian quartensis by Casimir III the Great. In this context, the so-called “clip” (obrzaz), as discussed by Roman Grodecki, is pointed out. The third and the least likely one possibility, assumes that clipped Prague groschen were brought over from Bohemia, along with complete pieces. It has been assumed that the pieces in question, representative of various types of John of Luxembourg’s Prague groschen, reached the environs of Sanokin the 1330s at the latest. The moment when they got to the ground has been linked to the taking over of the western parts of the Principality of Halych––Volhynia by the troops of Casimir III the Great in 1340. This action was carriedout on the strength of the succession agreement between the king of Poland andthe last duke of Halych, Boleslaus George II (Polish: Bolesław Jerzy II Trojdenowicz), but it was not implemented by peaceful means. One of the last Ruthenian points of resistance was likely the little hillfort of Sanok – Biała Góra.

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