Crusader Coins : an introduction to their typological and stylistic analysis

The numismatic material offers an outstanding opportunity for iconographic studies, often neglected by art historians. For ages, coinage has not simply served as a medium of financial or commercial exchange, but also (and more interestingly for the art historian) as a vehicle that conveyed, through a wide territorial span, design and iconographic concepts of enormously influential gravitation. Crusader coins are not an exception: on the contrary, its influence in the late mediaeval coinage in regards to iconography and other devices was paramount. This paper attempts to draw attention to several aspects related to the iconography of the Crusader coins, their probable typological models and derivations, that it, its decisive influence in the later Mediaeval and early modern coinages.