HARVARD UKRAINIAN STUDIES - See also - Harvard University

The Monetary History of Kiev in the Pre-Mongol PeriodTHOMAS S. NOONANINTRODUCTIONThe city of Kiev was unquestionably the major political, economic, aidreligious center of Rus' during the entire pre-Mongol era. While there an anumber of written sources for Kiev's history at this time and archaeologicalexcavations provide an ever-growing understanding of Kiev's life prior to1240, we must not neglect the numismatic evidence. The monetary sourcesfrom this era can help to answer many important questions about Kiev'searly history for which the written and/or archaeological data are meager,obscure, or lacking. This study explores what these monetary sources suggestabout Kiev during the period when it was the greatest town of the Rus'lands.Several points should be made clear at the outset. First, by monetarysources are meant coins as well as pieces of metal used as money. For ourpurposes, the term "pieces of metal used as money" refers specifically toingots or monetni hryvny (monetnye grivny), many of which circulated duringthe pre-Mongol era, during which they began to replace coins as thechief form of metallic money. This definition of monetary sources meansthat we shall focus on the actual coins and ingots that either reached Kievfrom elsewhere or were issued in Kiev during the pre-Mongol era. Of noconcern to us here are the various terms for monetary units of accountfound in written sources such as the Rus'skaia Pravda.Applying the above definition, our study will consider five main types ofmoney:(1) Islamic coins, primarily the silver dirhams often referred to in olderworks as kufic coins;(2) Byzantine coins of silver, gold, and copper;(3) West European silver coins, or deniers;(4) Rus' coins of gold, silver, and billon, usually referred to as zolotnyky(zlatniki) (gold coins) and sribnyky (srebreniki) (silver coins);(5) ingots or monetni hryvny (monetnye grivny), primarily those of silverhaving a hexagonal shape and usually described as being "of theKiev type".In order to facilitate our analysis, we shall examine each type of moneyseparately and reserve generalizations for the conclusion.