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The "Ecu" would be fine with me, even though the "Pound" was used both in France, its vassals and in England. Its use had first been regulated by Charlemagne himself, that is why I thought it would be granted better legitimacy.
lb as a symbol for pounds (Weight) comes from the English mis-translation of Livre to Libre (lb) and was used for pound. Thus livre has obviously more importance
the currency of the 4th crusade (circa 1200); as in 50,000 marks of silver.
Or Apostles, golden coins widely used through Italy but of a later date than 1200.
But perhaps the coin should be of Byzantium for this earlier period as it was Byzantium that was the envy of the world. Demetrios can help us here as I cannot now recall the name of its coinage without going to look it up.
The coinage adopted should reflect broad use throughout this period and will likely be of Mediterranean origin if it does.
No, I wouldn't agree with the replacement of Ducat
with Livre or Pound. Certainly NOT Pound.
Ducat is the coinage of the later part of this CK period to about 1600+ and would not be a mistake to adopt as it was widely used throughpout Europe.
But Livre and Pound were much more limited and the economies of England and France more primitive and smaller scale than Mediterranean ones of the time 1000-1400.
Even Florin would be better than Pound or Livre. But Florin is also much more recent than is Ducat. If the idea is to find a coinage most faithful to the times and widely used in the period, it would have to be Hyperpyron, Mark, or Ducat... seems to me.
If you want to elevate the Atlantic economy far above what is represented at the time, use Pound and Livre. But that would be for 21st century convenience, not for 13th century fidelity.
If it were before 1066, I would suggest that we would use the Byzantine coinage, but duirng Zoe's reign and immediately afterwards, the once mighty Byzantine gold piece had been adulterated and badly devalued. The Kommenoi later re-stabalized the Byzantine coinage, however. If we were to use it, I would suggest using the term for the coinage widely used outside the empire - bezants (a term which shows that the oft-repeated "fact" that the Empire wasn't called Byzantine by anyone until the 1700s is patently false)
Ducat is not a bad choice; to the contrary it is by far the best I can think of. The ducats of the duchy of Apulia and later of Venice were the purest and most stable currencies throughout the entire period, as they were in the EU time period. The coinages of other countries, such as France and England (to mention those mentioned above) were by no means either as widely used, or as pure, or as stable.
Marks would be fine as well, as a generic term, but florins didn't come into play until quite late in the period.
Maybe each country, and it's vassals should have their own currencies, and outside of your realm, vassals, allies, etc. Your currency would be worth less.
I forgot about Bezants! Yes, that would have been appropo too, moreso than other alternatives to Ducats.
Ducats works for me and it is nice to have a coinage that can be used when CK games get converted to EU2. But of course, that alone would not be a reason to keep Ducat. Your acquaintance with such archane issues again impresses me.
I don't know exactly what the name is suppsoed to reflect. But Hyper means "very or extremely" and "pyron" like you reckon has to do with fire. So maybe it is "very refined" because the temperature of the fire used to extract the metal is very high?
