Bezant

In the Middle Ages, the term bezant (Old French: besant, from Latin bizantius aureus) was used in Western Europe to describe several gold coins of the east, all derived ultimately from the Roman solidus. The word itself comes from the Greek Byzantion, the ancient name of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire.

The original "bezants" were the gold coins produced by the government of the Byzantine Empire, first the nomisma and from the 11th century the hyperpyron. Later, the term was used to cover the gold dinars produced by Islamic governments. In turn, the gold coins minted in the Kingdom of Jerusalem and County of Tripoli were termed "Saracen bezants", since they were modelled on the gold dinar. A completely different electrum coin based on Byzantine trachea was minted in the Kingdom of Cyprus and called the "white bezant".^[1]

The term bezant in reference to coins is common in sources from the 10th through 13th centuries. Thereafter, it was mainly employed as a money of account and in literary and heraldic contexts.^[2]

^ Peter Edbury, "Ernoul, Eracles and the Beginnings of Frankish Rule in Cyprus, 1191–1232", Medieval Cyprus: A Place of Cultural Encounter (Waxmann, 2015), p. 44.
^ Philip Grierson, "Bezant", The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium (1991).

[1] Peter Edbury, "Ernoul, Eracles and the Beginnings of Frankish Rule in Cyprus, 1191–1232", Medieval Cyprus: A Place of Cultural Encounter (Waxmann, 2015), p. 44.

[2] Philip Grierson, "Bezant", The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium (1991).

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