The oldest assemblage containing Western coins from the Kalisz area is the hoard discovered in the early 1990s on the site of the former village of Rajsków, located on the right bank of the Prosna River, near the stronghold at Zawodzie. Concealed around the year 1000, the deposit may have originally contained at least several or even several thousand coins and ornaments (fig. 4). A portion of the hoard, preserved in the Kalisz Museum, consists of 38 whole and 386 fragments of oriental and Western European coins, as well as fragmented ornaments.

Some of the preserved artifacts bear traces of characteristic small cuts, known as “pecks,” which may indicate that this part of the deposit was originally located in a Scandinavian environment. The oriental coins discovered in the hoard were minted between the late 7th and the last years of the 10th century. Western European coins represent issues from Germany, Bohemia, Denmark, and their imitations. The assemblage also included the first Polish coin – a denier bearing the image of an arrow, a symbol of the Word of God, minted in the early years of Bolesław Chrobry reign (fig. 5).

A hoard from Majków, deposited after 1016 AD and discovered in 1865 AD, also comes from Kalisz. It included German, Bohemian, English, and Hungarian coins. A denier of Chrobry bearing the inscription “Princes Poloniae” was recorded in the deposit. The coins were accompanied by silver ornaments. Another hoard from southeastern Greater Poland, dating back to the turn of the 10th and 11th centuries, was unearthed southwest of Kalisz. The oldest, hidden after 976 AD, comes from the village of Sieroszewice. The next, from Masanów, was deposited after 985 AD, and the third, from Ołobok, was buried in 983 or 1000 AD. All are preserved fragmentarily, but were most likely deposited during the reign of Mieszko I or the early years of Bolesław Chrobry rule. Individual coins from this period have also been recorded in Kalisz-Zawodzie, Kalisz Stare Miasto, and the Prosna River-side villages of Kurza and Żerniki.

The largest number of early medieval coins discovered individually and in hoards in Kalisz and the region are coins minted from the last third of the 11th century to the middle of the 12th century. Most of them are cross deniers, some of which were minted in Saxony and some in Poland, mainly in the last decade of the 11th century. The cross deniers discovered in the Stare Miasto and the Zawodzie stronghold belong to popular types: with a pearl cross, a simple cross and a crosier on the obverse, and rare specimens with a representation of a head, issued by the Wrocław bishops. The remaining ones are primarily official issues of the Piast rulers: Bolesław II the Bold (fig. 6), Władysław Herman (fig. 7), Bolesław III the Wrymouth (fig. 8) and his two sons Władysław the Exile (fig. 9) and Bolesław IV the Curly (fig. 10), which were discovered not only on the Zawodzie stronghold and the Stare Miasto, but also on the settlement at Wydarte. The youngest Piast coin, chronologically linked to the functioning of the Zawodzie stronghold before the location of Kalisz, is a poorly preserved denier attributed to Władysław Spindleshanks or Władysław Odonic (fig. 11).

The metal finds from Kalisz from the end of the 11th or the beginning of the 12th century also include the hoard from Dobrzec, a village with an early medieval origin. The assemblage consists of 584 artifacts: 579 silver plates, three fragments of early medieval silver containters called “kaptorga” and two coins (fig. 12). The younger of them – a half of a denier with a cross – could have been minted in the last period of Herman’s reign or during the reign of Prince Zbigniew in Greater Poland. Perhaps the discovered silver ore came from lead and silver deposits exploited in the early Middle Ages, located on the border of Lesser Poland and Silesia.

Apart from Kalisz, a large concentration of coin finds from the turn of the 11th and 12th centuries is the area from the village of Dębniałki Kaliskie to Żerniki, located on the edge of the Prosna floodplain terrace. These discoveries include three hoards and two single finds. The most information is associated with the deposit from Jastrzębniki (fig. 13). It was hidden on the grounds of an early medieval settlement. The preserved part of the assemblage consists of 922 artifacts: 48 Western coins (German, Bohemian, Moravian, Hungarian, and one fragment of a Danish denier), 714 cross deniers, including specimens attributed to the Kalisz mint (fig. 14), 158 silver pieces and two ornaments. This assemblage can be dated to the end of the 11th century. Another early medieval assemblage, probably from the first years of the 12th century, comes from Żerniki near Jastrzębniki. It included late issues of Polish cross deniers associated with the minting of Sieciech and Prince Zbigniew. The last of the mentioned deposits is the assemblage from Żegocin, discovered in the 19th century. Its exact contents are unknown, but it is said to have contained younger issues of cross deniers from the second half of the 11th century. The hoards are supplemented by single finds of cross deniers from Jastrzębniki and Dębniałki Kaliskie.

The third group of early medieval coin finds is the area between Zbiersk and Słuszków, located slightly over 20 km northeast of Kalisz, between the Bawół and Powa rivers, right tributaries of the Warta river. In terms of the number of artifacts discovered, this area stands out. It is from here that two large hoards from Słuszków, a smaller one from Zbiersk, and a fragmentarily preserved 11th-century deposit from Mycielin, with only known ornaments, come from. In addition, at least one cross denier with an image of a crosier from the turn of the 11th and 12th centuries, discovered loosely on the settlement, comes from the early medieval settlement in Słuszków. The oldest of the described assemblages is the hoard from Zbiersk. It was hidden at the end of the eighties of the 11th century. The larger part of the hoard was excavated in 1937, and the rest in 2006.

There are currently 190 artifacts in museum collections: 146 coins, 26 fragments of ornaments, and 18 silver plates. The first group of artifacts includes primarily Saxon cross deniers (82 pieces), mainly with a pearl cross on the obverse (fig. 15) and a simple cross, including one specimen attributed to the Kalisz mint. The remaining coins in the assemblage are dirhams, German, Bohemian and Moravian coins, Hungarian, English, Danish and Scandinavian coins, and imitations of English coins. The most spectacular hoards in the Kalisz region are the two large assemblages from Słuszków. The first, discovered accidentally in 1935, may have originally contained as many as 20,000 artifacts. To date, 13,061 silver objects have been preserved in the collections of the Kalisz museum. The assemblage consists primarily of cross deniers. Among them, the youngest issues of cross deniers with a pearl cross, a simple cross and a crosier on the obverse clearly dominate. Such coins were the main component of most hoards from the territory of Poland from the end of the 11th and the beginning of the 12th centuries.

In contrast to other hoards from this time, where cross deniers with a crosier predominate, the first Słuszków assemblage is dominated by cross deniers with a representation of a simple cross on the obverse, which were most likely minted in the nearby Kalisz mint during the reign of Władysław Herman and Prince Zbigniew (fig. 16). Extremely rare large deniers of Sieciech with his name and mark on the obverse appeared in the hoard. The majority (120 pieces) belong to type I (fig. 17). The obverse depicts Sieciech’s mark and an inscription with his name, and the reverse shows a knight’s cross with a characteristic wide bow – type I. The remaining two pieces belong to type II with the so-called monogram on the reverse (fig. 18). Deposit from Słuszków I contains only 72 foreign coins: Arab dirhams, German, Bohemian, Moravian, Hungarian, English, and single Danish and Scandinavian numismatic examples. They were issued from the 10th to the beginning of the 12th century.

In addition to coins with the denomination of a denier, the Słuszków I hoard also included a small number of half-denier fractions – oboles, numbering 54 pieces. Of these, 50 specimens bear a representation of a pearl cross on the obverse (fig. 19). The youngest well-dated coin in the hoard is a denier of the Hungarian king Koloman (1095-1116) from the middle of the ruler’s reign (fig. 20), which allows the Słuszków deposit to be identified as the youngest known assemblage from Polish lands, chronologically closing the era of the domination of cross deniers in Polish monetary circulation.

In 2020, another hoard was discovered in Słuszków, counting 6,700 artifacts, consisting mainly of the youngest issues of cross deniers known from the Słuszków I assemblage (fig. 21). In addition to the three previously mentioned areas of occurrence of early medieval coins issued after the middle of the 11th century in the Kalisz region, others were recorded in early medieval settlements in Kamień – a cross denier from the last quarter of the 11th century with a pearl cross and in Cieszykowo – three more artifacts. A denier imitative of the denier of Otto and Adelaide, difficult to date precisely, and a cross denier with an image of a crosier and a copper plate close to a square with a stamped cross denier with a representation of a simple cross on the obverse and a knight’s cross on the reverse (fig. 22). The artifact has no hole, so it was not used as a pendant. It is probably a mint trial, perhaps from the nearby mint in Kalisz?

dr Adam Kędzierski