Coinage & monetary system

As in England, as they gradually advanced through southern Italy, the Normans adjusted to various monetary situations already existing in each area. In pre-Norman times, there were two currency zones: on the continent, Byzantine gold and copper coinage was used, as was the imitation Arab tarì at Amalfi and Salerno; in Sicily, the Arabs had a monetary system based on the gold dinar and the silver dirhem.

The first coins produced by the Normans in Italy were some anonymous follari minted during the reigns of Robert Guiscard and Roger I; following the conquest of Sicily, the latter introduced some new types of tarì, kharrube and follari, marked with a T-shaped cross. But real monetary reorganization did not occur until the time of Roger II; he was the king who banned the circulation of all foreign coins in order to introduce one of his own, the ducat. In 1140, in a monetary reform imposed throughout the kingdom, the Sicilian tarì became the reference coinage.

The coinage was minted in just a very few workshops the Sicilian tarì at Palermo and Messina; the follari of the duchy of Apulia at Salerno; the tarì, made of less precious gold, at Amalfi.