ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses how Byzantine gold coinage continued to act as one of the 'dollars of the Middle Ages' from the eleventh to the mid-thirteenth century, and why and how it collapsed in the mid-fourteenth century. The process of creating a unified currency for the Roman Empire throughout its expanding territory proved to be long, taking several centuries. The Roman model has left such an imprint on European civilization and played such a part in our education that one tends to imagine empires as most likely having centralized administration and, necessarily, a unique currency. In the Libra dei Conti, the ledger kept in Constantinople by the Venetian merchant Giacomo Badoer from 1436 to 1439, the hyperpyron survives as a money of account. Constantine's reign marks the start of 'Byzantine' history — a modern concept derived from the ancient name of the city on the Bosporus, which he chose to renovate and recreate as Constantinopolis in 324 and inaugurate in 330.
