🧐 Quiz of the week: Which king minted the first gold coins in France?

🧐 Test your knowledge with our quiz of the week!

Did you know that the history of gold coins in France goes back centuries of fascination and power? Find out which French king was the first to mint gold coins and score a point in your historical knowledge notebook! ✨

Question: 👉 ​​Which king minted the first gold coins in France?

Choice of answers:

1. Philip Augustus
2. Saint Louis
3. Charles VII
4. Francis I

The answer is… Saint Louis ! 🏅

It was King Louis IX, better known as Saint Louis, who minted the first gold coins in France in the 13th century. In 1250, faced with the rise in trade and to strengthen the influence of the French monarchy, Saint Louis decided to create a gold currency: the "denier d'or" or "écu d'or" . 💰

At that time, money was mostly minted in silver. Gold, much rarer and more precious, symbolized the power and prosperity of the kingdom. With this initiative, Saint Louis not only consolidated the French economy, but he also placed France on an equal footing with other great European kingdoms that already used gold as a monetary standard. 🌍

These gold coins were engraved with a cross, a strong Christian symbol, as well as a fleur-de-lis, the emblem of French royalty. Today, these coins are highly prized by collectors and represent a true piece of medieval history.

Illustration:

The first gold shield, struck under Louis IX , in 1266 (obverse)

By PHGCOM — self-made, photographed at the Cabinet des Medailles, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2822380