Obj. ID: 39143  Coin of Bela IV, Hungary, circa 1250

The following description was prepared by William Gross:

On his return from the Holy Land in the 13th century, King Endre II found an empty treasury. To replenish it quickly he introduced an emergency war-tax. He had new coinage minted and exchanged several times a year and set up several new mints: at Buda, in the diocese of Csanad, in the Szeremseg and in Slavonia. He leased these out individually. Thus Jewish traders came to head the mints as tenant managers, which probably explains the appearance of Hebrew letter among the coinage minted during the 13th century.