While giving a hand to a friend who lives close to the Estremoz castle we found a 15th century coin from the reign of D. Afonso V. The coin surfaced when digging out the footings of a garden wall. Laughingly my partner put it in his pocket saying he’d just found a medieval coin. Little did we know he was right and we had found treasure.
D. Afonso V, O Africano
Once home, we cleaned the coin up and checked online and it looked to be a ‘ceitil’ from the reign of D. Afonso V (1438-1481). This was confirmed by a knowledgeble friend on Facebook who’s a history buff, who said: How lucky… That coin is a ‘Ceitil’, which back then was worth 1/6 of a ‘Real’, hence its name… The Ceitils were minted during the reigns of King Afonso V, João II, Manuel I and perhaps João III. The name was engraved on the coin, I believe on the back, where the king’s coat of arms are displayed, while the face displays a Castilian Castle with three towers, surrounded by water (…)
15th century coin
Was the coin actually dropped by someone way back in the 15th century? Keen to check it’s authenticity, we took it to the Estremoz Municpal Museum whose resident archeologist confirmed that it is indeed a coin from the 14th or 15th century and at that time the entire population of Estremoz would have lived within the outer city walls with just a pocket or two of dwellings outside. This was mainly for protection with only a couple of farm buildings, the main convent and other religious places would have existed outside.
Treasure in Estremoz
So although not worth much, both then and now, the coin is still a great find and something we will treasure. It encouraged us to find out more about D. Afonso V (The African) and the history of Portugal and the explorers from around the same time.
It’s incredible to think that the coin pre-dates such momentous times in history such as Colombus discovering The Americas and Vasco da Gama’s voyage to India.
