Medieval Islamic Coins Found at Cluny Abbey, France

In September 2017 archaeologists digging at the abbey of Cluny in Burgundy found a hidden purse: more than 2,200 silver coins of the abbey’s own mint, a gold signet ring and 21 gold dinars struck by the Almoravids of Morocco and al Andalus. French excavators speak of le trésor de Cluny. How did Islamic gold reach a Burgundian monastery?

What was found
The hoard lay about 80 centimetres deep on the site of the former infirmary, demolished in the eighteenth century [1]. A cloth bag held 2,113 Cluniac deniers and 143 obols, according to the first scholarly report [1]; the 2025 presentation of the treasure gives 150 obols [2]. In the middle lay a small skin purse with a gold ring set with an ancient cornelian intaglio, the 21 dinars, a folded gold sheet used as a small ingot and a small piece of gold [1]. The deniers show Saints Peter and Paul and the legend CLVNIACO CENOBIO [to the monastery of Cluny] [1].

Almoravid gold
All dinars are Almoravid. Twenty bear the name of the emir Ali ibn Yusuf, who ruled from 1106 to 1143; the latest, of 1144, names his son Tashfin [1]. They were struck at Almería, Granada and Seville in al Andalus and at Nul Lamta in southern Morocco between 1120 and 1144 [1]. The hoard can therefore not have been hidden before 1144, during or just after the abbacy of Pierre le Vénérable (1122 to 1156). In twelfth century Europe outside Sicily and Christian Spain, no gold coins were struck at all [1], which made such dinars rare and precious objects.

Cluny and Spanish gold
Cluny had long received gold from Spain. King Fernando I of León and Castile granted the abbey an annual census of 1,000 gold pieces, and in 1077 his son Alfonso VI doubled it to 2,000 [3]. These payments were possible because the Christian kings received tribute in dinars from the Muslim taifa states [3]. The excavators suggest that the Cluny dinars, too, came directly from the Iberian Peninsula [1].

Whose treasure?
Who hid the purse is unknown. The ring points to a high ranking churchman or monk [1]. The owner may have been ill and planned a stay in the infirmary, and died before he could recover his money; the hoard may also have been stolen inside the monastery and never retrieved [1]. Since July 2025 the treasure is on permanent display in the Galilee passage of the abbey [2].

The Cluny hoard shows how deeply a great Burgundian abbey was tied into the Mediterranean economy of the twelfth century. Its gold came from Muslim mints, probably through the Christian kingdoms of Spain that had long paid Cluny in dinars, a reminder that faith and frontier did not stop the flow of coin.

This blog is original work by TemplarsNow^TM based on an AI-assisted quick scan on the topic, inspired by the paper of Baud, Flammin and Borrel (2018), reference [1]. References and further reading, Open Access if available, all links verified October 18, 2026 and all sources checked but not all studied in detail: [1] Baud, A., Flammin, A. and Borrel, V. (2018) La découverte du Trésor de Cluny. Premiers résultats et perspectives de recherche, Bulletin du centre d’études médiévales d’Auxerre 22.1, pp. 1-12; [2] Centre des monuments nationaux (2025) Cluny, un trésor exceptionnel, press release, 9 July 2025; [3] Bishko, C.J. (1968-1969) Fernando I and the Origins of the Leonese-Castilian Alliance with Cluny, Cuadernos de Historia de España 47-48; reprinted in Studies in Medieval Spanish Frontier History, sections 3-4.

Illustration: Almoravid gold dinar of Yahya ibn Ali (Ibn Ghaniya), Córdoba, AH 543 (1148-1149), not from the Cluny hoard, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (CC BY-NC-ND).

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