Byzantine mints

Many mints, both imperial and, as the Byzantine world fragmented, belonging to autonomous local rulers, were operated in the 12th to 14th centuries.

Ravenna and Carthage alone produced silver coins in quantity, while gold issues were restricted to Catania, Thessalonica, and Constantinople; the latter two cities, however, far outstripped the others in output.

[5][8][9] The territorial losses of the early 7th century, with the Byzantine–Sassanid War of 602–628, the Slavic incursions into the Balkans, and the onset of the Muslim conquests, drastically diminished the number of active mints.

In 628/629, Emperor Heraclius (r. 610–641– ) closed all remaining provincial mints in the East except for Alexandria, which fell to the Arabs in 641.

[1][10][11] With the fall of Syracuse in 878, Constantinople remained the sole mint for gold and silver coinage until the late 11th century.

Usurpers or semi-autonomous local lords also occasionally established mints of their own, like Isaac Komnenos of Cyprus, Leo Gabalas of Rhodes, or the Gabras family of Trebizond.