O chamado dinheiro de duplo báculo de Dom Afonso Henriques: uma referenciação ibérica do imaginário heráldico dos duques de Borgonha

In 1128 the young Portuguese prince, Afonso Henriques, had begun a long process of political and military affirmation, in order to elevate his county to the category of an independent state, separated from the Kingdom of León. This process finally came to an end with the definitive recognition of the Kingdom of Portugal by Pope Alexander III, in 1179. During the half-century that lasted this process (must diplomatic, but also belligerent), Afonso Henriques struck the first Portuguese coins, claiming to be King of Portugal and, at the same time, testing the first sketches of the heraldic universe of Portuguese national coat of arms. However, Afonso Henriques’ earliest coinage still represents a variety of symbols, both personal and institutional, that have been the object of many different interpretations, not always easy to decode. We propose, in this paper, a different iconological interpretation of one of the most widespread coins of the first king of Portugal: the so-called double-crosier dinheiro, relating the adoption of the anchor-form heraldic emblem in these coins with the Merovingian monetary tradition and its continuation in the duchy of Burgundy, after all, home of the dynastic lineage of Afonso Henriques’ own father and all his paternal ancestors.