Origin. Ducat; espagn. and Portugal. Ducado; Italic. Ducato; Currency so said because of the image of a duke, either of Venice, Florence or Genoa. Middle English, Middle French, Old Italian ducat coin with the portrait of the doge, duca-doge, late Greek douk, gentle chief, Latin duc-, dux There were many types of ducats. The golden ducat of Venice gained international acceptance thanks to the maritime trading power of this republic, like the medieval Byzantine gold coin Hyperpyron before it, and like the guilder and the thaler. These three types of currencies dominate financial exchanges in Europe, from the beginning of the Middle Ages to the end of the eighteenth century, and were replaced by the pound sterling in the nineteenth century and then by the US dollar in the twentieth century. Today, there is no currency called ducat. In the following century, the word “dukat” was used to refer to all kinds of gold and silver money. [3] In 1913, an Austrian gold ducat was worth the equivalent of “nine shillings and four pence sterling” on the foreign exchange market, or just over two US dollars.

The silver ducat is about half of this value. [4] During the fifteenth century, international traders in Western Europe switched from guilder to ducat as a hoarding currency. When most countries reformed their currencies, traders most often used the ducat as a model because of its consistency in weight, its goodwill. Some gold coins from the Ottoman Empire and the Castilian ducat bear witness to this.[4] As part of the Holy Roman Empire, the monetary reform initiated by Emperor Maximilian initiated the minting of gold ducats as early as 1511. In addition to Austria, ducats were used in the Spanish Netherlands, Hungary, etc. founded. [4] Its name comes from the medieval Latin ducalis. The etymology indicates that it is a coin with the image of a duke (dux) or a duchy (ducatus) is mentioned. The first ducat was minted in silver in 1140 at Brindisi, Puglia, by King Roger II of Sicily after the Assizes of Ariano. [1] The coin takes its name from the region in which it was to circulate: the Duchy of Puglia, which at the time encompassed the entire continent of the Kingdom of Sicily, while on the island of Sicily circulated the Tari[2]. Definition of ducat by lalanguefrancaise.com – These definitions of the word ducat are for informational purposes only and come from royalty-free dictionaries.

Additional information about the word ducat is published by the editors of lalanguefrancaise.com. When the Catholic Monarchs reconstituted their currency in 1497, they decreed that the ducado minted with gold, the excellence of Granada, would be issued at the equivalence of 375 Maravedis (3.51 g) and their silver currency, the Real, to which 34 Maravedis would be issued.[5] The Spanish Ducado, which was minted from 1497 to 1537, therefore has a value of 375 Maravédis. It is made of almost pure gold (23 3/4 carats). After 1537, the number of ducats in circulation decreased considerably; Above all, the ducat becomes a unit of account[6]. The ducat is an ancient silver and gold coin that originally circulated in medieval Europe from the twelfth century and whose use continued until the early twentieth century, especially in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Vienna continued to mint gold ducats until 1915: the 4-ducat gold coin with the portrait of Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria from 1915 was massively reproduced identically between 1920 and 1936. Similarly, the currency of the modern Netherlands struck ducats (dukaat) until the 1930s. Home > Dictionary > Definitions of the word “Dukat” We speak abusively of Dukat when we evoke the golden coin of the Doge of Venice – Doge, of Dogat in the Venetian dialect, is the equivalent of a duke, or rather of someone exercising power over a territory. This currency, issued according to a decree of 1284, bears the popular name of glitter (from the Venetian Zecchino) of the late fifteenth century and is still applied today in international numismatics: there are indeed many European currencies called “ducat”, so there is a risk of onomatopoeic confusion[4].