This 11th-century solidus shows a fine portrait of Christ and a stylised image of the emperor holding the globe in his hand. Constantine IX was the third husband of Empress Zoe. A militarily weak leader, he loved luxury and spent a lot of money on magnificent buildings.
Under him the coin quality deteriorated as a result of rebellions and the invasions of the Normans and Turks. He had four categories of histamena minted to carry out a progressive devaluation. In every stage of minting he changed the reverse picture.
In 1095 Pope Urban II called for the liberation of Jerusalem from Moslem rule. Millions of people set out from the whole of Europe towards the east on the First Crusade. Constantinople was the gateway to the east. With the conquest of Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade around 1204 the Roman-Byzantine Empire's monetary supremacy that had prevailed in Europe came to an end. Through the Crusades, however, the style of this coin gained influence on the minting of gold in the West.