Les Bijoux des Français

Since at least the fourteenth century, and probably since the time of Clovis, the groom offered the bride during the ceremony a "treizain de mariage".  It consisted of thirteen coins or tokens in gold or silver.  The number thirteen represented Jesus and the twelve apostles, and the act of giving them symbolised a compensation to the bride for the goods or land brought by her to the union.  The coins or tokens were generally presented in a special metal cylindrical box, a case or a purse, the latter being made of gold, silver, gold-plated silver or silk.  Between one and three coins were kept by the priest, the others were destined to be guarded a lifetime but were almost always spent in one of the times of need that all couples go through.  This is why complete treizains are extremely rare today.  In the Treasure of Erfurt, in Germany, discovered in 1998, we can see an empty silver gilt treizain box dated to the first half of the 14th century. (1)

 

         
silver gilt treizain box found in the treasure of Erfurt, 14th century
 

The tokens found in sets of trezains are stamped with various texts:  "pour épouser" - "pour espouser" - "denier tournois" - "denier de foy" - "de nous deux coeurs une seule foy" - "pour toujours unis" - "la foi nous unit".  Silver coins, if offered, were frequently gold plated (by the mercury process) and sometimes engraved on one side with the initials or family crest of the couple.  The oldest treizain tokens were often bracteates (from the latin bractea, a thin piece of metal), thin tokens with a design in relief on one side and incuse on the other.  In some cases pairs of bracteates were soldered together to form a double-sided token, these are known as assembled bracteates.  In the inventory of the collection of jewels of the countess de Sault performed in 1595 was noted "a red satin purse containing 13 Spanish pistolles and 13 small gold coins engraved with the arms of Créquy which were given to the countess for her two marriages" (2)  (pistolles are small Spanish gold coins). The tradition of offering a treizain has ceased in France but continues today in Spain where small purses in velvet containing thirteen silver or silver plated tokens are still offered.

It's worth bearing in mind that until the French revolution in 1789, the monetary system was based on the Roman one : twelve deniers (denarius) equalled one sol (solidus) and twenty sols one pound (libra).  There were thus 240 deniers or pennies in a pound, not very practical for calculating!  (This system was replaced by the Germinal franc decimal system in 1803 by Napoleon and, incredibly, survived in England and its colonies with their pennies, shillings and pounds until the introduction of the decimal system in 1971 for England and a bit earlier in the other commonwealth countries.)   A treizain thus represented one denier, the smallest coin, and a sol, the next largest.  When Clovis sent his emissaries to ask for the hand of Clotilde, they brought with them a denier and a sol.

marriage treizain, one-sided bracteates, circa 1750-1800
the legend reads - LA FOY NOUS UNIS (faith unites us)

The treizain was replaced towards the start of the nineteenth century by a marriage medal, generally of silver, sometimes of gold, the reverse or edge of which was generally engraved with the names of the couple and the date of the ceremony.  The marriage medal was blessed along with the wedding bands during the ceremony by the priest. 

Later, the marriage medal was sometimes mounted as a brooch or pendant and worn by the bride. 

Today, in some towns, the mayor offers the couple a bronze marriage medal after the civil ceremony, (which by law has to precede the church ceremony).

wedding medal in gold