BEZANT  or BYZANT (from

Byzantium, the modern Constantinople), originally a Byzantine gold coin which had a wide circulation throughout Europe up to about 1250 . Its average value was about nine shillings . Bezants were also issued in Flanders and Spain . Silver bezants, in value from one to two shillings, were in circulation in England in the 13th and 14th centuries . In Wycliffe's translation of the Bible he uses the word for a " talent " (e.g. in Luke xv . 8) . In heraldry, bezants are represented by gold circles on the shield, and were introduced by the crusaders . BEZANT$E, in architecture, a name given to an ornamented moulding much used in the Norman period, resembling the coins (bezants) struck in Byzantium .