History of the English penny (c. 600 – 1066)
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The history of the
English penny The English penny (plural "pence"), originally a coin of pure silver, was introduced by King Offa of Mercia. These coins were similar in size and weight to the continental '' deniers'' of the period and to the Anglo-Saxon sceats which had ...
can be traced back to the
Anglo-Saxon kingdoms The Heptarchy were the seven petty kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England that flourished from the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain in the 5th century until they were consolidated in the 8th century into the four kingdoms of Mercia, Northumbria, Wes ...
of the 7th century: to the small, thick silver coins known to contemporaries as ''pæningas'' or ''
denarii The denarius (, dēnāriī ) was the standard Roman silver coin from its introduction in the Second Punic War to the reign of Gordian III (AD 238–244), when it was gradually replaced by the antoninianus. It continued to be minted in very sm ...
'', though now often referred to as ''
sceat A ( ; ang, sceatt , ) was a small, thick silver coin minted in England, Frisia, and Jutland during the Anglo-Saxon period that normally weighed 0.8–1.3 grams. History Its name derives from Old English ', meaning "wealth", "money", and "c ...
tas'' by numismatists. Broader, thinner pennies inscribed with the name of the king were introduced to
Southern England Southern England, or the South of England, also known as the South, is an area of England consisting of its southernmost part, with cultural, economic and political differences from the Midlands and the North. Officially, the area includes G ...
in the middle of the 8th century. Coins of this format remained the foundation of the English currency until the 14th century.


Overview

The history of
Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...
coinage spans more than five centuries, from the end of Roman rule in Britain in the 5th century, down to the death of
Harold Godwinson Harold Godwinson ( – 14 October 1066), also called Harold II, was the last crowned Anglo-Saxon English king. Harold reigned from 6 January 1066 until his death at the Battle of Hastings, fighting the Norman invaders led by William the C ...
at the
Battle of Hastings The Battle of Hastings nrf, Batâle dé Hastings was fought on 14 October 1066 between the Norman-French army of William the Conqueror, William, the Duke of Normandy, and an English army under the Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godw ...
on 14 October 1066. It can be divided into four basic phases: * c. 450 – c. 550: a very low level of coin-use in
Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...
, characterised by re-use of Roman coinage, though often in a non-monetary context. A small number of coins continued to be brought in from
Gaul Gaul ( la, Gallia) was a region of Western Europe first described by the Romans. It was inhabited by Celtic and Aquitani tribes, encompassing present-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, most of Switzerland, parts of Northern Italy (only during ...
and elsewhere on the Continent. * c. 550 – c. 680: the 'gold' phase of currency, which began with an increase in the rate of importation of continental gold, principally in the form of ''
tremisses The tremissis or tremis (Byzantine Greek, Greek: τριμίσιον, ''trimision'') was a small solid gold coin of Late Antiquity. Its name, meaning "a third of a unit", formed by analogy with semissis (half of a unit), indicated its value rela ...
''. From around 620 English gold coins of similar format were produced, often known to numismatists as ''
thrymsa The thrymsa () was a gold coin minted in seventh-century Anglo-Saxon England. It originated as a copy of Merovingian tremisses and earlier Roman coins with a high gold content. Continued debasement between the 630s and the 650s reduced the gold con ...
s''. By the middle of the 7th century the quantity of gold in these coins was falling quickly, such that by the 670s they were more or less completely silver. * c. 680 – c. 750 (867 in Northumbria): the age of the ''
sceat A ( ; ang, sceatt , ) was a small, thick silver coin minted in England, Frisia, and Jutland during the Anglo-Saxon period that normally weighed 0.8–1.3 grams. History Its name derives from Old English ', meaning "wealth", "money", and "c ...
tas'' – small, thick silver coins which evolved out of the latest, debased gold coins. These should more correctly be referred to as pennies or ''denarii'' as in weight and fineness they approximated the form the English penny was to retain for centuries, and contemporary references suggest this is how they were known. Most ''sceattas'' do not bear an inscription and are thus difficult to attribute. In
Northumbria la, Regnum Northanhymbrorum , conventional_long_name = Kingdom of Northumbria , common_name = Northumbria , status = State , status_text = Unified Anglian kingdom (before 876)North: Anglian kingdom (af ...
, coins of this format continued to be struck under closer royal control until the 860s, though by the early 9th century they contained only a negligible quantity of precious metal. * c. 750 – 14 October 1066: the silver coinage of ''sceattas'' petered out in
Southumbrian The Southumbrians or 'Suðanhymbre' were the Anglo-Saxon people occupying northern Mercia. The term might not have been used by the Mercians and was instead possibly coined by the Deiran or Bernician people as a territorial response to their ow ...
England in the middle of the 8th century, to be replaced by a broader, thinner model of silver coinage modelled on that of contemporary
Carolingian The Carolingian dynasty (; known variously as the Carlovingians, Carolingus, Carolings, Karolinger or Karlings) was a Frankish noble family named after Charlemagne, grandson of mayor Charles Martel and a descendant of the Arnulfing and Pippin ...
coinage. These new coins carried legends naming the king, moneyer and (later) the mint of origin. With various modifications in weight (within the range 1.00g – 1.70g) and fineness this format of coinage remained standard for the rest of the period, and indeed silver pennies of similar design remained the basis for the English currency until the 14th century. Pennies of this form were made by English kings from
Offa Offa (died 29 July 796 AD) was King of Mercia, a kingdom of Anglo-Saxon England, from 757 until his death. The son of Thingfrith and a descendant of Eowa, Offa came to the throne after a period of civil war following the assassination of Æt ...
onwards, and also by
Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...
rulers from the later 9th century. In the gold phase of the coinage, the currency consisted overwhelmingly of gold ''tremisses'' or ''thrymsas'' of c. 1.10 – 1.30g, though a few ''
solidi The ''solidus'' (Latin 'solid';  ''solidi'') or nomisma ( grc-gre, νόμισμα, ''nómisma'',  'coin') was a highly pure gold coin issued in the Late Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire. Constantine introduced the coin, and its weig ...
'' exist, modelled on
Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
coins. Thereafter the currency was more or less based on a single denomination: the silver penny. In the early 870s the first round halfpennies were produced under
Alfred the Great Alfred the Great (alt. Ælfred 848/849 – 26 October 899) was King of the West Saxons from 871 to 886, and King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf and his first wife Osburh, who bot ...
and
Ceolwulf II of Mercia Ceolwulf II (died c. 879) was the last king of independent Mercia. He succeeded Burgred of Mercia who was deposed by the Vikings in 874. His reign is generally dated 874 to 879 based on a Mercian regnal list which gives him a reign of five years. ...
; these were produced sporadically and in small quantity until
Edgar Edgar is a commonly used English given name, from an Anglo-Saxon name ''Eadgar'' (composed of '' ead'' "rich, prosperous" and ''gar'' "spear"). Like most Anglo-Saxon names, it fell out of use by the later medieval period; it was, however, rev ...
's reform of the 970s, after which it became common to cut whole pennies into halves and quarters, often at the time of production. The only known examples of larger silver denominations are two 'offering pieces' produced in the reign of
Alfred the Great Alfred the Great (alt. Ælfred 848/849 – 26 October 899) was King of the West Saxons from 871 to 886, and King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf and his first wife Osburh, who bot ...
weighing the equivalent of six regular pennies, which were made as alms-pieces, probably to be sent abroad. Although gold ceased to be the predominant form of currency in the 7th century, from the late 8th century onwards there was some use of fine gold coinage for special, high-value transactions. These gold pieces were often known as
mancus Mancus (sometimes spelt ''mancosus'' or similar, from Arabic ''manqūsh'' منقوش) was a term used in early medieval Europe to denote either a gold coin, a weight of gold of 4.25g (equivalent to the Islamic gold dinar, and thus lighter than th ...
es. The form of gold coinage varied in the 8th and 9th centuries, drawing inspiration from Roman, Byzantine, Arabic and Carolingian gold coinages, but by the 10th century gold coins were made simply by striking a gold piece with the same dies as were used for regular minting of silver. Only eight English gold coins with intelligible legends survive from between the 8th century and 1066; there are also some coins that may or may not be of English origin which bear no legend, and specimens of contemporary foreign gold found in England. It is difficult to ascertain the nature and extent of coin-use in Anglo-Saxon England. Written references to minting and money are scarce, and it is likely that even a single silver penny had considerable buying power – perhaps something in the region of £10–£30 in modern currency. Their use may also have been concentrated in certain classes of society, and was probably most associated with particular transactions such as the payment of rents, tributes and legal fees. However, analysis of surviving single-finds (principally made since the 1970s by users of metal-detectors) shows that coins were used extensively, especially in the eastern half of England, both within and outside towns; they also circulated widely, and are frequently found far from their mint of origin. Substantial numbers of English coins have been found elsewhere in Europe, especially in Italy and Scandinavia, while English designs were influential on the emergent coinages of
Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
,
Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark ...
,
Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...
,
Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...
and
Bohemia Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...
.


After Rome: prelude to the Anglo-Saxon coinage

At the end of the 4th century, the Roman provinces of Britain were still part of a vibrant and quite efficient economic and monetary system that stretched over the whole Roman world. Precious metal coins of
gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...
and
silver Silver is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂erǵ-, ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, whi ...
were used for the payment of taxes, then reminted for payment to the military and civil service.
Bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such ...
coinage was issued on a more occasional basis and was primarily produced to serve the needs of commerce in the provinces. Minting – and control over precious metals in general – across the western empire was under the control of the ''
Comes sacrarum largitionum The ''comes sacrarum largitionum'' ("Count of the Sacred Largesses"; in el, , ''kómes tōn theíon thesaurōn'') was one of the senior fiscal officials of the Late Antiquity, late Roman Empire and the early Byzantine Empire. Although it is fir ...
'', with a number of major
mints A mint or breath mint is a food item often consumed as an after-meal refreshment or before business and social engagements to improve breath odor. Mints are commonly believed to soothe the stomach given their association with natural byproducts ...
situated at
Trier Trier ( , ; lb, Tréier ), formerly known in English as Trèves ( ;) and Triers (see also names in other languages), is a city on the banks of the Moselle in Germany. It lies in a valley between low vine-covered hills of red sandstone in the ...
,
Arles Arles (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Arle ; Classical la, Arelate) is a coastal city and commune in the South of France, a subprefecture in the Bouches-du-Rhône department of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, in the former province of ...
,
Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...
,
Ravenna Ravenna ( , , also ; rgn, Ravèna) is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna, in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy. It was the capital city of the Western Roman Empire from 408 until its collapse in 476. It then served as the cap ...
and
Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...
.
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
had operated as a mint in the first half of the 4th century, and again for a brief period under
Magnus Maximus Magnus Maximus (; cy, Macsen Wledig ; died 8 August 388) was Roman emperor of the Western Roman Empire from 383 to 388. He usurped the throne from emperor Gratian in 383 through negotiation with emperor Theodosius I. He was made emperor in B ...
, but by 400 inflows of coinage to Britain came from the continent. Finds of coins are very numerous from throughout the 4th century and even from the first years of the fifth. However, in the early 5th century the situation took a dramatic turn for the worse. The supply of bronze coinage all but ceased after around 402, and both gold and silver also petered out by c. 410, coinciding with the departure of the British garrison with Constantine III in 409.
Hoard A hoard or "wealth deposit" is an archaeological term for a collection of valuable objects or artifacts, sometimes purposely buried in the ground, in which case it is sometimes also known as a cache. This would usually be with the intention of ...
s of coins and bullion – especially silver – from this period are very numerous in Britain, presumably due to disturbances of invasion, civil war and economic uncertainty. Some of these hoards could be very substantial: the
Hoxne hoard The Hoxne Hoard ( ) is the largest hoard of late Roman silver and gold discovered in Britain, and the largest collection of gold and silver coins of the fourth and fifth centuries found anywhere within the former Roman Empire. It was found by ...
from
Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...
discovered in 1992 contained over 15,000 coins along with silver plate and jewellery. The cessation in supply of freshly struck coins didn't necessarily cause an immediate halt in the use of coinage.
Numismatists A numismatist is a specialist in numismatics ("of coins"; from Late Latin ''numismatis'', genitive of ''numisma''). Numismatists include collectors, specialist dealers, and scholars who use coins and other currency in object-based research. Altho ...
and
archaeologists Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
have long been struck by the phenomenon of clipped ''
siliqua The siliqua (plural ''siliquae'') is the modern name given (without any ancient evidence to confirm the designation) to small, thin, Roman silver coins produced in the 4th century A.D. and later. When the coins were in circulation, the Latin wo ...
e'' from the early 5th century, though precise dates and explanations for it remain elusive. Clipping may have carried on into the middle of the 5th century, or been restricted to the 410s and 420s, and was perhaps carried out as a means of taxation by a government deprived of new supplies of coinage. According to this model, siliquae of a specified weight would have been brought in, clipped, and finally reissued by unit rather than weight. The later 5th and 6th centuries are very murky in almost every way, and coinage is no exception. The once vigorous late Roman monetary system lay in tatters, with almost no new minting and very little importation of new coins. Nevertheless, it is becoming apparent that coinage never faded away completely, and that re-use of the existing supply of coinage continued throughout the period, buoyed along by occasional incomers. Some archaeological excavations of
Romano-British The Romano-British culture arose in Britain under the Roman Empire following the Roman conquest in AD 43 and the creation of the province of Britannia. It arose as a fusion of the imported Roman culture with that of the indigenous Britons, a ...
settlements that persisted into this period have produced older coins that remained in circulation, as at
Wroxeter Wroxeter is a village in Shropshire, England, which forms part of the civil parish of Wroxeter and Uppington, beside the River Severn, south-east of Shrewsbury. ''Viroconium Cornoviorum'', the fourth largest city in Roman Britain, was sited ...
. Gold and bronze coins in particular are often found on early
Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...
settlement sites and in graves, in many cases pierced or mounted for use as
Jewellery Jewellery ( UK) or jewelry (U.S.) consists of decorative items worn for personal adornment, such as brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings, pendants, bracelets, and cufflinks. Jewellery may be attached to the body or the clothes. From a wester ...
. Indeed, there is no telling exactly when any late Roman coin was lost, and in some cases they may have been in use well into the post-Roman period. As for new imports, the number known for this period has increased considerably in recent years thanks to the spread of
metal-detecting A metal detector is an instrument that detects the nearby presence of metal. Metal detectors are useful for finding metal objects on the surface, underground, and under water. The unit itself, consist of a control box, and an adjustable shaft, ...
. Hoards from this period are rare, but two have been found in recent years at Oxborough (2001) and
Patching Patching is a small village and civil parish that lies amid the fields and woods of the southern slopes of the South Downs in the National Park in the Arun District of West Sussex, England. It has a visible hill-workings history going back t ...
(1997), both dating to the later 5th century and the latter including no fewer than fifty gold and silver coins dating from the period up to c. 470. A scattering of single-finds from the same period shows that the flow of coinage into 5th- and 6th-century Britain never dried up totally, and it appears that there was also some use of
Byzantine coinage Byzantine currency, money used in the Eastern Roman Empire after the fall of the West, consisted of mainly two types of coins: the gold solidus and a variety of clearly valued bronze coins. By the end of the empire the currency was issued only in ...
in the 6th century: gold and especially bronze coins have been found in substantial numbers, even in the western part of Britain, which is normally less well represented in coin finds. This to some extent parallels the pattern of finds of North African
pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and por ...
from the same period, which is found extensively in western Britain on 6th-century sites. Unfortunately, the widespread use of Byzantine bronzes from this period as souvenirs from the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean means many finds of them must be treated with extreme care. The importation of current continental issues – mainly in gold – continued over the 6th century, with considerable numbers of
Merovingian The Merovingian dynasty () was the ruling family of the Franks from the middle of the 5th century until 751. They first appear as "Kings of the Franks" in the Roman army of northern Gaul. By 509 they had united all the Franks and northern Gauli ...
''
tremisses The tremissis or tremis (Byzantine Greek, Greek: τριμίσιον, ''trimision'') was a small solid gold coin of Late Antiquity. Its name, meaning "a third of a unit", formed by analogy with semissis (half of a unit), indicated its value rela ...
'' circulating in southern and eastern England even by the end of the 6th century. It was on the basis of these coins that the first native English production of coins took place in the early 7th century.


The earliest gold coinage: ''thrymsas''

The earliest known English coins are
gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...
pieces, modelled on contemporary
Merovingian The Merovingian dynasty () was the ruling family of the Franks from the middle of the 5th century until 751. They first appear as "Kings of the Franks" in the Roman army of northern Gaul. By 509 they had united all the Franks and northern Gauli ...
Frankish Frankish may refer to: * Franks, a Germanic tribe and their culture ** Frankish language or its modern descendants, Franconian languages * Francia, a post-Roman state in France and Germany * East Francia, the successor state to Francia in Germany ...
coinage, and consisting largely of ''tremisses'': one third of a gold
solidus Solidus (Latin for "solid") may refer to: * Solidus (coin), a Roman coin of nearly solid gold * Solidus (punctuation), or slash, a punctuation mark * Solidus (chemistry), the line on a phase diagram below which a substance is completely solid * S ...
, originally weighing 4.5g, but in the Anglo-Saxon context apparently based on a revised standard of 3.9g implemented in
Gaul Gaul ( la, Gallia) was a region of Western Europe first described by the Romans. It was inhabited by Celtic and Aquitani tribes, encompassing present-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, most of Switzerland, parts of Northern Italy (only during ...
from around the 580s. Frankish coins played an increasingly important role as currency in England as the 6th century went on, and the earliest Anglo-Saxon gold ''tremisses'' (sometimes referred to by
numismatists A numismatist is a specialist in numismatics ("of coins"; from Late Latin ''numismatis'', genitive of ''numisma''). Numismatists include collectors, specialist dealers, and scholars who use coins and other currency in object-based research. Altho ...
as ''thrymsas'') were struck to circulate alongside these Frankish issues: all of the forty gold tremisses found in the burial at 'mound one' at Sutton Hoo (deposited c. 630), for instance, were Frankish. The earliest coins struck in England can be roughly dated to around the year 600: they include one gold ''tremissis'' struck by a moneyer named Eusebius working at
Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour. ...
(''Dorovernia''), and the
Liudhard medalet The Liudhard medalet is a gold Anglo-Saxon coin or small medal found some time before 1844 near St Martin's Church in Canterbury, England. It was part of the Canterbury-St Martin's hoard of six items. The coin, along with other items found wit ...
, a gold medallion (though in fabric very like a coin) found in Canterbury and bearing the name of a bishop
Liudhard Liudhard ( ang, Lēodheard; modern french: Létard, also Letard in English) was a Frankish bishop – of where is unclear – and the chaplain of Queen Bertha of Kent, whom she brought with her from the continent upon her marriage to Ki ...
, almost certainly the same bishop of that name whom
Bede Bede ( ; ang, Bǣda , ; 672/326 May 735), also known as Saint Bede, The Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable ( la, Beda Venerabilis), was an English monk at the monastery of St Peter and its companion monastery of St Paul in the Kingdom o ...
's '' Historia ecclesiastica'' described as coming to England with Bertha, the Frankish bride of Æthelberht I of Kent. The only substantial
hoard A hoard or "wealth deposit" is an archaeological term for a collection of valuable objects or artifacts, sometimes purposely buried in the ground, in which case it is sometimes also known as a cache. This would usually be with the intention of ...
of English coins from this period was found at
Crondall Crondall () is a village and large civil parish in the north east of Hampshire in England, in the Crondall Hundred (division), Hundred surveyed in the Domesday Book of 1086. The village is on the gentle slopes of the low western end of the North ...
, and included 69 English ''tremisses'' as well as a number of Frankish ''tremisses'', probably deposited around 630. These and other finds reveal a range of types that rarely name a mint or issuing authority, though one scarce type bears the name of London, and others are struck in the name of King
Eadbald of Kent Eadbald ( ang, Eadbald) was King of Kent from 616 until his death in 640. He was the son of King Æthelberht and his wife Bertha, a daughter of the Merovingian king Charibert. Æthelberht made Kent the dominant force in England during his reign ...
(616–40). In terms of design they are based on Roman and Merovingian prototypes. Widespread use of
metal detector A metal detector is an instrument that detects the nearby presence of metal. Metal detectors are useful for finding metal objects on the surface, underground, and under water. The unit itself, consist of a control box, and an adjustable shaft, ...
s in the last thirty years has substantially increased the number of coins known from this and indeed all periods. For all that the coins are still relatively rare and minting was primarily confined to the south-east, some were probably struck in
Northumbria la, Regnum Northanhymbrorum , conventional_long_name = Kingdom of Northumbria , common_name = Northumbria , status = State , status_text = Unified Anglian kingdom (before 876)North: Anglian kingdom (af ...
, presumably at York, and both English and Frankish gold coins circulated widely. The arrangements behind minting are also quite obscure, and it cannot automatically be assumed that they were produced as a 'royal' coinage: bishops, abbots, lay magnates and perhaps individual moneyers may have provided the driving force behind minting. Though the early Anglo-Saxon law-codes must be used with caution for this period, they describe a wide range of compensatory payments in ''scillingas'' and ''scættas'' from c. 600 onwards. These terms reflect translations of continental legal usage, and may well describe measures of value and/or weight rather than coins as such, yet nonetheless it is probable that the gold ''tremisses'' produced in 7th-century England were referred to as ''scillingas''.


The silver boom of c. 675 – c. 750: the ''sceattas''

Over the course of the 7th century, the gold content of Anglo-Saxon and Frankish ''tremisses'' deteriorated until, in the 660s, they were often only 10-20% pure. Around this point, there was a major shift from debased gold to
silver Silver is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂erǵ-, ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, whi ...
in Merovingian Frankia. However, within a few years of c. 675 very large silver coinages were being struck in southeastern England as well. A few issues, such as those inscribed with the
runic Runes are the letters in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were used to write various Germanic languages (with some exceptions) before they adopted the Latin alphabet, and for specialised ...
name ''Pada'' and the Latin ''Vanimundus'', exist in both debased gold and silver, presumably spanning the changeover. The new silver coins are similar to the later ''tremisses'' in terms of size and weight: small (typically 10-12mm in diameter), thick and usually weighing 1–1.3g. Because of the references in the law-codes mentioned above, these new silver pieces have been known to numismatists as ''
sceat A ( ; ang, sceatt , ) was a small, thick silver coin minted in England, Frisia, and Jutland during the Anglo-Saxon period that normally weighed 0.8–1.3 grams. History Its name derives from Old English ', meaning "wealth", "money", and "c ...
tas'' since the 17th century. Contemporary terminology is uncertain, though it is likely that these coins were known as ''peningas'' (pennies), just like their later broader equivalents. Silver pennies of roughly this weight (1–1.6g) were to remain the sole unit of English currency until the 13th century, with the exception of rare silver halfpennies and even rarer
gold coins A gold coin is a coin that is made mostly or entirely of gold. Most gold coins minted since 1800 are 90–92% gold (22 karat), while most of today's gold bullion coins are pure gold, such as the Britannia, Canadian Maple Leaf, and American Bu ...
. The first ('primary') ''sceattas'' of series A, B and C were largely confined to
Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
and the
Thames Estuary The Thames Estuary is where the River Thames meets the waters of the North Sea, in the south-east of Great Britain. Limits An estuary can be defined according to different criteria (e.g. tidal, geographical, navigational or in terms of salini ...
, though the emergence of the 'secondary' ''sceattas'' (probably c. 710) introduced a breathtaking array of new designs and saw minting expand to many new areas: by the middle of the 'secondary' phase coins were being struck in Kent, the Thames Estuary,
East Anglia East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a people whose name originated in Anglia, in ...
, eastern
Mercia la, Merciorum regnum , conventional_long_name=Kingdom of Mercia , common_name=Mercia , status=Kingdom , status_text=Independent kingdom (527–879)Client state of Wessex () , life_span=527–918 , era=Heptarchy , event_start= , date_start= , ye ...
,
Northumbria la, Regnum Northanhymbrorum , conventional_long_name = Kingdom of Northumbria , common_name = Northumbria , status = State , status_text = Unified Anglian kingdom (before 876)North: Anglian kingdom (af ...
and
Wessex la, Regnum Occidentalium Saxonum , conventional_long_name = Kingdom of the West Saxons , common_name = Wessex , image_map = Southern British Isles 9th century.svg , map_caption = S ...
. Unfortunately, because very few coins bear any form of legend and there was extensive imitation and copying, it is extremely difficult to assign dates and minting-places to many of the types and series identified by modern scholars. These are arranged into lettered series according to the scheme of Stuart Rigold, devised in the 1960s and 70s, and sometimes by the numbers applied to types in the
British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
catalogues of the 1880s and expanded thereafter to around 150 different varieties. The current chronology, basically laid down by Mark Blackburn in the mid-1980s, rests on the large Cimiez hoard from southern Gaul, which contained ''sceattas'' of several secondary types alongside local issues of named rulers that allowed the hoard to be dated c. 715/20. There remains much uncertainty about the organisation behind the ''sceattas'' and exactly what authorities lay behind minting. Some issues are so large that only major rulers could have been behind them, whilst others are so small that they could well have been the work of an individual moneyer working independently. Others display prominent and sophisticated religious motifs, suggesting that they may have been produced by monasteries or bishops. An exception to the general obscurity of the ''sceattas'' comes in Northumbria, where from a very early date the king and (arch)bishop of
York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...
played a strong role in coinage production: King
Aldfrith Aldfrith (Early Modern Irish: ''Flann Fína mac Ossu''; Latin: ''Aldfrid'', ''Aldfridus''; died 14 December 704 or 705) was king of Northumbria from 685 until his death. He is described by early writers such as Bede, Alcuin and Stephen of Ripon ...
was the first English king named on silver coinage anywhere, and his successors retained a relatively tight hold on coinage after production resumed under Eadberht. The early 8th century saw coinage production and circulation on a very impressive scale; greater indeed than at any other point after the 4th and before the 13th century. Some 2,500 finds of ''sceattas'' are recorded from England, particularly the east and the south, allowing study on the finer details of circulation and use. ''Sceattas'' were also produced and used in the
Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
and probably
Jutland Jutland ( da, Jylland ; german: Jütland ; ang, Ēota land ), known anciently as the Cimbric or Cimbrian Peninsula ( la, Cimbricus Chersonesus; da, den Kimbriske Halvø, links=no or ; german: Kimbrische Halbinsel, links=no), is a peninsula of ...
. Minting places in the Low Countries such as
Dorestad Dorestad (''Dorestat, Duristat'') was an early medieval emporium, located in the southeast of the province of Utrecht in the Netherlands, close to the modern-day town of Wijk bij Duurstede. It flourished during the 8th to early 9th centuries, ...
and
Domburg Domburg is a seaside resort on the North Sea, on the northwest coast of Walcheren in the Dutch province of Zeeland. It is a part of the municipality of Veere, and lies about 11 km northwest of the city of Middelburg, the provincial capital. ...
supplied a significant proportion of the currency circulating in England at any one time, and were among the most important commercial centres in Europe. ''Sceattas'' provide invaluable evidence for the vigour with which trade across the
North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian S ...
was conducted in the early 8th century.


The introduction of the broad penny: Offa and his contemporaries

By the middle of the 8th century, production of ''sceattas'' had, as with the ''thrymsas'' before them, declined considerably: the last coins of the secondary period are scarce and often debased, and a dearth of coinage is indicated in the record of several archaeological and metal-detecting sites that had been productive for the previous period. Similar problems afflicted the Frankish kingdom too, and around 754/5 King
Pippin III the Short (french: Pépin le Bref; – 24 September 768), also called the Younger (german: Pippin der Jüngere), was King of the Franks from 751 until his death in 768. He was the first Carolingian to become king. The younger was the son of ...
(751–68) took the initiative and reformed the Frankish coinage, introducing a new, thinner, broader format (at least 15mm in diameter) struck in much finer silver. Importantly, these new coins all bore the king's name and (usually) the name of the issuing
mint MiNT is Now TOS (MiNT) is a free software alternative operating system kernel for the Atari ST system and its successors. It is a multi-tasking alternative to TOS and MagiC. Together with the free system components fVDI device drivers, XaA ...
. English rulers followed suit around the same time, and the earliest signs of reform outside Northumbria (where a substantial and relatively high quality silver coinage remained in production, albeit sporadically, over the 8th century) came in East Anglia, where the obscure ruler
Beonna Beonna is an Anglo-Saxon name, and may refer to: * Beonna of East Anglia, King of East Anglia * Saint Beonna of Glastonbury Glastonbury (, ) is a town and civil parish in Somerset, England, situated at a dry point on the low-lying Somerset ...
reformed the local coinage sometime after he came to the throne in 749. His coins bear the royal name and that of the moneyer, and in fabric are midway between the ''sceattas'' and the new Frankish pennies. Initially struck in fine silver, Beonna's coinage later declined in standard, though one of his moneyers survived to strike some of the earliest coins known for
Offa of Mercia Offa (died 29 July 796 AD) was List of monarchs of Mercia, King of Mercia, a kingdom of History of Anglo-Saxon England, Anglo-Saxon England, from 757 until his death. The son of Thingfrith and a descendant of Eowa of Mercia, Eowa, Offa came to ...
. It was Offa who introduced the broad penny to southumbrian England on a substantial scale, and made the employment of king's and moneyer's names standard at least three mints:
Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour. ...
,
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
and somewhere in
East Anglia East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a people whose name originated in Anglia, in ...
. His earliest coins bear an abbreviated version of the royal title influenced by that on the coinage of Pippin III, and on the reverse the moneyer's name. Early in the course of his coinage (probably in the 760s or 770s) there were also smaller issues at Canterbury in the names of two local Kentish kings, Heaberht (of whom only one coin survives) and Ecgberht II. Production of broad silver pennies also persisted in East Anglia, commencing in Offa's name but later interrupted by a small coinage struck in the name of King
Æthelberht II of East Anglia Æthelberht (Old English: ''Æðelbrihte'', ''ÆÞelberhte''), also called Saint Ethelbert the King (died 20 May 794 at Sutton Walls, Herefordshire), was an eighth-century saint and a king of East Anglia, the Anglo-Saxon kingdom which today in ...
, who was executed by Offa in 794: only three specimens of his coinage survive today, probably produced in the 780s or 90s. Offa's coinage represents one of the high-points of
Anglo-Saxon art Anglo-Saxon art covers art produced within the Anglo-Saxon period of English history, beginning with the Migration period style that the Anglo-Saxons brought with them from the continent in the 5th century, and ending in 1066 with the Norma ...
, and indeed they were probably the most artistically accomplished coins produced anywhere in Europe at that time: they stand in sharp contrast with the aniconic coins of contemporary Frankia. Portraits were introduced at an early stage, and were executed in a number of different styles betraying a range of artistic influences drawing on contemporary and Roman sources. Reverse designs included intricate crosses of various types, but the range of Offa's die-cutters encompassed other reverse designs including intertwining serpents, eels and the wolf and twins. Uniquely in Anglo-Saxon England, coins were also struck at Canterbury in the name of the queen,
Cynethryth Cynethryth (''Cyneðryð''; died after AD 798) was a Queen of Mercia, wife of King Offa of Mercia and mother of King Ecgfrith of Mercia. Cynethryth is the only Anglo-Saxon queen consort in whose name coinage was definitely issued. Biography Ori ...
, from dies produced by the same talented individual responsible for the best of Offa's portrait dies. This practice could have been inspired by encounters with Roman coins in the names of empresses. It is also possible, though less likely, that the appearance of
Irene Irene is a name derived from εἰρήνη (eirēnē), the Greek for "peace". Irene, and related names, may refer to: * Irene (given name) Places * Irene, Gauteng, South Africa * Irene, South Dakota, United States * Irene, Texas, United Stat ...
on
Byzantine coinage Byzantine currency, money used in the Eastern Roman Empire after the fall of the West, consisted of mainly two types of coins: the gold solidus and a variety of clearly valued bronze coins. By the end of the empire the currency was issued only in ...
led Offa's queen to place her image on coins as well. Certainly Cynethryth emerges from surviving evidence as a formidable individual, who regularly witnessed contemporary charters immediately after her husband, was responsible for the running of his household and survived him to become a powerful abbess. As with the ''sceattas'' considerable problems surround knowledge of exactly how the new coinage was organised and implemented. It is possible that the pennies of Offa's reign still reflect the vestiges of the organisation behind the complex ''sceattas'', with the diverse designs often varying from moneyer to moneyer. Other authorities exerted minting rights in his reign that may have been held for some time: the
Bishop of London A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...
( Eadberht) is named on some coins, the only pennies struck in the name of an Anglo-Saxon bishop outside York and Canterbury; and in Canterbury the archbishops Iænberht (765–92) and Æthelheard (793–805) struck both independently and with Offa. Similarly, dating the reforms that brought this new penny coinage into being is contentious. It appears likely that production started at roughly the same time at London, Canterbury and East Anglia, perhaps c. 765–70, and the bulk of the coinage – including the portrait coinage – was probably produced in the 770s and 80s. Later in Offa's reign there was a second reform in which the weight was raised, the size of the flan increased and a common non-portrait design introduced at all three mints. This 'heavy coinage' can be closely dated, for no examples of it are known in the name of Archbishop Iænberht, whilst there are no 'light' (i.e., pre-reform) pennies of Archbishop Æthelheard, indicating that the reform took place in 792 or 3. The coins of Offa provide valuable evidence for a new dimension of royal authority and action with regard to the coinage, and have received much attention from historians because of their impressive imagery and range of royal titulature: Offa is variously entitled REX, REX M(''erciorum''), REX MERCIORU(''m'') and probably REX A(''nglorum'').


The 9th century

After Offa's death in 796, usurpers in Kent and East Anglia – Eadbearht Præn and Eadwald – took power and issued coins in their own names, following the design of Offa' heavy coinage. After a small issue at London based on this same type, the new Mercian ruler
Coenwulf Coenwulf (; also spelled Cenwulf, Kenulf, or Kenwulph; la, Coenulfus) was the King of Mercia from December 796 until his death in 821. He was a descendant of King Pybba, who ruled Mercia in the early 7th century. He succeeded Ecgfrith, the son ...
instituted a reform of the coinage leading to the new ''tribrach'' type. This non-portrait type used an obverse design modelled on the earlier coinage of Cynethryth, and despite its use of the central M (for ''Merciorum'') was adopted by Eadbearht, Eadwald and even by
Beorhtric of Wessex Beorhtric (meaning "magnificent ruler"; also spelled Brihtric) (died 802) was the King of Wessex from 786 to 802, succeeding Cynewulf. During his rule, however, his wife and father-in-law had most of the power. Early life The names of his par ...
, who struck a very rare coinage around this time. By 798 Coenwulf had regained Kent and East Anglia also came back under his power by the 9th century. He appointed a sub-ruler for Kent – his brother
Cuthred Cuthred is a given name. Notable people with the name include: *Cuthred of Kent, ninth-century monarch *Cuthred of Wessex, eighth-century monarch *Cuthred son of Cwichelm of Wessex Cwichelm (died 636) was an Anglo-Saxon king of the Gewisse, a pe ...
– in whose name coins were struck at Canterbury. Cuthred and his brother may have minted simultaneously in the cross-and-wedges portrait type current from around 805, but it is equally possible that they had sole control of the mint one after the other. Around the same time, the archiepiscopal coinage at Canterbury also changed: the new archbishop,
Wulfred Wulfred (died 24 March 832) was an Anglo-Saxon Archbishop of Canterbury in medieval England. Nothing is known of his life prior to 803, when he attended a church council, but he was probably a nobleman from Middlesex. He was elected archbishop ...
, was very eager to assert his ecclesiastical rights, even at the expense of the king, and instituted an archiepiscopal portrait coinage bearing no reference at all to Coenwulf. This attractive series was modelled on the silver ''denarii'' produced by
Pope Hadrian I Pope Adrian I ( la, Hadrianus I; died 25 December 795) was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from 1 February 772 to his death. He was the son of Theodore, a Roman nobleman. Adrian and his predecessors had to contend with periodic ...
(772–95). Coenwulf continued a portrait coinage for the rest of his reign at Canterbury, London, East Anglia and, from c. 810, at a new mint located at
Rochester Rochester may refer to: Places Australia * Rochester, Victoria Canada * Rochester, Alberta United Kingdom *Rochester, Kent ** City of Rochester-upon-Medway (1982–1998), district council area ** History of Rochester, Kent ** HM Prison ...
in Kent. Canterbury came to dominate silver coin production, and whilst East Anglia and Rochester remained relatively stable, pennies from London become very rare: despite the recent discovery of a gold coin of Coenwulf with the legend DE VICO LVNDONIAE it is clear that the mint of London was in decline by around 800. In the years between Coenwulf's death in 821 and Egbert of Wessex's conquest of Kent and the south-east in 825, the mint at Canterbury weathered a turbulent period that is better reflected in the coins than any written source. Coenwulf's brother and successor Ceolwulf I held Kent, but coins in his name from Canterbury are very rare and struck by only a few of the full complement of moneyers. Nonetheless, his short reign provides evidence of quite strong interest in the coinage, and several types common to a number of mints were introduced: a feature not seen in the latter part of his predecessor's reign. The largest of these new types even encompassed the normally distinct East Anglian mint. Rochester became far more productive under Ceolwulf, perhaps to compensate for lower royal production at Canterbury. It looks like the greater part of Canterbury's coinage from the years c. 822–24 consists of 'anonymous' pennies bearing a royal- or archiepiscopal-style portrait surrounded by the moneyer's name and the mint name (''Dorobernia civitas'') on the reverse. No reference is made to any king or archbishop. This fascinating coinage seems to reflect a time when the moneyers were uncertain of whose authority to recognise, probably around Ceolwulf's deposition in 823 by Beornwulf. No Kentish coins are known in his name, but there are many in the name of one Baldred, who was probably another Mercian sub-ruler of Kent, though this is difficult to tell for certain from the very scanty written records of this period. However, it is known that when Egbert of Wessex and his son Æthelwulf invaded Kent in 825 they put Baldred to flight and imposed their own rule. Egbert's campaign of conquest took him far beyond Kent and even through Mercia to the borders of Northumbria in 829–30. Unusually, this dramatic military success was reflected in an issue of coinage from London, with Egbert named REX M(''erciorum''). This is one of very few cases in Anglo-Saxon England where it looks like coinage was being used in a propagandistic way: design and production was not as closely tied to politics and current events as in the classical or modern period. After these conquests Egbert retreated and consolidated his position in the south-east, leaving Mercia to
Wiglaf Wiglaf (Proto-Norse: *'' Wīga laibaz'', meaning "battle remainder"; ang, Wīġlāf ) is a character in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem ''Beowulf''. He is the son of Weohstan, a Swede of the Wægmunding clan who had entered the service of Beowulf, ki ...
, who struck a very rare coinage at London, now the only mint available to the kings of Mercia. Egbert's coinage from Kent at first continued the pattern of Baldred's, but was reformed c. 828 to introduce a new reverse monogram type, retaining a portrait of the king on the obverse. Archiepiscopal minting was interrupted immediately after the West Saxon takeover, but resumed shortly before Wulfred's death using the same monogram reverse as the royal coinage in conjunction with an archiepiscopal name and bust on the obverse; a type that continued under Wulfred's successor
Ceolnoth Ceolnoth or Ceolnoþ (; died 870) was a medieval English Archbishop of Canterbury. Although later chroniclers stated he had previously held ecclesiastical office in Canterbury, there is no contemporary evidence of this, and his first appearance i ...
, who came to power in 833. The 9th century saw the spread of minting beyond the south-east, which had dominated production outside Northumbria since the end of the ''sceattas''. The West Saxon mint initiated by Beorhtric continued to operate at a relatively low level under Egbert but remained very sporadic in operation between his death and
Alfred Alfred may refer to: Arts and entertainment *''Alfred J. Kwak'', Dutch-German-Japanese anime television series * ''Alfred'' (Arne opera), a 1740 masque by Thomas Arne * ''Alfred'' (Dvořák), an 1870 opera by Antonín Dvořák *"Alfred (Interlu ...
's reign later in the 9th century. In East Anglia, coinage gradually became more substantial under the last Mercian rulers and, from c. 825, under a series of independent rulers:
Æthelstan Æthelstan or Athelstan (; ang, Æðelstān ; on, Aðalsteinn; ; – 27 October 939) was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 924 to 927 and King of the English from 927 to his death in 939. He was the son of King Edward the Elder and his first ...
, Æthelweard and (St) Edmund. These kings mainly issued non-portrait pennies bearing a large central A, and other designs which were often particular to individual moneyers, though produced by a common die-cutter. When first adopted under Coenwulf, this central A probably represented part of an Alpha-Omega pair, but in East Anglia more likely signified ''Angli'' or ''(rex) Anglorum''. Under Æthelwulf, minting remained buoyant at Canterbury and Rochester and continued in the name of Archbishop
Ceolnoth Ceolnoth or Ceolnoþ (; died 870) was a medieval English Archbishop of Canterbury. Although later chroniclers stated he had previously held ecclesiastical office in Canterbury, there is no contemporary evidence of this, and his first appearance i ...
throughout the period. A succession of four phases can be distinguished at these two mints. At Canterbury the first was a non-portrait coinage bearing the legend REX SAXONIORVM, inspired by Egbert's West Saxon coinage; and a new portrait coinage bearing a wide range of reverse designs came second. At Rochester, the first type comprised a portrait element with diverse reverse designs struck by the royal moneyers, and also a probably episcopal element which does not name a moneyer or carry a portrait, but does bear the unusually long royal title REX OCCIDENTALIVM SAXONVM. In the second phase the episcopal coinage ceases and a non-portrait type was adopted by the royal moneyers. The last two phases of Æthelwulf's coinage were common to both Rochester and Canterbury, with dies for both mints in the final phase coming from a common source at Canterbury. The third type of Æthelwulf's reign was a non-portrait coinage with the ambiguous mint legend DORIBI (which could refer to either Canterbury, ''Dorobernia''; or Rochester, ''Dorobrebia'') and a monogram for CANT(''ia''). Æthelwulf's last coinage was a new portrait type of very different style. This ''inscribed cross'' type may have only come into production after several years without coinage at Canterbury: just two moneyers from there and from Rochester survived from earlier types, possibly because of the Viking raid on Kent recorded in 851. This new coinage survived into the reign of Æthelwulf's son Æthelberht (no genuine coins are known of Æthelbald, who ruled 858–60) under whom it became very substantial: about forty moneyers are known to have produced it. Another new portrait type, the short-lived ''floreate cross'' type, also appeared at the end of his reign but survives in very small numbers today. Since the ''inscribed cross'' type is known largely thanks to a large hoard discovered at
Dorking Dorking () is a market town in Surrey in South East England, about south of London. It is in Mole Valley District and the council headquarters are to the east of the centre. The High Street runs roughly east–west, parallel to the Pipp Br ...
in the early 19th century and is found only rarely otherwise, it may be that the ''floreate cross'' coinage too was once much more substantial than its modern survival rate appears to indicate. The ''inscribed cross'' coinage is notable for the onset of major debasement, the centralisation of die-cutting for Canterbury and Rochester, and for a massive increase in the number of moneyers, so that almost 50 are known from the time of Æthelberht. These changes probably reflect the onset of a new and more intense royal management of the coinage, which was to be expanded under Æthelberht's successors.


Mercia

In the reign of Berhtwulf of Mercia (c. 840–52) minting at London, Mercia's only remaining mint, began again in earnest, around the time of Æthelwulf's second phase of coinage in the mid 840s. A mixture of portrait and non-portrait types was struck. Because of the long abeyance of the London mint, considerable support came from West Saxon Rochester in the form of dies and even moneyers, and it is possible that some coins in Berhtwulf's name were actually produced in Rochester. It was once thought that this monetary co-operation was reflected in a unique penny bearing the name of Æthelwulf on one face and that of Berhtwulf on the other. However, this coin more likely represents an unofficial production without any particular political significance. The recovery of Mercian minting was made most manifest by the adoption in Wessex of the 'lunettes' type first struck at London by Berhtwulf's successor
Burgred Burgred (also Burhred or Burghred) was an Anglo-Saxon king of Mercia from 852 to 874. Family Burgred became king of Mercia in 852, and may have been related to his predecessor Beorhtwulf. After Easter in 853, Burgred married Æthelswith, daug ...
. This coinage survives in very large numbers thanks to a great increase in minting, especially in the latter part of Burgred's reign: about twenty moneyers are known for
Alfred Alfred may refer to: Arts and entertainment *''Alfred J. Kwak'', Dutch-German-Japanese anime television series * ''Alfred'' (Arne opera), a 1740 masque by Thomas Arne * ''Alfred'' (Dvořák), an 1870 opera by Antonín Dvořák *"Alfred (Interlu ...
and 35–40 for Burgred. This period is particularly well known thanks to the discovery of a large number of hoards, presumably associated with
Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...
raids. This coinage is very difficult to organise or categorise in any meaningful way. However, the lunettes type had become very debased by the early 870s when production was probably at its highest, and another reform was initiated in the mid 870s by Alfred ('the Great') of Wessex. This introduced the heavier, finer ''cross-and-lozenge'' type after a number of very rare and interesting experimental issues were struck in the years around the reform. At London, which lay within the Mercian kingdom, Alfred was initially recognised as king of Mercia as well as Wessex after the deposition of Burgred in 873/4, and was even called REX ANG(''lorum'') on one of two known examples of the ''two emperors'' portrait penny type. The other specimen of this fascinating type is in the name of Ceolwulf II, the new Mercian king installed by the Vikings. Ceolwulf also struck pennies of the ''cross and'' type, and the earliest known round English halfpenny belongs to this phase of coinage. Further reforms were initiated by Alfred later in his reign. Around 880,
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
struck an innovative series of portrait pennies bearing Alfred's portrait and, on the reverse, a
Monogram A monogram is a motif made by overlapping or combining two or more letters or other graphemes to form one symbol. Monograms are often made by combining the initials of an individual or a company, used as recognizable symbols or logos. A series o ...
of ''Lundonia''. Later one moneyer, Tilewine, placed his name on the reverse as well, but this coinage was for the most part struck without moneyers' names. The main type struck in the latter part of Alfred's reign, however, was the non-portrait ''two line'' type. Again, a few different and perhaps experimental types have survived in small numbers. These include a portrait coin – probably from around the same time as the London monogram pennies – with the mint-name ÆT GLEAPA ('from
Gloucester Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east ...
'), which had become an important centre of 'English' Mercia under Alfred's ealdorman Æthelred; a small number of 'four-line' non-portrait pennies with reverse mint names assigning their production to Winchester and Exeter; another non-portrait series probably struck at Oxford (OHSNAFORDA); and large silver 'offering pieces' inscribed ELIMOSINA ('alms').


Northumbria

Northumbria's numismatic history was quite distinct from that of the south. Coinage never petered out as completely as it did below the Humber, and until close to the end of its history Northumbrian coinage remained closely linked to the king and archbishop. However, debasement became a serious issue around the end of the 8th century, when numismatists begin to apply the term '' stycas'' to Northumbrian coinage (based on a 10th-century gloss in the
Lindisfarne Gospels The Lindisfarne Gospels (London, British Library Cotton MS Nero D.IV) is an illuminated manuscript gospel book probably produced around the years 715–720 in the monastery at Lindisfarne, off the coast of Northumberland, which is now in the B ...
; contemporary terminology is unknown). Both the political and the numismatic chronology of this period is very confused, with many accounts and suggestions competing with one another. By the middle of the 9th century Northumbrian coinage contained almost no silver and was being produced on a massive scale. Many tens of thousands of coins are known today, and several very large hoards have been found, such as one from the churchyard in
Hexham Hexham ( ) is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in Northumberland, England, on the south bank of the River Tyne, formed by the confluence of the North Tyne and the South Tyne at Warden, Northumberland, Warden nearby, and ...
which contained some 8000 ''stycas''. After a final phase of considerable disorganisation, the ''stycas'' were phased out by the Scandinavian rulers who took over Northumbria in 867, and replaced with a new penny coinage on the model of coinage in the Carolingian empire and southumbrian England. Two exceptional coins illustrate that Northumbrian coinage in the 9th century may not have been entirely composed of ''stycas'': a gold
Mancus Mancus (sometimes spelt ''mancosus'' or similar, from Arabic ''manqūsh'' منقوش) was a term used in early medieval Europe to denote either a gold coin, a weight of gold of 4.25g (equivalent to the Islamic gold dinar, and thus lighter than th ...
survives in the name of Archbishop Wigmund, modelled on contemporary gold solidi of
Louis the Pious Louis the Pious (german: Ludwig der Fromme; french: Louis le Pieux; 16 April 778 – 20 June 840), also called the Fair, and the Debonaire, was King of the Franks and co-emperor with his father, Charlemagne, from 813. He was also King of Aqui ...
; and a silver penny found in the Cornish Trewhiddle hoard of c. 868 in the name of EANRED REX, with an anomalous reverse legend apparently reading ĐES MONETA ('his coin'(?)) followed by an Omega. The latter coin has still not been conclusively fitted into context: its style suggests production around 850, but
Eanred of Northumbria Eanred was king of Northumbria in the early ninth century. Very little is known for certain about Eanred. The only reference made by the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' to the Northumbrians in this period is the statement that in 829 Egbert of Wessex " ...
probably died in 840. It may therefore be either a posthumous commemorative issue of some sort, or a survivor of a very rare Southumbrian coinage in the name of an otherwise forgotten ruler. The styca coinage was studied extensively by
Elizabeth Pirie Elizabeth Jean Elphinstone Pirie (14 September 1932 – 1 March 2005) was a British numismatist specialising in ninth-century Northumbrian coinage, and museum curator, latterly as Keeper of Archaeology at Leeds City Museum from 1960–91. She wr ...
who produced an "indispensable corpus of known finds" in her work ''Coins of the Kingdom of Northumbria''.


Viking coinages

Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...
settlers in England found themselves in a more sophisticated coin-using economy than they were accustomed to at home;Richard Hall, ''Viking Age Archaeology'' (series Shire Archaeology), 2010:23. consequently it is unsurprising that the first coins that can be associated with the Vikings in England are imitations of Alfred's coinage, particularly the 'London monogram' and 'two-line' types. These are very numerous today, and for a long time caused great difficulty for numismatists working on Alfred's coinage, who could not always tell them from the genuine issues. However, before the end of the 9th century new silver coinages had begun in East Anglia and at York. In East Anglia, a coinage was struck in imitation of Alfred's in the name of
Guthrum Guthrum ( ang, Guðrum, c. 835 – c. 890) was King of East Anglia in the late 9th century. Originally a native of what is now Denmark, he was one of the leaders of the "Great Summer Army" that arrived in Reading, Berkshire, Reading during April ...
(with his baptismal name Æthelstan), followed by a very large coinage naming the martyred Saint Edmund on the obverse, which was struck by at least sixty moneyers (the bulk of them bearing names indicating continental origins). This coinage persisted until the conquest of East Anglia by
Edward the Elder Edward the Elder (17 July 924) was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 899 until his death in 924. He was the elder son of Alfred the Great and his wife Ealhswith. When Edward succeeded to the throne, he had to defeat a challenge from his cousin Æt ...
in 917/18. In Northumbria, the highly debased ''styca'' coinage came to an end and was replaced with a fine silver coinage, which is very well known thanks to the huge (c. 8,000 coin)
Cuerdale Cuerdale is a civil parish in the South Ribble district of Lancashire, England. It includes ''Cuerdale Hall'' and has no substantive settlements. It originated as a township in the parish of Blackburn, becoming a separate civil parish in 1866. Fr ...
hoard deposited in the first decade of the 10th century. Sometimes this coinage named local Viking rulers (the identification of whom with figures from written sources is often impossible or contentious) but, at the start of the 10th century, the name of the mint and that of
Saint Peter Saint Peter; he, שמעון בר יונה, Šimʿōn bar Yōnāh; ar, سِمعَان بُطرُس, translit=Simʿa̅n Buṭrus; grc-gre, Πέτρος, Petros; cop, Ⲡⲉⲧⲣⲟⲥ, Petros; lat, Petrus; ar, شمعون الصفـا, Sham'un ...
replaced references to king and moneyer. From the 910s the York coinage resumed naming the ruler and also began to display a range of interesting devices connected to the Scandinavian presence in York: swords, hammers, banners and a bird variously interpreted as a raven or dove. The York pennies of Anlaf/Olaf Guthfrithson (939–41) present the first known use of Old Norse in the Latin alphabet anywhere in the legend ANLAF CVNVNGIR ('King Anlaf'). Although Northumbria and East Anglia were the main bastions of Viking coinage, at various times there was also production in the East Midlands, for instance of coins naming Saint Martin at
Lincoln Lincoln most commonly refers to: * Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the sixteenth president of the United States * Lincoln, England, cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England * Lincoln, Nebraska, the capital of Nebraska, U.S. * Lincol ...
.


The 10th century

The coinage of
Edward the Elder Edward the Elder (17 July 924) was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 899 until his death in 924. He was the elder son of Alfred the Great and his wife Ealhswith. When Edward succeeded to the throne, he had to defeat a challenge from his cousin Æt ...
in some ways continued the types and organisation current under his father Alfred in Wessex and English Mercia, but with the expansion of West Saxon control into the Midlands and
East Anglia East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a people whose name originated in Anglia, in ...
the currency system became more complex as new regions were incorporated into Edward's kingdom. For the most part the coinage was non-portrait and simple in design, though some mints in English
Mercia la, Merciorum regnum , conventional_long_name=Kingdom of Mercia , common_name=Mercia , status=Kingdom , status_text=Independent kingdom (527–879)Client state of Wessex () , life_span=527–918 , era=Heptarchy , event_start= , date_start= , ye ...
struck an interesting series of pictorial reverse types. Since mint names are again very rare, attributions must largely be made by working backwards from
Æthelstan Æthelstan or Athelstan (; ang, Æðelstān ; on, Aðalsteinn; ; – 27 October 939) was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 924 to 927 and King of the English from 927 to his death in 939. He was the son of King Edward the Elder and his first ...
's reign when mint names were often found on coins of the ''circumscription cross'' and ''bust crowned'' types. These coinages, struck at about thirty named mints after the conquest of the
kingdom of York Scandinavian York ( non, Jórvík) Viking Yorkshire or Norwegian York is a term used by historians for the south of Northumbria (modern-day Yorkshire) during the period of the late 9th century and first half of the 10th century, when it was do ...
in 927, reflect a renewed effort on the king's part to have a single, centrally controlled coinage spanning the kingdom: types were standardised, the royal title was expanded from the usual REX to REX SAXONUM or even REX TO(''tius'') BRIT(''anniae''), as one finds in contemporary charters. It was also under Æthelstan that coinage was first mentioned in any detail in legal documentation: a law-code issued by him at Grateley (probably around 926-30 though incorporating numismatic data from somewhat earlier) details the acceptance of a single currency and penalties for forgery, and goes on to list a series of minting places and the number of moneyers permitted to each. Towards the end of Æthelstan's reign and in the time of his successors
Edmund Edmund is a masculine given name or surname in the English language. The name is derived from the Old English elements ''ēad'', meaning "prosperity" or "riches", and ''mund'', meaning "protector". Persons named Edmund include: People Kings and ...
,
Eadred Eadred (c. 923 – 23 November 955) was King of the English from 26 May 946 until his death. He was the younger son of Edward the Elder and his third wife Eadgifu, and a grandson of Alfred the Great. His elder brother, Edmund, was killed tryin ...
,
Eadwig Eadwig (also Edwy or Eadwig All-Fair, 1 October 959) was King of England from 23 November 955 until his death in 959. He was the elder son of Edmund I and his first wife Ælfgifu, who died in 944. Eadwig and his brother Edgar were young ...
and the first part of
Edgar Edgar is a commonly used English given name, from an Anglo-Saxon name ''Eadgar'' (composed of '' ead'' "rich, prosperous" and ''gar'' "spear"). Like most Anglo-Saxon names, it fell out of use by the later medieval period; it was, however, rev ...
's reign, the coinage was of a regionalised character, with up to seven regions of monetary circulation. The structure of this system is clearest for northern England thanks to the discovery of more numerous hoards in that part of the country. Coins normally stayed within their area of production, and different types were current in each region. However, these regions were not static, and many of the 'regional' types were, to the untrained eye, comparatively similar. The predominant type bore the king's name in circumscription on the obverse (normally around a small cross), and the moneyer's name in two lines with various ornaments on the reverse. At various times a circumscription reverse was also used, which gave scope for a longer legend; or a portrait obverse. For reasons unknown, East Anglia in particular favoured royal portraits between the 930s and 970s, though it was also used sporadically elsewhere. Mints are not normally named, but it is usually possible to attribute coins to their region of origin. However, despite the regionalised types and circulation of coinage, pennies remained of relatively stable size, weight and fineness, and most importantly were always struck in the name of the West Saxon king. Even when the kingdom was divided between Eadwig and Edgar in 957, coinage seems to have remained the preserve of Eadwig, the senior partner in rule, even in the mint towns ruled by Edgar. The last phase of this regionalised coinage, struck in the first decade of Edgar's sole reign, produced a number of unusual features. Mint names became more common, and there were a number of appropriations from earlier English coinage, such as a resurrection of Alfred's London monogram on halfpennies and Æthelstan's royal title REX TO(''tius'') BRIT(''anniae''). This revival of interest in the coinage foreshadowed an even greater reform at the end of Edgar's reign.


Edgar's reform, c. 973 and the late Anglo-Saxon coinage

Exactly when
Edgar Edgar is a commonly used English given name, from an Anglo-Saxon name ''Eadgar'' (composed of '' ead'' "rich, prosperous" and ''gar'' "spear"). Like most Anglo-Saxon names, it fell out of use by the later medieval period; it was, however, rev ...
reformed the coinage is not certain: that it was towards the end of his reign is clear from the coins, and the only help provided by written sources is a reference in
Roger of Wendover Roger of Wendover (died 6 May 1236), probably a native of Wendover in Buckinghamshire, was an English chronicler of the 13th century. At an uncertain date he became a monk at St Albans Abbey; afterwards he was appointed prior of the cell of ...
's 13th-century chronicle, which implies the reform may have taken place in or after 973. Its impact, however, cannot be underestimated, and it formed the basis of the English coinage until the reign of Henry II. Old coins disappeared from circulation and a single standardised type was introduced at around forty mints across the country, bearing the royal portrait and title on the obverse and the names of moneyer and mint around a small central cross on the reverse. Initially, too, all new dies were distributed from a single die-cutting centre located at
Winchester Winchester is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs Nation ...
. Such centralisation was unusual, and occurred in only a few of the other types that came after: more commonly, the same type was used throughout the country but die production devolved to a number of regional die-cutting centres which distributed dies to nearby, smaller mints. Even within the nine-month reign of
Harold II Harold Godwinson ( – 14 October 1066), also called Harold II, was the last crowned Anglo-Saxon English king. Harold reigned from 6 January 1066 until his death at the Battle of Hastings, fighting the Norman invaders led by William the ...
in 1066 coins were struck with a new design in his name at forty-eight mints. Around seventy places in England (and in Wales under the
Normans The Normans (Norman language, Norman: ''Normaunds''; french: Normands; la, Nortmanni/Normanni) were a population arising in the medieval Duchy of Normandy from the intermingling between Norsemen, Norse Viking settlers and indigenous West Fran ...
) were active as mints during this period, ranging hugely in size and productivity: the largest was
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
, though
York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...
and Lincoln remained important throughout the period, and other major mints included
Winchester Winchester is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs Nation ...
,
Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...
and Stamford. At the other end of the scale are places that were never important mints in the Anglo-Saxon period and are little more than villages, hillforts and market towns today, including
Melton Mowbray Melton Mowbray () is a town in Leicestershire, England, north-east of Leicester, and south-east of Nottingham. It lies on the River Eye, known below Melton as the Wreake. The town had a population 27,670 in 2019. The town is sometimes promo ...
,
Milborne Port Milborne Port is a village, electoral ward and civil parish in Somerset, England, east of Sherborne, and in the South Somerset district. It has a population of 2,802. The parish includes the hamlets of Milborne Wick and Kingsbury Regis. The vil ...
, Castle Gotha, Cadbury Castle and
Dunwich Dunwich is a village and civil parish in Suffolk, England. It is in the Suffolk Coast and Heaths AONB around north-east of London, south of Southwold and north of Leiston, on the North Sea coast. In the Anglo-Saxon period, Dunwich was t ...
. Mints of this kind were often only active during short periods, such as a number of 'emergency' mints set up during the reign of
Æthelred II Æthelred (; ang, Æþelræd ) or Ethelred () is an Old English personal name (a compound of ''wiktionary:æþele, æþele'' and ''wiktionary:ræd, ræd'', meaning "noble counsel" or "well-advised") and may refer to: Anglo-Saxon England * Æthel ...
because of Viking depredations. The designs chosen for the coinage were relatively uniform, following the pattern of Edgar's reformed pennies: the obverse carried some form of royal portrait as well as the royal name and title, whilst the reverse gave the name of the moneyer and the mint around some form of cross. Within this format, however, there was much variation. Portraits could face either way and reflect a wide range of influences. Under
Æthelred II Æthelred (; ang, Æþelræd ) or Ethelred () is an Old English personal name (a compound of ''wiktionary:æþele, æþele'' and ''wiktionary:ræd, ræd'', meaning "noble counsel" or "well-advised") and may refer to: Anglo-Saxon England * Æthel ...
, for instance, one type was based upon early 4th-century Roman coins showing the emperor in military garb, with helmet and armour; another was based on civilian portraits of other 4th-century emperors without any form of headgear. Under
Edward the Confessor Edward the Confessor ; la, Eduardus Confessor , ; ( 1003 – 5 January 1066) was one of the last Anglo-Saxon English kings. Usually considered the last king of the House of Wessex, he ruled from 1042 to 1066. Edward was the son of Æth ...
there was strong German influence in the portraits from the last fifteen years or so of his reign, perhaps as a result of Edward's employment of German
goldsmith A goldsmith is a Metalworking, metalworker who specializes in working with gold and other precious metals. Nowadays they mainly specialize in jewelry-making but historically, goldsmiths have also made cutlery, silverware, platter (dishware), pl ...
s named Theoderic and Otto. These show the king bearded, helmeted and crowned, and in some cases even facing straight forward or seated on a throne. The existence of moneyer and mint names on each and every coin provide valuable evidence for the study of not only mint structure (in terms of how productive certain moneyers were, or how many shared dies) but also of contemporary naming patterns and – to some extent – the makeup of the population. Mints located in the old Danelaw, like
York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...
and
Lincoln Lincoln most commonly refers to: * Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the sixteenth president of the United States * Lincoln, England, cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England * Lincoln, Nebraska, the capital of Nebraska, U.S. * Lincol ...
, contained a preponderance of moneyers with Scandinavian names, whilst one sometimes comes across moneyers all over the country with continental names, or even more exotic names in
Old Irish Old Irish, also called Old Gaelic ( sga, Goídelc, Ogham script: ᚌᚑᚔᚇᚓᚂᚉ; ga, Sean-Ghaeilge; gd, Seann-Ghàidhlig; gv, Shenn Yernish or ), is the oldest form of the Goidelic/Gaelic language for which there are extensive writt ...
. This first type, usually known as the ''First small cross'' or ''Reform'' type, remained in currency for Edgar's last years, the whole of
Edward the Martyr Edward ( ang, Eadweard, ; 18 March 978), often called the Martyr, was King of the English from 975 until he was murdered in 978. Edward was the eldest son of King Edgar, but was not his father's acknowledged heir. On Edgar's death, the leade ...
's short reign and even into the first years of
Æthelred II Æthelred (; ang, Æþelræd ) or Ethelred () is an Old English personal name (a compound of ''wiktionary:æþele, æþele'' and ''wiktionary:ræd, ræd'', meaning "noble counsel" or "well-advised") and may refer to: Anglo-Saxon England * Æthel ...
, who came to the throne in 978/9. At some point early in his reign, however, another of the features that was to characterise the late Anglo-Saxon currency system came into play: the first of many changes of type. More than fifty such changes occurred during the existence of the coinage as reformed by Edgar, which persisted until the 1150s. Within the reign of Æthelred, for instance, six such changes can be seen, manifested in the progression of the following types: ''First Small cross''; ''First hand''; ''Second hand''; ''Crux''; ''Long Cross''; ''Helmet''; ''Last Small cross''. After the death of
Cnut Cnut (; ang, Cnut cyning; non, Knútr inn ríki ; or , no, Knut den mektige, sv, Knut den Store. died 12 November 1035), also known as Cnut the Great and Canute, was King of England from 1016, King of Denmark from 1018, and King of Norwa ...
, under whom another three types (''Quatrefoil'', ''Helmet'' and ''Short cross'') were struck, types become more numerous and changes presumably more frequent: fourteen types were struck in the years between 1035 and the
Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conque ...
of 1066, probably lasting only two or three years each. It is presumed that each change of type required coins of old money to be exchanged for new, with the king and the moneyer taking a cut either as a portion of the value of the new coins or from the minting process. The weight of the coinage varied considerably, even within types, suggesting that there may have been some profit taken in minting by extracting silver from the coinage, though within the kingdom of England it would have been possible to enforce that all coins be accepted at face value regardless of weight. Hoard evidence, at least from before the 1030s, suggests that reminting of the whole coinage was stipulated at each change of type, for a number of hoards survive consisting of only one type. Alongside these, however, are 'savings' hoards, which contain a mixture of two or more types; and a mixture of types becomes much more common in hoards from after the 1030s. One possible explanation for this change in the pattern of production and hoarding is that it came to be the rule, after the 1030s, that only payments to the crown had to be in the current type, whereas other types of English coinage were viable for other purposes. Remarkably little written evidence survives to help numismatists and historians understand how the coinage and its system of changes of type actually functioned.
Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...
does record that moneyers at certain mints had to go to
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
to purchase new dies for twenty shillings ''quando moneta vertebatur'' ('when the coinage was changed'), and that certain towns paid annual sums to the king for the privilege of running a mint. At several towns bishops and abbots had rights to the profits of one or more moneyers (which normally went to the king), but these are no longer reflected by any changes in the design of the coins. Numismatists have sometimes tried to discern a very rigid system of organisation in the late Anglo-Saxon coinage: one,
Michael Dolley Michael may refer to: People * Michael (given name), a given name * Michael (surname), including a list of people with the surname Michael Given name "Michael" * Michael (archangel), ''first'' of God's archangels in the Jewish, Christian an ...
, believed that until the death of
Cnut Cnut (; ang, Cnut cyning; non, Knútr inn ríki ; or , no, Knut den mektige, sv, Knut den Store. died 12 November 1035), also known as Cnut the Great and Canute, was King of England from 1016, King of Denmark from 1018, and King of Norwa ...
in 1035, each type lasted six years, with a few exceptions – such as the ''Last Small Cross'' type at the end of Æthelred's reign – lasting longer under very unusual conditions. Some features seem to support this belief, at least for the earlier period. Certain changes of type apparently coincided with datable historic events: no coins of the ''Helmet'' type survive from the mint of Wilton, for instance, whereas no coins of the preceding ''Long Cross'' type are known from nearby
Salisbury Salisbury ( ) is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath. Salisbury is in the southeast of Wil ...
, but moneyers with the same names as those from Wilton started to operate there in the ''Helmet'' type. The ''
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' is a collection of annals in Old English, chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the ''Chronicle'' was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alf ...
'' records that in 1003 Wilton was sacked by Vikings and the inhabitants retreated to Salisbury, and it is likely that the change of type coincided with this event. However, there are a number of difficulties with reconstructing such a fixed framework. Not all types are as well represented in the surviving material, and it is clear that this is not always simply a result of a few large hoards distorting our view. There are a number of very small and rare types which were certainly never meant to become fully fledged issues, though some bear a clear relationship to them. Examples from the reign of
Æthelred II Æthelred (; ang, Æþelræd ) or Ethelred () is an Old English personal name (a compound of ''wiktionary:æþele, æþele'' and ''wiktionary:ræd, ræd'', meaning "noble counsel" or "well-advised") and may refer to: Anglo-Saxon England * Æthel ...
include the ''Benediction Hand'' type and the ''Intermediate Small Cross'' type, as well as the famous ''Agnus Dei'' type: a unique and fascinating issue on which the king's portrait and the reverse cross are replaced with, respectively, the Lamb of God and the Holy Dove. The exact context for the production of this very rare coinage is unclear (eighteen specimens survive, as of November 2008): it was only struck at smaller mints, mostly in the midlands, either as an abortive main issue or as a special religious coinage for some specific purpose or occasion. Although the dating is unclear, it may be associated with the
Eynsham Eynsham is an English village and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in Oxfordshire, about north-west of Oxford and east of Witney. The United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011 Census recorded a parish population of 4,648. It was estimated at 5,0 ...
gathering and the Penitential Edict of 1009. But the difficulties with the sexennial theory are not restricted to smaller, rarer types. The ''Second Hand'' type of Æthelred, for example, was not much different in appearance from its predecessor, raising the question of how easily people would have told it and the old coinage apart. More importantly, only minuscule numbers of the type survive from more northerly mints such as
Lincoln Lincoln most commonly refers to: * Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the sixteenth president of the United States * Lincoln, England, cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England * Lincoln, Nebraska, the capital of Nebraska, U.S. * Lincol ...
and
York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...
which, in the rest of the period, were some of the most productive in the kingdom. It is possible that the Second Hand type represents a continuation of the First Hand type, which may have run on rather longer than six years as part of a mechanism that did envisage changes of type, but not necessarily on a strict sexennial basis. The late Anglo-Saxon coinage is best understood for the period c. 990 – c. 1030 thanks to the discovery of many tens of thousands of coins in hoards from
Scandinavia Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion#Europe, subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, ...
. Connections between England and Scandinavia were very close at this time, with raiders, traders, mercenaries and, ultimately, kings regularly crossing the
North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian S ...
. English coins in Scandinavian hoards probably include at least some profit from raiding and the tributary payments referred to as
Danegeld Danegeld (; "Danish tax", literally "Dane yield" or tribute) was a tax raised to pay tribute or protection money to the Viking raiders to save a land from being ravaged. It was called the ''geld'' or ''gafol'' in eleventh-century sources. It ...
. Payments to Danish troops employed by the English kings continued until 1051, when
Edward the Confessor Edward the Confessor ; la, Eduardus Confessor , ; ( 1003 – 5 January 1066) was one of the last Anglo-Saxon English kings. Usually considered the last king of the House of Wessex, he ruled from 1042 to 1066. Edward was the son of Æth ...
dismissed the last of them. English coin finds in Scandinavia become even fewer after this time. However, since large numbers of roughly contemporary
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
and, later, German coins have also been found in Scandinavia, it is probable that the bulk of the English imports came via trade rather than military action.


References


Bibliography


General

*Dolley, R. H. M., ''Anglo-Saxon Pennies'' (London, 1964) *Grierson, P., and M. A. S. Blackburn, ''Medieval European Coinage,'' I'': the Early Middle Ages (5th–10th Centuries)'' (Cambridge, 1986) *Grierson, P., ''Numismatics'' (Oxford, 1975) *Lyon, C. S. S., 'Historical Problems of Anglo-Saxon Coinage', ''British Numismatic Journal'' 36 (1967), 227–42; 37 (1968), 216–38; 38 (1969), 204–22; and 39 (1970), 193–204 *Lyon, C. S. S., 'Some Problems of Interpreting Anglo-Saxon Coinage', ''Anglo-Saxon England'' 5 (1976), 173-224 *Stewart, B. H. I. H., 'The English and Norman Mints, c. 600 – 1158', in ''A New History of the Royal Mint'', ed. C. E. Challis (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 1–82 *Williams, G., ''Early Anglo-Saxon Coins'' (Colchester, 2008)


After Rome

*Abdy, R., 'After Patching: Imported and Recycled Coinage in Fifth- and Sixth-Century Britain', in
Coinage and History in the North Sea World c. 500 – 1250: Essays in Honour of Marion Archibald
', ed. B. Cook and G. Williams (Leiden and Boston, 2006), pp. 75–98 *Guest, P., ''The Late Roman Gold and Silver Coins from the Hoxne Treasure'' (London, 2005) *Kent, J. P. C., 'From Roman Britain to Anglo-Saxon England', in ''Anglo-Saxon Coins: Studies Presented to F. M. Stenton on the Occasion of His 80th Birthday, 17 May 1960'', ed. R. H. M. Dolley (London, 1961), pp. 1–22 *King, C., 'Late Roman Silver Hoards in Britain', ''British Numismatic Journal'' 51 (1981), 5–31 *King, M. D., 'Roman Coins from Early Anglo-Saxon Contexts', in ''Coins and the Archaeologist'', ed. J. Casey and R. Reece, 2nd ed. (London, 1988), pp. 224–9 *Moorhead, T. S. N., 'Roman Bronze Coinage in Sub-Roman and Early Anglo-Saxon England', in ''Coinage and History in the North Sea World c. 500 – 1250: Essays in Honour of Marion Archibald'', ed. B. Cook and G. Williams (Leiden and Boston, 2006), pp. 99–109 *Reece, R., ''The Coinage of Roman Britain'' (Stroud, 2002) *White, R. H., ''Roman and Celtic Objects from Anglo-Saxon Graves'', BAR British Series 191 (Oxford, 1988)


Thrymsas

*Abdy, R., and G. Williams, 'A Catalogue of Hoards and Single-Finds from the British Isles, c. AD 410 – 675', in
Coinage and History in the North Sea World, c. 500 – 1250: Essays in Honour of Marion Archibald
', ed. B. Cook and G. Williams (Leiden, 2006), pp. 11–73 *Grierson, P., 'La fonction sociale de la monnaie en Angleterre aux VIIe – VIIIe siècles', in ''Moneta e scambi nell'alto medioevo'' (Spoleto, 1961), pp. 341–85; repr. in his ''Dark Age Numismatics'' (London, 1979), no. XI *Metcalf, D. M., ''Thrymsas and Sceattas in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford'', 3 vols. (London, 1993–4), vol. 1 *Stewart, B. H. I. H., 'Anglo-Saxon Gold Coins', in ''Scripta Nummaria Romana. Essays Presented to Humphrey Sutherland'', ed. R. A. Carson and C. M. Kraay (London, 1978), pp. 143–72 *Sutherland, C. H. V., ''Anglo-Saxon Gold Coinage in the Light of the Crondall Hoard'' (Oxford, 1948) *Williams, G., 'The Circulation and Function of Coinage in Conversion-Period England, c. AD 580 – 675', in ''Coinage and History in the North Sea World, c. 500 – 1250: Essays in Honour of Marion Archibald'', ed. B. Cook and G. Williams (Leiden, 2006), pp. 145–92


Sceattas

*Abramson, T., ''Sceattas: an Illustrated Guide'' (Great Dunham, 2006) *Gannon, A., ''The Iconography of Early Anglo-Saxon Coinage (Sixth–Eighth Centuries)'' (Oxford, 2003) *Hill, D., and D. M. Metcalf, ed., ''Sceattas in England and on the Continent: the Seventh Oxford Symposium on Coinage and Monetary History'' (Oxford, 1984) *Metcalf, D. M., ''Thrymsas and Sceattas in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford'', 3 vols. (London, 1993–4) *Metcalf, D. M., 'Monetary Expansion and Recession: Interpreting the Distribution Patterns of Seventh- and Eighth-Century Coins', in ''Coins and the Archaeologist'', ed. J. Casey and R. Reece, 2nd ed. (London, 1988), pp. 230–53 *Rigold, S., 'The Two Primary Series of Sceattas', ''British Numismatic Journal'' 30 (1960–1), 6–53 *Rigold, S., 'The Principal Series of English Sceattas', ''British Numismatic Journal'' 47 (1977), 21–30


The age of Offa

*Archibald, M., 'The Coinage of Beonna in the Light of the Middle Harling Hoard', ''British Numismatic Journal'' 55 (1986), 10–54 *Archibald, M., 'A Sceat of Ethelbert I of East Anglia and Recent Finds of Coins of Beonna', ''British Numismatic Journal'' 65 (1995), 1–19 *Blunt, C. E., 'The Coinage of Offa', in ''Anglo-Saxon Coins: Studies Presented to F. M. Stenton on the Occasion of His 80th Birthday, 17 May 1960'', ed. R. H. M. Dolley (London, 1961), pp. 39–62 *Chick, D., 'Towards a Chronology for Offa's Coinage: an Interim Study', ''Yorkshire Numismatist'' 3 (1997), 47–64 *Chick, D., ed. M. Blackburn and R. Naismith, ''The Coinage of Offa and His Contemporaries'' (London, 2007) *Pirie, E. J. E., ''Coins of the Kingdom of Northumbria, c. 700 – 867, in the Yorkshire Collections'' (Llanfyllin, 1996) *Stewart, B. H. I. H., 'The London Mint and the Coinage of Offa', in ''Anglo-Saxon Monetary History: Essays in Memory of Michael Dolley'', ed. M. A. S. Blackburn (Leicester, 1986), pp. 27–43


The 9th century

*Blackburn, M. A. S., 'Alfred's Coinage Reforms in Context', in ''Alfred the Great: Papers from the Eleventh-Centenary Conferences'', ed. T. Reuter (Aldershot, 2003), pp. 199–217 *Blackburn, M. A. S., and D. N. Dumville, ed., ''Kings, Currency and Alliances: History and Coinage in Southern England in the Ninth Century'' (Woodbridge, 1998) *Blunt, C. E., 'The Coinage of Ecgbeorht, King of Wessex, 802–39', ''British Numismatic Journal'' 28 (1955–7), 467–76 *Blunt, C. E., C. S. S. Lyon and B. H. I. H. Stewart, 'The Coinage of Southern England, 796–840', ''British Numismatic Journal'' 32 (1963), 1–74 *Dolley, R. H. M., 'The Chronology of the Coins of Alfred the Great', in ''Anglo-Saxon Coins: Studies Presented to F. M. Stenton on the Occasion of His 80th Birthday, 17 May 1960'', ed. R. H. M. Dolley (London, 1961), pp. 77–95 *Dolley, R. H. M., and K. Skaare, 'The Coinage of Æthelwulf, King of the West Saxons', in ''Anglo-Saxon Coins: Studies Presented to F. M. Stenton on the Occasion of His 80th Birthday, 17 May 1960'', ed. R. H. M. Dolley (London, 1961), pp. 63–76 *Lyon, C. S. S., 'A Reappraisal of the Sceatta and Styca Coinage of Northumbria', ''British Numismatic Journal'' 28 (1955–7), 227–42 *Metcalf, D. M., ed., ''Coinage in Ninth-Century Northumbria'' (Oxford, 1987) *Pagan, H. E., 'Coinage in the Age of Burgred', ''British Numismatic Journal'' 34 (1965), 11–27 *Pagan, H. E., 'Northumbrian Numismatic Chronology in the Ninth Century', ''British Numismatic Journal'' 38 (1969), 1–15 *Pagan, H. E., 'The Bolton Percy Hoard of 1967', ''British Numismatic Journal'' 43 (1973), 1–44 *Pagan, H. E., 'The Coinage of the East Anglian Kingdom from 825 to 870', ''British Numismatic Journal'' 52 (1982), 41–83 *Pagan, H. E., 'Coinage in Southern England, 796–874', in ''Anglo-Saxon Monetary History: Essays in Memory of Michael Dolley'', ed. M. A. S. Blackburn (Leicester, 1986), pp. 45–65


Viking coinages

*Blackburn, M. A. S., 'The Ashdon (Essex) Hoard and the Currency of the Southern Danelaw in the Late Ninth Century', ''British Numismatic Journal'' 59 (1989), 13–38 *Blackburn, M. A. S., 'Expansion and Control: Aspects of Anglo-Scandinavian Minting South of the Humber', in ''Vikings and the Danelaw: Selected Papers from the Proceedings of the Thirteenth Viking Congress, Nottingham and York, 21–30 August 1997'', ed. J. Graham Campbell (Oxford, 2001), pp. 125–42 *Blackburn, M. A. S., 'The Coinage of Scandinavian York', in ''Aspects of Anglo-Scandinavian York'', ed. R. Hall et al. (York, 2004), pp. 325–49 *Blunt, C. E., 'The St Edmund Memorial Coinage', ''Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology'' 31 (1969), 234–53 *Blunt, C. E., and B. H. I. H. Stewart, 'The Coinage of Regnald I of York and the Bossall Hoard', ''Numismatic Chronicle'' 143 (1983), 146–63 *Dolley, R. H. M., ''Viking Coins of the Danelaw and Dublin'' (London, 1965) *Dolley, R. H. M., 'The Anglo-Danish and Anglo-Norse Coinages of York', in ''Viking-Age York and the North'', ed. R. A. Hall, Council for British Archaeology Research Report 27 (London, 1978), pp. 26–31 *Grierson, P., and M. A. S. Blackburn, ''Medieval European Coinage,'' I'': the Early Middle Ages (5th–10th Centuries)'' (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 316–25 *Lyon, C. S. S., and B. H. I. H. Stewart, 'The Northumbrian Viking Coinage in the Cuerdale Hoard', in ''Anglo-Saxon Coins: Studies Presented to F. M. Stenton on the Occasion of His 80th Birthday, 17 May 1960'', ed. R. H. M. Dolley (London, 1961), pp. 96–121


The 10th century

*Blunt, C. E., 'The Coinage of Æthelstan, King of England 924–39', ''British Numismatic Journal'' 42 (1974), 35–160 *Blunt, C. E., B. H. I. H. Stewart and C. S. S. Lyon, ''Coinage in Tenth-Century England from Edward the Elder to Edgar's Reform'' (London, 1989) *Jonsson, K., 'The Pre-Reform Coinage of Edgar – the Legacy of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms', in ''Coinage and History in the North Sea World, c. 500 – 1250. Essays in Honour of Marion Archibald'', ed. B. Cook and G. Williams (Leiden, 2006), pp. 325–46 *Lyon, C. S. S., 'The Coinage of Edward the Elder', in ''Edward the Elder, 899–924'', ed. N. J. Higham and D. H. Hill (London, 2001), pp. 67–78 *Pagan, H. E., 'The Pre-Reform Coinage of Edgar', in ''Edgar, King of the English 959-975. New Interpretations'', ed. D. Scragg (Woodbridge, 2008), pp. 192–207


Edgar's reform and the late Anglo-Saxon coinage

*Blackburn, M. A. S., and K. Jonsson, 'The Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman Element of North European Coin Finds', in ''Viking-Age Coinage in the Northern Lands. The Sixth Oxford Symposium on Coinage and Monetary History'', ed. M. A. S. Blackburn and D. M. Metcalf (Oxford, 1981), pp. 147–255 *Brand, J. D., ''Periodic Change of Type in the Anglo-Saxon and Norman Periods'' (Rochester, 1984) *Dolley, R. H. M., ''The Norman Conquest and the English Coinage'' (London, 1966) *Dolley, R. H. M., 'An Introduction to the Coinage of Æthelred II', in ''Ethelred the Unready: Papers from the Millenary Conference'', ed. D. Hill (Oxford, 1978), pp. 115–33 *Dolley, R. H. M., and D. M. Metcalf, 'The Reform of the English Coinage under Edgar', in ''Anglo-Saxon Coins: Studies Presented to F. M. Stenton on the Occasion of His 80th Birthday, 17 May 1960'', ed. R. H. M. Dolley (London, 1961), pp. 136–68 *Freeman, A., ''The Moneyer and the Mint in the Reign of Edward the Confessor 1042–66'', 2 vols. (Oxford, 1985) *Hildebrand, B. E., ''Anglosachsiska mynt i Svenska Kongliga Myntkabinettet funna in Sveriges jord'', 2nd ed. (Stockholm, 1881) *Jonsson, K., ''The New Era: the Reformation of the Late Anglo-Saxon Coinage'' (Stockholm, 1986) *Jonsson, K., ''Viking-Age Hoards and Late Anglo-Saxon Coins: a Study in Honour of Bror Emil Hildebrand's Anglosachsiska mynt'' (Stockholm, 1987) *Metcalf, D. M., ''An Atlas of Anglo-Saxon and Norman Coin Finds, c. 973 – 1086'' (London, 1998) *Petersson, H. B. A., ''Anglo-Saxon Currency: King Edgar's Reform to the Norman Conquest'' (Lund, 1969) *Smart, V., 'Scandinavians, Celts and Germans in Anglo-Saxon England: the Evidence of Moneyers' Names', in ''Anglo-Saxon Monetary History: Essays in Memory of Michael Dolley'', ed. M. A. S. Blackburn (Leicester, 1986), pp. 171–84 *Stewart, B. H. I. H., 'Coinage and Recoinage after Edgar's Reform', in ''Studies in Late Anglo-Saxon Coinage in Memory of Bror Emil Hildebrand'', ed. K. Jonsson (Stockholm, 1990), pp. 455–85


Further reading

* *


External links


Corpus of Early Medieval Coin Finds and Checklist of Early Medieval British Coin Hoards

Introduction to Viking-Age CoinageAnglo-Saxon Coins Game



Portable Antiquities Scheme
{{DEFAULTSORT:Penny 7th century in England 8th century in England 9th century in England 10th century in England 11th century in England Anglo-Saxon money History of the English penny