Canterbury-St Martin's Hoard
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The Canterbury-St Martin's hoard is a coin-hoard dating from the 6th century, found in the 19th century at
Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, in the county of Kent, England; it was a county borough until 1974. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour. The city has a mild oceanic climat ...
,
Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...
. The group, in the World Museum, Liverpool, consists of eight items, including three gold coins mounted with suspension loops for use as
pendant A pendant is a loose-hanging piece of jewellery, generally attached by a small loop to a necklace, which may be known as a "pendant necklace". A pendant earring is an earring with a piece hanging down. Its name stems from the Latin word ...
s. One of these is the Liudhard medalet, the earliest surviving Anglo-Saxon coin. Another coin is in the Bibliotheque Nationale.


Discovery and publication

The hoard was found some time before 25 April 1844, when some of the items from the find were first discussed at a meeting of the Royal Numismatic Society by Charles Roach Smith. All that Smith knew of the date when they were found was that it was "a few years since", as he wrote in 1844. The location of the hoard is usually given as the
churchyard In Christian countries, a churchyard is a patch of land adjoining or surrounding a church (building), church, which is usually owned by the relevant church or local parish itself. In the Scots language and in both Scottish English and Ulster S ...
of
St Martin's Church, Canterbury The Church of St Martin is an ancient Church of England parish church in Canterbury, England, situated slightly beyond the city centre. It is recognised as the oldest church building in Britain still in use as a church, and the oldest existin ...
. However, the first publication about the find, by Smith, states that the find was on the "grounds of the monastery of St Augustine".Quoted in Adby and Wiliams "A Catalogue of Hoards" ''Coinage and History'' pp. 15–16 The objects were acquired by W. H. Rolfe, a resident of
Sandwich, Kent Sandwich is a town and civil parish in the Dover District of Kent, south-east England. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour and has a population of 4,985. Sandwich was one of the Cinque Ports and still has many original medieval build ...
, in two stages, a first acquisition of three items acquired before April 1844, and five more items procured soon after September 1844.Grierson "Canterbury (St Martin's) Hoard" ''Dark Age Numismatics'' p. 39 The first three items were first published in 1844 in '' Collectanea Antiqua'', and when the five further items were obtained, that publication was amended to reflect the new items. Smith then published the entire contents of the hoard in the '' Numismatic Chronicle'' in 1845. The items in the hoard have been examined by
x-ray An X-ray (also known in many languages as Röntgen radiation) is a form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than those of ultraviolet rays and longer than those of gamma rays. Roughly, X-rays have a wavelength ran ...
and fluorescence. The author of this study, S. C. Hawkes, argues that the eight items in the hoard were found in different graves. However, the historian Philip Grierson felt that the possibility of two graves from different time periods both containing coins of the same period was so small as to make the likelihood of the hoard coming from two graves slim.Grierson "Canterbury Hoard" ''Dark Age Numismatics'' Corregida p. 5 The hoard is the only late-6th- or early-7th-century find of gold jewellery in a grave in a churchyard.Blair ''Church in Anglo-Saxon Society'' p. 61 All of the coins in the hoard were probably part of a necklace that was buried in a woman's grave. One of the items in the hoard, the Liudhard medalet, is the earliest surviving
Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...
coin.Gaimster
Scandinavian Gold Bracteates
''Medieval Archaeology'' p. 7


Contents

The known objects in the hoard are eight items: * An Italian
tremissis The tremissis or tremis (Greek: τριμίσιον, ''trimision'') was a small pure 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 relative to the soli ...
with an inscription dating it to the reign of Emperor
Justin II Justin II (; ; died 5 October 578) was Eastern Roman emperor from 565 until 578. He was the nephew of Justinian I and the husband of Sophia, the niece of Justinian's wife Theodora. Justin II inherited a greatly enlarged but overextended empir ...
, who reigned 565 to 578 * The Liudhard medalet, an Anglo-Saxon gold coin or medallion, dating from the late 6th century * A gold coin imitating a 4th-century bronze coin, featuring two soldiers on one side * A solidus with a bust on one side * A Frankish tremissis of
Merovingian The Merovingian dynasty () was the ruling family of the Franks from around the middle of the 5th century until Pepin the Short in 751. They first appear as "Kings of the Franks" in the Roman army of northern Gaul. By 509 they had united all the ...
date minted at St Bertrand-de-Comminges * A Frankish tremissis of Merovingian date minted at Agen * An intaglio of Roman manufacture set in gold * A circular brooch The first three items listed were the original items acquired by Rolfe, with the others being acquired later. Besides these eight items, it appears likely that at least one other item originally was found with the above items:Grierson "Canterbury (St Martin's) Hoard" ''Dark Age Numismatics'' pp. 39–40 * A coin with an inscription of Oloron set in a loop, which is now in the Bibliotheque Nationale There may have been other items that were found with the hoard, but their identification is not possible.


Ownership and current location

Besides the Oloron coin, which is at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, the other eight items are at the World Museum in Liverpool.Werner "Liudhard medalet" ''Anglo-Saxon England 20'' pp. 27–28 From Rolfe, the eight items were acquired by Joseph Mayer, who gave them to the City Museums of Liverpool, which became the World Museum later.Staff
British Antiquities
World Museum Liverpool


Citations


References

* * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Canterbury-St Martin's hoard 6th-century artifacts 1844 archaeological discoveries Anglo-Saxon art Gold coins Collection of the World Museum Hoards of jewellery Treasure troves in England Treasure troves of Medieval Europe History of Canterbury Hoards from Anglo-Saxon Britain Coin hoards