The Historian and Anglo-Saxon Coinage: the Case of Late Anglo-Saxon England Rory Naismith One of the great strengths of Anglo-Saxon historical scholarship has been a long-standing willingness to engage with diverse sources, including material culture. Coinage in particular has played a prominent role. Since the 1950s, when Michael Dolley (1925–83) and his colleagues started to forge links between a new generation of Anglo-Saxon numismatists and the historical establishment, later Anglo-Saxon coinage has gradually taken on a central role in study of the administrative and institutional aspects of tenth- and eleventh-century England.[footnoteRef:1] This is consequently a very fitting subject for inclusion in a volume in honour of Simon Keynes. Simon has served since 2003 as chairman of the British Academy’s Sylloge of Coins of the British Isles project, with predecessors including his own PhD supervisor Dorothy Whitelock (1901–82) and her mentor, Sir Frank Stenton (1880–1967). Even more so than most other Anglo-Saxon historians, Simon has taken full account of coinage in his research, on rulers from Offa (757–96) and Alfred the Great (871–99) to Æthelred II (978–1016). His integration of numismatic sources, and critical engagement with them, stands as an example to all his colleagues and students who work on Anglo-Saxon history. [1: M. Blackburn, ‘Stenton and Anglo-Saxon Numismatics’, Anglo-Saxon England Fifty Years On, ed. D. Matthew (Reading, 1994), pp. 61–81.] It is in this spirit that the present contribution looks afresh at the segment of Anglo-Saxon coinage which has been at the heart of the modern entente cordiale of historians and numismatists: the late Anglo-Saxon currency. Dolley’s view of the subject (sometimes encapsulated as the ‘sexennial thesis’) remains dominant. He enlarged upon the principle of successive type-changes (already reached in earlier scholarship)[footnoteRef:2] by aligning these type-changes into an orchestrated sequence of national recoinages, which took place at fixed and regular intervals beginning much earlier than had previously been thought. The first such recoinage Dolley placed at Michaelmas 973, representing a major reform undertaken by King Edgar, and others followed every six years thereafter, with a slight wobble in the troubled last days of Æthelred II. Significant changes came after the death of Cnut in 1035, when his sons upped the frequency of recoinages to every two years. Edward the Confessor adjusted this [2: P. W. P. Carlyon-Britton, ‘Eadward the Confessor and his Coins’, NChron, 4th ser., 5 (1905), 179–205; and C. A. Nordman, Anglo-Saxon Coins Found in Finland (Helsingfors, 1921).] to every three years with his fifth type, introduced in the eventful year 1051.[footnoteRef:3] [3: Important articles laying out the ‘sexennial thesis’ include R. H. M. Dolley and D. M. Metcalf, ‘The Reform of the English Coinage under Eadgar’, 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; and R. H. M. Dolley, ‘An Introduction to the Coinage of Æthelræd II’, Ethelred the Unready: Papers from the Millenary Conference, ed. D. Hill, BAR Brit. ser. 59 (Oxford, 1978), pp. 115–33.] Challenges to any aspect of this scheme were met with such robust defence by Dolley that critique of his views was limited until after his death in 1983.[footnoteRef:4] In subsequent years, Lord Stewartby noted the practical difficulties in sticking to such a strict scheme over such a long period,[footnoteRef:5] and a much more caustic attack was made by John Brand, who had often been the victim of Dolley’s sharp pen.[footnoteRef:6] [4: An exception is P. Grierson, ‘Numismatics and the Historian’, NChron, 7th ser., 2 (1962), i–xiv (repr. in his Dark Age Numismatics (London, 1979), no. XVIII).] [5: B. H. I. H. Stewart, ‘Coinage and Recoinage after Edgar’s Reform’, Studies in Late Anglo-Saxon Coinage in Memory of Bror Emil Hildebrand, ed. K. Jonsson, Svenska Numismatiska Meddelanden 35 (Stockholm, 1990), pp. 455–85, and ‘The English and Norman Mints, c. 600–1158’, A New History of the Royal Mint, ed. C. E. Challis (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 1–82, at 49–68.] [6: J. D. Brand, Periodic Change of Type in the Anglo-Saxon and Norman Periods (Rochester, 1984).] The decades since about 1990 have provided the means for a fresh approach to the late Anglo-Saxon currency. There has been important work on the coinage in the period up to Edgar’s reform, which was poorly understood in the mid-twentieth century.[footnoteRef:7] Another crucial new resource is a much-enlarged body of find material from England, particularly single-finds, which shed significantly more light on the role of coinage in its home kingdom than was available to Dolley (who relied heavily on Scandinavian hoards).[footnoteRef:8] Last but not least, the coinage now stands against a changed historical backdrop: views of late Anglo-Saxon government, in which the coinage plays such a prominent role, have evolved significantly since the 1950s and 60s (and indeed continue to evolve). [7: C. E. Blunt, B. H. I. H. Stewart and C. S. S. Lyon, Coinage in Tenth-Century England, from Edward the Elder to Edgar’s Reform (Oxford, 1989); H. E. Pagan, ‘The Pre-Reform Coinage of Edgar’, Edgar, King of the English 959–975: New Interpretations, ed. D. Scragg (Woodbridge, 2008), pp. 192–207; R. Naismith, ‘Prelude to Reform: Tenth-Century English Coinage in Perspective’, Early Medieval Monetary History: Studies in Memory of Mark Blackburn, ed. R. Naismith, M. R. Allen and E. Screen (Aldershot, 2014), pp. 39–83.] [8: The major resources are the Corpus of Early Medieval Coin Finds (EMC: http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/dept/coins/emc/) and the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS: https://finds.org.uk/). An important exploration of late Anglo-Saxon single-finds, written before the internet repositories became available, is D. M. Metcalf, An Atlas of Anglo-Saxon and Norman Coin Finds c. 973–1086 (London, 1998).] The first of these new developments is important for views of the inception of the late Anglo-Saxon currency. In general, it is now more prudent to see the reform of Edgar’s later years as one step in a process of evolution, rather than a great leap forward which left behind all that had gone before. Edgar’s reform was deeply rooted in earlier tenth-century practices.[footnoteRef:9] The principle of recognising the current West Saxon king, and using only his coins, had held firm in English territory since the time of Alfred the Great. Æthelstan attempted – albeit without complete or lasting success – to establish a single common type including the mint-name as well as the moneyer’s name across the expanding territory of the West Saxon dynasty.[footnoteRef:10] Edgar replicated Æthelstan’s Circumscription Cross and Bust Crowned types in the earlier part of his reign, before a more thoroughgoing reform near its end based on an adapted version of Æthelstan’s Bust Crowned type. Other rare types from the early part of Edgar’s reign resurrected designs from the preceding century, including the London monogram of Alfred and another rare cruciform inscription used by the same king.[footnoteRef:11] [9: Naismith, ‘Prelude’, pp. 80–3.] [10: C. E. Blunt, ‘The Coinage of Athelstan, King of England 924–939’, BNJ 42 (1974), 35–160, esp. 47–51.] [11: Blunt, Stewart and Lyon, Coinage, pp. 203–4; R. Naismith, ‘A New Pre-Reform Coin-Type of Edgar’, BNJ 86 (2016), 232–4 (cf. EMC 2014.0296).] Edgar’s last reform thus grew out of a time of experimentation and revival early in his reign, and represented a more ambitious and firm imposition of what earlier English kings had tried. There is no indication that a repeat performance was envisaged at this stage. Dolley took the maintenance of the newly established design under Edgar’s two sons, Edward the Martyr (975–8) and Æthelred II, as a signal that a full six-year cycle was being waited out.[footnoteRef:12] This was the one occasion in the period of the late Anglo-Saxon coinage when he accepted a coinage as continuing on a substantive scale across multiple reigns. But persistence of coin-types across reigns was perfectly standard in the earlier tenth century, and moreover there is considerable uncertainty about when Edgar’s reform actually took place. Dolley’s authority for dating it to 973 stemmed from Roger of Wendover’s Flores historiarum.[footnoteRef:13] This thirteenth-century text actually places the coin reform in 975, and associates it with events which other sources date to 973 or 974. This difference of a year or two is significant, for the sexennial system depended quite heavily on a beginning in 973.[footnoteRef:14] [12: Dolley and Metcalf, ‘Reform’, p. 152.] [13: R. H. M. Dolley, ‘Roger of Wendover’s Date for Eadgar’s Coinage Reform’, BNJ 49 (1979), 1–11.] [14: Naismith, ‘Prelude’, pp. 39–40.] The point of this is not to downplay Edgar’s reform. Edgar succeeded in enforcing a single design at all mints in the kingdom, with universal imposition of mint-names as well as moneyers’ names. His reform was a major landmark, but needs to be placed more fully in context. Above all, it should be seen as part of a long-term evolution, looking back to earlier tenth-century coinage, as well as to its successors in the time of Æthelred II. It was during the latter’s reign that the system of repeated recoinages developed, in fits and starts, as part of a looser, more adaptive mechanism than was envisaged by Dolley. The first new coinage of Æthelred, the so-called Hand type, illustrates how flexible the early stages of this new system were.[footnoteRef:15] According to Dolley’s scheme, there were two major and quite discrete Hand types (First and Second Hand) (Figures 2 and 3).[footnoteRef:16] A third and much rarer variant, Benediction Hand, seems to have emerged late in the duration of the coinage (Figure 4). As the name suggests, Benediction Hand was marked out by the hand on the reverse showing a blessing gesture, and by minor differences in the design of the sceptre on the obverse. But the division between First and Second Hand is less immediately obvious. On Second Hand, the king has a sceptre on the obverse, and additional pellets and curls are added on the reverse. These changes are small enough that users must have had difficulty in readily distinguishing one coinage from the other; a significant problem if the Second Hand type was meant to replace the first in general circulation. There are also oddities in the distribution of the Second Hand type. No specimens at all survive from Lincoln, and only a handful from York, both of which normally served as some of the most productive mints in the kingdom. Other northern and western mints are also poorly represented in the type, and at Lincoln and York there is some evidence that production of First Hand pennies continued while Second Hand prevailed in the south. Yet there are also signs that point towards Second Hand being a major undertaking. Moneyers at Rochester adapted their First Hand dies to look like those of Second Hand, implying there was some need to produce coins of this form,[footnoteRef:17] and a small number of English and Scandinavian hoards consist solely or largely of Second Hand pennies. These indicate that at least some users actively sought out coins of the type, and/or that they made up a dominant portion of the currency. [15: See Stewart, ‘Coinage and Recoinage’, pp. 471–4.] [16: E.g. Dolley, ‘Introduction’, pp. 121–2.] [17: R. H. M. Dolley, ‘An Unpublished Link between the First and Second Hand Types of Æthelræd II’, BNJ 35 (1966), 22–4] The best framework within which to interpret these coinages is one which allows for a degree of flexibility; one in which coin reforms were beginning to take place more frequently, but not yet on a fixed model or timetable. The extensive but not universal coinages of Æthelstan are probably the best parallel. The Hand types give the strong impression of rulers and moneyers still making it up as they went along, which would accord well with a more qualified view of Edgar’s reform. Second Hand probably represents an evolution rather than a replacement of First Hand; one which gained a significant amount of traction in some but not all parts of the kingdom. Between them, the three Hand types probably cover most or all of the 980s, with First Hand lasting somewhat longer than Second. Subsequent coinages were for the most part more discrete, though there were still aberrations which reinforce the impression of what an optimist would call adaptation, and a pessimist trial and error. Another large sub-type representing an evolution of a preceding coinage in its design and weight was the so-called Helmet type, which has traditionally been seen as the penultimate coinage in Æthelred’s reign.[footnoteRef:18] Smaller groups are equally revealing, for they show that new designs could be essayed but not put into full production. The so-called Intermediate Small Cross type (Figure 5) appeared during the much larger Crux type, and survives in only a tiny number of specimens, mostly from mints in the southwest, though a larger number of places dotted around the kingdom used obverse dies of this design with reverses of the Crux type: in other words, the Intermediate Small Cross dies were made and distributed, but for whatever reason the design was discontinued quickly in favour of the pre-existing type, suggesting that there was no fixed timetable for coin reforms at that point.[footnoteRef:19] Similar cases can be found as late as the final years of Edward the Confessor.[footnoteRef:20] The late Anglo-Saxon coinage was thus the product of a significantly longer and bumpier developmental process than Dolley advocated. Several of its features had grown out of earlier tenth-century coinages, Edgar’s reform added a higher level of unity, and the principle of repeated recoinages was a product of the reign of Æthelred II, with significant changes thereafter (not least more frequent recoinages in the period after Cnut’s death). [18: Brand, Periodic Change, pp. 30–1.] [19: Stewart, ‘Coinage and Recoinage’, p. 476; Dolley, ‘Introduction’, pp. 123–4; and R. H. M. Dolley and F. Elmore Jones, ‘An Intermediate Small Cross Issue of Æthelræd II and Some Late Varieties of the Crux Type’, BNJ 28 (1955–7), 75–87.] [20: B. H. I. H. Stewart and C. E. Blunt, ‘The Droitwich Mint and BMC Type XIV of Edward the Confessor’, BNJ 48 (1978), 52–7.] Another central pillar of the ‘sexennial thesis’ was the regularity of recoinages. No concrete evidence for an absolute date within any reign is given away by the coins themselves or any surviving text. Dolley therefore supported his chronology by associating hoards from England, Ireland and Scandinavia with specific viking raids, which (as was common in scholarship of the day) were thought of as the primary reason for the deposition and non-recovery of a hoard. But there is rarely anything to suggest that hoards were indeed the result of violent action, let alone historically recorded violent action, and these connections are best left to one side.[footnoteRef:21] Other proposals for the chronology of the coinage depend on tying the pattern of minting to known military and political events. This too is a treacherous exercise. For example, one of the best cases for dating the coinage revolves around the relocation of a group of moneyers from Wilton to the nearby hillfort of Old Sarum, the location of Salisbury until the thirteenth century. This shift coincided with the change from the Long Cross to the Helmet type under Æthelred II. It was suggested in the 1950s that a viking attack on Wilton recorded by the C, D and E versions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and other sources in the year 1003 was the occasion for the move from Wilton to Salisbury, seemingly fixing the date of one type-change.[footnoteRef:22] This remains an attractive argument in some respects, although the Chronicle also says that the viking army in 1003 went to Salisbury immediately after Wilton, and John of Worcester adds that they sacked it (though this may have been his own inference from reading the Chronicle entry);[footnoteRef:23] in other words, the move is unlikely to have taken place in the immediate context of the viking attack, though is entirely conceivable in the aftermath when the moneyers and others would have seen the attraction of a large hillfort. It is therefore only reasonable to use the sack of Wilton as a likely terminus post quem. [21: For a careful critique of this methodology see S. Armstrong, ‘Carolingian Coin-Hoards and the Impact of Viking Raids in the Ninth Century’, NChron 158 (1998), 131–64.] [22: R. H. M. Dolley, ‘The sack of Wilton in 1003 and the chronology of the “Long Cross” and “Helmet” types of Æthelræd II’, Nordisk Numismatisk Unions Medlemsblad 5 (May 1954), 152–6] [23: John of Worcester, Chronicon, s.a. 1003 (The Chronicle of John of Worcester, vol. 2: the Annals from 450 to 1066, ed. and trans. J. Bray, R. R. Darlington and P. McGurk (Oxford, 1995), pp. 454–5).] Two features of the coinage together form a more convincing case for dating another set of monetary changes to 1009. The first of these relates to the moneyers at Oxford and Wallingford. Coins of Æthelred II’s last major type, Last Small Cross, are very rare for both mints, and all known specimens can, on stylistic and metrological grounds, be assigned to the beginning of the type. Stewart Lyon has plausibly suggested that the abrupt cessation of the type results from the destruction of Oxford by vikings around New Year 1010, implying that the type had been introduced towards the end of 1009.[footnoteRef:24] The second piece of evidence relating to 1009 is the remarkable Agnus Dei coinage (Figure 6).[footnoteRef:25] Abandoning the traditional bust and cross designs, this issue instead places the Lamb of God on the obverse, and the Holy Dove (or, just possibly, an eagle) on the reverse.[footnoteRef:26] It is known from only 22 surviving specimens, struck at nine small to middling mint-places in an arc extending from the east midlands through Mercia down into Wessex. In relative chronological terms it clearly falls between Helmet and Last Small Cross. Several features of the Agnus Dei type had become characteristic of Æthelredian recoinages: it was noticeably heavier than the preceding Helmet issue, and introduced small yet influential variations in the legend. These features, above all the obvious religious message of the exceptional iconography, together suggest that the coinage was issued in connection with the events of late summer and autumn 1009 recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. After infighting had led the English fleet to disperse, a great viking raiding army appeared off the coast of Kent in August, and proceeded to fight and pillage its way across southeast England. Æthelred and his counsellors gathered in the safety of Bath, where they issued a law-code, now known as VII Æthelred, which called for prayers, alms and other acts of devotion from the populace so that God might spare them the wrath of the vikings.[footnoteRef:27] The Agnus Dei coinage would fit very well into this context. [24: C. S. S. Lyon, ‘The Significance of the Sack of Oxford in 1009/1010 for the Chronology of the Coinage of Æthelred II’, BNJ 35 (1966), 34–7. Wallingford is not specifically said to have been laid waste, although the Chronicle does note that the viking army ‘made their way then on both sides of the Thames’ (namon hit þa on twa healfe Temese) (ASC MS CDE, 1009 (Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel, ed. C. Plummer, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1892) I, 139; trans. EHD, p. 243)).] [25: S. Keynes and R. Naismith, ‘The Agnus Dei Pennies of King Æthelred the Unready’, ASE 40 (2011), 175–223.] [26: For the interpretation of the bird as an eagle, see D. Woods, ‘The Agnus Dei Penny of King Æthelred II: a Call to Hope in the Lord (Isaiah XL)?’, ASE 42 (2013), 299–309.] [27: Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ed. F. Liebermann, 3 vols. (Halle, 1903–16) I, 260–2. See S. Keynes, ‘An Abbot, an Archbishop, and the Viking Raids of 1006–7 and 1009–12’, ASE 36 (2007), 151–220, at 179–89.] Other arguments can be made for the dates of various late Anglo-Saxon coin-issues, but few can be made to stick with any force. Beyond regnal dates, it is quite simply impossible to assign absolute dates to most late Anglo-Saxon coinages. It is also, consequently, impossible to determine how regular new coinages were – though the complexities of the initial reform and Æthelred II’s Hand types and sudden changes of type at the deaths of kings or (probably) with Agnus Dei imply a degree of variation. Single-finds may now provide additional support for the proposition that coinages did not enjoy equal periods of circulation. As of 2010, a total of some 1,300 single-finds were known of coins minted between Edgar’s reform and the Norman Conquest.[footnoteRef:28] These probably represent individual, chance losses rather than deliberate concealments. More finds are of course coming to light all the time, but these tend to confirm rather than challenge the broad patterns of the existing sample. Small variations between the numbers of finds of different types are of uncertain significance, but larger ones are less easily explained away. Probably the most dramatic imbalance is in the reign of Cnut (1016–35). His three principal types – known as Quatrefoil, Helmet and Short Cross – have traditionally been assigned a roughly equal share of his nineteen-year reign. But the third type is known from dramatically more single-finds than the other two: 182 specimens (as of 2011), by far the most of any late Anglo-Saxon type, whereas the two preceding types are known from 57 and 53 finds respectively. Possible explanations for the burst of finds during Short Cross might include changes in patterns of trade and tribute payments which led to a higher proportion of output than usual being injected into domestic circulation,[footnoteRef:29] but the most straightforward explanation is that Short Cross simply lasted longer. [28: Based on the sample assessed in R. Naismith, ‘The English Monetary Economy, c. 973–1100: the Contribution of Single-Finds’, EconHR 66 (2013), 198–225.] [29: R. Naismith, ‘London and its Mint c. 880–1066: a Preliminary Survey’, BNJ 83 (2013), 44–74, at 57–8 and 68–9.] Single-finds are only of any help in assessing the duration of types, however, if it is possible to accept that all or most losses of a given type took place during its period of circulation. Were the frequent type-changes of late Anglo-Saxon England recoinages which replaced each other in circulation? Overall, it is likely that they were, albeit with some limitations. Michael Dolley and others have drawn attention to the large number of hoards deposited in England which consist of just one type.[footnoteRef:30] These account for about 55 per cent of all English hoards of the period, and range in date from the early days of Æthelred II’s reign to a small hoard made up entirely of Edward the Confessor’s last type, found hidden in the armpit of an execution victim near Winchester.[footnoteRef:31] On the whole, hoards from the time of Æthelred II and Cnut include more single-type deposits than the subsequent thirty years to the Norman Conquest, but the latter period includes several large and complex hoards associated with the events of 1066 (one of the few cases where military upheaval genuinely does seem to have left a large impact on hoard deposition) and moreover covers a period of more frequent changes in type. Many of the multi-type hoards consist of just two contiguous types, but there is also an appreciable number which contain a broader spread of more than two types, sometimes spanning several reigns or decades. Again, these occur throughout the period. A hoard from Lincolnshire of pennies of Æthelred II covered three or four early types,[footnoteRef:32] while the huge Lenborough hoard of over 5,000 coins consisted of a large parcel of Cnut’s last type alongside a cluster of pennies of several types of Æthelred minted some twenty or thirty years earlier.[footnoteRef:33] The mixed messages of late Anglo-Saxon hoards suggest two conclusions. On the one hand, there was always a general tendency towards use of the current type, most pronounced in small assemblages likely to reflect circulating currency. On the other, people clearly held savings which might go back decades. One way to account for these divergent tendencies would be to imagine a system in which the current type was needed for important but specific purposes such as payments to the king or which would be witnessed by others.[footnoteRef:34] These were enough to keep the current type circulating in force, such that it supported a large number of mints across England and made up the bulk of what people had in their purses at any one time. But the common retention of older coins indicates that people anticipated some use for them, perhaps in private transactions. Recoinages were thus major undertakings. People of high and low status across the kingdom would have frequently needed to gather up much of their moveable wealth and have it restruck with the new design. [30: See in particular Dolley and Metcalf, ‘Reform’, pp. 156–8.] [31: A full Checklist of Coin Hoards from the British Isles, c. 450–1180 is maintained at www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/dept/coins/projects/hoards/, with the Stockbridge Down (Hants.) hoard no. 251. See also M. Allen, Mints and Money in Medieval England (Cambridge, 2012), pp. 382–97.] [32: Welbourn, Lincs. (Checklist no. 189).] [33: Full publication of this find is forthcoming as of November 2016; for now see G. Williams, ‘A Hoard from the Reign of Cnut from Buckinghamshire: a Preliminary Report’, ASE 44 (2016 for 2015), 287–305.] [34: Stewart, ‘Coinage and Recoinage’, p. 468.] To a certain extent this relates to another well-known feature of the late tenth- and eleventh-century English coinage: the existence of many mints. In total, about 113 locations are named on coins as mint-places between the 970s and 1066. 85 of these can be identified with confidence, while 28 remain unlocated. Not all worked at once: the most active during any one coin-type is 72. Moreover, most mint-places seem to have been relatively small in scale and often operated briefly. Some are known from just one surviving coin. The bulk of production was in fact heavily concentrated in a much smaller number of locations – above all the major towns of eastern and southern England such as Lincoln, Stamford, York, Winchester and particularly London.[footnoteRef:35] For most of the late Anglo-Saxon period the top five mint-towns together account for between half and three-quarters of all single-finds discovered in England. It is important to note that all five of these mint-towns, together with virtually all others of any substantial size, were well established by the time of Edgar’s reform. The 52 mint-places named on coins from between Alfred’s later years and Edgar’s reform already cover roughly the same area as the later mints, stretching from Exeter and Dover to York and Chester. What the later period added was a multitude of smaller mint-places in the spaces between. They include a cluster in the southwest associated with the numerous towns of Somerset and neighbouring shires, and an interesting group of so-called emergency mints like Salisbury, set up as defended refuges during the periods of heaviest viking attacks under Æthelred II. [35: Naismith, ‘London’, pp. 56–8.] Put simply, the large network of late Anglo-Saxon mint-places was not a support system for recoinages. Recoinages of a dramatically larger English currency were carried out in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries on the basis of about a dozen or fewer mints.[footnoteRef:36] The numerous late Anglo-Saxon mints were also not concentrated in areas of particularly dense population or intense coin-circulation; East Anglia, for example, was one of the richest areas according to Domesday Book, but Norfolk and Suffolk had only four mints between them. The roles of different mint-places varied dramatically. London and York, for example, were probably driven by the demands of bustling cities with extensive overseas trade connections and important administrative roles. But most small mints were a function of local power and institutional geography. There was a strong connection between towns, even small ones, and minting, and any of them with a local goldsmith might be named on a few coins every now and then.[footnoteRef:37] In an important sense, late Anglo-Saxon mints were simply towns where moneyers worked, usually each in a separate workshop.[footnoteRef:38] A few hints also point to the influence of local elite patronage. One layman claimed the income from a moneyer at Stamford,[footnoteRef:39] and some of the small mints which are not situated in known towns may have been the creation of local landowners, suggesting that there was sometimes a greater degree of flexibility than is presented in the law-codes.[footnoteRef:40] Small mints and their operators undoubtedly benefited from recoinages, which is probably when they did much or all of their business, but it is unlikely they were set up with the intention of facilitating them. [36: Allen, Mints and Money, pp. 41–72; N. J. Mayhew, ‘From Regional to Central Minting, 1158–1464’, A New History of the Royal Mint, ed. C. E. Challis (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 83–178.] [37: Cf. Dolley and Metcalf, ‘Reform’, pp. 147–9.] [38: Brand, Periodic Change, pp. 45–50; Allen, Mints and Money, pp. 1–8.] [39: Charters of Peterborough Abbey, ed. S. Kelly, Anglo-Saxon Charters 14 (Oxford, 2009), no. 31 (xi).] [40: E.g. III Æthelred c. 8. 1 declares that nan mann ne age nænne mynetere buton cyng (‘no-one except the king shall have a moneyer’) (ed. Liebermann I, 230). II Æthelstan c. 14 (ed. Liebermann I, 158–9) stipulates that minting must take place in a town, while IV Æthelred c. 5. 4 (ed. Liebermann I, 234; a composite text of uncertain date) states that moneyers forfeit their lives for working in woods or other places (presumably outside towns) unless the king shows mercy. The latter are usually presumed to be forgers, but could have been working for patrons based nearby. See further E. Screen, ‘Anglo-Saxon Law and Numismatics: a Reassessment in the Light of Patrick Wormald’s The Making of English Law’, BNJ 77 (2007), 150–72.] The motives behind late Anglo-Saxon England’s many recoinages also remain opaque. Broadly speaking, the extraction of revenue for the king has been the dominant theme in scholarship.[footnoteRef:41] However, there is very little evidence for how much income was drawn from the coinage or in what way. Domesday Book refers to moneyers in 1066 who had to pay twenty shillings when a new coin-type came in and they had to collect fresh dies from London, possibly with another payment of similar scale soon after.[footnoteRef:42] There is no specific mention in any source of proportional income from output being taken.[footnoteRef:43] Yet on some level it is likely that one of the most puzzling features of the late Anglo-Saxon coinage relates to the manipulation of minting for profit: the weight of the penny. Late Roman and Carolingian legislation had stipulated that consistent weight was an integral feature of the coinage, crucial for distinguishing reliable currency and keyed into larger systems of weights and measures.[footnoteRef:44] Although modelled on Roman and Carolingian precedents in many respects, tenth- and eleventh-century English coinage departed from this principle. There was significant variation in weight both between and within coin-types. Generally it seems that early coins within a type were heavier and that mints in the west tended to make heavier coins than those in the east.[footnoteRef:45] Both factors probably relate to the interplay of supply and demand, and beg the question: cui bono? Weight variation of similar form can be traced back to well before Edgar’s reform, at least to the time of Æthelstan.[footnoteRef:46] Then and later, centralised management was apparent in nationwide tendencies for some types to be heavier or lighter, but the high degree of regional fluctuation points away from this being very prescriptive.[footnoteRef:47] Indeed, a lot of the responsibility for deciding how much silver to put into each coin fell to individual mints or even moneyers, which on the face of it suggests that the initiative lay at this level. Weight variation may have been the way in which moneyers profited from their work. In 1066, according to Domesday Book, the king’s profit would have included the flat fees charged on moneyers at the time of recoinage, and earls benefited from these too by means of the third penny levied on urban dues.[footnoteRef:48] In addition to this, the king may also have had the special privilege of commanding payment in forms other than simply counting out coins. This appears to be how most Anglo-Saxons operated, even before 1066. Laws stipulated that one good penny had to be accepted for another,[footnoteRef:49] and hoards do not seem to show evidence of users systematically extracting low-weight coins. But Domesday Book shows royal estates sometimes using different means of payment besides ad numerum, ‘by number/account’: the king could demand payment by weight or by assay – that is, melted and purified. The latter meant, in 1066, a surcharge of 30 per cent in terms of the number of pennies needed.[footnoteRef:50] [41: E.g. Stewart, ‘English and Norman’, pp. 55–8.] [42: References are collected in P. Grierson, ‘Domesday Book, the Geld de moneta and monetagium: a Forgotten Minting Reform’, BNJ 55 (1985), 84–94, at 85–7.] [43: R. Naismith, Money and Power in Anglo-Saxon England: the Southern English Kingdoms 757–865 (Cambridge, 2012), p. 43, assembles references to proportional income from minting in early medieval Europe.] [44: M. F. Hendy, Studies in the Byzantine Monetary Economy, c. 300–1450 (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 329–38; K. F. Morrison and H. Grunthal, Carolingian Coinage (New York, 1967), pp. 35–7; and W. Kula, Measures and Men, trans. R. Szreter (Princeton, 1986), pp. 161–4.] [45: Metcalf, Atlas, pp. 66–9 and 133; Keynes and Naismith, ‘Agnus Dei’, p. 189.] [46: Naismith, ‘Prelude’, pp. 68–70.] [47: Critical for assessment of weight standards are the tables in H. B. A. Petersson, ‘Coins and Weights. Late Anglo-Saxon Pennies and Mints, c. 973–1066’, in Studies, ed. Jonsson, pp. 207–433.] [48: For the following points, see now S. Harvey, Domesday: Book of Judgement (Oxford, 2014), pp. 133–60.] [49: Screen, ‘Anglo-Saxon Law’.] [50: DB I, f. 16r.] The king could, if he wished, probably use these means to bring in quite a substantial sum. But it is worth pausing to consider how the exercise of recoinage was viewed. It was not necessarily a money-making scheme in the sense of profit, or at least not primarily. Datable recoinages point in several directions. New types seem to have been the norm when new kings from Cnut onwards took the throne.[footnoteRef:51] The case of the Agnus Dei coinage also suggests that the exercise could be undertaken at a time of dire and unforeseen need. What stands out is the coinage’s capacity to adapt swiftly to changing circumstances, especially at the highest political level. Late Anglo-Saxon legislation and religious literature strongly supports this view of a symbolically charged and highly responsive monetary system.[footnoteRef:52] Recoinage was hence on one level a practical exercise which could produce royal income, but on another it was an affirmation of the high expectations for society expressed in charters, religious tracts and other sources.[footnoteRef:53] Forgery of the king’s coinage was a deep concern, recoinage being the best defence against it in the view of the ruling authorities. Works associated with Archbishop Wulfstan in particular refer a number of times to recoinage with the term feos bot, ‘improvement of the coinage’. Wulfstan put feos bot alongside improvement of the peace, friðes bot, and avoidance of heinous crimes such as theft, treachery and adultery.[footnoteRef:54] As is well known, Wulfstan was partly driven by a taste for alliteration as well as by zeal to improve English morals, but his discussion of the coinage placed it at the heart of general concern with the spiritual wellbeing of the kingdom.[footnoteRef:55] How often kings actually patterned their actions on such teachings is a matter of debate. But it is probable that the coinage, as a relatively direct tool of royal policy, was subject to moral and religious motives as well as financial ones, and of course all of these could combine in different ways under different circumstances. [51: It should be noted, however, that Edmund Ironside apparently never issued any coins in 1016, and small numbers of coins using the type of the previous king were struck for Harold I and Edward the Confessor.] [52: Keynes and Naismith, ‘Agnus Dei’, pp. 197–9.] [53: A point developed in R. Naismith, ‘The Coinage of Æthelred II: a New Evaluation’, English Studies 97 (2016), 117–39, esp. 125–32.] [54: See V Æthelred, c. 26. 1; VI Æthelred, c. 31, 32. 1–2; II Cnut, c. 8 (ed. Liebermann I, 242–3, 254–5 and 314–15); also Wulfstan: Sammlung der ihm zugeschriebenen Homilien nebst Untersuchungen über ihre Echtheit, ed. A. Napier (Berlin, 1883), pp. 271–2 (no. L).] [55: D. Whitelock, ‘Wulfstan, Homilist and Statesman’, TRHS, 4th ser., 24 (1942), 25–45, at 42–4; also P. Wormald, ‘Archbishop Wulfstan: Eleventh-Century State-Builder’, Wulfstan, Archbishop of York: the Proceedings of the Second Alcuin Conference, ed. M. Townend (Turnhout, 2004), pp. 9–27, at 21–4. ] It was this coinage that constituted one of the most impressive characteristics of the late Anglo-Saxon ‘state’, as described most famously by Sir Frank Stenton and James Campbell.[footnoteRef:56] Both came to the subject in the wake of the phenomenal burst of activity by Dolley and his colleagues, at a time when the sexennial thesis was generally accepted. They set the currency alongside Domesday Book and other aspects of late Anglo-Saxon infrastructure as evidence for the ambition and reach of royal government, tantamount to a ‘state’. The more limited view of the coinage outlined above consequently has ramifications for interpretation of the later tenth- and eleventh-century kingdom of England as a whole. [56: F. M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd ed. (Oxford, 1971), pp. 535–7, Preparatory to Anglo-Saxon England: being the Collected Papers of Frank Merry Stenton, ed. D. M. Stenton (Oxford, 1970), pp. 374–5; and J. Campbell, Essays in Anglo-Saxon History (London, 1986), pp. 155–89, and The Anglo-Saxon State (London, 2000).] It should first be stressed that the coinage still retains considerable force as a gauge for the scale and effectiveness of late Anglo-Saxon government. None of the points made here seriously shake or stir the estimation of the monetary system. The major qualification relates to how the coinage evolved and fitted into other aspects of thought and administration. The monetary system probably did not appear fully formed in one go, but was the product of a long background of development in the tenth century and a generation of particularly intense elaboration under Edgar and in the early years of Æthelred II. The coinage project of this time fits comfortably into a concern for unity and an affirmation of the Christian responsibilities of kingship in a realm which was, in its current form, still quite newly established.[footnoteRef:57] Probably the most prominent manifestation of this outlook comes in texts associated with the so-called Benedictine reform circle. The Regularis concordia celebrated the role of the king at the head of a network of reformed monastic houses, and the vernacular tract known as Edgar’s Establishment of Monasteries praised Edgar for bringing the divided kingdom of 957–9 back together.[footnoteRef:58] St Æthelwold, who probably drafted both these texts, along with St Dunstan, enjoyed close contact with the royal household and influenced aspects of Edgar and the young Æthelred’s rule. They had both the outlook and the position needed to help steer modification of the coinage over the course of several decades.[footnoteRef:59] [57: G. Molyneaux, The Formation of the English Kingdom in the Tenth Century (Oxford, 2015), pp. 182–99 and 216–30; and Naismith, ‘Prelude’, pp. 80–3.] [58: Regularis concordia, prologue ch. 4 (Consuetudinum saeculi X/XI/XII monumenta non-Cluniacensia, ed. T. Symons, rev. S. Spath, M. Wegener and K. Hallinger, Corpus Consuetudinum Monasticarum 7.3 (Siegburg, 1984), p. 71); Councils and Synods, with Other Documents Relating to the English Church 871–1204, ed. D. Whitelock, C. Brooke and M. Brett, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1981) I, 146–7. For the latter text, see now D. Pratt, ‘The Voice of the King in “King Edgar’s Establishment of Monasteries”’, ASE 41 (2013), 145–204.] [59: Molyneaux, Formation, pp. 189–93; B. A. E. Yorke, ‘Æthelwold and the Politics of the Tenth Century’, Bishop Æthelwold: his Career and Influence, ed. B. A. E. Yorke (Woodbridge, 1988), pp. 65–88; N. P. Brooks, ‘The Career of St Dunstan’, in his Anglo-Saxon Myths: State and Church 400–1066 (London, 2000), pp. 155–80; and M. Winterbottom and M. Lapidge, The Early Lives of St Dunstan (Oxford, 2012), pp. xx–xlii.] The mature form of the late Anglo-Saxon monetary system, as it emerged by about the 990s, was a versatile entity. Despite severe viking attacks later in the reign of Æthelred II, royal strife in the mid-1030s and even the Norman Conquest in 1066, the system persevered. The coinage provides an important example of an institution vested in local agents dispersed over a wide area which was at the same time highly responsive to the actions of the central authority.[footnoteRef:60] The late Anglo-Saxon monetary system must have come into being because there was both a will and a way at several levels in society, and a determination to keep the system on track. Campbell’s point remains valid: if late Anglo-Saxon government was able to do this with the coinage, much the same could have been accomplished in other less well evidenced arenas.[footnoteRef:61] Timothy Reuter rightly noted the risk of inferring too much from a single sphere such as coinage,[footnoteRef:62] but the benefit of the coinage is surely that, while its relatively good level of survival (governed by forces quite separate from those which affected charters and manuscripts) makes it an important source for modern historians, there is no sign that contemporaries thought of it as a uniquely well-managed aspect of life. If it really was so unrepresentative, it has left a faint footprint in a relatively large body of written material. When the monetary system does feature in Domesday Book or late Anglo-Saxon law-codes, it is in a relatively minor way, alongside a great deal else described in much the same vein. Hence there is good cause to wonder whether the evidently efficient methods of co-ordinating activity at over a hundred mint-places were similar to those used for the distribution of writs and collection of heregeld.[footnoteRef:63] [60: Stenton, Preparatory, p. 374.] [61: E.g. Campbell, Anglo-Saxon State, pp. 32–3.] [62: T. Reuter, Medieval Politics & Modern Mentalities, ed. J. L. Nelson (Cambridge, 2006), p. 290.] [63: For discussion of this see [Pratt in this volume].] In other words, the coinage is representative of a core cluster of functions and powers which later Anglo-Saxon kings could use to make their presence felt in a real and sometimes very forceful way across a large swathe of the kingdom, with looser forms of overlordship beyond.[footnoteRef:64] These functions and powers had developed in response to specific circumstances. The coinage is a very good example of this; so, too, is the heregeld, an annual tax to support viking mercenaries which appeared in 1012 during a time of crisis but persisted for generations to come.[footnoteRef:65] Implementation of both the coinage and the heregeld involved brutal consequences for those who did not participate. Severe fines, even mutilation, were stipulated for those caught forging false coin, and for those who refused good coin. The city of Worcester was ravaged when its inhabitants killed two tax-collectors in 1041.[footnoteRef:66] This dimension of royal power could leave an impressive footprint in silver and in ink, but also in blood. Effective authority came at a price. [64: G. Molyneaux, ‘Why Were Some Tenth-Century English Kings Presented as Rulers of Britain?’, TRHS, 6th ser., 21 (2011), 59–91, at 80–91; and Formation, pp. 2–9 and 15–47.] [65: C. Wickham, ‘Lineages of Western European Taxation, 1000–1200’, Actes. Colloqui Corona: municipis i fiscalitat a la baixa Edat Mitjana, ed. M. Sánchez and A. Furió (Lleida, 1997), pp. 25–42, at 28–32; and L. Roach, Kingship and Consent in Anglo-Saxon England, 871–978: Assemblies and the State in the Early Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2013), pp. 216–17.] [66: ASC MS CD, 1041.] The term ‘state’ carries a great deal of baggage, not least in a medieval context. Both the concept and the word need to be handled with care, as Sarah Foot, Susan Reynolds and others have stressed.[footnoteRef:67] Anglo-Saxon England’s royal government was robust and durable, weathering multiple invasions and changes of dynasty; it was thus not bound to any one king or family, and so invites conceptualisation as a ‘state’ based on the specific circumstances of tenth- and eleventh-century England.[footnoteRef:68] The ‘nation-state’ is just one possible dimension of the term, though it is the one which has been explicitly or implicitly central to consideration of late Anglo-Saxon England.[footnoteRef:69] But there can also be a nanny state or a welfare state, referring to a particular outlook or area of activity for the ruling authorities rather than a totalising definition for the polity as a whole.[footnoteRef:70] This is of course to transplant yet more labels and ideas from one period to another, but might be a helpful way to see late Anglo-Saxon kingship operating. In this sense, kingship itself comes close to being the state. The coinage, collection of heregeld and nation-wide tribute payments, and some aspects of legislation and documentation stand out as key means of the king implementing his will across the kingdom, through the support of numerous local agents of different levels of prominence.[footnoteRef:71] Oaths and pledges helped cement a general allegiance to the crown.[footnoteRef:72] No one group in society was charged with direct responsibility for all these areas. Rather, the burden of maintaining the king’s prerogatives was spread quite widely. Ealdormen and earls seem to have had little to do with minting except a slice of the profits,[footnoteRef:73] for example, while shire and other reeves had separate duties,[footnoteRef:74] as did moneyers. Dispersal of responsibility for the machinery of royal government created mutually supporting pillars, each depending on the others. No hard and fast line should be drawn for where a nanny state, or perhaps better schoolmaster state, version of the late Anglo-Saxon kingdom began and ended. There was evidently a great deal the royal regime could not do, or did not want to do. Local agents supportive of the regime in one context could challenge it in others. Law-codes tend to foreground a relatively regularised vision of justice, whereas dispute settlements show that things were much more variable on the ground, and engagement with the royal establishment very selective.[footnoteRef:75] If there was an Anglo-Saxon state, it needs to be seen as one aspect and perspective of life in the kingdom; more than a glint in the eye of the kings and top-level counsellors who lay at its apex, yet less than the totality of all that lay between the Channel and the debatable lands of the north. [67: S. Foot, ‘The Historiography of the Anglo-Saxon “Nation-State”’, Power and the Nation in European History, ed. L. E. Scales and O. Zimmer (Cambridge, 2005), 125–42; and S. Reynolds, ‘The Historiography of the Medieval State’, The Routledge Companion to Historiography, ed. M. Bentley (London, 1997), pp. 117–38.] [68: S. Baxter, ‘The Limits of the Late Anglo-Saxon State’, Der frühmittelalterliche Staat – europäische Perspektiven, ed. W. Pohl (Vienna, 2009), pp. 503–14; and Reuter, Medieval Polities, p. 290.] [69: Foot, ‘Historiography’.] [70: R. Davies, ‘The Medieval State: the Tyranny of a Concept?’, Journal of Historical Sociology 16 (2003), 280–300, esp. 283–93; with S. Reynolds, ‘There were States in Medieval Europe: a Response to Rees Davies’, Journal of Historical Sociology 16 (2003), 550–5.] [71: Cf. Campbell, Anglo-Saxon State, pp. 201–25.] [72: M. Ammon, ‘“Ge mid wedde ge mid aðe”: the Functions of Oath and Pledge in Anglo-Saxon Legal Culture’, Historical Research 86 (2013), 515–35; Molyneaux, Formation, pp. 63–5; and P. Wormald, ‘Papers Preparatory to The Making of English Law: King Alfred to the Twelfth Century. Volume II: from God’s law to Common Law’, ed. S. Baxter and J. G. H. Hudson (London, 2014), pp. 112–29.] [73: S. Baxter, The Earls of Mercia: Lordship and Power in Late Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 2007), pp. 74–124.] [74: C. Cubitt, ‘“As the Lawbook Teaches”: Reeves, Lawbooks and Urban Life in the Anonymous Old English Legend of the Seven Sleepers’, EHR 124 (2009), 1021–49, at 1034–43; and A. Williams, Kingship and Government in Pre-Conquest England, c. 500–1066 (Basingstoke, 1999), pp. 108–13.] [75: P. Wormald, The Making of English Law, King Alfred to the Twelfth Century, vol. 1: Legislation and its Limits (Oxford, 1999), pp. 430–65; Wormald, ‘Papers Preparatory’, pp. 8–11; and Roach, Kingship, pp. 122–46.] Figure 2: Æthelred II (978–1016), First Hand type, Canterbury mint, moneyer Leofstan (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge: CM.YG.3195-R). Figure 3: Æthelred II (978–1016), Second Hand type, London mint, moneyer Ásketill (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge: CM.5.62-1933). Figure 4: Æthelred II (978–1016), Benediction Hand type, Rochester mint, moneyer Siduwine (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge: CM.1.679-1990). Figure 5: Æthelred II (978–1016), Intermediate Small Cross type, Wilton mint, moneyer Sæwine (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge: CM.1920-2003). Figure 6: Æthelred II (978–1016), Agnus Dei type, Salisbury mint, moneyer Sæwine (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge: CM.1-2009). 1 /docProps/thumbnail.emf 1 The Historian and Anglo - Saxon Coinage: the Case of Late Anglo - Saxon England Rory Naismith One of the great strengths of Anglo - Saxon historical scholarship has been a long - standing willingness to engage with diverse sources, including material culture. Coinage in particular has played a prominent role. Since the 1950s, when Michael Dolley (1925 – 83 ) and his colleagues started to forge links between a new generation of Anglo - Saxon numismatists and the historical establishment, later Anglo - Saxon coinage has gradually taken on a central role in study of the administrative and institutional aspects of tenth - and eleventh - century England. 1 This is consequently a very fitting subject for inclusion in a volume in honour of Simon Keynes. Simon has served since 2003 as chairman of the British Academy’s Sylloge of Coins of the British Isles project, with pre decessors including his own PhD supervisor Dorothy Whitelock (1901 – 82) and her mentor, Sir Frank Stenton (1880 – 1967). Even more so than most other Anglo - Saxon historians, Simon has taken full account of coinage in his research, on rulers from Offa (757 – 96) and Alfred the Great (871 – 99) to Æthelred II (978 – 1016). His integration of numismatic sources, and critical engagement with them, stands as an example to all his colleagues and students who work on Anglo - Saxon history. It is in this spirit that the pres ent contribution looks afresh at the segment of Anglo - Saxon coinage which has been at the heart of the modern entente cordiale of historians and numismatists: the late Anglo - Saxon currency . Dolley’s view of the subject (sometimes 1 M. Blackburn, ‘Stenton and Anglo - Saxon Numismatics’ , Anglo - Saxon England Fifty Years On , ed. D. Matthew (Reading, 1994), pp. 61 – 81 . 1 The Historian and Anglo-Saxon Coinage: the Case of Late Anglo-Saxon England Rory Naismith One of the great strengths of Anglo-Saxon historical scholarship has been a long-standing willingness to engage with diverse sources, including material culture. Coinage in particular has played a prominent role. Since the 1950s, when Michael Dolley (1925–83) and his colleagues started to forge links between a new generation of Anglo-Saxon numismatists and the historical establishment, later Anglo-Saxon coinage has gradually taken on a central role in study of the administrative and institutional aspects of tenth- and eleventh-century England. 1 This is consequently a very fitting subject for inclusion in a volume in honour of Simon Keynes. Simon has served since 2003 as chairman of the British Academy’s Sylloge of Coins of the British Isles project, with predecessors including his own PhD supervisor Dorothy Whitelock (1901–82) and her mentor, Sir Frank Stenton (1880–1967). Even more so than most other Anglo-Saxon historians, Simon has taken full account of coinage in his research, on rulers from Offa (757–96) and Alfred the Great (871–99) to Æthelred II (978– 1016). His integration of numismatic sources, and critical engagement with them, stands as an example to all his colleagues and students who work on Anglo-Saxon history. It is in this spirit that the present contribution looks afresh at the segment of Anglo- Saxon coinage which has been at the heart of the modern entente cordiale of historians and numismatists: the late Anglo-Saxon currency. Dolley’s view of the subject (sometimes 1 M. Blackburn, ‘Stenton and Anglo-Saxon Numismatics’, Anglo-Saxon England Fifty Years On, ed. D. Matthew (Reading, 1994), pp. 61–81.