Anglo-Saxon

Portable Antiquities Scheme -Edward the Confessor – Expanding Cross Type – Hugh Pagan

As readers of a previous note by me on this blog will be aware, I am currently looking into the Expanding Cross type of Edward the Confessor, with a view to determining the relative chronological order of its Heavy and Light phases. In the process I have reviewed the evidence for the type supplied by coins reported to the Portable Antiquities Scheme, and it seems to me that it would be helpful to provide the numismatic community with a list of the coins concerned, with updated attributions and other relevant comment. If other readers of this blog with specialist knowledge of the issues of particular mints can assist with attributions for coins which I have so far failed to identify either in whole or in part, I would be most grateful. Click here to read the article

A Moneyer for Edward the Confessor Created by a Printing Error – by Hugh Pagan

This article explains how a printers’ error mistakenly led to a belief amongst some numismatists that Edward the Confessor’s Expanding Cross type included coins from the moneyer Wulfwine at Wallingford.  This was based on an erroneous auction catalogue entry dating back to 1955 that referred to PVLFPINE ON PALI (Wallingford). Wulfwine was in consequence listed as a moneyer for the Wallingford mint in this type both by Dr Anthony Freeman, writing in 1985, and by Kenneth Jonsson and the late Gay Van der Meer in their authoritative listing in 1990 of mints and moneyers for the period between c.973 and 1066. Click here to read the article.

The Large Cnut Hoard of the 1990’s – Hugh Pagan

In 1995 a Stockholm auction house offered a parcel of 319 coins of Cnut evidently deriving from a single hoard. The coins were of three consecutive types, Quatrefoil, Pointed Helmet and Small Cross, and the geographical pattern of the mints represented within the parcel pointed clearly to this being a portion of the very large hoard of coins of this reign found c.1993, possibly in the Cambridge area. The parcel offered for sale in this Stockholm auction was small in relation to the likely size of the hoard as a whole and was probably broadly representative of the date range and geographical spread of the coins represented in the hoard as a whole. This article provides a summary listing putting on record the content of the Stockholm parcel, as in the twenty-five year period since the hoard’s presumed discovery no formal publication of any portion of it has been put into the public domain. It is hoped that the appearance

read more The Large Cnut Hoard of the 1990’s – Hugh Pagan

A Parcel from a Small Hoard of Coins of Eadmund of East Anglia – Hugh Pagan

In March 1995 I made a note of a group of five coins of Eadmund of East Anglia shown to me on a visit to the Baldwin firm by the late Michael Sharp. The coins had come to the firm as a group, with no other accompanying coins, and it is reasonable to suppose that they had been found together.  The present-day whereabouts of these coins is unknown to me, but they doubtless ended up in the possession of a customer or customers of the Baldwin firm, and maybe the present note will jog the memory of one or more readers of this blog. Details of the coins are provided in this brief article. Click here to access the article.

Lidanport: a New Mint-Place for Edgar’s Pre-Reform Coinage by Rory Naismith

This article discusses a coin which recently came to the author’s attention, and which was found near Nizy-le-Comte, dép. Aisne, France, 2018. It forms part of a growing body of Anglo-Saxon coin-finds from France. However, having been found outside the UK, it is not included in the major British-based corpora of coin-finds such as the EMC or PAS. The coin in question is a silver penny of the ‘Circumscription Cross’ type, which was widely produced in Edgar’s reign (959–75) prior to the major coin-reform of the early 970s. The most intriguing feature of this coin is the name of the mint-place found on the reverse, which is otherwise unknown in the reign of Edgar or indeed of all Anglo-Saxon kings. This coin therefore represents a new mint-place for the reign. CLICK HERE TO READ THE RESEARCH NOTE To provide comments on the article please scroll down to the bottom of this page.