The Lenborough Hoard

Dr Rory Naismith writes:


This week, a selection of items from the Lenborough hoard goes on display at the British Museum. 

It is the largest coin hoard ever to be considered under the Treasure Act of 1996, consisting of 5,251 silver pennies (and two cut halfpennies). The find came to light on 21 December 2014, during a metal-detecting rally at Lenborough in Buckinghamshire. Part of its excavation was filmed by one of the detectorists present. Initial digging uncovered the coins inside a lead container, but they were removed from this in the course of excavation. They are currently being kept at the British Museum, awaiting the result of a coroner’s inquest to determine whether the find constitutes treasure. 

The Lenborough Hoard

The hoard consists largely of pennies of King Cnut (1016–35), of the so-called ‘Short Cross’ type. This was the last of three substantive coin-issues in his reign. However, the hoard also includes an earlier clutch of material from the time of Cnut’s predecessor, Æthelred II (978–1016). These span the second half of his reign, and include one specimen of the excessively rare and historically important ‘Agnus Dei’ type, probably issued in 1009 as part of a programme of prayer and penitence to ward off viking attack.

 Until full publication, it is difficult to evaluate the exact context of the hoard. It belongs to a period when recoinages were being undertaken frequently, recycling the bulk of the currency – though, as in this case, collections of earlier coinage could sometimes be held back as savings or for private usage. The Lenborough find may shed light on how and why some coin-users retained earlier currency. Unfortunately, there is no obvious clue to the identity of its owner, or to the context of its assemblage, concealment and non-recovery. It was no small sum, however. 5,252 pennies amounted to £21 17s 8d in the contemporary system of account. A single penny during this period had considerable buying power – probably tens of modern pounds sterling or Euros – and the total content of the Lenborough hoard was more than most estates recorded in Domesday Book would be expected to produce in a year. It is clearly a lot more than most of the population would ever have handled on one occasion. That said, for the elite of late Anglo-Saxon England the Lenborough hoard would not have been an exceptional sum. The king and leading earls in 1066 were bringing in several thousand pounds a year, and in around 1037, just a few years after the hoard was concealed, the archbishop of Canterbury bought land at Godmersham in Kent for 72 marks of silver by weight – that is, at least 11,520 pennies (the equivalent of two Lenborough hoards). A shrine made for the Old Minster at Winchester in honour of St Swithun under the patronage of King Edgar (959–75) was said in a detailed description written soon after to have contained 300 lbs in precious metal.

The Lenborough hoard is impressive in its scale, and provides a precious insight into the currency of the eleventh century; but at the same time, it is a sobering reminder of just how much silver and gold was available in late Anglo-Saxon England – and of just how much might yet await discovery.

Important New Anglo-Saxon Coin: Update

The rare penny of Ætheberht II reported here last month has now been given on long-term loan to the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, by a private collector. It will go on display to the public shortly.

Money and its Use in Early Medieval Europe

ASNC Research Fellow Dr. Rory Naismith has written the inaugural post for the Past and Present Society's new blog. You can read the post, which is based on Rory's recent article in the journal Past and Present, by clicking here.

Important new Anglo-Saxon coin

Dr Rory Naismith writes:

Later in June 2014, an important Anglo-Saxon coin is due to be sold at auction by Dix, Noonan and Webb in London. It was discovered in March this year by a metal-detector user who promptly brought his find to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge for identification. There, it was quickly identified as the fourth known penny of Æthelberht II, king of the East Angles: a ruler who was executed by order of Offa, king of the Mercians (757–96), in 794, and who went on to be the object of veneration as a saint. It was also included in the Corpus of Early Medieval coin-finds.

The three pennies of Æthelberht known before this find all carry a well-known design showing the king’s bust on one face and a wolf and twins on the other, recalling Romulus and Remus, the twins responsible for the founding of Rome, but possibly also playing on the name of the traditional East Anglian royal dynasty, the Wuffingas (‘Wolfings’). This new coin carries a completely new design of elegant cruciform motifs on both obverse and reverse, as was common on the coins of other contemporary rulers, not least Offa. It demonstrates effectively how even one new coin might modify understanding of a poorly known ruler. In this case, the new coin indicates that Æthelberht’s coinage was more diverse than had previously been supposed, and that not all his coins carried such symbolically charged iconography. They emerge as something more than a special one-off issue to call attention to the king’s status. That said, Æthelberht apparently only ever had one moneyer – a man named Lul – working for him, whereas Offa had several at any one time in the same (or a nearby) mint-place in East Anglia. Æthelberht’s coinage was a relatively small enterprise, and its relationship to Offa’s own coinage remains unclear. Its proclamation of a rival king’s royal status surely would not have gone unnoticed by Offa. On the other hand, Æthelberht’s execution in 794 was only the final stage in their interactions: things may not always have been so antagonistic, and a comparatively diverse coinage for Æthelberht perhaps points to toleration on Offa’s part, conceivably over a period of several years. Further clarification can only come from further new coin-finds.

Sir Frank Stenton (1880–1967), The Anglo-Saxon Coinage and the Historian

Dr Rory Naismith writes:

Sir Frank Stenton was professor of history at the University of Reading, and a leading scholar of Anglo-Saxon history in the twentieth century. He is best known as the author of Anglo-Saxon England, still widely regarded as the leading survey of the subject. Stenton possessed an abiding interest in the conjunctures between Anglo-Saxon history and numismatics, and served as founding chairman of the British Academy's Sylloge of Coins of the British Isles committee (1956–66).

On 28 April 1958, Stenton addressed the British Numismatic Society on the points of contact between numismatics and history in the study of Anglo-Saxon England. Dr Stewart Lyon made a recording of this lecture (approximately 75 minutes in length), which has now been digitized and made available as an MP3 on the British Numismatic Society’s website. An annotated text adapted from this recording is included in a posthumous collection of Stenton’s papers, Preparatory to Anglo-Saxon England: Being the Collected Papers of Frank Merry Stenton, edited by Doris Mary Stenton (Oxford, 1970), pp. 371–82.

Conference report: 'Converting the Landscape'

Dr Brittany Schorn writes:

The ‘Converting the Isles Network’, based in the Department and supported by the Leverhulme Trust, held its fourth colloquium on the 22^nd and 23^rd of March at Bangor University. Despite somewhat hazardous travel conditions due to an unexpected freeze, all participants managed to make it to what turned out to be an extremely productive gathering. The subject, ‘Coverting the Landscape’, was considered from the perspective of different regions and methodologies, and led to an extremely productive and stimulating discussion of fundamental questions about the nature of Christian conversion.

The colloquium began with a session on burial evidence and problems of interpretation. Elizabeth O’Brien considered the variety of burial practices in early Christian Ireland, focusing in particular on the practice of inserting burials into ‘ferta’. She stressed that this could be read as a political rather than a religious statement, as it provided a means by which important people and newcomers could be incorporated into the existing landscape. Adrián Maldonado provided a fascinatingly nuanced discussion of Pictish barrow types, highlighting regional differences and also pointing out the difficulty in identifying the influence of Christianity itself with certainty. 

In the second session of the morning, Tomás Ó Carragáin and Morten Søvsø spoke on the difficulties involved in identifying ecclesiastical landscapes. Tomás Ó Carragáin examined the problem of how scholars can quantify the density of churches in the landscape in relation to secular sites, pointing out methodological problems that may significantly skew the broad pattern. Morten Søvsø spoke on recent and ongoing excavations at the church-site in Ribe, likely the oldest church in Denmark, which have important implications for our understanding of the history of the church in Viking-Age Denmark. 

Friday afternoon Nancy Edwards led a freezing, but fascinating, excursion to view inscribed stones on Anglesey. Moving through the southwestern part of the island, we took a chronological tour of the development of these inscriptions.

Our discussion of stone monuments continued as the subject of the opening session of the second day of the colloquium. Meggen Gondek discussed the distribution of the different classes of Pictish symbol stones, focusing in particular on a series of sites in Aberdeenshire, demonstrating what they can reveal as evidence of changing religious practice. Cecilia Ljung then examined a phase of early Christian stone grave monuments in Sweden, dated to a very limited period in the 11^th century. She considered their relationship to the already significant runic memorial tradition and using Västergötland and Øland as case studies, stressed regional differences in the nature of the church and conversion.

The next session, on technology as a tool of conversion, looked at the way that the conversion affected agricultural organisation and production. Thomas McErlean described the revolutionary changes that accompanied the introduction of mechanical mills at Nendrum, as well as improvements to the exploitation of fishing, forest clearing, and agricultural organisation that monasteries brought. Gabor Thomas then looked at the relationship between monastic foundations and intensification of rural production in Kent, taking the case study of Lyminge: a monastery which is currently the subject of a major interedisciplinary research project.   

Rory Naismith continued the theme of technology and economic impact through examination of monetization in relation to Christianization. He examined a series of areas across northern Europe, in each of which coinage enjoyed a different relationship with religious development. Finally, Lesley Abrams closed the colloquium’s papers with a review of the fascinating question of when and how the Vikings of Dublin converted to Christianity. Several important questions emerged of how conversion is to be defined and contextualized, which led effectively into the closing discussion.

The colloquium ended with a lively roundtable discussion of questions such as: is it possible to distinguish belief from the institution of the Church in the surviving evidence? What is the minimum requirement to identify as Christian and how did missionaries perceive their goals? And to what extent did economic change follow ideology?

The Network now looks forward to our final colloquium to be held in Cambridge on the 19^th–21^st of September 2013. The subject will be ‘The Isles and the Wider World’ and confirmed speakers include Rowan Williams, Bernhard Maier, Chris Wickham, James Palmer, Sven Meeder, Ingrid Rembold, Geneviève Bührer-Thierry, Jörn Staecker, Stanislaw Rosik, Jean-Michel Picard, Sébastian Bully, Krisztina Szilagyi, and Tomas Sundnes Dronen. A full programme will shortly be available from our website here, along with registration information.

Final congratulations of 2012

Hoping that all our readers are enjoying the holiday season, here's a final round-up of good news from the ASNC department:

Dr Rory Naismith, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in ASNC, has been awarded the 2012 Jan H. Nordbø scholarship and medal by the Norwegian Numismatic Society. This prestigious award exists to bring foreign scholars of numismatics to give a lecture in Norway. On 30 October, Dr Naismith lectured to the Norwegian Numismatic Society in Oslo on the subject of ‘Gold Coinage and the Fall of the Western Roman Empire’, and received the medal accompanying the scholarship. He also delivered a lecture the following day at the Museum of Cultural History in the University of Oslo, on ‘The Agnus Dei Coinage of Æthelred II’.

The Research Centre of St John’s College Oxford has awarded pump-priming funding for the initial stages of an international research project, ‘Interpreting Eddic Poetry’, to Dr Carolyne Larrington (Oxford) and ASNC's Dr Judy Quinn (Principal Investigators). The project will support an interdisciplinary research network which will convene for its first Workshop ‘Interpreting Eddic Poetry: Interdisciplinary Perspectives’ in Oxford in July 2013. Details of the programme and registration arrangements will be announced shortly.

Funding has been awarded to Dr Judy Quinn and ASNC alumna Dr Debbie Potts from the pilot AHRC Cultural Engagement Fund to support the projects ‘Kennings in the Community’ and ‘Modern Poets on Viking Poetry’. Dr Potts will be based in the Department for three months from February to April 2013 to develop the projects and organise events related to them.

Congratulations to all of them, and best wishes to all of you for the New Year ...

Three Late Anglo-Saxon Rarities Acquired for the Fitzwilliam Museum

Dr Rory Naismith writes:

The Department of Coins and Medals in the Fitzwilliam Museum has recently secured a number of items of major importance for knowledge of tenth- and eleventh-century England.

Seal matrix of Ælfric

This is only the fourth known surviving late Anglo-Saxon seal matrix, and the only one held by a public collection besides the British Museum. It was found two years ago on the Wiltshire/Hampshire border by a metal-detectorist, and was bought by the Fitzwilliam in November 2012.

           

Like one of the other surviving matrices, this example is made of copper alloy (the other two being carved from walrus ivory). Unlike any of the others, however, this one shows traces of gilding: a thin layer of gold applied across the entire surface of the matrix at the time of manufacture. This would originally have lent it the appearance of solid gold, and made a powerful visual impact. The handle at the top of the seal (with a loop-hole for mounting) and the acanthus leaf decoration carved on the back also add to the impression that this seal matrix was in itself intended for display, as well as for leaving a mark on wax.

The inscription on the seal reads ‘+SIGILLVM ÆLFRICVS’ (‘the seal [of] Ælfric’). The man portrayed in the centre of the seal is presumably intended to represent Ælfric himself. Like the images on other seals, this elaborate bust is closely akin to coins of the same period, and may even have been carved by the same craftsmen. Some of the details of the image are obscured by loss of gilding and decay of the copper, but it is entirely possible that Ælfric was once shown holding a sword, as the figures do on all three other surviving seals for Anglo-Saxon laymen. Interestingly, one of these (now in the British Museum) also names an Ælfric, was made of copper-alloy and was found in Hampshire. It may once have belonged to the very same man as the new matrix, although the name Ælfric was common in late Anglo-Saxon England.

The delicate acanthus leaf decoration found on the reverse of this and the other Ælfric seal links them to the sophisticated tradition of ‘Winchester school’ art characteristic of high culture in late Anglo-Saxon England. This and other artistic affinities associate the seals with the late tenth or early eleventh century. The only specific date for any late Anglo-Saxon seal comes from impressions of a now lost matrix for St Edith of Wilton which must have been made in the period 975×984.

Despite their rarity, these objects played a significant part in the administrative system otherwise known from law-codes, charters and coins. They were used as tokens of authority by powerful laymen and ecclesiastics, up to an including the king. King Alfred the Great expected a seal and a writ (letter) to act as potent signs of the king’s will. Æthelred II (978–1016) is also known to have had a seal, of which no impressions survive; the earliest extant royal seal impressions date to the reign of his son, Edward the Confessor (1042–66). Interestingly, modern finds of tenth- and early-eleventh-century matrices are concentrated in England south the Thames: precisely the region where the king’s presence was concentrated and the exertion of royal power was most keenly felt.

Agnus Dei penny of Æthelred II

In the 970s and after England developed a remarkable monetary system based on standardised coin-types naming king, mint-place and individual maker (‘moneyer’) which were issued at up to seventy places across the kingdom, from York to Exeter and Dover. Every few years these coins would be brought in and replaced with a new type. Thanks to payments of tribute to the Vikings who menaced England during the reign of Æthelred, tens of thousands of silver pennies of most of these types have survived in hoards from modern Scandinavia.

Yet one particularly striking and historically important type remains poorly represented among them: the famous Agnus Dei type. Only 21 specimens have been discovered, all but four of them in Scandinavia or the Baltic. One of the latest to come to light was found near Epping, Essex, in 2008, by a metal-detector user. It was subsequently bought for the Fitzwilliam Museum.

Uniquely for the succession of types running from Edgar to Harold II in 1066, the Agnus Dei coinage dispenses with a representation of the king on the obverse and with the usual cross on the reverse. In their place, one finds a representation of the Lamb of God and of the Holy Dove. These images find extensive parallels among manuscript illuminations, sculpture and metalwork of the period, and demonstrate that the designers of coins were very much in touch with the artistic mainstream, and therefore presumably with the deep resonances which attached to these images. Both emphasise the peace-bringing power of Christ and the Holy Spirit: a message which chimes perfectly with the desperate efforts mounted by King Æthelred at the time of a great viking invasion in 1009 – a date which is also indicated by independent numismatic evidence. The attack of Thorkel the Tall and his army beginning in the late summer of that year presented a genuine crisis for the English, whose own forces proved unable to co-operate or pin down their opponents in battle. Under these circumstances, the rulers of the English placed their hopes in God. A tract stipulating the donation of alms, fasting and prayer until conditions improved was issued in the run-up to Michaelmas (29 September) 1009, while the defenders of the southeast – where the force of the attack fell – braced themselves against the foe.

It is very likely that the Agnus Dei coinage was produced as a complement to this broader appeal for divine help in the late summer and autumn of 1009. Although scarce, the surviving coins were clearly a carefully conceived venture, innovative in fine detail as well as their striking iconography. They are also noticeably heavier than the immediately preceding coin-type, which indicates that they probably belong at the head of a new type (coins of which typically became lighter over time). Issuing a fresh coin-type meant more than inconvenience for the populace or a fundraising scheme for the king and his agents: it was a key defence against forgery and, in the eyes of contemporary commentators, an assertion of good order comparable to the prevention of other serious crimes. In other words, it was precisely the sort of endeavour that the circumstances of 1009 called for. The Agnus Dei coinage thus constitutes a very special inception for a new coinage; one which was closely tied to the exceptional conditions of the time.

The Fitzwilliam’s specimen of this coinage was made at Salisbury in Wiltshire by a man named Sæwine. The pattern of production visible from surviving specimens gives further clues to the unusual way in which the Agnus Dei coinage was issued. None of the leading mint-towns (Lincoln, London, Winchester and York) of England are represented; rather, minting was restricted to just nine relatively minor places, stretching in an arc from Salisbury in Wessex through a cluster of mints in western England at Stafford and Hereford, to another group in the east midlands. These nine places may represent the only ones to receive and use dies (stamps) for the new issue during its short period of currency, although there is some uncertainty about how this process was organised. The absence of Agnus Dei pennies from the southeast may be a result of the impact wrought by the viking invasion.

This penny was found already with the bend which can be seen in the illustrations above. Flattening it out was deemed too risky, and also as perhaps taking away from part of the coin’s history. It is very likely that it was bent deliberately by an eleventh-century user, possibly as a small votive offering: a custom which became widespread later in the Middle Ages.

The coin was recently featured on BBC 2’s Vikings with Neil Oliver.

Penny of Cissbury

The coin-issue for which Agnus Dei was such a highly-charged prelude, known as Last Small Cross, returned to the norm of royal bust and cross which had dominated the English currency for four decades by this time. Indeed, this final coin-type issued by Æthelred II was closely modelled on the coinage of his illustrious father Edgar and revered brother Edward the Martyr. At a time of uncertainty and deepening crisis, the coinage looked back to an age of peace and stability.

In organisation, however, it is apparent that the situation was quite different. Detailed analysis of Æthelred’s coinage has been used to show the steps which were taken to maintain one aspect of local government in the face of enemy action. In particular, viking attacks sometimes seem to have prompted the retreat of minting operations from exposed boroughs to fortified redoubts in the vicinity. Several were installed within the ramparts of prehistoric hill-forts. At one of these, South Cadbury in Somerset, excavations have uncovered evidence of the formidable defences which were erected in the time of Æthelred. Another such hilltop mint-site was at Salisbury in Wiltshire, which at this date was located at Old Sarum: a hill-fort 2.5km from modern Salisbury, which remained the site of the city until 1220. It is likely that this mint-place was established after the sack of nearby Wilton in 1003: several of the moneyers who had formerly served there can be traced subsequently at Salisbury.

Another probable case of a hill-fort which served as an ‘emergency’ mint under Æthelred is Cissbury in Sussex, near Worthing. The third new acquisition highlighted here is a coin attributed to this mint. Only about twenty pennies from Cissbury are known to survive. The context in which this specimen was found is unknown, although it has a long pedigree associated with some of the most important coin collections of the last century. At various times it belonged to the numismatic scholar Francis Elmore Jones and to the great American collector Emery May Norweb.

This specimen is especially significant for its long and clear mint-name: SIĐESTEB. Like most mint-names on Anglo-Saxon coins, this is an abbreviation, and probably signifies Sithmestbyrig. This might be an Anglicisation of a now-lost older name, but it also means ‘the final fortress’ – a most appropriate name for what may have been a last-ditch stronghold against Viking attack. Coins provide the only medieval attestation of this name; other records of it do not survive from before the sixteenth century, when it was called Sissabury or Sizebury. But it can be independently shown that the dies (stamps) used to make the coin probably come from somewhere in Sussex. In short, there is every reason to believe that this imposing fortress provided another location for one of the ‘emergency’ mints of Æthelred II’s troubled later years.

Despite the likely hope of the English that Cissbury would provide a secure holdout against viking aggression, there is evidence to suggest that at least some interaction took place between its inhabitants and the Scandinavians. The marks on the reverse of this coin, known as peck-marks, are an indication that the quality of the coin was checked by a Scandinavian user at some point. Very many English coins of the period display peck-marks such as these; but it was much less common for English coin-dies to be used in Scandinavia as well as England. Yet analysis of coins made in contemporary Sweden and Denmark has revealed that the dies which made this coin, although of English manufacture, were also used to produce coins in the viking homelands. Whether the dies were taken across the North Sea through violence or by peaceful means is unclear, though there were several other English dies which made the same journey, some evidently purpose-made for use in Scandinavia with the names of local kings. Specimens from this later phase of the Cissbury dies’ use can be identified from their very high weight and, in at least one case, from being struck on a square piece of silver. At one stage the obverse die was also combined with a reverse of much cruder design and literacy. It is impossible to say for sure whether the present coin was made in England or Scandinavia, though on balance it is more likely to be English.

Together, these three acquisitions provide a valuable window onto the operation of the late Anglo-Saxon kingdom: how its leaders demonstrated their authority, and how its economy and administration adapted to weather testing times.