THE YORKSHIRE NUMISMATIST 4 T h e Y o r k s h i r e N u m i s m a t i s t 4 YYNN44 ccoovveerr..iinndddd 11--33 66//2211//22001122 11::2222::3333 PPMM The cover coin is a York gold shilling probably issued in the third quarter of the seventh century. It was found near Wetherby, West Yorkshire, by metal detectorist Ricky Brelsford on Saturday 28th January 2012. It differs from the two previously known varieties of York shilling. The obverse shows what is presumably an enrobed, senior clerical fi gure with leonine head, holding a long cross pommée either side. The reverse is an elaborate, symmetrical, cruciform design. The central cross fourchée, with voided diamond centre, is enclosed in an unbroken circle. In the margin, four opposing crosses alternate with closed saltires – which may be runic Ds. The coin, shown 2x actual size, was photographed as found, with sandy encrustation, by Tony Abramson. 1.28g, 13mm. YYNN44 ccoovveerr..iinndddd 44--66 66//2211//22001122 11::2222::3355 PPMM THE YORKSHIRE NUMISMATIST 4 Editorial Committee Tony Abramson, Robert Barraclough, James Booth, Richard Fynes, Alan Humphries, David Lee and Lee Toone. The Yorkshire Numismatic Society Leeds 2012 YYNN44 ccoovveerr__IINNNNEERR FFRROONNTT..iinndddd 11 22001122--66--2200 1100::4499::4400 © The Yorkshire Numismatic Society, 2012 ISBN 0 9513414 3 X Available from: The Yorkshire Numismatic Society, c/o [email protected] Design and typesetting: The Charlesworth Group, 250 Deighton Road, Deighton, Huddersfi eld, HD2 1JJ, UK. Printing and binding: Charlesworth Press, Flanshaw Way, Flanshaw Lane, Wakefeld, WF2 9LP, UK. Tel: +44 (0)1924 204 830 YYNN44 ccoovveerr__IINNNNEERR FFRROONNTT..iinndddd 22 22001122--66--2200 1100::4499::4433 CONTENTS Acknowledgements, Tony Abramson iii Foreword, Michael Metcalf iv Introduction, James Booth v Part 1: Romano-British Coinage Opuscula Carausiana – Richard Bourne 1 The Roman Mint of London: A Collector’s Perspective – Paul DiMarzio 9 A Transitional Issue from the Roman Mint at London – Hubert J. Cloke 45 Recent Research on Irregular Coinage in Late Roman Britain – Adrian Marsden 53 The Roman Infl uence on Early Anglo-Saxon Coinage – Tony Abramson 73 Part 2: Medieval Coinage Sceats: How Do We Assess Their Success? – Tony Abramson 105 Globalised Monetary Systems of the Viking Age – Hendrik Mäkeler 135 The Mint at Wallingford: An Introduction to the Corpus – Thomas J. T. Williams 141 Was the Last Anglo-Saxon King of England a Queen? A Possible Posthumous Coinage of Harold II – Gareth Williams 159 The Value and Metrology of Salt in the Late Eleventh Century – Henry Fairbairn 171 The Currency and the Economy in Late Medieval England – Martin Allen 179 The Re-use of Coins in Medieval England and Wales (c.1050–1550): An Introductory Survey – Richard Kelleher 187 Late Medieval Coin Brooches – David Harpin 205 Monetary Magic in Late Medieval England – Laura Mitchell 219 The Commyng of the King: Coins and the York Royal Entry – B. J. Cook 229 Part 3: Hoards Honour and Dishonour: Refl ections on the Staffordshire Hoard in the Light of Old English Heroic Poetry – Joyce Hill 235 The Aldborough (Norfolk) Hoard of Sceattas – Adrian Marsden 249 A New Coin Type (And a New King?) From Viking Northumbria – Gareth Williams 261 Numismatics from Newsprint 1753–1884: Some Lost Yorkshire Hoards Exposed – C. Stephen Briggs 277 Part 4: Other Matters The Lorin Kay Collection of Northumbrian Stycas – Tony Abramson 305 Remember Scarborough – David Pickup 311 Yorkshire Co-Operative Checks – Robert Barraclough 315 i YYNN44 ttoocc..iinndddd ii 22001122--66--2211 1133::0077::3311 Contents Obituary: Graham Teasdill, 1935–2010 – C. Stephen Briggs 329 Part 5 – YNS Transactions, 2011, Abstracts of Talks to the Society Yorkshire Paranumismatics – Geoff Percival 333 The London Mint AD 319 to 325 – Lee Toone 335 The Origins of the Troy Standard – Robert Tye 337 Ottoman Coins – Peter Watson 339 Decimalisation of Europe in the Nineteenth Century – Richard Fife 343 The Vale of York Hoard – Gareth Williams 345 Keeping Them in the Family – Denis Martin 347 Presidents of the YNS 349 YNS Membership Application Form 351 ii YYNN44 ttoocc..iinndddd iiii 22001122--66--2211 1133::0077::3366 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A compilation of individual articles would not be possible without the dedication and diligence of all the contributors. Not only have the majority lectured on their chosen research subject, either to critical symposia audiences or in the confi nes of Society meet- ings, but they have committed this to paper, a more time-consuming occupation, given that the journal is produced to BNJ standards. However, in the shadows behind this effort is the attentiveness and accuracy of the Editorial Committee. The YNS is fortunate in being able to call on the talents of James Booth, Richard Fynes and Alan Humphries who not only exercise their command of pellucid language but also have the insightful numismatic knowledge necessary to chal- lenge unsubstantiated claims. Even though the leading papers are drawn from symposia in classical and medieval numismatics, the publication is anchored in the Society’s activities as captured in the Transactions section by Peter Watson, to whom we are grateful. Finally, without the generosity of all our advertisers this publication would have been unsustainable. It is to be regretted that where major numismatic houses have fallen into the hands of myopic, single-minded investors, such support for the collecting commu- nity has withered. Such poverty of imagination is characteristic of fi nanciers. Tony Abramson, January 2012. iii YYNN44 CChhaapptteerr AAcckknnoowwlleeddggeemmeennttss..iinnddiiiiii iiiiii 22001122--66--2200 1100::5533::2211 FOREWORD For more than a hundred years, England unlike most European countries has had not one but two ‘national’ numismatic societies, commonly referred to, in informal conversa- tion, as ‘the Royal’ and ‘the British’. Both rely heavily on the support and the voluntary work of their members to keep them functioning, and both of them traditionally achieve a happy blend of good fellowship and learned publication. Combining these two aspects is certainly a case of one plus one equals three, or more than three: it would be diffi cult to over-state how precious it is. A similar claim can be made for the Yorkshire Numis- matic Society, which is also more than a hundred years old, and enjoys similar advan- tages, and opportunities, in Leeds, to those of the London-based societies – including in this case the facilities and good-will of Leeds City Museum. The Yorkshire society can and should, for example, be the cradle for the next generation of numismatists. As a teenager, the writer was treated with much kindness by the older members of the Wessex Numismatic Society, and remembers their encouragement to this day. If a numismatic society is to be more than a social forum for like-minded friends, the pub- lication of a periodical devoted to research is a crucial step. In order to make it happen, the amount of diplomacy and hard work put in by the editorial committee is substantial, and each of the members of that committee deserves our gratitude. The contents of the present volume, including but by no means limited to topics with a Yorkshire setting, are a valued contribution to the progress of numismatics and monetary history. May the Yorkshire Numismatic Society go from strength to strength! Michael Metcalf iv YYNN44 CChhaapptteerr FFoorreewwoorrdd..iinndddd iivv 22001122--66--77 1133::3311::1199 INTRODUCTION James Booth The majority of the papers collected together in this volume were initially delivered at colloquia held in Leeds and York in 2011 under the auspices of the YNS. Their publica- tion marks the culmination of a period of dynamic activity for the Society, co-ordinated by our current President Tony Abramson, who has been over the last two decades a tire- less promoter of the cause of numismatics, both in the local context of Yorkshire and on the national level. The ‘Moneta Britannia’ colloquium on Roman coinage took place in York in July, un- der the direction of Lee Toone. Five of the papers are presented here. Richard Bourne’s piece on Carausius fl eshes out the sparse and censored documentary narrative, giving evidence from the coins of an early setback in Constantius’s attempt to retake Britannia. Paul Di Marzio’s substantial essay on the London Mint (297–325) presents the fruits of a decade of passionate collecting, and will become essential reading on the subject. In a stop press addition to Di Marzio’s essay Hubert Cloke records a new variety of an early London follis. Adrian Marsden offers a wide-ranging conspectus of recent research into the production of the irregular coinages of the third and fourth centuries, our under- standing of which is currently being much advanced by the efforts of responsible metal detectorists. Finally Tony Abramson himself builds on the recent researches of Anna Gannon, Gareth Williams and others in a wide-ranging account of the Roman prototypes of the early Anglo-Saxon coinage. The second section, on Medieval Coinage, consists of nine essays based on presenta- tions given at the ‘Yorkshire Festival of Numismatics’, which Tony Abramson organised as part of the International Medieval Congress in the University of Leeds in July 2011. Five essays treat the early Middle Ages from diverse conceptual and historical per- spectives. Tony Abramson’s free-ranging essay makes large claims for the monetary ‘success’ and also the aesthetic achievement of the sceatta coinage. Hendrik Mäkeler’s ideas-piece on ‘globalised monetary systems’ cites Baltic area Viking Age hoards, with their ‘pecked’ coins from widely scattered sources, in support of a Hayekian argument in favour of a supra-national economic theory as against the ‘Westphalian model’ which defi nes currencies in terms of the nations which authorise them. There is topical rel- evance here to the modern economic situation with the shaking of national defences around currencies and the rush to gold. Tom Williams returns us to less heady numis- matic territory with a meticulous historical account of the Alfredian borough of Wall- ingford, in the course of which he lists a substantial corpus of 520 surviving coins from the reign of Æthelstan to that of Henry III. Gareth Williams’s title suggests that the last Anglo-Saxon king of England might have been a queen. In the event, however he offers not revelations concerning Harold’s v YYNN44 CChhaapptteerr IInnttrroodduuccttiioonn..iinndddd vv 22001122--66--2200 1100::5555::2255 James Booth sexual orientation, but a closely-argued exploration of the implications of the anoma- lous minting of his sole coin-type at Wilton. Williams conjectures from the large number of Wilton dies, and the irregular appearance of many of the coins, that Harold’s sister Edith, the Confessor’s widow, must have maintained her independence here during the months following the battle of Hastings, offering the opportunity of legitimacy to any government which might be proposed in the name of Edgar Atheling, Harold’s sons or the Conqueror. This is a highly plausible deduction though absolute proof will perhaps be forever lacking. Henry Fairburn addresses one of the large intractable debates concerning medieval coinage: the point at which we can begin to talk plausibly about a money economy. He scrupulously documents some medieval weights and measures, using evidence from the Domesday Book and other sources, with a focus on the value of salt. Though a loaf of bread must have been worth far less than a farthing in the late eleventh century, he nevertheless offers evidence that even at this time some day-to-day requirements would have been regularly bought and sold through the medium of coinage. Six essays of widely different focus treat later medieval topics. Martin Allen’s im- pressively documented ‘Coinage and the late Medieval Economy’ applies numismatics to thirteenth and fourteenth century history. Through careful deployment of the discon- tinuous records Allen estimates that that gold coinage supplied most of the total value of the currency by 1377, though much of it may have been immobilised by hoarding, while silver was the principal medium of domestic commerce. Allen suggests that fl uctuations in the sizes of England’s gold and silver currencies were a signifi cant cause of economic change after the Black Death. Essays by Richard Kelleher and David Harpin focus on personal fashion and super- stition in coin jewellery. Kelleher illustrates the shift from badge types before and after the Norman Conquest to dress hooks in Edward I’s reign, reviews the use of annular brooches, pendants and rings made from coins, and suggests that ‘some notional ritual process’ may lie behind the practice of bending coins. On a similar theme, Harpin dis- cusses coin brooches in the period between the reigns of John and Edward III, during which time the annular or ring brooch gave way, with the advent of buttons, to the more decorative (and often larger) disc brooch. Gilding, Harpin suggests, may have been a sign of religious signifi cance rather than simply a fashion statement, and some brooches were clearly intended to offer amuletic protection. Laura Mitchell’s paper gives an intimate view of the religious jumble in the mind of the late fi fteenth century scribe of a list of recipes in the Bodleian Library. Among spells to ensure invisibility and to make a woman lift up her skirts, the scribe includes a charm to ensure that one always has money in one’s purse. The reader is advised to make the purse from a mole’s skin in the month of May, write some Latin mumbo jumbo on it in the blood of a bat, and then place it in the choir of a church for seven days and nights. How many readers put this recipe to the proof is an intriguing historical conjecture for- ever beyond reach of research. vi YYNN44 CChhaapptteerr IInnttrroodduuccttiioonn..iinndddd vvii 22001122--66--2200 1100::5555::2299