The history of the English penny can be traced back to the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of the 7th century: to the small, thick silver coins known to contemporaries as pæningas or denarii, though now often referred to as sceattas by numismatists. Broader, thinner pennies inscribed with the name of the king were introduced to Southern England in the middle of the 8th century. Coins of this format remained the foundation of the English currency until the 14th century.
Overview The history of Anglo-Saxon coinage spans more than five centuries, from the end of Roman rule in Britain in the 5th century, down to the death of Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066. It can be divided into four basic phases: c. 450 – c. 550: a very low level of coin-use in Britain, characterised by re-use of Roman coinage, though often in a non-monetary context. A small number of coins continued to be brought in from Gaul and elsewhere on the Continent. c. 550 – c. 680: the 'gold' phase of currency, which began with an increase in the rate of importation of continental gold, principally in the form of tremisses. From around 620 English gold coins of similar format were produced, often known to numismatists as thrymsas. By the middle of the 7th century, the quantity of gold in these coins was falling quickly, such that by the 670s they were more or less completely silver. c. 680 – c. 750 (867 in Northumbria): the age of the sceattas – small, thick silver coins which evolved out of the latest, debased gold coins. These should more correctly be referred to as pennies or denarii as in weight and fineness they approximated the form the English penny was to retain for centuries, and contemporary references suggest this is how they were known. Most sceattas do not bear an inscription and are thus difficult to attribute. In Northumbria, coins of this format continued to be struck under closer royal control until the 860s, though by the early 9th century they contained only a negligible quantity of precious metal. c. 750 – 14 October 1066: the silver coinage of sceattas petered out in Southumbrian England in the middle of the 8th century, to be replaced by a broader, thinner model of silver coinage modelled on that of contemporary Carolingian coinage. These new coins carried legends naming the king, moneyer and (later) the mint of origin. With various modifications in weight (within the range 1.00g – 1.70g) and fineness this format of coinage remained standard for the rest of the period, and indeed silver pennies of similar design remained the basis for the English currency until the 14th century. Pennies of this form were made by English kings from Offa onwards, and also by Viking rulers from the later 9th century.
In the gold phase of the coinage, the currency consisted overwhelmingly of gold tremisses or thrymsas of c. 1.10 – 1.30g, though a few solidi exist, modelled on Roman coins. Thereafter the currency was more or less based on a single denomination: the silver penny. In the early 870s the first round halfpennies were produced under Alfred the Great and Ceolwulf II of Mercia; these were produced sporadically and in small quantity until Edgar's reform of the 970s, after which it became common to cut whole pennies into halves and quarters, often at the time of production. The only known examples of larger silver denominations are two 'offering pieces' produced in the reign of Alfred the Great weighing the equivalent of six regular pennies, which were made as alms-pieces, probably to be sent abroad.
Although gold ceased to be the predominant form of currency in the 7th century, from the late 8th century onwards there was some use of fine gold coinage for special, high-value transactions. These gold pieces were often known as mancuses. The form of gold coinage varied in the 8th and 9th centuries, drawing inspiration from Roman, Byzantine, Arabic and Carolingian gold coinages, but by the 10th century gold coins were made simply by striking a gold piece with the same dies as were used for regular minting of silver. Only eight English gold coins with intelligible legends survive from between the 8th century and 1066; there are also some coins that may or may not be of English origin which bear no legend, and specimens of contemporary foreign gold found in England.
It is difficult to ascertain the nature and extent of coin-use in Anglo-Saxon England. Written references to minting and money are scarce, and it is likely that even a single silver penny had considerable buying power – perhaps something in the region of £10–£30 in modern currency. Their use may also have been concentrated in certain classes of society, and was probably most associated with particular transactions such as the payment of rents, tributes and legal fees. However, analysis of surviving single-finds (principally made since the 1970s by users of metal-detectors) shows that coins were used extensively, especially in the eastern half of England, both within and outside towns; they also circulated widely, and are frequently found far from their mint of origin. Substantial numbers of English coins have been found elsewhere in Europe, especially in Italy and Scandinavia, while English designs were influential on the emergent coinages of Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Bohemia.
After Rome: prelude to the Anglo-Saxon coinage
At the end of the 4th century, the Roman provinces of Britain were still part of a vibrant and quite efficient economic and monetary system that stretched over the whole Roman world. Precious metal coins of gold and silver were used for the payment of taxes, then reminted for payment to the military and civil service. Bronze coinage was issued on a more occasional basis and was primarily produced to serve the needs of commerce in the provinces. Minting – and control over precious metals in general – across the western empire was under the control of the Comes sacrarum largitionum, with a number of major mints situated at Trier, Arles, Milan, Ravenna and Rome. London had operated as a mint in the first half of the 4th century, and again for a brief period under Magnus Maximus, but by 400 inflows of coinage to Britain came from the continent.
Finds of coins are very numerous from throughout the 4th century and even from the first years of the fifth. However, in the early 5th century the situation took a dramatic turn for the worse. The supply of bronze coinage all but ceased after around 402, and both gold and silver also petered out by c. 410, coinciding with the departure of the British garrison with Constantine III in 409. Hoards of coins and bullion – especially silver – from this period are very numerous in Britain, presumably due to disturbances of invasion, civil war and economic uncertainty. Some of these hoards could be very substantial: the Hoxne hoard from Norfolk discovered in 1992 contained over 15,000 coins along with silver plate and jewellery.
The cessation in supply of freshly struck coins didn't necessarily cause an immediate halt in the use of coinage. Numismatists and archaeologists have long been struck by the phenomenon of clipped siliquae from the early 5th century, though precise dates and explanations for it remain elusive. Clipping may have carried on into the middle of the 5th century, or been restricted to the 410s and 420s, and was perhaps carried out as a means of taxation by a government deprived of new supplies of coinage. According to this model, siliquae of a specified weight would have been brought in, clipped, and finally reissued by unit rather than weight.
The later 5th and 6th centuries are very murky in almost every way, and coinage is no exception. The once vigorous late Roman monetary system lay in tatters, with almost no new minting and very little importation of new coins. Nevertheless, it is becoming apparent that coinage never faded away completely, and that re-use of the existing supply of coinage continued throughout the period, buoyed along by occasional incomers. Some archaeological excavations of Romano-British settlements that persisted into this period have produced older coins that remained in circulation, as at Wroxeter. Gold and bronze coins in particular are often found on early Anglo-Saxon settlement sites and in graves, in many cases pierced or mounted for use as Jewellery. Indeed, there is no telling exactly when any late Roman coin was lost, and in some cases they may have been in use well into the post-Roman period. As for new imports, the number known for this period has increased considerably in recent years thanks to the spread of metal-detecting. Hoards from this period are rare, but two have been found in recent years at Oxborough (2001) and Patching (1997), both dating to the later 5th century and the latter including no fewer than fifty gold and silver coins dating from the period up to c. 470. A scattering of single-finds from the same period shows that the flow of coinage into 5th- and 6th-century Britain never dried up totally, and it appears that there was also some use of Byzantine coinage in the 6th century: gold and especially bronze coins have been found in substantial numbers, even in the western part of Britain, which is normally less well represented in coin finds. This to some extent parallels the pattern of finds of North African pottery from the same period, which is found extensively in western Britain on 6th-century sites. Unfortunately, the widespread use of Byzantine bronzes from this period as souvenirs from the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean means many finds of them must be treated with extreme care. The importation of current continental issues – mainly in gold – continued over the 6th century, with considerable numbers of Merovingian tremisses circulating in southern and eastern England even by the end of the 6th century. It was on the basis of these coins that the first native English production of coins took place in the early 7th century.
The earliest gold coinage: thrymsas
The earliest known English coins are gold pieces, modelled on contemporary Merovingian Frankish coinage, and consisting largely of tremisses: one third of a gold solidus, originally weighing 4.5g, but in the Anglo-Saxon context apparently based on a revised standard of 3.9g implemented in Gaul from around the 580s. Frankish coins played an increasingly important role as currency in England as the 6th century went on, and the earliest Anglo-Saxon gold tremisses (sometimes referred to by numismatists as thrymsas) were struck to circulate alongside these Frankish issues: all of the forty gold tremisses found in the burial at 'mound one' at Sutton Hoo (deposited c. 630), for instance, were Frankish. The earliest coins struck in England can be roughly dated to around the year 600: they include one gold tremissis struck by a moneyer named Eusebius working at Canterbury (Dorovernia), and the Liudhard medalet, a gold medallion (though in fabric very like a coin) found in Canterbury and bearing the name of a bishop Liudhard, almost certainly the same bishop of that name whom Bede's Historia ecclesiastica described as coming to England with Bertha, the Frankish bride of Æthelberht I of Kent.
The only substantial hoard of English coins from this period was found at Crondall, and included 69 English tremisses as well as a number of Frankish tremisses, probably deposited around 630. These and other finds reveal a range of types that rarely name a mint or issuing authority, though one scarce type bears the name of London, and others are struck in the name of King Eadbald of Kent (616–40). In terms of design they are based on Roman and Merovingian prototypes.