Chapter 2. Coins of Æthelred II and Cnut the Great from London Excavations

Julian M. C. Bowsher

Acknowledgments: I am grateful to MOLA for prompting me to attend the 2016 UCL conference and for time to research the material. I am also grateful to Gareth Williams (BM) and Rory Naismith (KCL) for advice and information, and to Dan Nesbitt for providing data from the Museum of London archives. Last but not least I am grateful to Richard North (UCL) and the organisers of the 2016 conference.

The thousandth anniversary of the death of Æthelred II and the accession of Cnut the Great in 2016 provided the opportunity for various aspects of late Saxon archaeology, history, and culture to be reexamined. This brief survey offers an interim numismatic view on the events around 1016. The excellent synthesis made by Peter Stott in 1991 of Saxon and Norman coins found in London listed single 14 coins of Æthelred and 18 of Cnut.¹ Twenty-five years on we can add 37 new single finds, largely from the increased archaeological activity in the capital though a full synthesis of items lies some way off.

The new material presented here comes from published reports, archive lists, and some from recent excavation notes. Indeed, many of the records utilized are brief and not all types, moneyers, or mints have been identified – or listed. This survey does not pretend to be comprehensive and there are undoubtedly many unidentified coins lurking in the archives – particularly from the riverside excavations of the 1970s and 1980s. Coins from unpublished archaeological excavations are mostly referred to by their Site Code – e.g., ARC 12 = Arundel Court 2012, listed at the end of this chapter – and Accession Numbers in < > brackets. The Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) or the Early Medieval Coinage (EMC) lists published in the British Numismatic Journal (BNJ) Coin Registers have been scanned for casual coin finds. Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) is embarking on a series of synthetic numismatic approaches for the evaluation of excavated London coins and though the Roman assemblage is by far the largest we will also be looking at later, and earlier, periods.

London

The initial seventh-century Anglo-Saxon occupation on the north bank of the Thames at Lundenwic, located around modern-day Covent Garden, was a mercantile economy dependent on beach markets. By the late ninth century, as Andrew Reynolds has shown earlier, this area had become vulnerable to attack and the community moved back east into Roman Londinium, with its defensive walls, later known as Lundenburh.² As Reynolds says, later Anglo-Saxon London emerged “as an urban settlement within the walled area of the burh, with all of the characteristics of town life.”³ Reynolds has said that archaeological discoveries in No. 1 Poultry and Guildhall “reveal unparalleled insights into the nature of urban expansion on the one hand and daily life on the other in the city during the period of Æthelred and Cnut.”⁴ This late Saxon settlement occupied some 30 hectares, from Bull Wharf in the west to Leadenhall in the east and stretching back from the river to present-day Gresham Street.⁵ By Æthelred’s reign London had become the ipso facto capital of England and was developed as a major port, with new quays. The landing place or harbor of Queenhithe, now the modern inlet on the west side of Bull Wharf (see below), was originally known as Æthelred’s hithe and mentioned in charters of AD 889 and 898–899.⁶

Excavations within the City of London and along the riverfront since 1991 have produced a small but respectable corpus of Saxon material (see Map 2.1). Moreover, recent numismatic research has refined and clarified the typology and chronology of the coins themselves.⁷ The reform of Edgar, ca. 973, brought some uniformity to the coinage across a kingdom that had at least 50 mints. The basic coin types were to survive into, and beyond, Æthelred’s reign and the number of mints grew to about 91.⁸ Each mint had a number of moneyers, with 100 being recorded in London. Only York and Lincoln came near this figure. During Æthelred’s reign (978–1016), London was almost certainly the most important mint, which included the subsidiary mint of Southwark, and was probably the die cutting center for mints elsewhere in the country.⁹ Of his coins found in Scandinavia, “coins from the London mint predominate,” the number being “higher than that of any other individual mint.”¹⁰

Hoards

H1 Honey Lane Market

H2 Cornhill

H3 St. Martin le Grand

H4 Walbrook

ARC12 Arundel Court C 1 – not on map)

BUF90 Bull Wharf (A 6, C 5)

FER97 Plantation Place (A 2)

GYE92 Guildhall (C 1)

SGA12 Sugar Quay Wharf (A 1)

TRN08 Trinity Square (A 1)

Vintry (A 8, C 5)

(Foreshore / metal detected (A 5, C 2) not marked on map)

Map 2.1: Hoards and single coins from Lundenburh. Open circles denote finds listed by Stott 1991, closed circles represent finds made subsequent to 1991. Uncertain “London” or “Thames” and foreshore finds are omitted. Adapted from Ayre & Wroe-Brown “The Eleventh- and Twelfth-century Waterfront and Settlement at Queenhithe.”.

King Æthelred II (978–1016)

A huge number of Æthelred’s coins survive in England, France, Germany, and above all in Scandinavia. Æthelred’s vast coin production may be gauged by the variety of differing, well-dated types, which are made by many mints. Certainly, coin was needed to pay “Danegeld,” but trade with Europe was good and there are a number of contemporary continental coins that have been found in Britain.

Within London there are two, or possibly three, hoards from the western part of the City that included coins of this period. The first hoard to be found, in 1837, was a group of eight coins of Æthelred in Honey Lane Market, which was just to the north of the western end of Cheapside. All were Long Cross types (ca. 997–1000) from various mints including two London ones.¹¹ A hoard found in St. Martin-le-Grand in the 1870s comprised some 60 coins, all Æthelred’s Last Small Cross types (ca. 1009–1016) with the majority coming from the London mint.¹² But it has been claimed that the St. Martin’s hoard was actually part of another, much larger hoard known as the Walbrook (or Queen Victoria Street) hoard, found in 1872, albeit some 500 m away! The Walbrook hoard, thought to be in the thousands, comprised coins from around the reign of Æthelred (978–1016) to that of William I (1066–1087), but there were only four Last Small Cross types of Æthelred.¹³ A small hoard of eight coins found in Cornhill farther east in 1855 included a Last Small Cross of Æthelred, five coins of Cnut (1016–1035), and two of Edward the Confessor (1042–1066).¹⁴

In the western part of the city, an unidentified coin of Æthelred was also found in excavations at the old General Post Office site in 1979,¹⁵ but more have been found in the eastern part of the City of London. An Agnus Dei type (ca. 1009) was found in Gracechurch Street in the nineteenth century; there are thought to be only 21 examples of this rare coin.¹⁶ Just north of Eastcheap, what we would now call a “watching brief” was kept on the construction of Plantation House in the mid-1930s.¹⁷ It is clearly from here that an unidentified fragment of Æthelred, listed by Stott, derives.¹⁸ When Plantation House was finally demolished in the late 1990s, an archaeological excavation was undertaken before the construction of its replacement Plantation Place. Interestingly, this excavation found a Long Cross type (moneyer and mint unidentified) and a Helmet type (of moneyer Eadwold of London), although they appear to be residual in later deposits.¹⁹ Recent excavations at Trinity Square to the south-east have produced a very fine Long Cross type by Brihtlaf of London. Although the site is just north of All Hallows, a late Saxon church in origin, the coin was found mixed with Roman pottery.²⁰

Many coins have been found on riverside excavations, where it was thought that they represented losses associated with busy harbor activities. However, the waterfront was not far south of the Roman riverside wall (roughly on the line of what is now Upper and Lower Thames Street). For the sites discussed below, most Saxon coins were found in later dumps associated with riverside expansion, development, and consolidation. Stott recorded an Æthelred Crux type (ca. 991–997), also by Brihtlaf of London, which was found in the mid-nineteenth century on what was then the City of London foreshore.²¹ In recent years, many more coins of Æthelred have been found on the modern foreshore, variously described as “London (City),” “London (Thames)” and “Thames foreshore,” mostly by metal detectorists:

Long Cross, Æthelwerd of London, found in 1995²²

Long Cross, Edric of Chester, found in 2005²³

Last Small Cross, Osgar of Bedford, found in 2012²⁴

Last Small Cross, Leofmær of Hereford, found in 2012²⁵

Last Small Cross, Godwine of Warminster, found in 2012²⁶

The recently published 1990s excavations at Bull Wharf recovered over two hundred coins ranging from Roman to post-medieval; most were found in foreshore deposits or dumps behind timber waterfronts dated to the twelfth century. Six coins of Æthelred were found and recorded in notes by the late Geoff Egan: <1078> First Hand, <59> Long Cross, <1081> Helmet, <447> Last Small Cross with two unidentified, that is; <1082> “rolled up,” <1247> “fragmentary.”²⁷

Immediately east of Bull Wharf is the Vintry, where there were partial archaeological excavations,²⁸ but preliminary clearance of the site by machine resulted in the spoil being searched with metal detectors off-site. Although there is no stratigraphic information, there was an impressive haul of some “2,800 coins, jetons and tokens dating from the Roman to early modern periods.”²⁹ Amongst these were six coins of Æthelred.³⁰ Billingsgate, farther downstream, produced a number of coins, though Stott noted that most of those recovered from the “lorry park” area “were incorporated in rubbish dumped at Billingsgate after having been collected elsewhere in the City” and that even the archaeological excavations produced many residual pieces.³¹ Nevertheless, there were two coins of Æthelred.³² Recent excavations at Sugar Quay Wharf, next to the Tower, have produced a halved and broken Last Small Cross coin of Æthelred, but no further details are available yet.³³

Worn out by war, Æthelred died in April 1016 and was succeeded by his son Edmund Ironside, even while Cnut was chosen to be king at Southampton at about the same time. There were inevitable clashes, but after Cnut’s victory at Assandun, at a meeting at Olney (now Alney) in October, Edmund and Cnut agreed to divide England – although the status of London was uncertain. Edmund died, possibly of wounds, in November 1016 and Cnut was then elected by a war-weary population as king of England.³⁴

Cnut the Great (1016–1035)

Cnut inherited a good administration, which he gradually consolidated and stabilised; this was much further centralized on London.³⁵ On becoming king, he promptly levied a tax of £72,000 on England as a whole, with an additional £10,500 on London specifically, possibly as a punishment for London’s hostility.³⁶

Æthelred’s coins, particularly the prolific Last Small Cross type, were still being struck and continued to circulate for a number of years. Moreover, there is no evidence that Edmund struck any coin and Cnut’s first coin, the Quatrefoil type, was only minted about a year later.³⁷ Cnut’s reign is represented by far fewer coin types than Æthelred’s and its output appears to be much smaller. London was clearly now the most important mint in the country and its role as a die-cutting center was emphasized by the discovery at the Thames Exchange site of a reverse die of Cnut’s last coin type, the Short Cross, although the die carried a Norwich mint mark.³⁸

The coins of Cnut from the Walbrook hoard³⁹ (see above) included four Pointed Helmet and three Short Cross types from a variety of mints, with two of the former from London. The remaining four coins bearing the name of Cnut were one Jewel Cross and three Arm and Scepter types thought to be struck relatively by his sons Harold (I) “Harefoot” (in 1036–1037) and Harthacnut (in 1040–1042).⁴⁰ Stott recorded the five Cnut coins from the Cornhill hoard as one Quatrefoil and four Pointed Helmets.⁴¹ There was a Quatrefoil coin of Cnut from the Milk Street excavations⁴² and later work at the Guildhall site, just to the north, provided a cut Short Cross type, by Aelfwi of Stamford.⁴³

From the riverside area, Stott listed two issues of Cnut in the spoil from the Billingsgate lorry park.⁴⁴ Later metal-detected coins of Cnut from the foreshore include:

Pointed Helmet, Edwine of London, found 2004⁴⁵

Quatrefoil, Bruntat of Lincoln, found 2005⁴⁶

There were five coins of Cnut from the Bull Wharf excavations. However, they were also residual in the twelfth-century deposits, behind waterfront dumps: <1425> Pointed Helmet (Ira of York), <1426> Short Cross, <1436> Short Cross, <1248> Short Cross (crumpled), <1250> Short Cross (Eadmund of London). There were also five coins of Cnut from the metal-detected Vintry spoil.⁴⁷ Another recent riverside site, although a little west of the walled city (and closer to Lundenwic), was Arundel Court, which produced Merovingian and early Saxon coins, while there was also one Short Cross of Linfinc of Lincoln.⁴⁸ Concerning this find, Stott had suggested, although for an earlier period, that Lincoln’s trade may have passed through London.⁴⁹ However, the Lincoln coin has a small but deep depression on the obverse as though someone was trying to punch a hole through the coin, perhaps for attachment to a necklace or bangle, suggesting that it was obsolete and residual.

The Victorian numismatist Charles Roach Smith (1807–1890) is probably best known for dredging coins from the Thames in a “particular locality during the last seven years,” this being the various “London Bridges.” He continued: “Immense quantities of coins have been found in the same locality in the years preceding the period at which I commenced my researches, as well Roman as Saxon and English, both in digging the approaches to the new bridge and in sinking coffer-dams for its foundations, all of which have been dispersed without notice.”⁵⁰ In antiquarian distribution, he noted that “No Saxon coins were mixed with Roman coins.”⁵¹ In his privately published catalogue he notes early sceattas of Alfred, Ceowulf, and Eadred, but also noted three coins of Æthelred, and three of Cnut:⁵²

Of Æthelred

Crux – Byrhtlaf, London

Crux – Alfwold, ?Winchester

?First small cross – Leofnoth, Lewes

Of Cnut

Short cross – Lod, London

Short cross – Wulfred, London

Pointed helmet – Edpine (probably for “Edwine), London

This survey has presented 37 new-found coins, 23 of Æthelred and 14 of Cnut. These add to, and slightly alter, the proportions of Stott’s inventory, making a new total of 63. The geographical distribution of both coin periods is markedly similar and concentrated on the riverside sites, which have 21 of Æthelred’s and seven of Cnut’s, rather than on inland sites. However, this bias is diminished by a lack of secure stratigraphy, in that a large number of finds were incorporated in dumps behind new waterfront structures rather than representing activity and losses on the foreshore.

The “new” coin finds of Æthelred’s can be broken down by type:

Those of Cnut are

Interestingly for both reigns, it is the last type that dominates. It may be that they were just the last in a “series of major type changes” that appear to have been common in late Saxon coinage.⁵³ These last types are almost exclusively found in the waterfront dumps, but they are also dominant in the hoards noted above. The hoards indicate that Æthelred’s coinage continued to circulate for many years after 1016, while the dominance of his Last Small Cross coins is universal.⁵⁴

Stott noted that soon after Edgar’s reform of 973 a “large proportion of the City’s [coin] finds consist of cut fractions, with the amount increasing under Cnut.”⁵⁵ Alan Vince suggested that this shows “that coins were used for small change, not just transactions”⁵⁶ in the calmer years after 1016. This is not so prevalent in recent finds, although many of those from Vintry are halved or quartered. Only a couple of Æthelred’s pieces from Bull Wharf and from Plantation Place and Cnut’s coin from Guildhall are cut.

Although it is too soon to create a meaningful pattern of mint distribution found in London, some indication may be seen in the meager results. Distribution within the hoards is not so useful, since the dates of deposition are often not exactly known. Nevertheless, the Walbrook hoard (as an example) contained 37 coins of Æthelred II from London and from ten other mints (with no more than four each) mostly to the north of London as well as a few from the south. The coins of Cnut from the same hoard are very different, with only four coins from London (five, if we include Southwark) and the others from six other mints, mostly from north and west of London, with only one coin each.

For the new inland site finds, the pattern is largely random losses, while details are poor; two London coins of Æthelred II were found, one at FER97 and the other at TRN08, although both were residual. There were no new coins of Cnut on inland sites. The results from the waterfront excavations as well as the metal-detected pieces show a much wider mint origin, with non-London mints predominating. As waterfronts were potential trading centres, this variety of mints is not surprising, but still the unstratified or residual nature of their finds demands caution.

After the traumas suffered by Londoners between 1013 and 1016, one area of stability appears to be the smooth transition of coin use, in which Æthelred’s coins appear to have circulated alongside the new coins of Cnut.⁵⁷ So far, these new additions largely complement earlier studies, but with further research it is hoped to consolidate the evidence for London’s monetary economy in the late Saxon period.

Notes

1

Stott, “Saxon and Norman Coins from London.” App 4.1: 311–13, Catalogue of single finds. Not all legible.

2

See Blackmore, “From Beach to Burh.”

3

See Reynolds in this volume, p. 38.

4

See Reynolds in this volume, p. 46.

5

Ayre and Wroe-Brown, “Waterfront and Settlement at Queenhithe,” 198.

6

Ayre and Wroe-Brown, “Waterfront and Settlement at Queenhithe,” 196.

7

For Ælthelred, see Naismith, “The Coinage of Æthelred II”; for Cnut, see Jonsson, “The Coinage of Cnut.” For a wider and more up to date treatment see Naismith, Medieval European Coinage, 261–68 (commentary on Æthelred), 732–56 (catalogue); 269–71 (commentary on Cnut), 758–64 (catalogue).

8

Naismith, “The Coinage of Æthelred II,” 119, 122.

9

Naismith, “London and Its Mint c. 880–1066,” 53, 58; Jonsson, “The Coinage of Cnut,” 197.

10

Vince, Saxon London, 115; Naismith, “London and its Mint c. 880–1066,” 57.

11

Dolley, “Three Forgotten English Finds,” 99–102: three mints were recorded in London, one in Bedford, one in Exeter, and one in Stamford. Metcalf, Atlas of Anglo-Saxon and Norman Coin Finds, 169. Also noted in C. R. Smith, Catalogue, 108 (no. 568).

12

Dolley, “Coin Hoards from the London Area,” 41; Stott, “Saxon and Norman Coins from London,” 292–94.

13

Metcalf, Atlas of Anglo-Saxon and Norman Coin Finds, 126.

14

Stott, “Saxon and Norman Coins from London,” 324. Dolley, “Coin Hoards,” 41.

15

Old General Post Office (site code POM79); Stott, “Saxon and Norman Coins from London,” 311 (no. 91).

16

Stott, “Saxon and Norman Coins from London,” 311 (no. 87); Naismith, Medieval European Coinage, 266.

17

Dunwoodie, Harward and Pitt, An Early Roman Fort, 1.

18

Stott, “Saxon and Norman Coins from London,” 311 (no. 90).

19

Clark, “Coins and Jettons,” 116. Nos. and , in Dunwoodie, Harward, and Pitt, An Early Roman Fort.

20

Trinity Square (site code TRN08, <465> unpublished).

21

Stott, “Saxon and Norman Coins from London,” 311 (no. 84).

22

CR 1995, 243 (no.163).

23

CR 2007, 333 (no. 304; PAS LON-EBBB 44; EMC 2006.0082).

24

CR 2013, 306 (no. A.153; EMC 2012.0186). See EMC App.

25

CR 2013, 306 (no. A.154; EMC 2012.0283). See EMC App.

26

CR 2013, 306 (no. A.156; EMC 2012.0132). See EMC App.

27

Bull Wharf (A 6, C 5; site code BUF90). From Geoff Egan’s unpublished notes: no moneyers or mints recorded.

28

Vintry House, 66–69 Upper Thames Street (both VHY89 and VRY89 are used as site codes).

29

Kelleher and Leins, “Roman, Medieval and Later Coins,” 168.

30

Kelleher and Leins, “Roman, Medieval and Later Coins,” 213 (no. 677: First Small Cross (?imitation, halved); no. 678: First Hand, Brihtric of Exeter; no. 679: London, uncertain; no. 680: Helmet, Norwich?; nos. 681–84: all Last Small Cross – York, Lydford, or Taunton, ?Exeter, Uncertain).

31

Stott, “Saxon and Norman Coins from London,” 295.

32

Stott, “Saxon and Norman Coins from London,” 311 (no. 85: cut farthing – moneyer or and mint not present; no. 86: Helmet, Æthelm of Chichester).

33

Sugar Quay Wharf (site code SGA12, <44>, [278], unpublished).

34

Jonsson, “The Coinage of Cnut,” 193.

35

Jonsson, “The Coinage of Cnut,” 222–23. See also Reynolds in this volume.

36

Jonsson, “The Coinage of Cnut,” 219; Hill, “An Urban Policy for Cnut?,” 103.

37

Jonsson, “The Coinage of Cnut,” 197, 199, 201; Naismith, Medieval European Coinage, 268.

38

78 Thames Street (site code TEX88). Archibald, Lang and Milne, “Four Early Medieval Coin Dies.”

39

Museum of London Database: Nos. 96.63/25–96.63/34, 96.63/240, 96.63/241.

40

Stott listed coins of Harold I as unknown (313, nos. 115–17), but an Arm and Scepter coin of Harthacnut was found on the foreshore near Billingsgate. See Stott, “Saxon and Norman Coins from London,” 313 (no. 118); Naismith, Medieval European Coinage, 270 and note.

41

Of these 5 coins, Stott recorded 3 minted at London, 1 at Lincoln, 1 at Norwich. See FN 14.

42

Stott, “Saxon and Norman Coins from London,” 312 (no. 101: Aelfwi, London).

43

Egan, “The Accessioned Finds,” 457 ().

44

Stott, “Saxon and Norman Coins from London,” 313 (no. 104; no. 108: Aelfwi, Stamford).

45

CR 2006, 382 (no. 220; PAS LON-1F8030; EMC 2006.0044).

46

CR 2007, 333 (no. 312; PAS LON-EE 2321; EMC 2006.0083).

47

Kelleher and Leins, “Roman, Medieval and Later Coins,” 213 (no. 685: Quatrefoil, Wlancthegn of Leicester; no. 686: Helmet, Crinan of York; no. 687: Helmet, uncertain / Winchester; no. 688: Helmet, Wulfric / uncertain; no. 689: Short Cross, Brihtred of London).

48

Arundel Court (site code ARC12 <351>, [2233], unpublished).

49

Stott, “Saxon and Norman Coins from London,” 299.

50

Smith “On the Roman Coins,” 148.

51

Smith “On the Roman Coins,” 155.

52

Smith, Catalogue, 108 (nos. 568, 569).

53

Naismith 2016, The Coinage of Æthelred II, 125, citing the reign of Æthelred; but see ibid., 132 for Cnut.

54

Jonsson, “The Coinage of Cnut,” 199–201; Naismith 2016, The Coinage of Æthelred II, 124.

55

Stott, “Saxon and Norman Coins from London,” 295.

56

Vince, Saxon London, 35.

57

See Lavelle in this volume, pp. 170–78, for the transition.