Anglo-Saxon Sceattas

ANGLO-SAXON SCEATTAS by Tony Abramson

 

THRYMSAS AND SCEATTAS: THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The success of the Roman ‘monetary union’ was founded on its consistency and continuity. It facilitated commerce as well as the smaller transactions of daily life, it gave security to the military, provided a means of storing wealth and, above all, enabled payment of taxation in gold coin.

It was politic for forces invading the Roman Empire in the late C4^th and early C5^th to adopt Roman prototypes - the Lombards in northern Italy, Franks and Burgundians in Gaul, Visigoths in Spain and Vandals in north Africa. No such invader of the Romano-British shores yet appeared.

The evacuation of Roman forces from Britain around 418 AD denied Britain its system of defence, its central administration and its well-regulated economy. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles teach us that the Romans reduced their precious coinage to bullion before departing and buried much of their base metal. This is evidenced in the huge hoards of the base antoninianii at Blackmore, Richborough and elsewhere.

Apart from the brief mintage of the usurper Magnus Maximus (383-8 AD), no domestic coinage had been produced since c.325 AD. Native minting skills were lost. Thus the Roman withdrawal precipitated a drastic decline in the monetary economy. In Europe the collapse of the Empire was not sudden but a gradual decay. Britain alone saw a violent change and lengthy cessation of coinage.

The ‘barbarous radiates’ and minima in Britain date from the late third century and were not, as has been suggested, an erstwhile attempt to perpetuate the money supply following the Roman withdrawal. Rural areas of Britain are assumed to have lapsed into barter by 435, whilst the greater complexities of urban life necessitated continued circulation of coinage. It is difficult to deny the evidence of extreme wear from over-long circulation characteristic of the majority of late Roman coins now available. This is also attributable to poorly executed and worn dies and base content.

Elsewhere in the former western Empire coinage evolved and diverged from the remaining eastern Byzantine Empire. The barbarian invaders, although having no tradition of coinage, took over the Roman mints and continued to issue coins in the names of the Emperors. This occurred under the Frank, Clovis (484-511) and the Visigoth, Alaric II (484-507). In 538, Theodebert notoriously issued a solidus in his own name but it was several decades before others risked such daring.

The departure of the Roman legions left the Romano-British rulers beset by internecine struggles. One should not rely too heavily on the accuracy of dates given in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle or distinctions between invading tribes, who had given trouble as early as Roman times. The chroniclers inform us that around 450 AD Vortigern, ruler of the now isolated former Roman province of Britain, invited the Jutes to assist as mercenaries in subduing the Picts. Brothers Hengist and Horsa led their troops to easy victory over the northern tribe and for their efforts Vortigern awarded them the Isle of Wight and parts of Kent.

However, around 455 Hengist and Horsa turned on their host and defeated him at Aylesford. Horsa was slain but Hengist and his son Æsc fought many further battles against the Welsh. Hengist died in 488 and was succeeded by Æsc who ruled a further 24 years, thus founding the first of the English kingdoms, Kent.

After defeating the Picts in 450 Hengist and Horsa had asked the Angles to send more aid. They described the worthlessness of the Britons and the excellence of the land.

Around 477 Ælle and his sons, Cymen, Wlencing and Cissa, led the Saxons to these shores, landing at Selsey Bill and quickly capturing the area up to the impenetrable Weald Forest. The new kingdom of the South Saxons - Sussex - was thus established.

Around 495 Cerdic landed at the head of Southampton Water and established Wessex. In 544 Ida set up at Bambrugh and conquered Northumbria.

Between the departure of the Romans and the establishment of the Heptarchy of Kent, Sussex, Wessex, Essex, Northumbria, East Anglia and Mercia, the native Britons suffered extreme privations and many were driven to the Celtic fringes of the island.

Early Christian influence had accompanied the Roman invasion and settlement. Bede tells us that around 156AD Lucius, a British king asked the Emperors’ permission to adopt Christianity. Around 288 St Alban was martyred at Verulamium.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle informs us that in 430 Patrick was despatched by Pope Celestine to convert the Scots (that is, the Irish). It is from this mission that St Columba travelled to Iona in 565, the same year as Æthelberht succeeded to the Kingdom of Kent.

Æthelberht married a Christian Frankish princess, Bertha, granddaughter of Clovis, who set up her considerable entourage at Canterbury. St. Martin’s treasure deposited on this site between 580 and 590 contained several mounted Merovingian tremisses and a medalet of Bishop Luidard, Bertha’s chaplain. None can be taken as indicative of local coin usage.

In 597 Pope Gregory persuaded a reluctant Augustine to head a mission to King Æthelberht. Augustine’s remit was to bring Columba’s Iona converts back into the mainstream Roman Church. This was not achieved until the 664 Synod of Whitby when differences between Celtic Monasticism and the Catholic Church were resolved in the latter’s favour.

Augustine also succeeded in converting Æthelberht. Augustine for many centuries was taken as the Patron Saint of England but more recently he has been regarded as reluctant rather than humble.

In 627 Paulinus, one of Augustine’s envoys, baptised King Edwin of Northumbria.

In the years 632 to 655 links between State and Church were much strengthened by the rise of a common enemy, the pagan but honourable Penda of Mercia. In the first recorded collaboration between the British and English, Penda joined forces with Cadwallon to defeat Edwin. In 633 Edwin’s head was displayed at captured York. This precipated a series of tit-for-tat retaliations. In 641 Penda killed Edwin’s successor Oswald in battle, but Oswald’s brother Oswiu gained revenge in 655. Penda’s son Peada succeeded to the Mercian throne.

CONTINENTAL COINAGE

It is important to bear in mind the main monetary events in Europe during this time. By the mid C6^th it was more common to strike the 1/3 solidus, the triens or tremisses, rather than the full solidus. Even then output and fineness declined.

In the C6^th tremisses were struck in Frisia - for the first time a coinage source outside the Roman sphere. A standard of only 7 carats or siliqua was adopted rather than the standard 8 (ie: this being one third of the 24 carat solidus). The Anglo-Saxons also used this lighter standard.

The Lombards began to oust the Byzantines from Italy around 568. Thereafter, Italy followed somewhat behind the pattern of decline in the west.

In Europe the third quarter of the C6^th had seen a dramatic step away from the economic and political structure of the ancient world. Silver supplies dried up for nearly 100 years and with copper already absent only gold was left, and the use of that was rapidly diminishing.

A critical factor in subsequent events, particularly in the decline of urban communities and consequent reduction in economic activity, was the wave upon wave of plague that swept Europe from 540 for the next two centuries. Urban life declined, trade shrank (plague diminished the supply of slaves!), taxes reverted to being collected in produce. A recent theory (Catastrophe, David Keys, Century, London, 1999, ISBN 0 7126 8069 1) ascribes these literally Dark Ages to a truly massive eruption of Karakatoa around 530. Gregory, Bishop of Tours (573-594) suggested that noble and ecclesiastical treasuries often changed hands by violent means or confiscation, but such movements were fossilised and did not lubricate the economy.

The Avar and Persian conquests of the eastern Byzantine Empire in the late C6^th and early C7^th abruptly reduced the Byzantine tax base. This lead to the payment of the army in land, rather than gold, and the fragmentation of large estates. This was mirrored in the west in the face of internecine warfare. Distribution of land to gain the support of the aristocracy during the Frankish civil wars left the Merovingian monarchs impoverished. Between 680 and 740, Pepin and Charles Martel divided estates between vassals enabling groups of armed dependants to be maintained. This was the genesis of the feudal system. War also increased the propensity to hoard!

Prior to the invasion of the Western Empire the barbarians had used a barter system of gift-exchange in an economy with no medium of exchange. This was to some extent resurrected as gold circulation diminished. However, gold continued to be the unit of account in, for example, calculating Wergild, compensation for damage, injury and death.

Gold, largely coined, also retained a ceremonial function in non-commercial transactions such as bride money, dowries and funerary offerings such as at Sutton Hoo and Crondall.

By the 670’s gold production was coming to an end in Europe except in Italy where it continued for a further 100 years. Even the noble and ecclesiastic hoards had been leached out. Can uninterrupted continuity of gold production in the Byzantine Empire be unrelated to the decline of gold coinage in the west where it would be a further 500 years before gold coin production recommenced?

The C7^th saw the appearance of the silver denarial coinage forerunner of the medieval silver penny. Production was highly fragmented with 500 mints and 1500 monetarii, moneyers, in Frankia alone. This produced a much smaller output than the three C4^th Gallic mints of Trier, Lyons & Arles. This degree of decentralisation may be slightly deceptive as die engraving may have been grouped. The appearance of the name of the monetarius, moneyer, on the coin, as a guarantee of fineness, does not indicate necessarily a lack of regal authority. However, later episcopal control is more evident and subsequently only mint names appear.

It could be that the multiplicity of mints indicates that they supported local markets and this evidences an economic resurgence. This would have been lubricated by a denomination - the denarius - well suited to the transactions of a rural small-holding economy as created by the fragmentation of land holding.

It appears that the Germanic economic model favoured small local markets (distributed model) rather than the urban centralization of the Roman world.

From the breakout of the Germanic tribes, an economically unsophisticated people, across the Rhine in 406AD, it took three centuries of monetary evolution before the silver denarial coinage arose in the west. This was in stark contrast to the bimetallic system of gold and copper in Byzantium. One must conclude, as inferred earlier, a specie flow of silver for gold between east and west.

The early silver denarius bore similar mints and moneyers to the last of the gold triens. They were a similar size and thickness and differed only in metallic content. The first Continental issue stated the denomination, denarius, a more appropriate appellation than the now conventional term for the early Anglo-Saxon coinage, sceatta.

Frisia was the engine of economic revival and the Meuse Valley saw much minting activity. The slightly more northerly Dorestad, on the Rhine, was the principal trading centre. By the end of the C7^th and first quarter of the C8^th production in Frisia and England far exceed earlier Frankish output. Wihtred of Kent (691-725) was a prolific issuer. Frisian and Anglo-Saxon sceattas are not easily separated. Base gold tremisses ceased production in the 670’s.

What was the source of the Anglo-Saxon silver in the absence of mining? The likely explanation is the favourable trade with Frisia. Internecine war in England ensured that a supply of slaves and quality wool for export was always available. Some luxury goods flowed from Frisia in return and the balance was made up in silver. This would explain why sceatta production penetrated to inland England from the coastal trading ports, wics.

Trade between Frisia and Scandinavia was more balanced; glassware, bronze work and pottery in exchange for Scandinavian furs. Early imbalanced trade between Scandinavia and Byzantium is evidenced by significant hoards of Byzantine gold and Islamic silver in, for example, Gotland. Perhaps half of northern European hoards contain Islamic dirhems.

However, geology favours silver mining even less in Frisia than in Kent, so where was the source of Frisian silver? Frankish-Frisian trade was complex but could be summarised as expensive slaves and furs traded on from Frisia in exchange for a variety of Frankish goods, with the balance made up in Frisia’s favour by silver. However, in the 730’s Frankia completed the conquest of Frisia and a political element entered the equation.

The source of the Frankish silver was the silver bearing lead mines at Melle near Poitiers. Mints proliferated in the area at the end of the Carolingian era and throughout the Merovingian period. A strong trade corridor from Provence to Frisia is also delineated by numerous small mints.

It is of no little consequence that the western advance of Islam was turned back at Poitiers and Tours in 732 by Charles Martel. The eastern Islamic advance into Europe was halted at Akroinion in 740 by a combination of the forces of the Byzantine Emperor Leo III and the Khazars. One may usefully speculate on the impact of Islamic numismatic calligraphy on Leo III’s 726 decree of Iconoclasm and its possible impact on Anglo-Saxon coinage as vivid motifs were replaced by literate inscriptions (particularly in Series Y where the ecclesiastical influence of York was considerable).

Although the fine gold solidus still circulated in Byzantium, it was no more than a unit of account in the west. Four denarii or sceattas were worth one triens, tremisses or thrymsa. Three of these to the solidus. Hence, twelve denarii, dinheros, deniers, pennies or pfennige to the solidus, soldo, sueldo, sou, shilling or schilling. A ratio of 12:1 silver to gold. The libra, lira, livre, pound or pfund was a score of dozens - 240 pence to the pound weight of silver.

In the period 600-675 the first Anglo-Saxon coins were produced. Merovingian France had seen no discontinuity in coin production since Roman times and had adopted the 1/3 gold solidus, the tremisses, at around 22 grains, as its standard.

Through the Frankish influence on Kent, Anglo-Saxon England was to adopt a similar standard. Our knowledge of Anglo-Saxon thrymsas as well as Merovingian tremisses circulating in England comes very largely from the hoard of 101 gold coins found at Crondall in Hampshire in 1828. The hoard, deposited around 620 AD, contains 69 Anglo-Saxon thrymsas, the rest being Merovingian tremisses. The Heberden Coin Room in the Ashmolean Museum houses around seventy of the coins from this hoard.

It is difficult to assess the extent of this gold coinage as what was not shipped to the Byzantine Empire was incorporated into the subsequent issue of the base gold primary series of sceattas. Certainly one could not imagine a regal or episcopal court, at this time, with the implicit domestic and foreign revenues and expenditures, judicial, legislative, executive and religious duties and privileges, operating without the lubricity of a medium of exchange.

We are heavily dependent upon hoard evidence for the chronology of the gold and silver series but it is clear that from about 680AD the Merovingian denarius or denier formed a standard for the western and northern fringes of Europe indicative of the extent and distribution of international economic and cultural intercourse at the close of the C7^thAD.

SCEATTAS

What little is not surmise is pure conjecture.

Sceat is derived from Schatz, Old German for treasure and the word occurs in the laws of King Æthelberht as 1/20 of a shilling, possibly meaning 1/20 of a thrymsa. A sceat was probably a measure or weight rather than a denomination, being used to define the value of silver to gold. A transcription of the laws of King Ine, who ruled Wessex from 688 to 726, speaks of a penny at this time, and the term denarial coinage may be a better description yet. However, it is the name sceatta which has stuck for this small silver, thick fabric coin and penny for the flatter, thinner fabric coin the transition to which is seen during the reign of the East Anglian king Beonna (749-760 AD or later) coming to full artistic fruition under Offa of Mercia (757-796). Offa’s issue of a unique gold penny in imitation of an al-Mansur dinar famously acknowledges the influence of the Islamic coinage.

We are beset by the paucity of knowledge of this important series. Mints, moneyers, issuing authorities, areas of use and distribution, spheres of influence and even purpose are all lacking or open to fiercely debated interpretation.

Hoard and single find evidence is growing but presents a woefully incomplete picture. Most sceatta types are very scarce, many varieties are based on a single find only. The chances of owning a unique coin today are higher than elsewhere in numismatics. But beware tomorrow!

 

 

This article is copyright Tony Abramson and cannot be reproduced without his express permission.