EDWARD I : A BIRTHDAY PENNY
PERIOD: MEDIEVAL LOCATION: LINCOLNSHIRE, UK MATERIAL: SILVER
It was a very special digging Wednesday last week as not only have some of our favourite fields become available but it’s also Lucie’s birthday and in accordance with some long held Roman Found traditions we are spending it at the permission.
Almost as if the metal detecting gods are already looking down upon us, the large stretch of fields that we have as our playground today actually contain a deserted Medieval village hidden within their plough soil. Here in England there are more than 3,000 deserted Medieval villages lost within the landscape and many of them, like this one, are at risk each year as ploughing damages more lost artefacts and scatters the detritus left behind slowly erasing the traces of life that once existed here.
Our village is a relatively small one containing less than 10 households and was occupied from Saxon times up until its desertion in the 14th Century which was believed to be caused by a drastic population decline after severe effects caused by the Black Death. It’s unprotected as a heritage site and the land is left to arable farming. which has destroyed some of the earthworks. Therefore at every chance we get, we like to recover a few more pieces of history and plot their locations, creating data that will hopefully reveal a little bit more about the life and trade that existed here.
So Lucie hasn’t made too bad of a decision for her pick of Birthday detecting, choosing a place that has thrown up plenty of delicate Medieval artefacts and even some Saxon treats such as a stunning silver Sceat that she has been dying to find more of since. But just what is waiting in here today as her birthday present from the fields?
It’s Lucie’s birthday and in accordance with some long held Roman Found traditions we are spending it at the permission.
The plough always has an odd and unpredictable effect upon the detecting plain, sometimes it can be a good turn throwing up plenty of artefacts, sometimes it can be a bad turn only pushing them deeper, and sometimes the best spots from last year can be rubbish the next. It certainly keeps the detectorist on their toes. This turned out to be very much the case as sadly the Sceat section seemed to be on a bad turn this year driving us to explore deeper into areas that we usually leave for desperate times. And thank our lucky stars we did as a strong 15 / 16 on the VDI after endless and endless signals digging misshapen lumps of lead caused such a fright in the hole that Ellie stopped in shock immediately as a small silver circle appeared amongst the claggy soil.
A penny, one of the earliest British coins that was first minted in the 8th Century under the Saxons and for centuries virtually the only denomination of coin available. But which type do we have here? We know this lost village was occupied from the Saxon times. Plucking it from its dirty grave the distilled water spritz soon reveals the familiar long cross pattern of English coins that dominated the currency for more than two hundred years during the middle ages. The Long Cross Penny.
Minted under Edward I this was actually one of the earliest coins to appear bearing this long cross design. A result of a great recoinage in 1279 that was an attempt to improve the poor state of the circulating currency that had been degraded by hoarding, clipping and general wear and tear caused by decades of circulation. Clipping in particular was a very prevalent problem and especially during the 1270’s as slivers of silver would be hoarded and melted down into new coins after being illegally snipped from the edges of good coins in circulation leaving them underweight and devaluing the currency. Whilst England relied upon a coin based economy at this time the weight of the silver in the coins was still very much important. Which is exactly what makes this piece of birthday silver so incredible. It’s barely clipped. The outer beading of the design is in fact still present, something that doesn’t often appear on well circulated examples. In fact it almost looks like it was dropped yesterday. Possibly the best ever example of a long cross penny that we have ever found.
And thank our lucky stars we did as a strong 15 / 16 on the VDI after endless and endless signals digging misshapen lumps of lead caused such a fright in the hole that Ellie stopped in shock immediately as a small silver circle appeared amongst the claggy soil.
Some careful scrutiny and comparison of letter shapes and crown details is what reveals the long cross to be minted at the Canterbury Mint under Edward I. The Edwardian Coinage does bring about a few problems for the modern numismatist and requires careful examination and a good reference book for accurate identification. We use ‘The English Long-Cross Pennies 1279-1489’ by Christopher R. Wren is an excellent identification tool that provides illustrations for comparison.The identification challenge is a result of one act during the recoinage where the King’s regal number stopped being indicated upon the coins. This meant that, as Edward I was succeeded by Edward II and then Edward III, for almost a hundred years all English pennies bore the name ‘Edward’, and their basic design remained the same.
This presented quite the identification challenge for numismatics to come until yet another Edward came along. But this Edward wasn’t a King, no this was the Scottish Numismatist Edward Burns who in 1887 was given the opportunity to examine a very large hoard found at Montrave in Fifeshire. This hoard consisted of nearly nine thousand pennies of Edward I, Edward II and Edward III, amongst other Scottish and continental coins, and by classifying and grouping common features in the coins together and referencing across other hoards he produced the first comprehensive scientific classification of the Edwardian coinage. Marking a milestone in our numismatic understanding of this era.
However there is also one man that also deserves a mention in cracking a code to the Edwardian coinage and that is Antony Bek, elected Bishop of Durham in 1283. It was his known personal mark, the cross moline, found on a Durham penny that provided a strong dated point and key for Burns to then work backwards and forwards from and cross reference to work out the time sequence of the issued coins.
So whilst it may not have been Saxon Silver, returning with one of our finest Long Cross Pennies, that reveals such an important and pivotal moment in the history of the English Penny and in fact English Coinage itself, Lucie couldn’t have received a better Birthday Present from the fields. If you want to learn more about the artefacts that we uncovered on Lucie’s Birthday Dig then be sure to check out our Youtube for all of the digging tales.
