ROMAN COINS IN A SAXON SETTLEMENT?
PERIOD: ROMAN LOCATION: LINCOLNSHIRE, UK MATERIAL: COPPER ALLOY / BRONZE
We are lucky to have an unscheduled and little known about Deserted Medieval Village on our metal detecting permission. It was a relatively small settlement consisting of a Church and less than 10 households and we will likely never know for certain the entire reason behind its abandonment. But what we do know is that it was occupied from the Saxon period right up to the 14th Century. So imagine our surprise when two rather out of place coins pop up directly in the heart of the village's streets, almost as if they had been dropped by the villagers themselves, something that seems impossible.
We’ve come out in between the storms today, hoping we aren’t going to get too battered by the weather, purely to get a dig in this deserted village. In the English countryside there are more than 3,000 deserted villages and they are disappearing at an alarming rate, every year the plough destroys a little bit more of what remains here so it’s a race against the clock to find and record the historical artefacts that are lost in this soil before they meet their end. And just as we are recovering from a rather brutal onslaught by the weather a blinding signal has Lucie stopped dead in her tracks. Maybe it’s about to be worth our while for persevering in the weather?
At the time of this village’s creation by the Saxons, British Society was in somewhat of an upheaval. The Roman Army had just withdrawn from Britain and wasn’t coming back, the centre of the Empire required protection after suffering increasingly worse threats from barbarians and for the invasions that Britain was experiencing itself by the Saxons, Scots, Picts and Angles, well it was time to cut their losses. Yet the Romans had been here for centuries, built civilisations and a society that didn’t just stop the moment the last soldier removed his boot from British soil. But with one invader out of the door it wasn’t too long before another arrived and the Anglo Saxons came, took power and divided the country into a series of Kingdoms. Society was changed once more.
The Romans had been here for centuries, built civilisations and a society that didn’t just stop the moment the last soldier removed his boot from British soil.
These Saxons didn’t settle in the same locations as the Romans, they preferred to create hamlets and villages as opposed to the towns and farmsteads that grew up under the Romans. Naturally there would have been overlap in some locations where natural resources such as a spring would have dictated development, but this was a new breed of civilisation that had come to stay and Roman values were very much left in the past. Or were they? You see, here we are in the heart of the Saxon village, kneeling in the exact spot where we would have been surrounded by the simple, rectangular huts built from wooden frames and turfed walls with thatched roofs. Saxon huts. Clutching a Roman Coin. A Single Standard Gloria Exercitvs type struck at the Lugdunum Mint in the 4th Century under one of Constantine I’s sons. So what is it doing here?
These coins were a very popular reverse that depicts two soldiers standing either side of a standard, it’s a celebration of the ‘Glory of the Army’, a strategic message put out by the Emperors who in previous centuries had seen increasing mutinies by the army and knew that they needed the army on their side to maintain their seat of power. The Roman Army was a formidable and highly efficient force thought to have contained roughly half a million soldiers at its peak, and their rigorous training exercises, organisation and logistics ensured that they were the most successful army in the history of the world. The soldiers on this particular coin were a high, senior rank known as a ‘signifer’ and their job demanded a lot more than just the carrying of the standards which were the emblems of their military units. They were also responsible for the finances of their individual unit, and had charge of the Burial Club Fund. Which was sort of like a Pension that each soldier would pay into to ensure that, should they die, they would receive a decent burial. In Britain only a dozen and a half men are known to have held this role. All in all, not really a force that you want working against you as a Roman Emperor.
The Roman Army was a formidable and highly efficient force thought to have contained roughly half a million soldiers at its peak.
But back to what this coin is doing here, well one final surprise interrupts our pondering as dusk falls. Another Roman, another Gloria Exercitvs, raising even more questions about what these two out of place coins are doing in this deserted village. Have we found evidence of a Roman use for this land, farming or a travel route perhaps? Or is there another explanation hidden in the turmoil that came after the Romans withdrew from Britain. One that reveals a bit more about what early society would have been like in this village.
Well when the Saxons arrived in Britain they did not immediately begin minting coins as they preferred a trade and barter based economy, but the society left behind by the Romans was used to having a currency. And they still did have one, the Romans didn’t remove every single Roman Coin from British soil as they left so what remained was still circulating freely. Therefore it is known for Roman Coins to be found within Saxon Settlements as they were still being used for trade, but their meaning also went beyond just a humble coin.
Roman coins are often found pierced and transformed into ornaments by the Saxons.The Romans were a powerful society that was looked up to by other societies so it’s natural that their coins became symbolic after their departure, a talisman of something called ‘Romanitas’ an aspiration for all. And what better aspiration could you have to look up to than a coin that celebrates the most successful army in the history of the world? Would these two coins have held a lot more meaning behind them than we realise to the Saxons of this village. Or was one of them a leftover Roman citizen, displaced by the withdrawal, still clinging on to the Roman values they have left behind. We will likely never know the answer. But what do you think?
