Early English Silver Source Identified
Researchers from the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford, and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam have determined that Byzantine silver was the dominant source behind the great seventh-century surge in minting and trade around the North Sea.
Throughout the seventh and eighth centuries, coinage circulating in the British Isles was evolving. There is evidence that Merovingian gold tremisses coins struck in Frankland after 650, as well as Anglo-Saxon gold thrymsas or shillings, were in use in what is today Britain.
Beginning about 675 Anglo-Saxon gold thrymsas or shilling coins were increasingly being replaced by larger quantities of silver pennies or sceattas as the main coin used in commerce. The use of sceattas spread from Kent and the Thames region into other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in East Anglia, Mercia, Northumbria, and Wessex. These sceattas were minted for about a century, their silver content gradually being debased. About 770, with the exception of Northumbria, a larger diameter yet thinner penny was introduced by the various coin minting entities.
Viking raiders appeared in the late eighth century, in time conquering East Anglia, eastern Mercia, and York to form the Danelaw. The Vikings likewise struck silver pennies. By the time the independent Viking issues ceased in 954, there were 35 mints operating within their territory.
One of the principal categories of the sceatta imitated fourth-century Constantinian Roman bronze coins. A second category imitated the solidus of the Byzantine Empire. At the end of the eighth century, sceatta coins were being replaced with silver pennies, imitating the standard silver denier of the Carolingian empire.
The dramatic increase in the use of sceattas raises the question—where did the local Anglo-Saxons get their silver? Were there mines in continental Europe from which the local kingdoms could obtain silver? Could the Anglo-Saxons have been scrapping older Roman coins and artifacts en mass? Since the sceattas coins became increasingly debased could this have been because their silver supplies were becoming exhausted?
Researchers from the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford, and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam sought to answer these questions when they recently studied the chemical makeup of 49 silver coins minted between 660 and 820, struck in what today are Belgium, England, northern France, and the Netherlands. The coins are housed at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.
Chemical analysis of the coins indicated two phases of the silver rush, one beginning in the 660s and the other after 750. The study recently appeared in Antiquity.
Researcher Rory Naismith told Newsweek, “It has long been clear there were big changes in the money supply starting in about A.D. 670. This was when the silver penny became established, and the quantity of cash in circulation increased massively. But the question was where the silver came from that supported this change. We wanted to answer that question.”
Naismith continued, “There were two things we wanted to find out using this method, both of which tell us about the potential source of the silver. One is the elemental composition: what elements are in the coin, with the small amounts of things like gold or bismuth being most revealing; the second is lead isotopes, or atomic variants of lead, which vary between regions and mines. This method gives good results but with minimal physical impact on the coins.”
He added, “Now we have the first archaeometric confirmation that Byzantine silver was the dominant source behind the great seventh-century surge in minting and trade around the North Sea.”
In a press release, lead author Jane Kershaw (University of Oxford) said, “We know of some surviving Byzantine silver from Anglo-Saxon England, most famously from Sutton Hoo, but far greater amounts of Byzantine silver must have originally been held in Anglo-Saxon stores. Connections between Byzantium and Anglo-Saxon England were closer than most people think. This was quantitative easing; elites were liquidating silver stored in valuable objects and using that silver to make coins that then circulated widely. It would have had a big impact on people’s lives. Far more people than before would have used coined money and thought in terms of monetary values.”
Naismith told Newsweek, “There are a lot of interesting conclusions to draw from this research. It shows how important the economic strength of the eastern Mediterranean was for reviving northwest Europe, and a valuable follow-up project would be to examine earlier movements of silver between east and west.”
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