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The Coinex Sale: The Unique Gold Penny of Coenwulf, King of Mercia (796 - 821)

Coenwulf, King of Mercia (796-821), Gold penny or Mancus of 30 pence, 4.33g., London, diademed bust of Coenwulf right, finely drawn with four horizontal lines on the shoulders, dividing obverse legend, COENVVLF REX M (rounded) beginning at 12 o'clock, rev. DE VICO LVNDONIAE around rosette developed from a cross over a cross moline, no inner circles, initial cross of four wedges with centre pellet on both sides (MEC -; N -; S -), a magnificent coin of superb workmanship, save for a minute scratch in the field before face, in mint state on a full round carefully prepared flan, with an attractive golden tone and red highlights, of the greatest historical importance, unique

Estimate: £120,000 - £150,000

PROVENANCE:
Found by an amateur metal detectorist, next to a public footpath beside the river Ivel, Bedfordshire, 2001. Consigned by agreement with the landowner.

PUBLICATION:
Preliminary discussion by Dr Gareth Williams, Assistant Keeper, Department of Coins and Medals, British Museum, paper read to the British Numismatic Society Meeting, Guildhall, Bath, 6 July 2002.

This extraordinary coin, the most important discovery in British numismatics for many years, is the first new Anglo-Saxon gold penny to come to light for almost a century, and a remarkable addition to the very select group of seven gold coins (all now in museum collections) which survive from the three centuries from the introduction of the broad flan penny under Offa of Mercia (757-96) to the reign of Edward the Confessor (1042-66). Unique as the only gold coin in the name of Coenwulf of Mercia, unique as the only purpose made Anglo-Saxon gold penny of clearly regal design, unique as the only gold coin with a London mint signature to be struck between the gold shillings of c. AD 630 and Henry III’s gold penny of 20 pence of 1257, it is again unique as the only English coin, of any type, to refer to the important extra-mural commercial settlement of Lundenwic.

COINAGE OF MEDIEVAL WESTERN EUROPE
The coinage of medieval western Europe, with the exception of those parts of Christendom recovered from the Muslims, was one of silver. About AD 670 a coinage of silver deniers was inaugurated in the Frankish kingdom of Neustria, and by AD 700 silver had taken over completely in the West, a monometallism which was set to endure for five hundred years.

Gold remained known, gold in bullion form was often available and sums of gold were often referred to in documents and in wills, but these amounts were paid by weight, in the equivalent value of silver, or in Muslim gold coins (financial records show Henry III (1216-72) regularly purchased supplies of oboli and denarii de musc’, i.e. gold coins of Muslim Spain, in anticipation of each great festival of the Church). Only very occasionally, possibly for reasons of prestige, were gold coins actually struck. In England the term mancus, possibly derived from manqush (‘engraved’) an adjective used to characterize dinars in Arab records, came into use meaning an Arab gold dinar, and subsequently as a unit equivalent to the weight of gold of a dinar (4.25g) or the value of a dinar in silver currency, 30 pennies, at a gold:silver value ratio of 10:1.

THE SEVEN OTHER ANGLO-SAXON GOLD PENNIES
The seven other surviving Anglo-Saxon gold pennies also represent a mancus. They take a variety of forms:
(1) The first and most famous is the gold dinar of Offa of Mercia (757-96), 4.28g., a close copy of an Abbasid dinar of Caliph al-Mansur (754- 77), AH 157, with ‘OFFA REX’ inserted into the inverted obverse. In 786 Offa promised the pope to send an annual gift of 365 mancuses, and Papal letters of thanks in 797 and 802 show that the subvention was paid. This coin, the only survivor, was found in Rome prior to 1841 and was acquired by the British Museum, ex the P W P Carlyon-Britton sale, 17 November 1913, lot 269, for £215. (Stewart 1978, A.120).

Two gold pennies, of the time of Offa of Mercia (757-96), bear the name of a moneyer with no regal attribution, and copy antique prototypes:
(2) Struck by Offa’s moneyer Pendred, 3.74g., copies an aureus of Augustus (27 BC - AD 14) of Lugdunum (Lyon) with a profile diademed head on the obverse and a standing figure of Diana with spear and bow on the reverse. Illustrated in John Speed’s Historie of Great Britaine (1611), 315, it was donated to the British Museum by C E Blunt, ex Christie’s, 30 May 1961, lot 16. (Stewart 1978, A.122).

(3) Struck by Ciolheard, a London moneyer under Offa and Coenwulf , 4.12g., copies a profile bust from a late 4th-century solidus, with a slightly blundered inscription. Found near Manchester 1849, it was purchased by the British Museum, ex Rev. A Mallinson sale, Spink Auction 39, 6 December 1984, lot 73 for £23,100. (Pagan 1965).

(4) The fourth gold penny is different. In the name of Wigmund, archbishop of York (c.837-54?), 4.16g., it has a facing tonsured bust of the archbishop, copied from the pennies of the archbishops of Canterbury, and a reverse which closely imitates the MVNVS DIVINVM gold solidi of Louis the Pious (814-40). Completely unlike Wigmund’s copper stycas minted at York, this coin may have been struck at Canterbury in honour of the archbishop. It was acquired by the British Museum (BMC 718) at the sale of the Eighth Earl of Pembroke (d.1733), 31 August 1848, lot 34 for £59. (Stewart 1978, A.123). The remaining three gold pennies are simple ‘strikes’ in gold from ordinary penny dies, at weights approximating to three contemporary pence, and are apparently random survivors:

(5) Edward the Elder (899-924), gold penny, 4.80g., struck from penny dies of the two line type by the moneyer Deorwald. From the same obverse die as a surviving silver penny, BMC 31, it was found at Lutry, near Lausanne in 1909, and is now in the Cantonal Museum at Lausanne. (Stewart 1978, A.125).

(6) Aethelred II (978-1016), gold penny, 3.34g., struck from penny dies of the helmet type, by the moneyer Leofwine at the mint of Lewes. Found at Hellingly, East Sussex, c.1808, and in the possession of Mrs Holroyd when it was published by Sir John Evans in the Numismatic Chronicle, 1879, pp.62-5, it was soon afterwards acquired by the British Museum. (Stewart 1978, A.126).

(7) Edward the Confessor (1042-66), gold penny, 3.51g., struck from penny dies of the, light issue of the expanding cross type, by Leofinc at the mint of Warwick. Found during the demolition of the ruins of the old Church of St. Clements, Worcester, c.1824, and purchased by R C Lockett from Baldwin’s in 1947 for £750, it was presented to the British Museum by the late Mrs R C Lockett. (Stewart 1978, A.127). These seven gold coins, although all intended to be worth a mancus of thirty silver pence, were probably produced for ceremonial or other high-status payments, and do not represent evidence for a bimetallic currency. For example, King Eadred (946-55) gave instructions in his will for a weight of 2,000 mancuses of gold to be minted into mancuses for distribution throughout the bishoprics, though none have survived. The Coenwulf penny adds a completely new dimension to our knowledge. It has every appearance of being a special regal gold issue, struck at an official mint, from dies engraved by an official engraver, with an official portrait, and executed with exceptional care.

THE KINGDOM OF MERCIA
At the time of this coin, the Kingdom of Mercia was the dominant power in England south of the Humber. Driven by the ruthless king Offa, the only ruler in western Europe who could make a show of dealing with Charlemagne on equal terms, Mercia had reduced East Anglia and Kent to sub-kingdoms and ensured the quiescence of Wessex. Offa’s monetary reforms, introducing the first English broad flan silver penny of specifically royal character c.770, and then increasing the weight standard in the 790’s when Charlemagne introduced his novus denarius, created a sound monetary based commercial economy in south-east England.

After Offa’s death, his son Ecgfrith survived for only five months, and the Mercian throne passed to a distant cousin Coenwulf (796-821). Kent took this opportunity to revolt against Mercian rule and it was not until 798 that Coenwulf invaded Kent and placed his brother Cuthred (798-807) on the Kentish throne. The temporary loss of the important Canterbury mint meant that Coenwulf’s earliest coins, which follow on directly from those of Offa, must be identified with a mint in Mercia proper. Few early ninth century coins carry a mint-signature, the established practice was for pennies to carry on the obverse the name of the ruler and on the reverse the name of a moneyer, but this mint was certainly London, always a Mercian town and the commercial gateway to European trade (no coins were struck by the Mercians at their capital at Tamworth).

In 805 the Canterbury mint under Cuthred pioneered a finely engraved new portrait penny. The design was adopted by Coenwulf, but the issues were apparently sequential and Coenwulf’s earliest Canterbury portrait coins were not struck until after Cuthred’s death in 807. The London mint, meanwhile, seems to have declined. Coenwulf’s coins attributed to London after 805 are rare and, apart from the characteristic use of a cross-crosslet reverse type, show little chronological or internal consistency. Some are based on the Cuthred-style bust at Canterbury, by a less accomplished die-engraver, others on Roman prototypes characterized by a curious pointed nose (BLS p.35). It is possible that the London mint became dormant for parts of the remainder of the reign.

The obverse of the Coenwulf gold penny clearly fits into this sequence. Stewart Lyon has observed that the style of the obverse portrait and lettering is exactly that of the Canterbury engraver of the coinage of Cuthred and Coenwulf c.805-810 (BLS Cd 22, Cn 29 and Cn 31), even down to the pellet at the centre of the initial cross seen on some coins of both king’s (BLS Cd 18, Cd 22 and Cn 29). The only difference is the lack of an inner circle, a trademark though not a universal ommission at the London mint. The workmanship is even finer than that on the silver pennies, with beautifully spaced lettering and four thin horizontal lines on the shoulders of the bust where the ordinary coinage has only two, a difference analogous, in an earlier context, to the superior engraving found on dies used for Roman gold aureii over those for silver denarii. The obverse would suggest that the gold penny was struck from dies prepared by the Canterbury die-engraver about the time, 807, that Coenwulf resumed coinage at the Canterbury mint.

The reverse is completely different. The engraving is again extremely delicate but there is no exact parallel on the silver coinage to the central rosette motive, the nearest being on a London penny of the moneyer Ciolheard (BLS Cn 85). The most remarkable and unprecedented feature is the legend DE VICO LVNDONIAE.

LONDON AND LUNDENWIC
Following the collapse of the Roman administration in 410 little is known about activity within the old London Roman city walls. The London mint signature appears only very rarely on the coinage - LONDENVS in the 630’s on the gold shillings of Eadbald, king of Kent (616-640), (D)E LVNDONIA in the late 730’s on the debased silver secondary sceattas of Series L, LVNDONIA CIVIT in 829-30 on the extremely rare silver pennies of Ecgberht of Wessex (802-839) struck during his brief occupation of London, and then not again for a further fifty years until c.880 when the famous LVNDONIA monogram type of Alfred the Great (871-899) proclaimed Alfred’s own assumption of control of the city.

Bede, refers to London as an important trading centre, and it is now apparent that by 700 the flourishing settlement of Lundenwic had become established outside the city walls, extending from the west side of the Roman city around the river bank south and west to Westminster, and north to present day Oxford Street, and trading vigorously with ports in Frisian and Viking spheres. DE VICO LVNDONIAE, “from the wic of London”, specifically relates to this commercial settlement. Lundenwic was apparently abandoned in the late 9th century when the area within the Roman walls was extensively resettled, perhaps as a result of Viking attack.

The extremely low survival rate suggests that Anglo-Saxon gold coins were never struck in large quantities, aided by the fact that they often ended up in the hands of ecclesiastical authorities, who turned them to other purposes. The Abingdon Chronicle has preserved the metrical inscription on a reliquary in the abbey’s possession, recording how it was made at the orders of King Cnut and Queen Aelfgifu from 230 gold mancuses ‘refined by fire’ and two pounds of silver. The fortunate survival of this highly significant coin - a regal gold penny in a period of silver monometallism, of exceptional design and workmanship at a minting centre apparently in temporary decline, with a prominent reference to Lundenwic, already sheds important new light on the Anglo-Saxon coinage and on the commercial city of London.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY:
M A S Blackburn, ‘The London Mint in the Reign of Alfred’, in Kings, Currency and Alliances, ed. Blackburn and D N Dumville, Woodbridge, 1998, 105-23 at pp. 120-23

C E Blunt, C S S Lyon and B H I H Stewart, ‘The Coinage of southern England, 796-840’, British Numismatic Journal 32 (1963), 1-74 (BLS)

P Grierson and M A S Blackburn, ‘Medieval European Coinage 1. The Early Middle Ages (5th-10th Centuries)’, Cambridge, 1986 (MEC)

C S S Lyon, ‘Historical problems of Anglo-Saxon coinage (3), denominations and weights’, British Numismatic Journal 38 (1969), 216-38

H E Pagan, ‘A third gold coin of Mercia’, British Numismatic Journal 34 (1965), 8-10

J Schofield, ‘Saxon London in a tale of two cities’, British Archaeology, no 44, May 1999: Places

B H I H Stewart, ‘Anglo-Saxon gold coins’, in Scripta Nummaria Romana, Essays Presented to Humphrey Sutherland, ed. R A G Carson and C M Kraay , London, 1978, 143-72