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Auction: 21006 - British Hammered and Milled Coins: Summer Auction
Lot: 60

William I (1066-1087), Profile/Cross Fleury Type, Penny, 1080-1087, Grantchester [Cambridge], Ulfketill, crowned bust right, lys-tipped sceptre before, rev. + VLFCITL ON GRANT, cross potent, voided fleurs inverted in angles, 1.34g, 3h (North 847; BMC VII; Spink 1256), slightly crimped with some deposits in recesses, a really good very fine, excessively rare, the finest of its type known and of great significance to the corpus of Cambridge mint

Provenance
Found at Sutton (Cambs)
~ Recorded with Fitzwilliam Museum (Cambs), EMC 2019.0333 ~

Circulating in the years surrounding Domesday, this important coin solidifies our understanding of the role of the Cambridge mint in the years around the Norman conquest for which evidence remains exceedingly pauce. Prior to its discovery, only a broken example from Congham acquired by the Fitzwilliam Museum in 2010 (EMC 2010.0315) and a passing reference to a similar coin in a Sotheby's auction of 1853 (Durrner, 20.I.1853, lot 43) were the only traces of BMC type VII for the mint of Cambridge.


Interestingly the moneyer's name 'Ulfchetel' is distinctly Norse in origin, indicative of the vibrant mix of nationalities in every strata of English society in the chaotic turbulence of the 11th Century. Eponymous individuals are to be found at Framingham (Norfolk), Packington (Staffs), Bedworth and Napton (Warks) reflective of the Midlands and East Anglia's historic Viking connections. Unfortunately no mention is made of our moneyer in the vicinity of Grantchester/Cambridge at the time of the tax assessment, but the make up of the landscape is unsurprisingly dominated by Norman overlords, such as Robert of Mortain, Count Eustace of Boulogne and Guy of Raimbeaucourt, under whose local authority Ulfketill would produce his specie. However instead of this coin returning to the treasury in tax, its unfortunate final possessor would lose it in the vicinity of Sutton. Even the Conqueror - a famous stargazer himself - would undoubtedly appreciate the colour of the air following the coin's loss.

For further reading, see: 'The Cambridge Mint after the Norman Conquest: Addenda, M Allen, NumChron 171, pp. 257-259

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Estimate
£18,000 to £22,000

Starting price
£17000