228 Mr. PETRIE'S Inquiry into the Origin and 



viously coined money in their own country, and as the types on what seem to 

 be their earliest coins, struck in Ireland, do not appear to have been borrowed 

 from the earlier or cotemporaneous Anglo-Saxon coins, but from the still ruder 

 money without inscriptions, found abundantly in Ireland, it seems to me a more 

 natural and philosophical induction, and more in accordance with the historical 

 evidences which I have adduced, that such rude pieces are generally of Irish 

 mintage, and anterior to the Danish irruptions, than that they are Danish, or 

 Irish imitations, cotemporaneous with, or of a later age than the better minted 

 coins of the Danes. 



I think it probable, however, that the pinginns, or bracteates, are of greater 

 antiquity in Ireland than the screpalls, as they appear to have been in Ger- 

 many, Sweden, and Denmark : and am also of opinion that those rude pieces 

 without legends, whether screpalls or pinginns, were very probably for the 

 most part, if not wholly, ecclesiastical, their types having usually a religious 

 character, and being most commonly found in the localities of ancient ecclesi- 

 astical establishments : as for instance, that curious hoard of coins found at 

 Glendalough in 1639, of which Sir James Ware published a few examples, and 

 concerning which Ledwich remarks that " the mintage is extremely rude, and 

 bespeaks the infancy of the art, and the unskilfulness of the workman." But, 

 according to this learned writer these coins must have been Danish, and why ? 

 Because, " As it [Glendalough] was built by the Danes, and much resorted to 

 for devotion, we cannot admire at finding much of their money there." These 

 assertions of Doctor Ledwich are really amusing. It was truly a singular spe- 

 cies of devotion which these pious warriors exhibited at Glendalough, built, 

 according to Doctor Ledwich, by themselves, in the ninth century, that they 

 plundered and devastated it in the years 830, 833, 886, 977, 982, 984, 985, 

 1016 ! I should also notice, as another remarkable instance of the discovery 

 of coins at a celebrated religious establishment, the " minores denarii, quasi 

 oboli," most probably the bracteate pennies, found near Kilcullen in 1305, of 

 which mention is made in an Exchequer record of 33 Edw. I. See Harris's 

 Ware, vol. ii. p. 206. According to M. Schoepflin, the ecclesiastical bracteates 

 were the most common in Germany, where they were known by the same name 

 as in Ireland : " Ce sont les monnoies de cette espece qu'on trouve designees 

 dans les chartes d'Allemagne, sous le nom de panningi, derive du mot Tudesque 



