197 



afforded a surprising number of examples and varieties of type, 

 all possessing a general character of similarity in having one 

 side impressed with the name of the sovereign or prelate by 

 whose authority they were struck, and the other with that of 

 the person who held the oflSce of his moneyer or mint master. 



A hoard of between five and six hundred coins, which was 

 turned up by the plough at Kirk Oswald in Cumberland, in 

 the year 1808, contained the stycas of Eanred, Ethelred, Redulf, 

 and Osbercht, whose reigns extended from the year 808 to the 

 year 867, and among them were some coined by the archbishops 

 of York, Eanbald, Vigmund, and Vulfhere, who were contem- 

 poraries of those four kings. ^ 



The great hoard of about 8000, which was disinterred, from 

 the church-yard of Hexham in the year 1833, first made us 

 acquainted with the stycas of Heardulf (794 — 806), the imme- 

 diate predecessor of Eanred j but with this exception the 

 Hexham hoard was composed exclusively of the coins of the 

 three monarchs, Eanred, Ethelred, and Redulf, and of the two 

 archbishops, Eanbald and Vigmund. ^ 



In the two large hoards since disinterred, viz., that from the 

 Mint -yard in the city of York in the year 1842, comprising 

 many thousand coins, and that from a field near Bolton Percy, 

 about nine miles distant from York, a few years later, no new 

 names of either kings or prelates are presented by the numerous 



' Mr. Euding (Vol. I. p. Ill) gives the following particulars of the Kirk 

 Oswald find : — 



Kings. No. of Stycas. 



Eanred 99 



Ethelred 350 



Redulf 14 



Osbercht 15 



Archbishops. 



Eanbald 1 



Vigmund 68 



Vulfhere » 6 



542 



Previously to this discovciy, the archiepiscopal coins were scarcely known. 

 3 See Mr. Adamson's account of the Hexham find, Archseologia, Vol. 25. p. 279. 



