199 



possess no decisive evidence.^ Documents relating to the 

 Anglo-Saxon mints or coinage are not known of earlier date 

 than the reign of .^thelstan, nor (unless the disputed legend of 

 the Cuerdale types refer to York) do the coins themselves 

 afford any information as to the place of their mintage prior to 

 that reign. But we can have little diflSculty in arriving at the 

 conclusion that the mint of the kings of Northumbria was at 

 York — Eoferwic — their metropolis and principal residence, 

 and the seat, most probably of the civil, as it was undoubtedly 

 of the ecclesiastical government. At York, the prelates to 

 whom was given the power of coining, must necessarily have 

 exercised that important privilege. York was certainly a place 

 of mintage soon after the commencement of the tenth century ; 

 and in no other town within the whole extent of the antient 

 kingdom of Northumbria have we any record that money was 

 coined from the commencement to the close of the Anglo-Saxon 

 sera. From these facts we may fairly infer that the royal as 

 well as the archiepiscopal mint was placed at York from the 

 earliest period of the Saxo-Northumbrian annals. 



In the reign of ^thelstan, who succeeded his father Eadweard 

 the Elder the son of -^Elfred the Great in the year 925, the fact 

 of a royal mint having existed at York, is established by the 

 clear and indisputable testimony of the coins that issued from 

 it. By jEthelstan's conquests, the kingdom of Northumbria 

 was deprived of her independence. He was the first Anglo- 

 Saxon monarch who placed upon his coins the inscription. 

 Hex totius Briiannice,^ although he was somewhat premature 

 in assuming that title. He ordained that one kind of money 



^ Mr. Drake states, (Eboracum, Appendix p. civ.) that iinder the Saxon govern- 

 ment in Britain, we have tindoubted testimony of a mint at York, both in their 

 Heptarchical division of this kingdom, and imder their vmiversal monarchy. The 

 ** undoubted testimony" upon which our historian relies to prove that there was a 

 mint at York daring the Heptarchy, is a single coin which he describes to be "an 

 unic of very great rarity and worth, being the antientest coin of the Saxon money 

 known to connoisseurs in this way." But the coin so much prized in Mr. Drake's 

 time is now ascertained to be a silver penny of Edward the Confessor, struck at 

 York, of a well known and not imcommon type. 



» Euding, Vol. I. p. 127. Hawkins, p. 61. 



2 B 



