200 



only should be current throughout his dominions, and thus 

 took from the ecclesiastics the privilege they had previously 

 enjoyed of impressing their names and effigies upon the coins 

 struck in their own mints. In his reign the practice was 

 almost universally adopted of adding to the name of the moneyer 

 upon the reverse of the coin, that of the place where it was 

 minted.^ Hence we know that the city of York was one of the 

 numerous places in which he continued or established mints. 



Of ^thelstan and his Anglo-Saxon and Danish successors 

 upon the throne of England, with a few exceptions, silver coins 

 are extant which were struck at the York mint ; and I proceed 

 to give a brief account of them, under each reign. 



-^THELSTAN. 925 tO 941. 



The number of the mints of ^thelstan^ is about twenty, 

 among which York appears under various forms and abbrevia- 

 tions of its Anglo-Saxon name, Eoferwic. 



The following are the legends on coins of ^thelstan struck 

 at York : — 



1. Obv. ETHELSTAN REX TO BRIT 

 E,eV. REGNALD MO EFORWIC 



2. Obv. ETHELSTAN REX 

 Rev. ARNALF MO EG 



3. Obv. ^DELSTAN REX 

 Rev. LBERTEE MO EG 



1 Some of the pennies of Ecgbeorht, king of the West Saxons, (800 — 837) and 

 of Ethelwolf his successor, have a monogram which is supposed to indicate that 

 Canterbury was the locality of their mint. Hawkins, p. 59. It was not until the 

 reign of -Alfred (872 — 901), that the Saxon moneyers adopted to any extent the 

 practice of appending to their own names that of the place where the coins were 

 struck. Upon the coins of Alfred, the names of London, Canterbury, Oxford, 

 "Winchester, and Lincoln, appear as places of mintage. The Cuerdale coins added 

 the two last names to those previously known. 



2 All the coins of ^thelstan are pennies of silver, weighing from 22 to 24 grains, 

 occasionally exceeding or falling short of those weights. The only known Anglo- 

 Saxon halfpennies of silver are two or three of the mintage of Edwcard the elder, 

 the father of iEthelstan, upon whose coins no mint is mentioned. Kuding, Vol. I. 

 p. 126. Hawkins, p. 59. Num. Pro. 1837, p. 96, 



