191 



Notices of the York Mints and Coinages. — Bi/ Robert 

 Davies, F. S. a. 



Whether the inhabitants of Britain possessed any metallic 

 currency of their own mintage previously to the first Roman 

 invasion, is a question which has not yet received a satisfactory 

 solution. The British coins whose appropriation admits of 

 no reasonable doubt, were fabricated in the first century of 

 the Christian era, during the time that the Roman power was 

 gradually becoming established in this country, and before 

 it had attained complete ascendancy.^ But none of the 

 coins of this period present any specific indication of their 

 having been struck in that part of Britain which formed the 

 Brigantian territory. 



After the Romans had obtained the undisputed dominion, 

 they permitted no other money than their own to be circulated 

 in the island. It is doubtful whether they established mints in 

 any of the British towns. A few specimens of imperial coins 

 have been found inscribed with certain letters which are sup- 

 posed to denote that London was the place of their mintage j 

 and " if Londinium, the chief commercial city in the province, 

 had a mint, it is highly probable that Eburacum, distinguished 

 by being the residence of the emperors when they visited 



* It is to be lamented that the evidence of coins, — that evidence which has been 

 well characterised as " so minute, so comprehensive, and so satisfactory," — has shed 

 but a feeble light upon this obscure page of our national annals. The only British 

 coins which have been clearly and indisputably appropriated are those of Chinobelinus, 

 the father of Caractacus, whose territories are said to have extended across the 

 central part of the island from the coast of Norfolk to the river Severn. A recent 

 ingenious interpretation of the inscriptions upon some of the coins of Cunobelinus 

 has added one more to our scanty list of British kings, by giving us the name of 

 Tasciovanus, his father. Some of these coins bear on the reverse the letters CAMV 

 for Oamulodunum, (Colchester,) the chief city of the Trinobantcs, where, it is 

 supposed, they were minted. The other coins of this period are inconsiderable in 

 number, and the attribution of them is not free from ambiguity. Their inscriptions 

 have led numismatists to assign some of them to the British prince, Comius or 

 Commius, King of the Atrebates, and others to his sons Epillus and Vericus or 

 Bericus. Upon a very small niunber are inscribed letters which are supposed to 

 indic&te the name of Boadicca, the celebrated Queen of the IccoL 



