194 



They exhibit on one side the inscription Sancti Petri 

 MoNETA ; and on the other, the word Eboraci, or some 

 abbreviation of it, from which it is inferred that the city of 

 York was the place of their mintage. 



Such was the slender stock of our knowledge of the silver 

 coinage of Northumbria, when in the year 1840 an antient 

 hoard of treasure was accidentally found at Cuerdale, near 

 Preston in Lancashire, which included about 7000 silver coins 

 of various descriptions. Among them was a series of nearly 

 3000 specimens, which Mr. Hawkins, the eminent numis- 

 matist to whom they were in the first instance submitted 

 for examination, classed with the uncertain or unintelligible 

 coins, regarding their types and legends as incapable of any 

 perfectly satisfactory interpretation.^ A considerable number 

 of these were inscribed with the words Ebraice Civitas, 

 which, Mr. Hawkins thought, most probably denoted that 

 Evreux, a city in Normandy, was the place of their mintage. 

 On the other hand, Mr. D. H. Haigh and M. Adrien de 

 Longperier, who are high authority, have expressed a decided 

 opinion that by these words the city of York was certainly 

 intended.^ If the latter be the true interpretation, we are 

 entitled to add to the list of the silver coins of Northumbria, 

 between 600 and 700 specimens, having on the obverse of 

 the greater proportion of them letters arranged in a peculiar 

 manner which are supposed to represent CNVT E-EX ; on the 

 obverse of others, the inscription SIEFREDVS REX ; and of 

 the rest, the legend Mirabilia Fecit ; and all of them having 

 on the reverse the words Ebraice Civitas, either in full, or 

 variously abbreviated or blundered. According to Mr. Haigh, 

 these coins were struck at York at the end of the ninth or 

 beginning of the tenth century, and Cnut and Siefred, by 

 whose authority they were coined, were Danish princes who 



' An Account of Coins and Treasure found in Cuerdale, by Edward Hawkins, 

 Esq., p. 67. 



2 See Papers by D. H. Haigh, Esq., author of an Essay on the numismatic 

 history of the antient kingdom of the East Anglos ; and M. Adrien dc Longperier, 

 keeper of the Cabinet of Medals at Paris. Numism. Chron., Vol. V. pp. 114, 117. 



