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By HENRY SYMONDS. 



N offering for examination by the Field Club some 

 products of the regal mints of Dorset, a few 

 general words of introduction to the subject 

 may not be unwelcome. 



The original sources to which we can turn 

 for information are few in number; the 

 writings of some of the Saxon Chroniclers, 

 Domesday Book, and the Exchequer and 

 Chancery Rolls in the national archives, 

 exhaust a short but formidable list of authorities, and we then 

 have to look to the coins themselves for the story they tell. 



It is to the want of means of communication and the conse- 

 quent difficulty of circulating the King's currency from a central 

 point that we owe the setting up of local mints in Saxon times. 

 These mints were farmed by the Crown at an annual rent to 

 persons known as monetarily or moneyers, whose names appeared 

 upon the reverses of the coins, and who were responsible under 



