COINS STRUCK IN DORSET. l6l 



head of the great Benedictine house was an Abbess, and I 

 cannot find any trace of the privilege of coining being granted 

 to a woman, however far-reaching her territorial influence. 

 Dugdale, too, in the Monasticon, makes no allusion to the 

 possession of a mint by the abbey in question. 



As to the particular spots in these four towns where the work 

 of minting was carried on, there would appear to be practically 

 no evidence. Wareham alone points to a site near the South 

 Quay (see Proceedings XIII. , p. 82), but the claim is at the best 

 a shadowy one. There has long been a tradition that the 

 moneyers worked or kept their implements in the churches, and 

 in this connection I have quite recently found a confirmatory 

 entry upon the Patent Roll of 7 Henry III. (1222) concerning 

 the mint of Bury St. Edmund's, the material part of which I 

 have translated as follows : 



"The die of S. Edmund shall remain in the church of the 

 " holy Edmund during every night, that is to say in the care of 

 "the sacristan of the church himself under the seal of the 

 " custodians." This illustrates the practice. It is also note- 

 worthy that the ordeals by hot iron and hot water imposed by 

 ^thelred's laws upon accused moneyers were ordered to take 

 place in a church. A further indication that this tradition has a 

 basis of fact is afforded by the figure of a Norman coiner carved 

 upon the capital of a pillar in the church of S. George's de 

 Bocherville in Normandy. A small print of this interesting 

 figure, which also illustrates the actual method of working, 

 accompanies the detailed description of the coins. There is 

 therefore at any rate a possibility that in Dorchester the image 

 and superscription of the Saxon and Norman Kings were 

 wrought in one or other of the churches, or, it may be, in the 

 Roman and Norman castles which in turn occupied, as we may 

 believe, the site of the existing county prison. 



The currency struck in the four towns was of one denomin- 

 ation and of one metal, viz., the silver penny, which should 

 have weighed i-240th of the Saxon pound or one pennyweight 

 of 24 Saxon grains, the quantity of alloy permitted being then 



