1 62 COINS STRUCK IN DORSET. 



as now, 1 8 dwts. in each pound of silver. The penny was 

 occasionally cut into halves and quarters, and this method of 

 providing small change was apparently authorised in Norman 

 times. The larger denominations, i.e., the mark and the shilling, 

 were only moneys of account, and had no existence in fact. 



A word as to where the Anglo-Saxon penny is chiefly found. 

 The coast lands of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark have yielded 

 many rich hoards of these pieces, partly Danegeld, partly private 

 booty, and I have compared the total number of Dorset coins 

 in our national collection with those in the Royal Museum at 

 Stockholm. 



The British Museum can show 47 specimens in all, while in 

 the Swedish Royal cabinet 134 Dorset pennies, many of the 

 highest rarity, can be seen a lasting memorial of the spoiling 

 of the English. And Stockholm is by no means the only town 

 of Northern Europe that possesses such treasure. In Dorset 

 towns, however, we may expect that the bronze of the Caesars 

 or the Constantines, rather than the silver of Cnut or the 

 Conqueror, would reward our spadevvork. I have chosen from 

 my cabinet some representative examples of the Anglo-Saxon 

 and Norman coinage, omitting those that are merely varieties of 

 type or legend, and I will now deal briefly with their more 

 noticeable points. 



^Ethelstan (A.D. 925) appointed two moneyers to Shaftesbury 

 and aho to Wareham, and one to Dorchester ; but no coins are 

 known of the last-named town. The penny of Shaftesbury which 

 I am able to exhibit is singular in not showing the head and 

 bust of the king, but only his title of Rex To Brit, which may be 

 accepted as an intelligent anticipation of the end of the Hep- 

 tarchy some thirty years later under Eadgar. This coin was 

 regarded as unique by Mr. Warne ; whether it should be so 

 described to-day I do not know. 



There is then a gap of 37 years, as far as Dorset is concerned, 

 until ^Ethelred II. (978), who, while making other laws affecting 

 -his money, ordered the punishment of death to be inflicted on 

 any moneyer who worked in a wood or elsewhere outside a 



