COINS STRUCK IN DORSET. 165 



Henry I. (uoo) on the other hand has left coins that are 

 frequently of poor design and almost invariably of the rudest 

 execution, but if they are lacking in beauty they are at all 

 events conspicuous among Norman issues for their extreme 

 scarcity. Why this should be so it is difficult to say, as Henry 

 I. reigned long and made many regulations for the protection 

 of his currency, enforcing obedience by penalties of the usual 

 ferocity, as witness the statement that 94 moneyers suffered 

 mutilation at Winchester after an inquest in 1125 as to 

 irregularities in their calling. 



At this period of its history Dorset had apparently fallen 

 upon evil days, for we read in the Pipe Roll of 31 Henry I. 

 that the burgesses of S. Edward and Dorchester were excused 

 forty shillings of taxation by reason of their poverty, and 

 it would appear that Dorchester was no longer pre-eminent 

 in South Wessex, as was the case during the Roman occupa- 

 tion. 



Mr. Warne, in concluding his notice of the mint at Shaftes- 

 bury, lays claim on behalf of Dorset to certain coins struck by 

 Henry II. and III., reading " S. Ed." on the reverses. Although 

 it is true that Shaston was at that period sometimes called " S. 

 Edward," the coins just alluded to were almost certainly issued 

 from the mint of S. Edmund in Suffolk. This is made clear by 

 the Patent and Close Rolls, which contain a number of refer- 

 ences during the reigns of Henry II., John, and Henry III. to 

 the mint and exchange established at S. Edmund's, but there is 

 no proof or even colour for the suggestion that the borough of 

 S. Edward was similarly favoured by any of these three kings. 

 It was, however, while searching the archives for evidence as 

 to Shaston during the early Plantagenet period that I found 

 two entries of some interest relating to Dorchester which 

 apparently have not hitherto been noted in the literature of the 

 county. In the Pipe Roll of 5 Henry II. there is, under Dorset, 

 a memorandum in the customary form that 



"Warner de Lisoriis the Sheriff renders an account of 

 twenty marks of the moneyers of Dorchester." 



