ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS 



fragments of urns with four or five pieces of copper coin not legible ; as 

 also some little bits of brass of an uncommon form, probably used about 

 the garments of the deceased.' A remarkably well-preserved spearhead 

 now at Northampton was unearthed with a shield-boss in 1867 at 

 Brackley from a depth of eight feet, about one foot below what appeared 

 to be the bottom of an old pond. And from Borough Hill, a British 

 and Roman site which has yielded but little of Anglo-Saxon date, the 

 county museum has a small square-headed brooch like some from Peter- 

 borough, a bronze buckle and pin, glass beads and two coins of the 

 Constantine family pierced for use as pendent ornaments like those already 

 mentioned from Welton. At what period such pieces ceased to be 

 current is uncertain, but Anglo-Saxon coins are practically confined to 

 the Christian period. 



Though large quantities of our earliest English money have 

 survived to our day, it is seldom that the site of such discoveries is 

 recorded, and rarer still are the occasions when other objects are found 

 associated with coins, and can thus be approximately dated. Of the 

 earliest common type of Anglo-Saxon coins, the small thick silver pieces 

 known as sceattas, single specimens have been found at Brackley, 

 Dingley and Chipping Warden. After the introduction of the penny 

 towards the end of the eighth century, the sceatta was no longer coined ; 

 and the currency now took a more imposing form, bearing in each king- 

 dom the name and image of king or archbishop. A silver penny of 

 Offa, the first to coin them in England, has come to light at Newton 

 Bromshold ; others of Edward the Elder (901-924) and i^thelward. 

 Archbishop of Canterbury (798-805) at Brixworth ; of T^thelstan 

 (925-940) at Bulwick ; of Ethelred II. (978-1016) at Weldon and 

 Ecton ; and of Edward the Confessor (i 042-1 066) at Wellingborough. 

 During excavations at Northampton Castle ' others were found of Edward 

 the Elder, Eadgar (959-975), three St. Edmund pieces of the tenth cen- 

 tury, and one of Edward the Confessor. The value of these finds is slight 

 enough, but a coin of Cuthred, king of Kent (798-806) was found 

 about 1877 in ironstone workings near Brixworth, with a ring-headed 

 pin of iron, about 6 inches long, with remains of silver-plating upon it. 

 On one side of the disc is an interlaced ornament terminating in birds' 

 heads ; the other was originally set with a stone, probably a garnet, and 

 has the head of a quadruped engraved upon it. This somewhat un- 

 common relic is preserved at Northampton, and has been figured with 

 the coin in the Antiquary, vol. xxx. p. 104. 



It was not till 972 in the reign of Eadgar that a mint * was established 

 in the county. Stamford had been included in the Danelagh, and known 

 as one of the five burghs that figure so largely in the troubled times of 

 the tenth century. The main part of the town always belonged to Lincoln- 

 shire, but the Anglo-Saxon moneyers worked in the Northamptonshire 



1 Associated Architectural ^octettes (1882), Northants, p. 246, gives numismatic details. 

 * Described by Mr. Samuel Sharp in Numismatic Chronicle, new series, vol. ix. p. 327 ; "Journal oj 

 Archirologual Institute, vol. xxxv. p. 272. 



255 



