A HISTORY OF NORFOLK 



both of which belong to the latter variety, one was found in a burial and 

 might be supposed to date the other which fell by some accident into 

 the river at Norwich. Both might be referred to the earlier Viking 

 terror of King Alfred's time and the early Danish kingdom in East 

 Anglia, especially as Guthrum became a Christian in 878, and the 

 practice of burying weapons and ornaments with the dead would cease 

 as the new faith spread among his subjects. But according to the 

 evidence at present available, the type with the long straight guard was 

 the earlier of the two, and may have been derived from the same source 

 as the early Anglo-Saxon specimens, as the main difference consists in 

 the substitution of metal for wooden mounts. In a number of graves 

 excavated in Sweden the Santon type was invariably associated with 

 relics of a later date than the year 1000, while the straight guard and 

 triangular pommel accompanied interments of the three preceding 

 centuries.* But this may not be altogether decisive for specimens found 

 in England, for it must be observed that the ornament on the Santon 

 brooch does not include the grasping figure that is seldom absent from these 

 and some other ornaments produced in Scandinavia towards the close of 

 the Viking period. And finally there are examples of tortoise brooches, 

 as those from Barra in the national collection, which do present the 

 motive just mentioned, and at the same time leave no doubt that they 

 are later and degenerate specimens, in which the open-work and double 

 front are no longer to be seen, and the bosses have dwindled into studs 

 that barely project from the surface. This decadent form differs in 

 almost every detail from what is supposed to have been the original type, 

 a quadruped of some kind seen from above ; but intermediate stages have 

 been noticed in the island of Bornholm and elsewhere, and an instructive 

 series figured ^ to show the evolution of the tortoise brooch during several 

 centuries of northern art. 



Of coins dating from the later Anglo-Saxon period many have been 

 found in the county but few localities are mentioned. A silver penny of 

 Coenwulf, king of Mercia (796-822) is recorded^ from Bircham Tofts, 

 but the chief interest lies in the mints and names of moneyers. Coins 

 were struck in East Anglia under eight Anglian kings, only three of 

 whom are known to history, the series beginning with Beonna, about 

 760 ; and the peculiar series bearing the name of the martyred king 

 St. Edmund were struck at the end of the ninth and during the earliest 

 years of the tenth century. But the first pieces showing the place of 

 mintage were struck at Norwich in the reign of iEthelstan I.* The 

 Thetford mint seems to date from the reign of Eadgar, and there may 

 perhaps have been a mint at Castle Rising in the time of Alfred. Coins 

 of Edward the Confessor were issued from Dereham and there are some 

 indications of a mint at Walsingham. Specimens of local coins are 



* Archaolo^a, vol. 50. p. 532. 



^ Antiquaires du Nord, M^moires (1890), p. 12, figs. 16-33. 

 ^ Norfolk Archirohgj, vol. viii. p. 331. 



* Journal of British Archaolo^cal Association, vol. xxxvi. pp. 105, 291. 



350 



