ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS 



the same period as those since discovered were found. In December 

 1866 this site was ploughed for the first time, and the jar in which the 

 hoard had been deposited was disturbed and the contents scattered in all 

 directions. A general scramble ensued and a large number of coins were 

 dispersed, but 1,720 were delivered to the Treasury as treasure-trove.' 

 All these coins, secreted probably by some tenant of Earl Gurth just 

 before the arrival of the Normans, were silver pennies of Edward the 

 Confessor and Harold II., struck at various mints, including four in 

 Sussex, viz., Chichester, Hastings, Lewes and Steyning.' 



About 17 miles east of Chancton is Offham, where in 1796 a small 

 quantity of Anglo-Saxon coins was discovered.* It consisted chiefly of 

 pennies of Edward the Confessor and Harold, which appeared as if 

 they had come fresh from the mint, so that they were probably deposited 

 at the same time and under the same circumstances as the famous 

 Chancton hoard. 



A coin of Offa found at Beddingham recalls the charter of Arch- 

 bishop Wulfred, dated 825, in which Offa's previous connexion with 

 the monastery ^ there is recorded ; and an allusion is also made to it in a 

 charter, dated 801, of Coenwulf King of Mercia, one of whose coins is 

 supposed to have been found in the neighbourhood.* A coin of Alfred 

 is recorded from the West Gate, Chichester^ ; and of five silver pennies 

 of Ethelred II. found in digging for flints just below the turf on the 

 south side of Harting Beacon four were struck in London, and one at 

 Colchester.' 



The village of Sedlescombe lies between two and three miles east of 

 Battle Abbey, and in 1876 a labourer employed in draining found a 

 metal vessel ' containing a hoard of coins, perhaps once enclosed in a 

 leather bag. They numbered between two and three thousand pieces, 

 of which 1,136 were catalogued, and all belonged to the reign of 

 Edward the Confessor (1042-66). They were minted at forty-four 

 different cities and towns in England, from York to Dover and Exeter, 

 but three-fifths were struck at Hastings itself; and all belong to the 

 middle of the reign.* By that time Norman influence was gaining 

 strength, and the Anglo-Saxon race that had fought and conquered 

 some six centuries before were soon to find a master on the fatal field 

 of Senlac. 



> Sussex Arch. Collns. xix. 189 ; xx. 212. Numismatic Chronicle, N.S. vii. (1867), 63. 



' Sussex Arch. Collns. xxi. 219. Dallaway and Cartwright, History of Rape of Arundel, 222. 



3 Sussex Arch. Collns. xxi. 32. • Ibid. xxi. 219. . 6 Ibid. xxiv. 29S. 



• Ibid, xxxix. 225. ' Now in the Barbican at Lewes. 



s Sussex Arch. Collns. xxvii. 227 ; xxxiii. I, 20. 



349 



