ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS 



Hertfordshire was then in touch with the most advanced and perhaps the 

 earliest Teutonic kingdom in this country. A more exact date for the 

 deposit of the ewer and tumbler in what was no doubt a grave may be 

 deduced with some plausibility from the old coin mounted in a ring 

 found with similar objects at Wonsheim. Heraclius, the Roman 

 emperor of the east, was associated with his son Heraclius Constantine, 

 and reigned from 6 10 to 641. ' Five years after his accession came the 

 alarming news that Jerusalem had been assaulted and taken by the 

 Persians. The sepulchre of Christ and the stately churches of Helena 

 and Constantine were consumed, or at least damaged by the flames ; the 

 devout offerings of 300 years were rifled in one sacrilegious day ; the 

 patriarch Zachariah and the true cross were transported into Persia ; 

 and the massacre of 90,000 Christians is imputed to the Jews and Arabs 

 who swelled the disorder of the Persian march.' l To this blow was 

 added the insolent demand of Chosroes that the Emperor of Rome 

 should abjure his crucified God and embrace the worship of the sun ; 

 but the energy and ability of Heraclius stemmed the tide of adversity in 

 a series of brilliant campaigns, and in 628 recovered the conquests of 

 the Persian monarch from his parricide son. 



' The succeeding year ' (629), says Gibbon, 'was illustrated by the 

 restitution of the true cross to the holy sepulchre. Heraclius performed 

 in person the pilgrimage of Jerusalem, the identity of the relic was 

 verified by the discreet patriarch, and this august ceremony has been 

 commemorated by the annual festival of the exaltation of the cross. 

 He received the congratulations of the ambassadors of France and India ; 

 and the fame of Moses, Alexander and Hercules was eclipsed in the 

 popular estimation by the superior merit and glory of the great 

 Heraclius.' 



It is not surprising therefore that the gold coins of this champion 

 of Christendom should frequently occur in the jewellery of the period. 

 The most notable example in this country was discovered at Wilton in 

 Norfolk, and formed the centre of a richly jewelled cross, 2 which empha- 

 sizes the religious motive of its adoption. Another of his coins was 

 found in pendant form at Sarre in Kent, 3 and Christianity had been 

 officially accepted in the Kentish kingdom about half a century before 

 the coin was struck. The occurrence of one mounted in a ring at 

 Wonsheim with the ewer of peculiar type may reasonably be held to fix 

 the date of the Wheathampstead burial within certain limits. While it 

 is unlikely that the coins would be put to any pious use before the 

 recovery of the Holy Rood in 628, the choice would not be so popular 

 during the last eight years of Heraclius, when the provinces that had 

 been rescued from the Persians were passing into the hands of Mahomet's 

 apostles. The vogue may certainly have lasted much longer than six 

 years, but there can be no serious error in attributing to that short 



1 Gibbon, DecRne and Fail of the Roman Empire, ch. xlvi. 



2 Figured in Victoria History of Norfolk, vol. i. 



8 Figured in AnhteokgtA Cantiana, vol. iii. p. 45, pi. ii. fig. 3. 



255 



