A HISTORY OF HERTFORDSHIRE 



so that the reverse is incomplete, but the outline of the horse and 

 rider as well as the lower limbs of the standing warrior can be dis- 

 tinguished (fig. 3). There can be little hesitation in referring these 

 pieces to a Romano-British mint, possibly at Verulamium, in the fifth 

 century ; they may indeed be still later, for the distinctive Anglo-Saxon 

 coinage apparently started with the sceatta about the year 600, two 

 centuries after the withdrawal of the Roman officials from these shores. 



Barbarous imitations of Roman coins have been found, together 

 with specimens of Diocletian (284-305) and succeeding emperors, in 

 the neighbourhood of two Roman villas near Boxmoor railway station; 1 

 and a ' quantity of Roman and Saxon coins ' 2 found at Hexton may 

 have included some of the same kind. As parallel instances are needed 

 to throw light on this somewhat obscure subject reference may here be 

 made to a discovery of the same kind in the parish of Whittington, 

 Gloucs., where among a total of 700 or 800 were found Romano- 

 British specimens of the period subsequent to Arcadius (395408).* 



These rude attempts may be contrasted with two interesting pieces 

 found in Hertfordshire, which may be said show the Anglo-Saxon moneyer 

 at his best (figs. 5, 6). Coins of OfFa (757-96), the first to introduce 

 the penny into England, are common enough, but one is here illustrated 

 to accompany a rare specimen of his widow Cynethrith (796) . 4 Both 

 coins are from the neighbourhood of Hitchin, the latter having been 

 discovered by a working man and sold to a cobbler in that town at the 

 end of the eighteenth century. The locality is not of great importance 

 for coins of that date, when intercourse between the various English 

 kingdoms was easy and extensive, but it may be of interest to note that 

 coins of OfFa and his wife have also been discovered not far apart in 

 Sussex. 5 



As long ago as 1744 a gold ornament, described in Cough's edition 

 of Camden's Britannia " as a tore, was found at Park Street near St. 

 Albans. The original drawing is repeated in the Journal of the Archaeo- 

 logical Institute 7 for 1849, but is unsatisfactory and leaves the true 

 nature of the object uncertain. It is however about an ounce heavier 

 than the gold armlet in the British Museum from Wendover, with which 

 it has been compared. It may have been used for the same purpose, 

 and if the parallel is just, belongs to the Viking period, as the three 

 centuries between 700 and rooo are usually designated. 



At the west end of the Abbey church a coin of Charlemagne 

 (768-8 14)" was found nearly half a century ago, and from Boxmoor 

 a circular brooch 9 of cast bronze (fig. 7), the centre of which comes is 



1 Society of Antiquaries, Proceedings, ii. 295. a Lewis, Topographical Dictionary, under Hexton. 



3 Society of Antiquaries, Proceedings, 2nd ser. ii. 305. 



4 Both are from the cabinet of Mr. William Ransom, who has kindly lent them for illustration. 

 6 Sussex 4rch<tological Collections, xv. 242 ; xxi. 219. 



8 Vol. vi. p. 48, fig. 2, and p. 52. 7 Vol. i. p. 347, pi. xvii. fig. 9. 



8 Figured in Nicholson's Guide to the Abbey (Wm. Page's edition), p. 50. 



9 In the collection of Sir John Evans, K.C.B., who has kindly lent it for illustration. Society of 

 Antiquaries, Proceedings, iii. 41. 



260 



