A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



COINS 



The evidence afforded by literature as to the history of this county will 

 be discussed in the article on the Political History, but there is one entry in 

 the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle which must be mentioned here as it throws light 

 upon an archaeological discovery of considerable importance. In 9 1 1 the 

 Chronicle records that the Danish army among the Northumbrians broke 

 the peace and overran the land of Mercia. When the king learned that 

 they were gone out to plunder he sent his forces after them, both of the 

 West Saxons and the Mercians ; and they overtook the army as they were 

 on their way homewards, and they fought against them and put them to 

 flight, and slew many thousands of them ; and there were slain King 

 Eowils, and King Halfdene, and Ottar the Earl, and Scurfa the Earl, and 

 Othulf the Hold, and Benesing the Hold, and Anlaf the Black, and Thurforth 

 the Hold, and Osferth the collector [i.e. of the revenue], and Guthferth the 

 Hold, and Agmund the Hold, and Guthferth. 



There is good reason to believe, as Mr. W. J. Andrew shows, 1 that the 

 famous Cuerdale hoard of silver coins, which was found in 1840 in a leaden 

 chest buried near a difficult ford of the Ribble on the river bank about two 

 miles above Preston, represents the treasure chest of this Danish army, over- 

 taken in its retreat to Northumbria at this ford and destroyed. For amongst 

 the English coins contained therein 8 were nearly a thousand of Alfred the 

 Great, and forty-five of Edward the Elder, and as the latter reign was the 

 latest in date of any in this hoard the time of deposit may be inferred as lying 

 between 901 and 925. It is no difficult task for this numismatist to assign 

 an even closer date. The fact that only three issues of Edward's coinage are 

 represented, allowing an average of three or four years for each issue, brings 

 the date approximately to 911, which is the year of the record quoted. 

 Incidentally it is noteworthy that the presence of some continental money, 

 apparently gathered from the west coast of France, including many coins 

 issued from the district at the mouth of the Seine, is found to tally with 

 two earlier records of the Chronicle ; the one of 897, which relates that the 

 Danish army in England divided, some going into East Anglia and some 

 into Northumbria, and they who were moneyless procured for themselves 

 ships there and went southwards over sea to the Seine ; the other of thirteen 

 years later, 910, when 'a great fleet came hither from the south, from 

 Brittany, and greatly ravaged the Severn, but they there afterwards almost all 

 perished.' A supposition that the remnants of this band united with the 

 main Danish army might well account for the proportion of foreign money, 



1 Brit. Numis. Journ. i. 9. 



8 The analysis of the hoard is as follows : 



Total English . . 1,060 Grand Total Examined 7,000 



258 



