APPENDIX.

No. II.

MONEY OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS.

THE payments mentioned in Domesday-book are stated in pounds, shillings, pence, and farthings, exactly as our pecuniary calculations are now made. Twenty shillings constitute a pound, and a shilling is composed of twelve pence. The same computation occurs elsewhere. Elfric, in his translation of Exodus,* adds, of his own authority, "They are twelve scythinga of twelve pennies ;" and in the moneys mentioned in the Historia Eliensis, edited by Gale, we find numerous passages which ascertain that a pound consisted of twenty shillings. Thus, three hides were sold by a lady to an abbot for a hundred shillings each. The owner is afterwards said to have come to receive the fifteen pounds. When seven pounds and a half only had been paid, the ealdorman asked the abbot to give the lady more of her purchase money. At his request the abbot gave thirty shillings more; thus, it is added, he paid her nine pounds. On another occasion the money agreed for was thirty pounds. One hundred shillings were received, and twenty-five pounds were declared to remain due."

In

The Saxon money was sometimes reckoned by pennies, as the French money is now by livres. Thus, in one charta, three plough-lands are conveyed for three thousand pennies. another, eighty acres were bought for three hundred and eightyfive pennies. In another, one thousand four hundred and fifty pennies occur.

The name for money, which is oftenest met with in the charters, is the mancus. On this kind of money we have one curious passage of Elfric: he says, five pennies make one shilling, and thirty pennies one mancus. This would make the mancus six

a Chap. xxi. 10.

b 3 Gale, Script. p. 473, and see 485, 488.

c Astle's MS. Chart. Nos. 7, 22, 28.
d Hickes, Diss. Ep. 109, and Wan. Cat. MS. 113.

VOL. II.

11

shillings. The passage in the laws of Henry the First intimates the same. Two passages in the Anglo-Saxon laws seem to confirm Elfric's account of the mancus being thirty pennies; for an ox is valued at a mancus in one, and at thirty pence in another.f

But there is an apparent contradiction in five pennies making a shilling if twelve pennies amounted to the same sum. The objection would be unanswerable, but that, by the laws of Alfred, it is clear that there were two sorts of pennies, the greater and the less; for the violation of a man's borg was to be compensated by five pounds, mærra peninga, of the larger pennies.5

The mark is sometimes mentioned this was half a pound, according to the authors cited by Du Fresne; it is stated to be eight ounces by Aventinus.i

The money mentioned in our earliest law consists of shillings, and a minor sum called scætta. In the laws of Ina, the pening occurs, and the pund as a weight. In those of Alfred the pund appears as a quantity of money, as well as the shilling and the penny; but the shilling is the usual notation of his pecuniary punishments. In his treaty with the Danes, the half-mark of gold, and the mancus, are the names of the money; as is the ora in the Danish compact with Edward. In the laws of Athelstan, we find the thrymsa, as well as the shilling and the penny; the scætta and the pund. The shilling, the penny, and the pound, appear under Edgar. The ora and the healf-marc pervade the Northumbrian laws. In the time of Ethelred, the pound is frequently the amount of the money noticed. The shilling and penny, the healf-marc, and the ora, also occur.j

The Anglo-Saxon wills that have survived to us mention the following money: In the archbishop Elfric's will we have five pundum, and fifty mancusan of gold. In Wynflæd's will, the mancæs of gold, the pund, the healfes pundes wyrthne, and sixty pennega wyrth, are noticed. In one part she desires that there should be put, in a cup which she bequeaths, healf pund penega, or half a pound of pennies. In another part she mentions sixteen mancusum of red gold; also thirty penega wyrth.'

In Thurstan's will, twelf pund be getale occurs. In Godric's we perceive a mark of gold, thirteen pounds, and sixty-three pennies. In Byrhtric's will, sixty mancos of gold and thirty mancys goldes are mentioned; and several things are noticed, as

* Debent reddi secundum legem triginta solidi ad Manbotam, id est, hodie 5 mancæ. Wilk. p. 265. So p. 249.

f Wilk. p. 66, and 126. Yet this passage is not decisive, because the other accompanying valuations do not correspond.

< Ibid. 35.

i Ann. Boi. lib. vi. p. 524.

* MS. Cott. Claud. B. c. p. 103.

m Hickes, Diss. Ep. 29, 30.

h Du Fresne, Gloss. ii. p. 437.

i Sce Wilkins, Leges Anglo-Sax. passim. Hickes, Gram. Præf.

of the value of so many gold mancus. Thus, a bracelet of eighty mancysan goldes, and a necklace of forty mancysa; a hand secs of three pounds is also bequeathed, and ten hund penega.n

In Wulfar's will, the mancus of gold is applied in the same way to mark the value of the things bequeathed, and also to express money. The mancus of gold is the money given in Elfhelm's will; in Dux Elfred's pennies; in Ethelwryd, both pennies and the pund occur. In Athelstan's testament we find the mancosa of gold, the pund of silver, the pund be getale, and pennies.P

In the charters, we find pennies, mancusa, pounds, shillings, and sicli, mentioned. In one we find one hundred sicli of the purest gold; and in another, four hundred sicli in pure silver." In a third, fifteen hundred of shillings in silver are mentioned, as if the same with fifteen hundred sicli. The shilling also at another time appears as if connected with gold, as seventy shillings of auri obrizi. Once we have two pounds of the purest gold." The expressions of pure gold, or the purest gold, are often added to the mancos.

That the pound was used as an imaginary value of money, is undoubted. One grant says, that an abbot gave in money quod valuit, what was of the value of one hundred and twenty pounds." Another has four pound of lic-wyrthes feos," which means money or property agreeable to the party receiving it. We read also of fifteen pounds of silver, gold, and chattels ; also sixty pounds in pure gold and silver. Sometimes the expression occurs, which we still use in our deeds, “One hundred pounds of lawful money."

As no Anglo-Saxon gold coins have reached modern times, though of their silver coinage we have numerous specimens, it is presumed by antiquaries that none were ever made. Yet it is certain that they had plenty of gold, and it perpetually formed the medium of their purchases and gifts. My belief is, that gold was used in the concerns of life, in an uncoined state, and to such a species of gold money I would refer such passages as these: fifty" mancussa asodenes gold," "sexies viginti marcarum auri pondo," "appensuram novem librarum purissimi auri juxta magnum pondus Normanorum," eighty" mancusa auri purisimi et

Heming. Chart. p. 8.

• Ibid. p. 51.

a The late Mr. Astle's MS. Charters, No. 10. MS. Claud. C. 9.

25.

u Ibid. p.
* 3 Gale, p. 410.
Ingulf, p. 35.

▾ MS. Claud. C. 9.

One coin has been adduced as a Saxon gold coin. See Pegge's Remains. But its pretensions have not been admitted.

sex pondus electi argenti," "duo uncias auri." I think that silver was also sometimes passed in an uncoined state, from such intimations as these: "twa pund mere hwites seolfres," and the above-mentioned "sex pondus electi argenti." The expressions that pervade Domesday-book imply, in my apprehension, these two species of money, the coined and the uncoined. Seventy libras pensatis, like two uncias auri, are obviously money by weight. But money ad numerum, or arsuram, I interpret to be coined money also the pund be getale. The phrases, sex libras ad pensum et arsuram et triginti libras arsas et pensatas, appear to express the indicated weight of coined money. The words arsas and arsuram I understand to allude to the assay of coin in the mint.

Whether the mancus was, like the pund, merely a weight, and not a coin, and was applied to express, in the same manner as the word pound, a certain quantity of money, coined or uncoined, I cannot decide; but I incline to think that it was not a coin. Indeed there is one passage which shows that it was a weight, "duas bradiolas aureas fabrefactas quas pensarent xlv mancusas." I consider the two sorts of pennies as the only coins of the Anglo-Saxons above their copper coinage, and am induced to regard all their other denominations of money as weighed or settled quantities of uncoined metal.

That money was coined by the Anglo-Saxons in the octarchy, and in every reign afterwards, is clear from those which remain Most of them have the mintmaster's name. It does not appear to me certain, that they had coined money before their invasion of England, and conversion.

to us.

It was one of Athelstan's laws, that there should be one coinage in all the king's districts, and that no mint should be outside the gate. If a coiner was found guilty of fraud, his hand was to be cut off, and fastened to the mint smithery. In the time of Edgar, the law was repeated, that the king's coinage should be uniform; it was added, that no one should refuse it, and that it should measure like that of Winchester. It has been mentioned of Edgar, that finding the value of the coin in his reign much diminished by the fraud of clipping, he had new coins made all over England.

We may add a few particulars of the coins which occur in Domesday-book. Sometimes a numeration is made very similar to our own, as 117. 13s. 4d. Sometimes pounds and sometimes

b Heming. Chart. p. 86.

It is the belief of an antiquarian friend, who has paid much attention to this subject, that even the Saxon scyllinga was a nominal coin; as he assures me no silver coin of that value has been found which can be referred to the Saxon times. d Wilk. Leg. Sax. p. 39. • Ibid. p. 78.

e