CHANNEL ISLANDS.

A number of types of rude uninscribed coins, partaking of the character of those of Gaulish origin, mostly in billon, but sometimes of silver or bronze, are ascribed to the Channel Islands, and numbers of them have been found in Jersey and other islands, as well as in our own country. The examples engraved are in my own possession, and were found, with others, in Devonshire.

The usual type is a boldly cut, but rudely designed, head, a coarse imitation of the Greek already referred to; and the reverse a horse more or less disjointed or disintegrated, and accompanied by indications, more or less distinct, of wheels and other objects.

As indicating to some extent the area over which the coins of the ancient Britons circulated, it may be said that the approximate number of recorded localities in which “finds” have been made in the “forty shires” may be summarized as most of all in Kent (say forty places); about half that number in Dorset, Sussex, and Essex; about a third in Oxfordshire; say a fourth in Suffolk, Surrey, Buckingham, Hampshire, Herts, and Northampton; and so decreasing in Beds., Cambs., and Norfolk; Berks, Middlesex, and Gloucester; Wilts and Somerset; Lincolnshire and Yorkshire; Leicestershire, Monmouthshire, and Worcestershire; and Devonshire, Cornwall, Huntingdon, Lancashire, Northumberland, Nottingham, and Westmoreland. Derbyshire, Staffordshire, and the other counties not enumerated, not having, so far as at present known to me, produced a single recorded example.

COINS OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS.

The earliest coins of the Anglo-Saxon period appear to have been rude imitations of some of the later current pieces of their Roman predecessors in our island. It seems doubtful whether at first they had a coinage of their own, the probability being that those of the Romano-Britons continued, as they naturally would, to be circulated. Some of the sceattæ bear more or less rude figures and uncouth heads and devices, some being evident imitations of the well-known type of Romulus and Remus suckled by the she-wolf, and others of equally well known types. From the sceattæ, one of our common expressions at the present is derived. The word in the singular is sceat or scæt, and the Saxon sc being pronounced soft, as sh, became sheat or shæt. From this it naturally became corrupted into “shot,” and thus “paying your shot” simply meant paying your money, or clearing your reckoning, and “not having a shot in your locker,” being without money in cupboard, or purse. These early coins, some of which appear to bear Runic characters, cannot with any degree of certainty be appropriated to any kings.

The penny, penig, pening, or pending (said to be the diminutive of pand, a pledge, and also by some said to be derived from pendere, to weigh) is first named in the laws of Ina, king of the West Saxons, who began to reign A.D. 688. It was, as now, as has been conclusively shown, the 240th part of a pound, which weighed about 5760 grains; the weight of a penny was, therefore, 24 grains, which still in our tables constitute a “dwt.” or “pennyweight.”

The generally received opinion is that the first pennies as succeeding the sceattæ; and quite independent of the stycas, were struck by Offa, king of Mercia, from A.D. 757 to 796. “When the kingdoms of the Heptarchy were united in one sovereignty,” as I have written on another occasion, “the mints were regulated by laws framed by the Wittenagemote, or Great Council of the Nation; but it was not till the time of Æthelstan (924-940), that it was appointed there should be one kind of money throughout the whole realm, and that no one should coin but in a town. According to Stow, ‘Æthelstan made, seven coining mints at Canterbury, four for the king, two for the archbishop, and one for the abbot; at Rochester three, two for the king, and one for the bishop. Besides these, in London eight, in Winchester six, in Lewes two, in Chichester one, in Hampton two, in Shaftesbury two, and in every other town one coiner.’ The coins remaining pretty well prove this, and show there were very few considerable towns without a mint; for besides those particularly mentioned in Æthelstan’s law, there are coins of Derby, Bristol, Evesham, Exeter, Gloucester, Ipswich, Lincoln, Norwich, Shrewsbury, Thetford, Wallingford, Worcester, York, and other places. The probability is that the custom of impressing on coins the name of the town of the mintage began in the early part of the reign of Æthelstan.”

One of the largest “finds” of Anglo-Saxon coins was made at Cuerdale, where, along with a vast number of foreign pieces, there were found:—

Under the ordinary order of arrangement, the following may be taken as indications of the coins of Anglo-Saxon rulers:—

KINGS OF KENT. ÆTHILBERHT I., 725-764.

The sceat attributed to this king is doubtful.