1636/7. Nich Lurting first in jury.—iii., 177.
1644. John Lurting, “saler,” burgess of Liverpool.—iii., 359.
1644 and 1649. Peter Lurting and Thomas Lurting, freemen (iii., 361). Also John Lurting, Smith, Wm. Lurting de Cestr, Wm. Lurting, Smith, and Robert Lurting.
1651. “Tho. Lurting, for a Tussle upon Thos. Hoskins, iiis. iiiid.”—iii., 506.
1663-4. Peter Lurting, Mayor.
1672. Peter Lurting, tenant of Godscroft, 1s. rent; Rich. Lurting, of a smithy at Water Side, 5s.; Rich. Lurting, Castle Hill, 13s. for 13 yards front.
[2]. Majorca.
Kufic Coins found in Lancashire.
In the great find of coins at Cuerdale in North Lancashire, besides a single Byzantine piece there were several Kufic coins, along with some of North Italy, about a thousand French and two thousand eight hundred Anglo-Saxon pieces. In these coins, and in those found over the whole of Northumbria are to be seen the evidences of the active commercial intercourse that even in the pre-historic ages prevailed between the Eastern world and the people of the North of Europe, and especially those dwelling on the shores of the Baltic. This has been abundantly proved by the numerous archæological discoveries made from time to time.[[3]]
Whilst Scandinavia was still in the Stone and Bronze stages of the development of civilisation, merchants came to the Baltic for furs, tin, and the yellow amber so highly prized as an ornament by the oriental women. Indeed Oppert has shown that ten centuries before the Christian era the Assyrians had at least indirect communication with the Baltic shores, the only locality known to the ancient world where the yellow amber could be procured. The references to amber in Homer and Hesiod have not passed without dispute, but the discoveries of Greek coins in various parts leave little or no doubt as to the existence of commercial routes, which went from the Black Sea, by the Dnieper, the Bug and the Dniester, to gain the basin of the Niemen and of the Vistula, and thence spread to the Baltic. The amber commerce in the hands of the Milesians and the Greeks found various routes. The Roman women were as passionately partial to amber ornaments as their sisters of the East, and there is sufficient testimony as to the commercial intercourse of Rome with the barbarians of the North.