Naismith (Rory)_Islamic Coins From Early Medieval England (2005, 193-222)

8/20/2019 Naismith (Rory)_Islamic Coins From Early Medieval England (2005, 193-222)

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Islamic Coins fromEarly Medieval England

RORY NAISMITH

INTRODUCTION

A TOTAL of 173 gold and silver Islamic coins minted before c.1100 are known

to have been discovered in England, distributed among nine hoards and about70 single finds. They provide rare and tangible evidence of contact between

Anglo-Saxon England and a far-off world known only vaguely to most of

England’s inhabitants through hearsay and pre-Islamic written accounts of the

Orient.1 Although fine silver dirhams and gold dinars had substantial monetary

value, they would probably have been seen as exotic curiosities as much as

coins and a source of wealth, and they retain something of this appeal even

today: there is a natural interest in how and why these coins from Iraq, Spain,

Central Asia and elsewhere came to England.

Comparison with other numismatic evidence and with written sourcesillustrates the role these Islamic coins played in the Anglo-Saxon economy.

This role was not great, and the use of Islamic coins was never as widespread

as in early medieval Russia and Scandinavia. It was through these areas that

most dirhams found in England are likely to have passed, and the great

majority of English dirham finds can be linked to Scandinavian activity in

Britain. They are concentrated in areas of Scandinavian settlement and

influence and many coins display secondary treatment of a characteristically

Scandinavian kind: they may have been cut, nicked or hacked apart to check

their purity and provide smaller units of exchange.Because of their exoticism and small number, English finds of Islamic coins

have attracted relatively little study. There has been some comment on the

This paper grew out of work begun in the course of an undergraduate paper on Anglo-Saxon

archaeology at the University of Cambridge, and was subsequently submitted to the RNS as a

successful entry for the Parkes-Weber prize. I would like to extend my thanks to Marion

Archibald, Mark Blackburn, Catherine Hills, Simon Holmes, Lutz Ilisch, Adrian Marsden, Tim

Pestell, Marcus Phillips, and Susan Tyler-Smith for their help, support and advice in the

preparation of this paper.1 For general discussion of Anglo-Saxon contact with and views of the Islamic world, see K.

Scarfe Beckett, Anglo-Saxon Perceptions of the Islamic World (Cambridge, 2003); pp. 54-60 deal

specifically with coins.


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RORY NAISMITH194

Islamic element of several hoards2 and on the general circulation of dirhams

between the Muslim world and Europe.3 Until now there has been no attempt

to bring together a corpus of all English finds of Islamic coins minted before

c.1100.

FINDS OF ISLAMIC COINS IN ENGLAND

Tables 1-7 and Map 1 illustrate the available data on the 173 Islamic coins

found in England. Some hoards contained many more Islamic coins than are

listed here, which were not preserved or recorded.4 This problem is

particularly acute with hoards discovered long ago, such as the seventeenth-

century Harkirke hoard.5 It is also thought, for instance, that there were

originally about fifty Islamic coins in the Cuerdale hoard, as opposed to the 29surviving specimens.6 Only when precise and reliable numbers are known

have they been included in the corpus and it is certain that the real total is

larger than 173. An additional problem is that the coins are often worn or

fragmentary and it is not always possible to read the date and mint. For this

reason about half the coins in the corpus can only be described as ‘Islamic’

with no other information available.

There is also the difficulty of reconciling the date of minting and the date of

loss of a coin. In the case of dirhams found in hoards that can be quite closely

dated, it is clear that (relatively) new and old coins circulated together. Thethree Islamic coins in the Croydon hoard spanned a century and the latest was

25 years old.7 The most recently struck Islamic coin in the Cuerdale hoard (a

2 E.g. N. Lowick, ‘The Kufic coins from Cuerdale’, BNJ 46 (1976), pp. 19-28; W.S. W. Vaux,

‘An account of a find of coins in the parish of Goldsborough, Yorkshire’, NC n.s. 1 (1861), pp. 65-

71; and J.S. Strudwick, ‘Saxon and Arabic coins found at Dean, Cumberland’, BNJ 28 (1955), pp.

177-80.3 E.g., A.E. Lieber, ‘International trade and coinage in the northern lands during the early middle

ages: an introduction’, in M.A.S. Blackburn and D.M. Metcalf, eds., Viking-Age Coinage in the

Northern Lands, part II (BAR International Series 122; Oxford, 1981), pp. 1-34; J. Duplessy, ‘La

circulation des monnaies arabes en Europe occidentale du VIIIe au XIIIe siècle’, RN 5 18 (1956),

pp. 101-63; and M. McCormick, Origins of the European Economy: Communications and

Commerce 300-900 (Cambridge, 2001). Comment on the English finds in a wider context can be

found in B. Cook, ‘Foreign coins in medieval England’, in L. Travaini, ed., Moneta Locale,

Moneta Straniera: Italia ed Europa, XI-XV secole (Local Coins, Foreign Coins: Italy and Europe

11th-15th centuries), Cambridge Numismatic Symposium 2 (Milan, 1999), pp. 231-84 at 234-6.4 Lowick, ‘Kufic coins from Cuerdale’ (n. 2), pp. 19-20.5 See Table 1, no. 3.6 M. Archibald, ‘Dating Cuerdale: the evidence of the coins’, in J. Graham-Campbell, ed.,

Viking Treasure from the North West: the Cuerdale Hoard in its Context (Merseyside, 1992), pp.

15-20 at p. 18.7 See Table 1, no. 1.


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ISLAMIC COINS FROM EARLY MEDIEVAL ENGLAND 195

dirham of 282/895–6) was about ten years old at the date of deposition.8

Roughly ten years also lay between the striking and deposition of the most

recent Islamic coin in the Dean hoard.9 The potentially long period between

production and deposition is also highlighted by the coins found at BartonBendish, where two dirhams minted almost exactly a century apart were found

together.10 On the other hand, eleven of sixteen datable dirhams in the

Cuerdale hoard were minted after 252/866,11

and the Warton hoard contained

no coins struck earlier than 285/898.12 Earlier issues, both from hoards and

single-finds, are more likely to be cut into fragments or be in a very worn

state, though this is not always the case.13 Two fragmentary dirhams found

separately at a site near Oxborough, Norfolk, were in similarly poor condition,

yet their dates lay some seventy years apart.14

In the case of single finds, we have no way of knowing how long afterminting they were lost.15 Sometimes coin finds from the same site may

provide a possible indication of a date. At Torksey, for instance, there were no

Islamic coins minted after 217–29/832–44 (the fragmentary state of the coin

does not allow a closer dating) but the evidence of other coins from the site

indicates that they cannot have been deposited before c.873–5.16

THE GOLD COINS

The seven gold coins in Table 4 are a diverse group, testifying to contacts inthe eighth, tenth and eleventh centuries. In this period gold was used only

rarely for large transactions. Anglo-Saxon charters from the late eighth century

onwards often refer to gold in the form of siclos (‘shekels’), solidi or mancosi.

8 See Table 1, no. 2.9 See Table 1, no. 4.10 See nos 50 and 51 in Table 3.11 See nos 4-39 in Table 2.12 G. Williams, CH 1999, no. 43 ( NC 1999, p. 348).13 Lowick, ‘Kufic coins from Cuerdale’ (n. 2), p. 20; and J.S. Strudwick, ‘Saxon and Arabic

coins’ (n. 2), pp. 177-80.14 See nos 18 and 19 in Table 3.15 Such is the case with what is probably the only known English find of an eighth-century

copper coin ‘from the Baghdad area’. This potentially important coin appeared on E-Bay in April

2004 and became the subject of a heated debate between the seller and the Islamic Coins Group.

The seller never disclosed the precise find spot, nor explained if the coin was found separately

from several much later Islamic copper coins that were also on offer. Finds of low-value copper

coins are even rarer than gold and silver: for two recorded finds of Islamic copper from Auenberg,

Saarbrücken, Germany (an Umayyad fals probably of Alexandria after 695 found with a bronze

follis of the fourth century) and Avignon, France (a post reform Umayyad fals) see McCormick,

Origins of the European Economy (n. 3) , nos A1 and A3 pp. 816-17.16 M.A.S. Blackburn, ‘Finds from the Anglo-Scandinavian site of Torksey, Lincolnshire’, in B.

Paszkiewicz, ed., Moneta Medievalis (Warsaw, 2002), pp. 89-101 at p. 91.


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RORY NAISMITH196

This latter word mancus is believed to have referred to an Islamic gold coin,

and a variation of it, mancosus is first recorded in northern Italy in 778.17 It is

thought to be derived from the Arabic word manq sh meaning ‘struck’ or

‘engraved’.18 References to payments in gold are found especially frequentlyin charters dating from the 840s to the 970s. These may coincide with a period

when the Anglo-Saxon silver penny was debased. Similarly, insistence upon

purissimus gold may be a reflection of the circulation, from the mid ninth

century onwards, of debased imitative solidi of Louis the Pious (814–40).19

The earliest mention of gold dinars in England is found in the promise of

Offa of Mercia (757–96) to pay 365 mancuses to the pope every year, as

described in a letter from Leo III (795–816) to Coenwulf of Mercia (796–

821).20 Two papal letters of thanks from 797 and 802 indicate that the payment

was made.21 From this time on, payments in gold are occasionally recorded,often specifically in the form of mancosi. Whereas there are some mentions of

payments in gold during the ninth century, there are no dinars of that century

known from England. The volume of gold coinage is not easy to gauge from

documentary sources: the word mancosus was used to refer to a weight and a

measure of value as well as a coin.22

It is possible that some, maybe even

many, of the documentary references to payments in measures originally

denoting gold coins actually represent gold jewellery or bullion, or silver

coins.

There is one exceptional piece of evidence that Arabic gold coins wereknown in eighth-century England: the famous dinar struck by Offa which is

closely copied from a dinar of the ‘Abbsid caliph al-Manßr dated 157/773–

17 McCormick, Origins of the European Economy (n. 3) , pp. 332-3; see also P. Grierson,

‘Carolingian Europe and the Arabs’, Revue belge de philologie et d’histoire 32 (1954), pp. 1059-

74 (reprinted with corrections and additions – including a correction to his original rejection of the

Arabic derivation of Mancus (p. 1069 and supplement, p. 3) – as no. IV in his Dark Age

Numismatics (London, 1979)) for discussion of the mancus. For the most recent discussion of the

origin of the term and the status of the Anglo-Saxon and continental imitations see L. Ilisch ‘Die

imitativen solidi mancusi’ in R. Cunz, ed., Fundamenta Historiae. Geschichte im Spiegel der

Numismatik und ihrer Nachbarwissenschaften. Festschrift für Niklot Klüßendorf (Hanover, 2004),

pp. 91-106.18 Grierson and Blackburn, MEC I, p. 327.19 Blackburn, ‘Gold in England in the later Anglo-Saxon period’ in J. Graham Campbell and G.

Williams (eds), Silver Economy in the Viking Age (Institute of Archaeology London, Occasional

Papers, forthcoming). For the imitative solidi of Louis the Pious, see P. Grierson, ‘The gold

solidus of Louis the Pious and its imitations’, JMP 38 (1951), pp. 1-41 (reprinted as no. XXII in

his Dark Age Numismatics (London, 1979)).20 For text, see P.W.P. Carlyon-Britton, ‘The gold mancus of Offa’, BNJ 5 (1908), pp. 55-72 at p.

64; for translation, see D. Whitelock, English Historical Documents I, c.500-1042, 2nd ed.

(London, 1979), no. 205.21 Grierson and Blackburn, MEC I, p. 330.22 Blackburn, ‘Gold in England’ (n. 19).


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4.23 It was suggested as early as 1842 that this unique coin (thought to have

been acquired and possibly found in Rome) was one of the 365 mancuses

mentioned above. Alternative suggestions are that it was intended for high-

value overseas trade,24 or simply as a counterpart to Offa’s existing silvercoinage.25 It must have been copied from a dinar available in England, or just

possibly a very good imitation, but is not included in Table 4 as it was

apparently not found in England. The significance of the Arabic legends was

lost on the die cutter, for the legend OFFA REX is upside down relative to the

Arabic. There are three surviving English finds of eighth-century dinars

similar to the model used for Offa’s dinar.26 It has also been suggested that

another copy of a dinar comparable in style to Offa’s but lacking the legend

OFFA REX could be an English product, but this is uncertain.27

Compared to these three surviving eighth-century dinars, there is only onetenth-century quarter dinar and two gold coins of the eleventh century.28 It is

of course possible that eighth-century dinars remained in circulation in the

same way as silver dirhams. Also, the total number of finds of Islamic gold is

very small – only seven in all – and their high value may have militated

against loss. We must therefore assume that the surviving coins represent only

a small portion of the original dinar stock available in England, and not

necessarily a representative portion. The will of King Eadred (946–55), for

example, gives some indication of the amount of gold that a king could

dispense, and refers to at least 5000 mancuses distributed to various fortunate priests and nobles.

29

While it is dangerous to read too much into the find spots of so few coins, it

is notable that all were found on or near the south or east coast, or in York, a

city with far-flung trading contacts and river access to the North Sea.30 This is

in contrast to the later silver finds, which for the most part are found in the

north and east of England. The southern and eastern distribution of the gold

coins may represent the flow of goods from the continent, and correlates with

23 See Blackburn, ‘Gold in England’ (n. 19), no. B1; Carlyon-Britton, ‘The gold mancus of Offa’

(n. 20); J. Allan, ‘Offa’s imitation of an Arab dinar’, NC 4 14 (1914), pp. 77-89; and A. de

Longpérier, ‘Remarkable gold coin of Offa’, NC 4 (1841-2), pp. 232-4. The coin is now in the

British Museum.24 C.E. Blunt, ‘The coinage of Offa’, in Anglo-Saxon Coins: Studies presented to F. M. Stenton

on the occasion of his 80th birthday, ed. R.H.M. Dolley (London, 1961), p. 51.25 Allan, ‘Offa’s imitation’ (n. 23), pp. 86-7.26 See nos. 1, 3 and 7 in Table 4.27 N. Lowick, ‘A new type of solidus mancus’, NC 7 13 (1973), pp. 173-82 at pp. 178-9.28 See Table 4, nos. 4, 5 and 8.29 Cited in Blackburn, ‘Gold in England’ (n. 19).30 See Map 1.


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RORY NAISMITH198

maps of the find spots of silver coins of Offa minted in the southeast.31 The

small number of dinar finds may also be related to the similarly small number

of later Anglo-Saxon gold objects to survive,32 and it has been suggested that

some gold rings were equivalent in value and weight to a certain number ofmancuses.33 There have recently been finds of ninth- and tenth-century gold

ingots and hack-metal from Scandinavian-influenced areas of England, several

of them from Torksey in Lincolnshire which suggest that gold was not just for

ornamental and ceremonial use but also played a more functional economic

role.34

The rarity of gold dinars may be a reflection, not merely of the rarity of

gold, but of a tendency to turn gold into jewellery or ingots.

Use of gold coins from the Islamic world continued up to and after the

Norman Conquest. In the thirteenth century, it is recorded that oboli and

denarii de musc (i.e. Almohad dinars and half dinars) were imported by HenryIII (1216–72) specifically for ecclesiastical payments on the occasion of major

church festivals.35 Though this is reminiscent of Offa’s donations to Rome, the

twelfth and thirteenth century circulation of foreign gold coinage in England

was a very different phenomenon in which Islamic gold played a relatively

small part: when transactions using gold are detailed there are far more

mentions of Byzantine gold bezants than of oboli de musc.36

THE DIRHAMS: TRADE WITH SCANDINAVIA AND RUSSIA

The hoard evidence suggests that dirhams began to enter England in

substantial numbers from the second half of the ninth century and continued to

arrive in the early tenth century. From c.890–900 more dirhams come from

Central Asia, especially from the mints of the Smnid dynasty in Khurusan

and Transoxiana. This pattern is more akin to that of Scandinavia and Russia

than with that of western Europe. In France dirhams are rare north of the Loire

31 For maps see Corpus of Early Medieval Coin Finds (Fitzwilliam Museum, http://www-

cm.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/coins/emc/)32 Blackburn, ‘Gold in England’ (n. 19).33 D. Hinton, ‘Late Saxon treasure and bullion’, in D. Hill, ed., Ethelred the Unready (BAR

British series 59; Oxford, 1978), pp. 135-58 at pp. 139-41 and 146, quoted in Blackburn, ‘Gold in

England’ (n. 19).34 Blackburn, ‘Gold in England’ (n. 19).35 See P. Grierson, ‘Oboli de Musc’, EHR 66 (1951), 75-81, reprinted as no. VII in his Later

Medieval Numismatics (11th-16 th Centuries) (London, 1979); and P. Grierson, ‘Muslim coins in

thirteenth-century England’ in D.K. Kouymijan, ed., Near Eastern Numismatics: Iconography,

Epigraphy and History. Studies in Honor of George C. Miles (Beirut, 1974), pp. 387-91, reprinted

as no. VIII in his Later Medieval Numismatics.36 Cook, ‘Foreign coins in medieval England’ (n. 3), pp. 247-50. For the appearance of bezants

in royal records dating from the reign of Henry II (1154-89) to Henry III, see B. Cook, ‘The

bezant in Angevin England’, NC 159 (1999), pp. 255-75. There are no recorded finds of twelfth-

or thirteenth-century gold Byzantine or Islamic coins from England.


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and finds in southern France are mostly from Spanish and North African

mints, which are rarely encountered in England.37

There are also a number of

hoards and single finds from the Low Countries, mostly fitting into the

Scandinavian/Russian pattern. Some contain rings and jewellery like manyEnglish and Scandinavian silver hoards.38 Outside these areas finds of Islamic

coins are sparse.39 Islamic coins were probably first deposited in Russia in the

late eighth century, though many coins struck before this date were still in

circulation, as were a small number of Sasanian drachms of the sixth and

seventh centuries. Hoards of Islamic coins become numerous in Russia after

c.800.40 By the mid ninth century most hoards are fairly current and do not

contain many antiquated coins: in the 870s and 880s eighth-century dirhams

usually only make up 20-25% of hoards, as opposed to being in the majority in

the 820s. The coins in these ninth-century hoards are believed to have comenorth through the Caucasus from the central ‘Abbsid mints such as

Baghdad.41

Around 900 the source of the dirhams entering Russia shifted eastwards, to

the silver-rich lands in Central Asia ruled by the Smnid dynasty which was

producing silver in large quantities from the 890s to around 1000. There is a

notable increase in the number and size of hoards, which become dominated

by Smnid mints such as Samarqand, Al-Shsh (Tashkent) and Andar bah.42

The findspots of Russian hoards are spread over a wide area, with some

clustering along major waterways like the Don and the Dnieper, which werethe main arteries of trade.

43

37 McCormick, Origins of the European Economy (n. 3), p. 348.38 McCormick, Origins of the European Economy (n. 3), p. 350; and A15, 28, 30 and 36 in

Appendix 3.39 See the maps in Duplessy, ‘La circulation’ (n. 3), p. 107; and the more recent McCormick,

Origins of the European Economy (n. 3) , p. 348.40 T.S. Noonan, ‘Ninth-century dirham hoards’, in Blackburn and Metcalf, eds., Viking-Age

Coinage, (n. 3) pp. 47-118 at pp. 61-3. A coin in the Cuerdale hoard (Table 2, no. 39) has been

identified as a half drachm of the ‘Abbsid Governors of Tabaristan, R.H.M. Dolley and N. Shiel,

‘A hitherto unsuspected oriental element in the 1840 Cuerdale hoard’, NC 142 (1982), pp. 155-7.

It is more likely that the piece was a clipped drachm of the Sasanian ruler Khusrau II (590-628),

which are commonly found elsewhere. My thanks to Marcus Phillips and Susan Tyler-Smith for

this information.41 Noonan, ‘Ninth-century dirham hoards’, p. 51.42 A.E. Lieber, ‘Did a “Silver Crisis” in Central Asia affect the flow of Islamic coins?’, in K.

Jonsson and B. Malmer, eds., CNS Nova Series 6 (Sigtuna Papers: Proceedings of the Sigtuna

Symposium on Viking Age Coinage, 1-4 June 1989, London, 1990), pp. 207-12 at p. 207. For a

useful map showing where the principal Islamic mints were located in this period, see D.M.

Metcalf, ‘Viking Age numismatics 3: What happened to Islamic dirhams after their arrival in the

northern lands?’, NC 157 (1997), pp. 295-335 at p. 297.43 Noonan, ‘Ninth-century dirham hoards’ (n. 40), p. 57.


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The finds from Scandinavia passed through Russia on their way north, and

consequently tell a similar story. Some 200,000 Islamic coins were known

from Scandinavia even in 1974, with especially large concentrations in

Sweden (c.180,000) and above all on the Baltic island of Gotland (c.120,000,included in the Swedish total);44 and more coins have been found since.45 The

rest of the Baltic rim – Finland, Poland, the southeast Baltic – has also

produced significant numbers of dirhams.46

In general these Scandinavian

hoards follow the trends of their Russian counterparts: the earliest hoards

probably date to c.800 and they peak in the early tenth century when (as in

Russia) Smnid mints predominate. The Croydon hoard is an important

datable indication that ninth-century dirhams were being used in a

Scandinavian context at least as early as the 870s,47 although it is likely that

some ninth-century dirhams were imported earlier and that many only came tothe north in the early tenth-century heyday of dirham use.

A decline in the number of Islamic coins being brought into Scandinavia set

in after the 950s,48

dwindling almost to nothing by the later tenth century.49

Replacement of Islamic with English and German silver pennies in

Scandinavia was a gradual process,50

and dirhams continue to feature strongly

in Danish hoards until 1000 even though the latest coins were usually at least

thirty years old by this time.51

Study of a large number of Umayyad and ‘Abbsid dirhams from ninth-

century hoards in Sweden has shown a series of peaks and troughs in theimport of dirhams, with the peaks occurring c.710–15, c.740–5, c.770–80,

44 Lieber, ‘International trade’ (n. 3), p. 22.45 Lieber, ‘Silver crisis’ (n. 42), p. 207 offers a figure of 250,000 known finds in 1993. Lutz

Ilisch (personal communication) however, has pointed out that Lieber’s figure is rather generous,

and that the only substantial find since the 1970s has been the Spillings hoard of about 1999 which

contained about 15,000 dirham fragments.46 See Noonan, ‘Dirham exports to the Baltic in the Viking Age’, in Sigtuna Papers (n. 42) , pp.

251-7 at p. 255.47 N.P. Brooks and J. Graham-Campbell, ‘Reflections on the Viking-Age silver hoard from

Croydon’, in Anglo-Saxon Monetary History, ed. M.A.S. Blackburn (Leicester, 1986), pp. 91-110

at p. 99.48 T.S. Noonan, ‘Dirham exports’ (n. 46), p. 254.49 Lieber, ‘International trade’ (n. 3), p. 22. A more recent and specific analysis of this decline in

all areas of the Baltic shows that the dirham imports into Scandinavia remained plentiful until

c.960, declining gradually thereafter: T.S. Noonan, ‘The Vikings in the east: coins and commerce’,

in Developments around the Baltic and the North Sea in the Viking Age, Birka Studies 3, eds. B.

Ambrosiani and H. Clarke (Stockholm, 1994), pp. 215-36.50 For a description of this process see P. Sawyer, ‘Anglo-Scandinavian trade in the Viking Age

and after’, in Blackburn Anglo-Saxon Monetary History (n. 47) , pp. 185-99 at pp. 194-5.51 A. Kromann, ‘The latest cufic coin finds from Denmark’, in Sigtuna Papers (n. 42), pp. 183-

93 at pp. 186-7.


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c.800–810 and c.855–65.52 It is likely that these ‘pulses’, which can be

discerned in individual hoards, show periods of particularly intense minting

activity rather than importation, as they also occur in hoards from the Middle

East and Russia.53 This similarity between the Scandinavian, Russian andMiddle Eastern stock of dirhams indicates that their import into Scandinavia

was of a relatively substantial, consistent and constant nature.54 The high rate

of die linkage seen in some large tenth-century hoards of Smnid coins from

Gotland strongly suggests that the coins stayed together from the time they left

the mint until deposition in the far north and do not show any great mixing of

currency at any point in between.55

The concentration of Scandinavian hoards of Islamic coins in Sweden and

especially on Gotland illustrates that the coins were flowing in from the east,

where the Swedes had begun their penetration of what is now Russia.56

Documentary evidence indicates the presence of Scandinavians in Russia from

the 830s, and a report in the Annales Bertiniani of 839 tells of how a small

number of Scandinavians who had journeyed through Russia to

Constantinople came westwards with Byzantine ambassadors and were

identified as Swedes by their Frankish hosts.57

Several sources from the ninth

and tenth centuries, most famously the Muslim writer Ibn Fadlan in the 920s

and the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII (913–59), record considerable

river traffic on the Dnieper and the Volga.58

The pattern of dirham use in Scandinavia and Russia is related in severalways to that of England. Islamic coins appear in substantial numbers in the

ninth-century hoards roughly coinciding with the beginning of large-scale

Viking activity in England but by c.890–900 there is a shift towards Smnid

and Volga Bulgar coins.59 The Islamic coins in the Cuerdale hoard (dep.

c.905), are dominated by central ‘Abbsid mints such as Baghdad (Mad nat al-

52 B.E. Hovén, ‘Ninth-century dirham hoards from Sweden’, Journal of Baltic Studies 13

(1982), pp. 202-19.53 Metcalf, ‘What happened to Islamic dirhams?’ (n. 42), pp. 310-11.54 It has been estimated that as much as 40% of dirham imports into Russia were passed on to

the Baltic: see Noonan, ‘Dirham exports’ (n. 42), p. 251.55 Metcalf, ‘What happened to Islamic dirhams?’ (n. 42), pp. 299-300.56 See G. Jones, A History of the Vikings, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1984), pp. 241-4 for a brief review of

this process; see Metcalf, ‘What happened to Islamic dirhams?’ (n. 42), pp. 321-33, for the

importance of Gotland.57 Jones, A History of the Vikings, pp. 249-50.58 Jones, A History of the Vikings, pp. 164-5 and 256-7.59 See Table 5 and Table 7; c.890 is also pinned down as a date for change in the pattern of

dirham finds by K. Skaare, Coins and Coinage in Viking-Age Norway (Oslo, 1976), p. 47. Lowick,

in ‘Kufic coins from Cuerdale’ (n. 2), p. 23, also pointed out that dirhams from elsewhere in the

Islamic world could travel very far – even from Spain to Iraq – before being taken north. For the

Volga Bulgar coins, see G. Rispling, ‘The Volga-Bulgarian imitative coinage’ in Sigtuna Papers

(n. 42), pp. 275-82; and nos 33 and 36 in Table 3.


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RORY NAISMITH202

Salm), Arm n yah and Bardha’a, and probably represent a collection made

shortly before this change.60

Coins from the late ninth century (876–900) are

the most numerous group of datable dirhams to have survived,61 and it is likely

that most of the eighth- and early ninth-century dirhams represent ninth- ortenth-century losses associated with the Scandinavian presence. The general

similarity of the English and Scandinavian find patterns shows that, at least

until c.925, England was part of the network connecting Scandinavia to Russia

and, ultimately, the caliphate.

There are important differences between the pattern of finds in Russia and

Scandinavia and in England. The ‘pulses’ are only clearly identifiable in large

ninth-century hoards in Russia and Scandinavia. The dirham hoards from

England are small and only one, Croydon, dates from the ninth century. The

Cuerdale hoard may possibly show traces of two of the ‘pulses’ with two coinsfrom c.770–80, one from c.810 and two from c.865–70 but there is also one

from the 840s.62

Smaller Swedish hoards often show a greater mixture of coins and dates than

large hoards. It is thought that these smaller hoards and single finds represent

currency that circulated by unit and was used in smaller transactions, whereas

large hoards represent considerable stores of hoarded metal which had seen

little circulation and been reckoned by weight rather than unit.63 Small

Swedish hoards seem more comparable with the dirham finds from England,

where no more than fifty have ever been recorded in a single hoard.It is interesting, however, that the Smnid element is not nearly as dominant

in England as it is in Sweden.64 In England there are only about half as many

Smnid coins as there are ‘Abbsid and the majority of the ‘Abbsid dirhams

and dinars belong to the late eighth and early ninth centuries.65 While there are

fewer Smnid dirhams overall from England, unlike the ‘Abbsid coins they

are concentrated in a shorter period of time (c.890– c.930 with very few after

910).66 This sharp decline in coins minted after c.910 does not reflect the

pattern of finds in Scandinavia, where the decline in dirhams only begins with

60 Lowick, ‘Kufic coins from Cuerdale’ (n. 2), p. 22.61 See Table 7.62 See Table 2.63 Metcalf, ‘What happened to Islamic dirhams?’ (n. 42), pp. 299-300 and 331-3.64 B.E. Hovén in ‘On oriental coins in Scandinavia’, in Blackburn and Metcalf, Viking-Age

Coinage (n. 3), pp. 119-28 shows that 57.2% of the Islamic coins in the Swedish Royal Coin

Cabinet are Smnid, whilst 27.5% are ‘Abbsid; no other dynasty produced more than 2% of the

total of finds. Figures are also cited in Skaare’s Coins and Coinage (n. 59) , pp. 47-53 that show a

comparable dominance of Smnid coins in Norway of 223 Smnid coins in comparison to 87

‘Abbsid.65 See Tables 2, 3 and 6.66 See Tables 2, 3 and 6.


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coins minted in the mid tenth century.67 An explanation for this must be sought

in developments in early tenth-century England, where dirhams were just one

aspect of a Scandinavian-influenced silver economy.

THE SILVER ECONOMY OF THE DANELAW

Nearly every English hoard that contains Islamic coins also contains non-

numismatic silver objects, usually ingots or hack-silver.68

The fragmentary

state of many dirhams from England suggests that they often were seen as

small pieces of hack-silver rather than as coins.69

There are numerous

fragmentary dirhams found in Scandinavia and Russia, and even some in finds

from the Caliphate itself, especially in Iraq.70

The practice was not, however,

extended to western pennies, which were typically of poorer silver and whosenominal value may have been higher than their intrinsic value.71

The presence of dirhams in the Croydon hoard of c.872 is unusual in

England, as is the hoard’s diverse mix of English and foreign coins.72 It very

probably represents the coins and bullion belonging to one or more Vikings.

This is also the earliest English hoard to contain dirhams, and its contents

again illustrate the difference that contemporaries saw between dirhams and

western coins: the English pennies and Carolingian deniers were uncut and

flat, whilst the dirhams were frequently cut up or had been nicked at the

edge.73

The practices of edge-cutting and more commonly bending and (fromthe late ninth century) pecking, are associated with the Vikings checking the

quality of their silver.74

This may be particularly common in English finds

because dirhams were rarer and less likely to be accepted without checking

their quality, or simply because dirhams that reached England from

Scandinavia had probably changed hands many times and stood more chance

of having been checked or cut at some point.

67 Noonan, ‘Dirham exports’ (n. 46), p. 254, bearing in mind that there must have been some

interval between production and deposition in distant Scandinavia and England, apparently shorter

in the early tenth than in the ninth century.68 See Table 1.69 Roughly a third of the total: see Tables 2 and 3.70 L. Ilisch, ‘Whole and fragmented dirhams in Near Eastern hoards’, in Sigtuna Papers (n. 42),

pp. 121-8 at p. 121.71 On the poor silver quality of English silver from the second quarter of the ninth century and

the variable fineness of Carolingian pennies, see Grierson and Blackburn, MEC I, pp. 194, 271

and 307-8.72 Brooks and Graham-Campbell, ‘Reflections’ (n. 47), p. 98.73 J. Graham-Campbell, ‘The dual economy of the Danelaw’, BNJ 71 (2001), pp. 49-59 at pp.

55-8.74 Grierson and Blackburn, MEC I, p. 318; and M. Archibald, ‘Pecking and bending: the

evidence of British finds’, in Sigtuna Papers (n. 42), pp. 11-24 at p. 15.


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RORY NAISMITH204

The Croydon hoard has been seen as a cache of Viking loot, not least

because the date of the hoard ties up precisely with the presence of the Viking

Great Army in London in 872 recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: Her for

se here to Lundenbyrig from Readingum, ond þær wintersetl nam, ond þanamon Mierce friþ wiþ þone here (Here [in this year] the [Danish] army went

to London from Reading, and wintered there, and then the Mercians made

peace with the army).75

Torksey (Tureces iege in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle)

was another wintering place of the Great Army, in 872–3 , and like Croydon

has produced coins, including dirhams, with a terminus ante quem of c.875,

which, given the strongly Scandinavian character of the site, is very likely to

represent the Viking occupation of 872–3.76

The find spots of most single finds and hoards also place them in a Viking

context.77 The majority of finds come from the Danelaw,78 where there isconsiderable archaeological, linguistic and toponymic evidence of

Scandinavian settlement.79 The only hoard found outside the Danelaw,

Croydon, can be associated with a historically attested Viking foray. Single

finds are not quite so concentrated, but still show a strong bias towards the

north and especially the east.80

Viking connections with other parts of the British Isles are also apparent in

the use of dirhams in Wales, Ireland and Scotland. Scandinavians settled and

fought on both sides of the Irish Sea, and there were extensive connections

between the Viking kingdoms of York and Dublin. The Irish and Hiberno- Norse style metalwork found in the Cuerdale and Goldsborough hoards

provides another example of a material connection between England and

Ireland.81

The Vikings who settled in Ireland and Scotland remained in the

Scandinavian economic sphere long after the use of dirhams and the common

use of hack-silver had ended in England: hoards from as late as c.950 in

75 Brooks and Graham-Campbell, ‘Reflections’ (n. 47), p. 100.76 Blackburn, ‘Finds from Torksey’ (n. 16), pp. 99-100.77 See Map 1.78 The Danelaw was an area of eastern and northern England which, from the start of the

eleventh century, is described as being subject to Danish law as opposed to West Saxon or

Mercian law. It comprised fifteen shires, including those in the East Midlands, Yorkshire and East

Anglia as well as Essex, Middlesex, Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire. See K. Holman,

‘Defining the Danelaw’, in J. Graham-Campbell, R. Hall, J. Jesch and D.N. Parsons, eds., Vikings

and the Danelaw: Select Papers from the Proceedings of the Thirteenth Viking Congress,

Nottingham and York, 21-30 August 1997 (Oxford, 2001), pp. 1-11.79 E.g., D.M. Hadley, ‘In search of the Vikings: the problems and the possibilities of

interdisciplinary approaches’, Vikings and the Danelaw (n. 78) , pp. 13-30.80 See Map 1.81 Graham-Campbell, ‘The Cuerdale hoard: Comparisons and context’, in Graham-Campbell,

ed., Viking Treasure (n. 6) , pp. 107-15 at pp. 112-13.


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Scotland and c.970 in Ireland still contain dirhams, often of relatively recent

production.82

There is also a Viking hoard from Wales datable to c.925.83

Metallurgical studies show that many Islamic coins brought into Scandinavia

were cut apart for use as hack-silver or melted down for re-use as jewellery orsilver ingots.84 The silver used by Central Asian mints at this time is

distinctive, its trace consisting of gold, a comparatively high level of bismuth

and little else.85

Much of the silver used by the Smnids is particularly

extreme in its high bismuth and low gold content and came from mines at

Panjh r and nearby in the Hindu Kush, an area ruled by their vassals the Ab

Da’dids.86 Almost all silver objects found in southern Sweden were found to

be wholly or mostly made from melted down Smnid dirhams identified by

these trace elements

By contrast Kruse’s study of silver objects from England and other areasaround the Irish Sea has not conclusively shown that any English objects are

made from this same distinctive silver. This applies even to objects of

Scandinavian style from England. Silver objects in England were ether made

using metal from another source, or from a liberal mix of metals drawn from

several sources. A few Anglo-Saxon silver coins were also studied, again

without any clear sign of Smnid silver having been used in their

manufacture. If almost all incoming foreign coins were melted down and re-

struck in mints controlled by the West Saxon dynasty then this mix of metals is

what one might expect.87 Even in Viking-ruled areas it appears that silver frommelted-down Smnid dirhams was not as dominant as it was in Scandinavia.

This lack of re-used eastern silver in England again indicates that the volume

of dirhams circulating in England was not great. Unlike England, ninth- and

tenth-century Scandinavia was still essentially a non-monetary economy in

which business was conducted using silver, coined or uncoined, measured by

82 The Skaill Bay hoard of c.950 contained an ‘Abbsid dirham struck in 945 and Smnid

dirhams from as late as 943 (Hegira dates not given): see Duplessy, ‘La circulation’ (n. 3), p. 126

no. 18; the Co. Meath hoard including Islamic coins can be dated to c.970: see M.A.S. Blackburn

and H. Pagan, ‘A revised checklist of coin-hoards from the British Isles, c.500-1100’, in

Blackburn, ed., Anglo-Saxon Monetary History (n. 47) , pp. 291-313, no. 156.83 The Bangor hoard of c.925 contained five dirhams and non-numismatic silver as well as eight

pennies from the kingdom of Wessex and Viking York: the dirhams were all recently struck,

ranging in date from 287/899-900 to 299/911-12. See C.E. Blunt, ‘Saxon coins from Southampton

and Bangor’, BNJ 27 (1952-4), pp. 256-62.84 S.E. Kruse, ‘Metallurgical evidence of silver sources in the Irish Sea province’, in Graham-

Campbell, ed., Viking Treasure (n. 6), pp. 73-88 at p. 79; see also Metcalf, ‘What happened to

Islamic dirhams?’ (n. 42), pp. 328-9 for the use of hack-silver.85 Kruse, ‘Metallurgical evidence’ (n. 84), p. 79.86 See M.R. Cowell and N. Lowick, ‘Silver from the Panjh r mines’, in W.A. Oddy, ed., MIN 2

(London, 1988), pp. 65-74.87 On the exclusion of foreign currency, see Grierson and Blackburn, MEC I, p. 286.


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RORY NAISMITH206

weight.88 To some extent this was also the case in the Scandinavian-influenced

parts of England, where many examples of ingots and hack-silver have been

found singly and in hoards: rings, brooches, ingots and other pieces of silver,

some of non-Scandinavian origin.89

The influence of the Anglo-Saxon monetary economy and the scarcity of

dirhams gradually changed the currency systems of Viking-held areas. Before

the end of the ninth century the use of coinage on the Anglo-Saxon model was

expanding among the Viking settlers, and new designs were adopted after an

initial period of imitating English coins.90

The shift from bullion to coinage

was not immediate and hoards show that coins and hack-silver could still co-

exist for much of the tenth century.91

The latest hoard to contain Islamic coins is Bossall, dated to c.927, and there

are no known single finds of coins from the Danelaw minted after this date. Itwas also coincidentally in 927 that the English King Æthelstan (924/5–39)

captured York from the Vikings and effectively ended independent

Scandinavian rule. By 918 most of England up to the Humber had been

wrested from Viking control and mints there were producing coins for the

kings of the West Saxon dynasty.92

The expansion of West Saxon minting and

political control seems to mirror the decline in the use of Islamic silver, while

the Scandinavians elsewhere in the British Isles persisted in the use of dirhams

up to the end of their import into Scandinavia. Economic and political

circumstances in England conspired to deal a killing blow to the bullioneconomy; and only a few hoards containing a mixture of foreign and English

coins and hack-silver appear to have been deposited after the first West Saxon

capture of York in 927 in remote locations such as Scotby, Cumberland and

Bowes Moor, County Durham.93

88 Graham-Campbell, ‘Dual economy’ (n. 73), p. 53.89 Graham-Campbell, ‘Dual economy’ (n. 73), pp. 54-5.90 Grierson and Blackburn, MEC I, pp. 318-25.91 See Table 1 and M.A.S. Blackburn, ‘Expansion and control: Aspects of Anglo-Scandinavian

minting south of the Humber’, in Vikings and the Danelaw (n. 78), pp. 125-42 at pp. 134-5.92 M.A.S. Blackburn, ‘Mints, burhs and the Grateley Code cap. 14.2’, in D. Hill and A.R.

Rumble, eds., The Defence of Wessex: The Burghal Hidage and Anglo-Saxon Fortifications

(Manchester, 1996), pp. 160-75 at pp. 163-5.93 J. Graham-Campbell, ‘The northern hoards’, in N.J. Higham and D. Hill, eds., Edward the

Elder (London, 2001), pp. 212-29 at pp. 226-7.


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THE USE OF ISLAMIC COINS BY NON-SCANDINAVIANS IN ENGLAND

One probably datable single find is a Spanish Umayyad dirham fragment

found in a refuse pit at Southampton, stratigraphically dated to c.750–850 andthought to have been minted at Cordoba c.765–815.94 Given its mint, (which

would be unusual for a Scandinavian find), likely deposition date (years before

the earliest hoard containing Islamic coins) and findspot, it is probable that it

came from Spain via Frankia: a possibility that is supported by the presence of

a small number of other continental coins at Hamwic, including one

Carolingian denier from Toulouse,95

a region which made use of Spanish

dirhams in this period.96 It has also been suggested that some dirhams of

eighth- and ninth-century Spain reached Scandinavia alongside Carolingian

coins arriving from the west before the great raids of the ninth century.97

Theuse of gold dinars by the Vikings in England is unlikely:98 the dinar of Offa

shows that gold dinars must have been present in England before 796, so

eighth-century dinars should probably be seen as native Anglo-Saxon losses.

The late tenth- and eleventh-century gold coins probably also took a western,

non-Scandinavian route to England.

It is true that Viking raids on England had begun by the end of the eighth

century,99 and a Scandinavian source cannot be ruled out for any coin

considering the long gap between minting and deposition seen in hoards.

There is a possibility that some finds of eighth- and ninth-century dirhamsfrom the Danelaw were lost prior to the Viking raids or were contemporary

with but not linked to them.

There are also some southern and western finds that would be out of

character in the Danelaw, such as the dirhams from late tenth-century

Umayyad Spain, one of them mounted.100 These coins may represent souvenirs

of travel through Frankia to Spain,101 possibly to the great pilgrimage centre of

Santiago de Compostella. There is probable numismatic evidence of English

participation in this pilgrimage in the shape of a small hoard of pennies of

94 H. Brown, ‘An Islamic dirham’, in P. Andrews, ed., Southampton Finds vol. I: The Coins and

Pottery from Hamwic (Southampton, 1988), pp. 25-6.95 No. 150 in D.M. Metcalf, ‘The coins’, Southampton Finds vol. I: The Coins (n. 94), pp. 17-

59.96 McCormick, Origins of the European Economy (n. 3), pp. 346-7.97 U.S. Linder Welin, ‘Spanish-Umaiyad coins found in Scandinavia’, Numismatiska

Meddelanden xxx (1965), pp. 15-25 at p. 22.98 Blackburn, ‘Gold in England’ (n. 19). There are very few gold single finds and just one gold

hoard from Scandinavia, and the Islamic dinars from Scandinavia are thought to have come from

both east and west.99 Jones, A History of the Vikings (n. 56), pp. 194-5.100 See nos 30 and 31 in Table 3.101 McCormick, Origins of the European Economy (n. 3), pp. 357-61.


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RORY NAISMITH208

Æthelred II (978–1016) found in the Roncesvalles pass in northern Spain.102 It

is possible that other coins, silver and gold, represent the products of long

distance trade with the Islamic world, direct or indirect, carried by pilgrims

travelling across the Mediterranean. A few Anglo-Saxons are known to havemade the long and difficult journey to the Holy Land, most notably St

Willibald in the years 723–7.103 There are also a small number of other finds

and written references from England that shed light on connections with the

Islamic world both before and after the Viking period and complement the

numismatic record.104

CONCLUSION

The Islamic silver coins found in England are not numerous by Russian orScandinavian standards and it appears that England was on the periphery of

the northern dirham-using world: Islamic silver was far from dominant and

was just one part of a developing economic system.

On the other hand, dirham finds from England are an important reflection of

Scandinavian influence and activity in the British Isles. Find spots of both

single finds and hoards are concentrated in areas of Scandinavian settlement

and show some connections with silver finds from other Scandinavian-

influenced areas of Britain. English hoards containing dirhams were deposited

between c.870 and c.930 bearing witness to a distinctive Scandinavian-influenced bullion economy in which dirhams, hack silver, ingots and other

coins were used side by side.

Even before 900 the Danelaw had begun to shift towards a monetary

economy. Dirhams and hack-silver continued to circulate, but they were never

as common or as important a part of the currency as they were in Scandinavia.

Neither did the Smnid coins that proliferated in tenth-century Scandinavia

ever become as predominant in England, indicating that the decline came in

England at the beginning of the tenth-century Scandinavian heyday of the

Smnid dirhams. The West Saxon conquest of the Danelaw spelt the end for

the dirham and ultimately the bullion economy in England: after c.927 no

102 F. Mateu y Llopis and R.H.M. Dolley, ‘A small find of Anglo-Saxon pennies from

Roncesvalles’, BNJ 27 (1955), pp. 81-91.103 On Anglo-Saxon visitors to the Holy Land, see Scarfe Beckett, Anglo-Saxon Perceptions (n.

1) , pp. 44-54; for western visitors in general see McCormick, Origins of the European Economy

(n. 3) , chs. 5-9, in which he points out (p. 275) that pilgrims were very often the vehicles of trade

in all manner of goods.104 See Scarfe Beckett, Anglo-Saxon Perceptions (n. 1), pp. 60-8. These products include pepper

and incense in the Venerable Bede’s (d. 735) possession; other spices, pottery, metalwork, glass,

pigments and medicines are attested elsewhere.


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dirhams appear in English hoards, nor are there any single finds from the

Danelaw minted at a later date.

Although most dirham finds belong in a strongly Viking context, there is a

selection of single finds that probably represent non-Scandinavian use. Singlefinds from southern and western England are less likely to represent Viking

activity, or are of mints and dates that do not fit into the Viking pattern. The

gold coins present a similar case of probable native use; but it is likely that

they were never present in any large number, and outside Scandinavian-

influenced areas Islamic coins probably never constituted an important part of

the currency. Their rarity, value and difference from native currency may have

made them objects of wonder as much as objects of value.


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RORY NAISMITH210

Map of single finds and hoards

containing Islamic coins

Key

Gold single find

Site producing multiple gold single finds

Silver single find

Site producing multiple silver single finds

Hoard


19/30


T a b l e 1

: H o a r d s

N o . L o c a

t i o n

D a t e o f

d e p o s i t i o n

P r e c i o u s

m e t a l b u l l i o n

i n h o a r d ?

T o t a l n o . o f c o i n s a n d

o t h e r t y p e s

N o . o f d i r h a m s D a t e r a n g e o f

d i r h a m s

R e f e r e n c e

1

C r o y d o n , S u r r e y

c . A D 8 7 2

Y e s

c . 2 5 0 : E n g l i s h a

n d

F r a n k i s h

3

A H 1 6 9 - 2 3 2 /

A D 7 8 6 - 8 4 7

B r o o k s a n d G r a h a m

-

C a m p b e l l 1 9 8 6

2

C u e r d a l e ,

L a n c a s h i r e

c . 9 0 5

Y e s

c . 7 5 0 0 : E n g l i s h , F r a n k i s h ,

V i k i n g a n d B y z a n t i n e

2 9 s u r v i v i n g ; a t

l e a s t 3 6 i n h o a r d

1 5

6 - 2 8 2 / 7 7 2 -

8 9

6

L o w i c k 1 9 7 6

3

H a r k i r k e ,

L a n c a s h i r e

c . 9 1 0

Y e s

c . 3 5 0 : E n g l i s h , V i k i n g a n d

F r a n k i s h

U n c e r t a i n

U n c e r t a i n

B l a c k b u r n a n d P a g a n 1 9 8 6

4

D e a n , C u m b e r l a n d c . 9 1 5

N o

3 1 s u r v i v i n g : E n g l i s h ,

V i k i n g a n d F r a n

k i s h

2 0

1 8

2 - 2 9 3 / 7 9 8 -

9 0

5

S t r u d w i c k 1 9 5 5

5

G o l d s b o r o u g h ,

N o r t h

Y o r k s h i r e

c . 9 2 0

Y e s

3 7 o r 3 9 : E n g l i s

h

3 5 o r 3 7 *

2 7

6 - 3 0 1 / 8 8 9 -

9 1

4

G r a h a m - C a m p b e l l 1 9 9 2 ,

1 9 9 3 a n d 2 0 0 1 ; V a u x 1 8 6 1

6

W a r t o n , L a n c a s h i r e c . 9 2 0

Y e s

3 : N o n e

3

2 8

5 - 3 0 0 / 8 9 8 -

9 1

2

W i l l i a m s 1 9 9 9

7

T h u r c a s t o n ,

L e i c e

s t e r s h i r e

c . 9 2 5

N o

1 2 : E n g l i s h a n d

V i k i n g

2

3 0

0 / 1 - 3 / 9 1 3 -

1 6

B l a c k b u r n 2 0 0 1

8

B o s s a l l / F l a x t o n ,

N o r t h

Y o r k s h i r e

c . 9 2 7

Y e s

c . 2 7 0 : E n g l i s h a

n d V i k i n g 2

2 9

8 / 9 1 1 - 1 2

D o l l e y 1 9 5 5

9

‘ N o r t h Y o r k s h i r e ’ L a t e 9 t h c e n t u r y .

Y e s

U n c e r t a i n

1

U n c e r t a i n

S i m o n H o l m e s , Y o r k C i t y

M u s e u m

* T h e r e i s s o m e u n c e r t a i n t y a s t o t h e n u m

b e r o f c o i n s i n t h e G o l d s b o r o u

g h h o a r d . G r a h a m - C a m p b e l l 1 9

9 3 ( p . 1 1 2 ) s t a t e s t h a t t h e r e w e r e 3 9 c o i n s

i n t h e h o a r d , w h i l s t V a u x 1 8 6 1 ( p . 6 5 ) c l a i m s t h a t t h e r e w e r e 3 7 ; t h e c o n t e n t i o n s e e m s t o b e o v e r h o w m a

n y w o r n a n d u n i d e n t i f i a b l e d i r h

a m s w e r e

p r e s e n t .


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RORY NAISMITH212

T a b l e 2 : S i l v e r h o a r d c o i n s

N o .

H o a r d

A u t h o r i t y

M i n t

D

a t e

C o n d i t i o n

1

C r o y d o n

A b b a s i d s

U n r e c o r d e d

A

H 1 6 9 - 9 3 / A D 7 8 6 - 8 0 9

W h o l e

2

C r o y d o n

A b b a s i d s

U n r e c o r d e d

1

6 9 - 9 3 / 7 8 6 - 8 0 9

W h o l e

3

C r o y d o n

A b b a s i d s

U n r e c o r d e d

2

2 7 - 3 2 / 8 4 2 - 7

W h o l e

4

C u e r d a l e

S p a n i s h U m a y y a d s

A l - A n d a l u s

2

5 6 / 8 6 9 - 7 0

S l i g h t l y c l i p p e d

5

C u e r d a l e

A b b a s i d s

U n c e r t a i n

1

5 6 / 7 7 2 - 3

F r a g m e n t

6

C u e r d a l e

A b b a s i d s

U n c e r t a i n

1

3 6 - 5 8 / 7 5 0 - 7 5

W o r n

7

C u e r d a l e

A b b a s i d s

U n c e r t a i n

1

9 3 - 9 8 / 8 0 9 - 1 3

W o r n ; s m a l l r i m d i e c u t s

8

C u e r d a l e

A b b a s i d s

M a d i n a t a l - S a l a m

2

5 2 / 8 6 6 - 7

F r a g m e n t

9

C u e r d a l e

A b b a s i d s

A r m i n i y a h

2

5 6 - 7 9 / 8 7 0 - 9 2 ( o b v e r s e d i e o f

2 5 0 A H )

W h o l e

1 0

C u e r d a l e

A b b a s i d s

A r m i n i y a h / B a r d h a ’ a h 2

6 7 / 8 8 0 - 1

W h o l e b u t b u c k l e d

1 1

C u e r d a l e

A b b a s i d s

A r m i n i y a h / B a r d h a ’ a h 2

7 7 / 8 9 0 - 1

W h o l e

1 2

C u e r d a l e

A b b a s i d s

A r m i n i y a h

2

7 7 / 8 9 0 - 1

W h o l e

1 3

C u e r d a l e

A b b a s i d s

A r m i n i y a h

2

7 7 / 8 9 0 - 1

F r a g m e n t

1 4

C u e r d a l e

A b b a s i d s

B a r d h a ’ a h

2

6 7 o r 2 7 7 / 8 8 0 - 1 o r 8 9 0 - 1

W o r n

1 5

C u e r d a l e

A b b a s i d s

U n c e r t a i n

2

7 0 - 9 / 8 8 3 - 9 2

F r a g m e n t

1 6

C u e r d a l e

A b b a s i d s

M a d i n a t a l - S a l a m

2

8 2 / 8 9 5 - 6

W h o l e

1 7

C u e r d a l e

A b b a s i d s

U n c e r t a i n

U

n c e r t a i n

F r a g m e n t

1 8

C u e r d a l e

A b u D a ’ u d i d s

P a n j h i r

2

6 0 - 7 9 / 8 7 3 - 9 2

P o o r l y s t r u c k

1 9

C u e r d a l e

U n c e r t a i n

A n d a r a b a h

2

7 2 / 8 8 5 ?


2 0

C u e r d a l e

I m i t a t i o n

‘ U r m i y a h a l - S a l a m ’

‘ 1 8 0 ’ / ‘ 7 9 6 ’


2 1

C u e r d a l e

I m i t a t i o n

A r m i n i y a h ?

2

7 7 / 8 9 0 - 1

F r a g m e n t ; b u c k l e

d

2 2

C u e r d a l e

I m i t a t i o n

U n c e r t a i n

2

7 9 - 8 9 / 8 9 2 - 9 0 2 ?

W h o l e ; r e v e r s e d l e g e n d s

2 3

C u e r d a l e

I m i t a t i o n

U n c e r t a i n

U

n c e r t a i n

W h o l e ; r e v e r s e d l e g e n d s


21/30


2 4

C u e r d a l e

I m i t a t i o n

U n c e r t a i n

U n c e r t a i n

F r a g m e n t ; r e v e r s e d l e g e n d s

2 5 - 3 8 C u e r d a l e

U n d e t e r m i n e d

U n c e r t a i n

U n c e r t a i n

F r a g m e n t

3 9

C u e r d a l e

S a s a n i a n o r p o s s i b l y A r a b - S a s a n i a n

T a b a r i s t a n ?

? 1 4 4 - 1 6 0 / 7 6 1 - 7 7 ?

W h o l e

4 0

D e a n

A b b a s i d s

U n r e c o r d e d

1 8 2 / 7 9 8 - 9

W h o l e

4 1

D e a n

S a m a n i d s

U n r e c o r d e d

2 8 9 - 9 5 / 9 0 2 - 8

W h o l e

4 2

D e a n

S a m a n i d s

A n d a r a b

a h

2 9 3 / 9 0 5 - 6

W h o l e

4 3

D e a n

S a m a n i d s

U n c e r t a i n

2 0 3 - 3 9 5 / 8 1 9 - 1 0 0 5

U n r e c o r d e d

4 4 - 5 9 D e a n

U n d e t e r m i n e d

U n c e r t a i n

U n c e r t a i n

U n r e c o r d e d

6 0

W a r t o n

S a m a n i d s

A l - S h a s h

2 8 5 / 8 9 8 - 9

U n r e c o r d e d

6 1

W a r t o n

S a m a n i d s

A l - S h a s h

3 0 0 / 9 1 2 - 1 3

U n r e c o r d e d

6 2

W a r t o n

S a m a n i d s

S a m a r k a

n d

2 x x / 9 x x

U n r e c o r d e d

6 3

B o s s a l l / F l a x t o n U n r e c o r d e d

U n c e r t a i n

U n c e r t a i n

U n r e c o r d e d

6 4

B o s s a l l / F l a x t o n S a m a n i d s

A l - S h a s h

2 9 8 / 9 1 1 - 1 2

W h o l e

6 5

T h u r c a s t o n

S a m a n i d s

S a m a r k a

n d

3 0 1 o r 3 0 2 / 9 1 3 - 1 5

F r a g m e n t

6 6

T h u r c a s t o n

S a m a n i d s

S a m a r q a

n d

3 0 3 / 9 1 5 - 1 6

F r a g m e n t

6 7

G o l d s b o r o u g h

A b b a s i d s

U n c e r t a i n

2 7 6 / 8 8 9 - 9 0

U n r e c o r d e d

6 8


A b b a s i d s

U n c e r t a i n

2 7 6 / 8 8 9 - 9 0

U n r e c o r d e d

6 9


A b b a s i d s

U n c e r t a i n

2 9 0 - 9 / 9 0 2 - 1 1

U n r e c o r d e d

7 0


A b b a s i d s

A l - S h a s h

U n c e r t a i n

U n r e c o r d e d

7 1


A b b a s i d s

U n c e r t a i n

U n c e r t a i n

U n r e c o r d e d

7 2


A b b a s i d s

U n c e r t a i n

2 9 2 / 9 0 4 - 5

U n r e c o r d e d

7 3


A b b a s i d s

A l - S h a s h

2 8 0 / 8 9 3 - 4

U n r e c o r d e d

7 4


A b b a s i d s

U n c e r t a i n

U n c e r t a i n

U n r e c o r d e d

7 5


A b b a s i d s

U n c e r t a i n

2 9 7 / 9 0 9 - 1 0

U n r e c o r d e d

7 6


S a m a n i d s

A l - S h a s h

2 8 2 / 8 9 5 - 6

U n r e c o r d e d


22/30

RORY NAISMITH214

7 7


S a

m a n i d s

A l - S h a s h

2 8 6 / 8 9

9 - 9 0 0

U n r e c o r d e d

7 8


S a

m a n i d s

S a m a r q a n d

2 8 6 / 8 9

9 - 9 0 0

U n r e c o r d e d

7 9


S a

m a n i d s

S a m a r q a n d

2 8 8 / 9 0

0 - 1

U n r e c o r d e d

8 0


S a

m a n i d s

U n c e

r t a i n

2 8 9 / 9 0

1 - 2

U n r e c o r d e d

8 1


S a

m a n i d s

A l - S h a s h

2 9 1 / 9 0

3 - 4

U n r e c o r d e d

8 2


S a

m a n i d s

A l - S h a s h

2 9 1 / 9 0

3 - 4

U n r e c o r d e d

8 3


S a

m a n i d s

A l - S h a s h

2 7 9 - 8 9 / 8 9 2 - 9 0 2

U n r e c o r d e d

8 4


S a

m a n i d s

A l - S h a s h

2 8 9 - 9 4 / 9 0 1 - 7

U n r e c o r d e d

8 5


S a

m a n i d s

A l - S h a s h

2 9 2 / 9 0

4 - 5

U n r e c o r d e d

8 6


S a

m a n i d s

S a m a r q a n d

2 9 2 / 9 0

4 - 5

U n r e c o r d e d

8 7


S a

m a n i d s

M a ’ d

a n

2 9 3 / 9 0

5 - 6

U n r e c o r d e d

8 8


S a

m a n i d s

S a m a r q a n d

2 9 4 / 9 0

6 - 7

U n r e c o r d e d

8 9


S a

m a n i d s

U n c e

r t a i n

2 9 x / 9 0

2 - 1 2

U n r e c o r d e d

9 0


S a

m a n i d s

A l - S h a s h

2 7 9 - 9 5 /

8 9 2 - 9 0 7

U n r e c o r d e d

9 1


S a

m a n i d s

U n c e

r t a i n

2 7 9 - 9 5 / 8 9 2 - 9 0 7

U n r e c o r d e d

9 2


S a

m a n i d s

U n c e

r t a i n

2 9 8 / 9 1

0 - 1 1

U n r e c o r d e d

9 3


S a

m a n i d s

U n c e

r t a i n

2 9 8 / 9 1

0 - 1 1

U n r e c o r d e d

9 4


S a

m a n i d s

U n c e

r t a i n

3 0 1 - 2 0 / 9 1 3 - 3 3

U n r e c o r d e d

9 5 - 1 0 1


U n c e r t a i n

U n c e

r t a i n

U n c e r t a i n

U n r e c o r d e d

1 0 2

‘ N o r t h Y o r k s h i r e ’

U n c e r t a i n

U n c e

r t a i n

U n c e r t a i n

U n c e r t a i n


23/30


T a b l e 3 : i l e r s i n g l e f i n d s

N o .

F i n d s p o t

A u

t h o r i t y

M i n t

D a t e

C o n d i t i o n

R e f e r e n c e

1

D o n c a s t e r , Y o r k s h i r e

S a m a n i d s

U n k n o w n

A D 8 9 2 - 9 0 7

U n r e c o r d e d

E M C 2 0 0 1 . 0 9 2 7

2

W i n c h e s t e r , H a m p s h i r e

S a m a n i d s

S a m a r k a n d

8 9 2 - 9 0 7

B r o k e n

E M C 1 9 7 7 . 0 2 2 6 ( B l u n t a n

d

D o l l e y 1 9 7 7 , n o . 2 6 )

3

C o p p e r g a t e , Y o r k

S a m a n i d s

S a

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