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"Naismith, Rory"
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Money and power in Anglo-Saxon England : the southern English kingdoms, 757-865
\"This groundbreaking study of coinage in early medieval England is the first to take account of the very significant additions to the corpus of southern English coins discovered in recent years and to situate this evidence within the wider historical context of Anglo-Saxon England and its continental neighbours. Its nine chapters integrate historical and numismatic research to explore who made early medieval coinage, who used it and why. The currency emerges as a significant resource accessible across society and, through analysis of its production, circulation and use, the author shows that control over coinage could be a major asset. This control was guided as much by ideology as by economics and embraced several levels of power, from kings down to individual craftsmen. Thematic in approach, this innovative book offers an engaging, wide-ranging account of Anglo-Saxon coinage as a unique and revealing gauge for the interaction of society, economy and government\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
The Origins of the Husting and the Folkmoot
In the central Middle Ages, London was marked out by its idiosyncratic institutions, prominent among which were two courts or assemblies: the Folkmoot and the Husting. This article re-examines the early history and origins of both, and suggests that they should be seen as outgrowths of the entities recorded in a legal composition fromthe reign ofKing Æthelstan (924–39). The latter describes associations formed by the people of London to defend their interests against thieves from surrounding districts. Provisions made in this text for a gathering of leaders, to be held over food and drink, may be a forerunner of the Husting, while a larger judicial body hinted at in the law-code could represent a precursor to the Folkmoot. The internal divisions of London from the twelfth century onwards, the wards, are also considered.
Journal Article
The Origins of Peter’s Pence
Peter’s Pence began as an annual donation from England to the papacy. It was later taken up more widely and lasted until the Reformation in England, but its beginnings are much murkier. This article reassesses the earliest forms of Peter’s Pence in the period before 1066. Offerings made by individual Anglo-Saxon pilgrims to Rome gave rise to more regular gifts from several kings between Offa (757–96) and Alfred (871–99); under the latter, gifts also began to be associated with the people as well as the king. A fully articulated mechanism for raising Peter’s Pence only emerges later, however, in the time of Edgar (959–75) and his successors, especially Æthelred II (978–1016). The nature of the national and local frameworks which were used to extract, channel and safeguard the render are assessed in detail, based on sources from across England. Bishops played a central role in this system, above all the archbishop of Canterbury, who received the collected tribute from the kingdom as a whole. The article, utilising a variety of chronicles, law codes and religious texts, as well as coins, stresses the significance of the emergence of Peter’s Pence for views of late Anglo-Saxon England’s government and religious ideology. Comparisons with gifts to Rome from post-Conquest England and from other parts of early medieval Europe underscore the uniqueness of Anglo-Saxon England’s large and regular offering—a powerful reflection of its close and ongoing relationship with St Peter and his heirs.
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Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Art, Word, War
Naismith reviews Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Art, Word, War at the British Library in London England.
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The Ely memoranda and the economy of the late Anglo-Saxon fenland
Consisting of six short Old English texts written in the early eleventh century, the Ely memoranda illustrate how a major and recently refounded Benedictine abbey managed its landed endowment. Two of the memoranda relate to generous help provided by Ely to Thorney, and four concern Ely's own lands. The collection as a whole reveals much about interaction between monasteries, monastic perspectives on material resources and investment in them, the economy of eastern England, and the context of record-keeping. This article offers a new edition and translation of the texts, and surveys the contribution the memoranda make to understanding of cultural and economic history.
Journal Article
The English monetary economy, c. 973-1100: the contribution of single-finds
A body of nearly 2,000 English finds of individual coins minted c. 973-1100 is surveyed as evidence for the scale and form of the monetary economy. A long-term view indicates that this was a period of expansion in coin use, although growth in this area remained limited compared to the later middle ages, or even the eighth century. Within the eleventh century single-finds suggest more specific developments, including a decline in coin use after the Norman Conquest, and substantial short-term fluctuations related to various economic and monetary factors. Comparison with estimates of coin production suggests a general trend for more of mints' output to enter domestic circulation after c. 1030/40, though this need not solely reflect an increase in monetization. These chronological changes are compared with the pattern of circulation within England. Overall, the kingdom enjoyed a unified currency which did not see marked localization of coin circulation. Parts of northern England were less integrated with the south, but not so far as to suggest active exclusion of non-local coin. More striking was a general trend for both production and circulation to be concentrated in the east and the south.
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Reviews : \The Anglo-Saxon world\
Reviews \"The Anglo-Saxon world,\" by Nicholas J. Higham and Martin J. Ryan (Yale University Press, 2013). This weighty volume sets out to become a new standard survey of Anglo-Saxon history. The breadth and quality of its illustrations are superb. Virtually all of the best-known relics of Anglo-Saxon England are reproduced, along with a rich selection of lesser-known locations and artifacts and recent discoveries. [Revised Publication Abstract]
Journal Article
The Ely memoranda and the economy of the late Anglo-Saxon fenland
Consisting of six short Old English texts written in the early eleventh century, the Ely memoranda illustrate how a major and recently refounded Benedictine abbey managed its landed endowment. Two of the memoranda relate to generous help provided by Ely to Thorney, and four concern Ely’s own lands. The collection as a whole reveals much about interaction between monasteries, monastic perspectives on material resources and investment in them, the economy of eastern England, and the context of record-keeping. This article offers a new edition and translation of the texts, and surveys the contribution the memoranda make to understanding of cultural and economic history.
Journal Article
Gold Coinage and Its Use in the Post-Roman West
One of the most tangible sets of changes associated with the fall of the Western Roman Empire was that which affected the monetary system. By AD 600 the multitiered late Roman currency had shriveled to a shadow of its former self. Copper-alloy issues, which for most of the populace had been the principal coins utilized on a day-to-day basis, were effectively gone, as were those in silver. Little local production of unofficial coin to plug this gap took place (as had happened in the third-century West and parts of the fifth-century East), suggesting a genuine collapse of the mechanisms that had supported small-scale monetized exchange. This slump forms part of a wider picture of drastic simplification in exchange and economy, the pace and extent of which varied from province to province. In Britain it was most severe. There, circulation of any coin at all was minimal after the early fifth century. Vandal Africa, however, possessed a vibrant currency of small change, comprising newly made nummi as well as reused fourth-century coins; Ostrogothic Italy too saw the survival of a more diverse currency. Copper-alloy and silver coins continued to be produced and used in Byzantine North Africa and Italy down to the eighth century, albeit in dwindling quantity. Gaul, Spain, the Lombard lands of Italy, and other territories of the Western Empire fell between those extremes. Yet what united most former provinces was the persistence of gold coinage. Where copper alloy and silver declined and fell, gold endured, often on an impressive scale—enough to qualify the general picture of post-Roman monetary contraction.
Journal Article
THE SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE OF MONETIZATION IN THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES
In 1057, the ecclesiastical reformer Peter Damian (d. 1072/3) explained in a letter to his fellow cardinal bishops how a lump of debased silver might be remade into different coins but still remain a dangerous forgery, in the same way as a corrupt priest would always be tainted by his abuses. The image was presumably effective, for the same author used similar monetary metaphors on several other occasions. By doing so he tapped into a long Christian tradition developed in the Bible and subsequently in the writings of Ambrose, Augustine, Gregory the Great and others. Here, Naismith discusses the monetary metaphors in early medieval Europe.
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