Hope you all don't think I'm forever finding hammered coins, because I don't! Just been 'really', really, lucky. So this little gem is another head scratcher. It's definitely York mint, but once again I can't work out the king, apart from it being Edward! I've been so impressed by you guys and your knowledge regarding these coins, but try as I might, I can't figure out the difference in crowns, lettering etc. So over to you! Many thanks as ever.
From here, the portrait style looks like one of the late classes; my guess would be c. 1290s-1300s. Nice one, though; the quatrefoil specifically indicates the mint of the Archbishop. Durham does the same thing; both had royal and ecclesiastical issues, often simultaneously. This level of autonomy, even as late as Edward, was owing to their status as 'palatine' archbishoprics; near enough the Scottish border to give the archbishops more administrative (and military) authority than the ones nearer London and Canterbury.
Actually I believe there was an ecclesiastical mint as late as HVIII - until he went to war with the then established faith because he couldn't get a convenient dispensation for his marital deficiencies. It might have been Durham, but I will have to check on it.
@+VGO.DVCKS Good catch on the ecclesiastical mint - I missed that quatrefoil in the centre of the piece and just read the outer legends.
@+VGO.DVCKS is right, it is from the ecclesiastical mint at York. Looks like class 9b or one of the other sub classes from 9.
I really need how deeply collaborative this whole process was! This is what the forum should look like more of the time. @TheRed, brilliant call on the class. Edit: @scottishmoney, you're right about Henry VIII. Some of those issues have the archbishop's initials in the fields. This goes back at least to Edward IV, but with H VIII, you get some of the famous ones leading up to the Reformation; Cranmer, for instance.
