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<p>[QUOTE="FitzNigel, post: 2633013, member: 74712"]This was the order given by King Henry I in 1125. Specifically, they should each "lose their right hand and be castrated."<font size="2">1</font> According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Bishop Roger of Salisbury rounded up the moneyers in the city of Winchester and carried out the grisly order. Henry actually had a history of difficulty with the mints of England. Around 1108, Henry ordered that all coins from the mint should be 'snicked;' cut or mutilated before leaving the mint.<font size="2">2</font> The coins in circulation were being cut to test their purity, and this caused many to not accept the coins, since portions were cut off and made the coins a lesser weight. Henry's solution was for the creation of round half-pennies, and for every full penny to come pre-cut.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]579650[/ATTACH]</p><p><font size="3">Henry I meets with envoys from France. Picture from a <a href="http://www.historyextra.com/article/premium/how-king-henry-i-made-and-blew-fortune" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.historyextra.com/article/premium/how-king-henry-i-made-and-blew-fortune" rel="nofollow">BBC History Extra Article</a> regarding Henry and the moneyers.</font></p><p><br /></p><p>In the case of 1125, the Coinage was becoming very debased. In fact, the Chronicler praises Henry's punishment of the moneyers, saying the action was justified because "the man who had a pound could not get a pennyworth at a market."<font size="2">3</font> In some ways, the moneyers almost couldn't be blamed. There had not been any serious silver deposits found in Europe since 1040, and the silver of Europe was primarily draining towards Italy and the East through trade.<font size="2">4</font> The silver supply would be further strained by the continued Anglo-Saxon practice of requiring a recoinage every few years. By only permitting the newest type to be used to pay fines or royal rents, this required people to exchange their coins, and the moneyers could charge a fee for the privilege. A portion of that fee would go to the king, and if a lower finesse was used in the new coinage, then more profits could be made.<font size="2">5</font> People would naturally hold on to older, more fine coins for personal transactions, and it would seem to the moneyers that the supply of silver was seriously dwindling. </p><p><br /></p><p>The documentary evidence of Henry's decree concerning the moneyers lends evidence to dating his coins. M.A.S. Blackburn conducted a study of the types of Henry's coins and attempted to lend a chronology to them.<font size="2">6</font> One of the few certain types were those of 'Type 15' containing a Quadrilateral on Cross Fleury on the reverse. These are fairly certain to have been minted after the purge of the moneyers in 1125, as the number of mints and moneyers who produced these coins dropped dramatically from previous issues. I managed to stumble across one of these type 15 coins recently. It's certainly not pretty, but few of the affordable issues of Henry I are. While the flan is very irregular and damaged, the king's portrait is clear, and there is just enough of the legend on the reverse to make out the mint and moneyer. </p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]579651[/ATTACH]</p><p><font size="3">England</font></p><p><font size="3">Henry I, r. 1100-1135 (1125-1135)</font></p><p><font size="3">Bury St. Edmunds AR Penny, 17.16 mm x 0.8 grams</font></p><p><font size="3">Obv.: +hEN[R]I[CVS]. Bust facing crowned and diademed, head three-quarters left, sceptre in right hand</font></p><p><font size="3">Rev.: [+]G[ILEBE]RT[:ON]:E[DM]N. Quadrilateral with incurved sides and lis at each angle over cross fleury</font></p><p><font size="3">Ref.: North 871, SCBC 1276, De Wit 3186</font></p><p><br /></p><p>This coin was minted by Gilebert from Bury St. Edmunds. Martin Allen performed a die study on the 'Type 14' issues, and it does not appear Gilebert issued any of this previous type.<font size="2">7</font> This suggests he was a replacement for one of the previous moneyers. The mint of Bury St. Edmunds was under the direction of the Abbot, who was Anselm of St. Saba, nephew to the more famous St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury. Anselm the nephew was likely appointed simply because of his relation to his uncle, and did not seem to do much as abbot. The ruins of the Abbey still stand, and the burial row of the medieval abbots has been found (they were buried in the refectory/dining hall), unfortunately Anselm was not among them... </p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]579653[/ATTACH]</p><p><font size="3">'Abbots' Row' at Bury St. Edmunds during excavations of 1903. I had the pleasure of visiting here twice in the early 2000s, and was quite pleased to find the grave of abbot Samson (second to last). Photo from <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bury_St_Edmunds_Abbey#/media/File%3ADead_abbots_Bury_St_Edmunds_Abbey.jpg" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bury_St_Edmunds_Abbey#/media/File%3ADead_abbots_Bury_St_Edmunds_Abbey.jpg" rel="nofollow">Wikipedia Commons.</a></font></p><p><br /></p><p>The order to mutilate the moneyers seems to have come as a result of events happening in Normandy. Henry had wrested the Duchy from his eldest brother, Robert Curthose, when the latter went off on Crusade. Robert's son, William Clito, naturally resisted when given the opportunity. According to Robert de Torigni, a chronicler from Mont St. Michel, some money from England had arrived to pay his soldiers who were fighting Clito and a rebellious count. According to de Torigni, "...almost all the moneyers of the English kingdom produced, I do not know by what wicked perversity, money out of tin containing scarcely one-third of silver, whereas it should have consisted of pure silver."<font size="2">8</font> This is interesting not only because de Torigni is another chronicler who praised Henry's actions, but that we have another reason why silver was leaving England. Normandy had their own coinage, and were not reliant on England to provide pay for soldiers.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]579655[/ATTACH]</p><p><font size="3">French Feudal, Normandy</font></p><p><font size="3">Henry I, r. 1106-1135</font></p><p><font size="3">AR Denier, 19.53 mm x 0.9 grams</font></p><p><font size="3">Obv.: +NOR[M]MANIA. Short Cross with pellets in each quarter</font></p><p><font size="3">Rev.: Short cross with annulets and bars on either side, triangle above and below</font></p><p><font size="3">Ref.: Dumas XX-13, Roberts, 4837 reverse</font></p><p><br /></p><p>The coinage of Normandy is a difficult series to place. The coins produced after Duke William I 'longsword' and his successor Richard I are often cruder and of a lesser quality. Some cataloguers, like Duplessy, simply ignore them, attributing all to Richard II.<font size="2">9</font> There has been some attempts to attribute the various distinguishable types. François Dumas attempted to do so in an exhaustive study in 1979. In his article, "Les Monnaies Normandes (Xe-XIIe Siècles) avec un Répertoire des Trouvailles," Dumas established five different 'groups' to which each type could belong (called simply 'A' 'B' 'B/C' 'C' and 'D').<font size="2">10</font> The above Denier Dumas suggested belonged to the time of William the Conqueror, and that the successive issues which contain the names of moneyers belonged to the reign of Robert Curthose.<font size="2">11</font> In 2005, Jens Christian Moesgaard established a different and wider chronology, suggesting the above coin actually belongs to the years between 1075-1130, or the time of Robert Curthose and Henry I as dukes.<font size="2">12</font> Roberts attributes the type to Henry I with no explanation.<font size="2">13</font></p><p><br /></p><p>An interesting element to this coin, however, is the inscription on the obverse. It's a little easier to see in hand, but the legend spells out 'NORMMANIA' with an 'I' whereas most of these issues seem to spell 'NORMMANNA.' Dumas suggested that the 'I' was simply missing from most inscriptions, and the plural of the noun may indicate there were multiple mints in Normandy, not just Rouen.<font size="2">14</font> So my coin seems to have the missing 'I,' but is itself missing an 'N.' Such is the variances of Medieval Latin...</p><p><br /></p><p>To return to the historical context of the coin, Perhaps this was also a coin used to pay Henry's troops in addition to the English pennies, or maybe they were just meant for local commerce. It's hard to say. Nonetheless, both of the Norman and English coins of Henry seem to have fallen into my lap near one another at a reasonable price, and I had to snatch them up!</p><p><br /></p><p><font size="3"><br /></font></p><p><font size="3">1 <i>The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle</i>, Revised Translation by Dorothy Whitelock, David C. Douglas, and Susie I. Tucker (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1961), year 1125.</font></p><p><font size="3">2 Emma Mason, 'Administration and Government' in<i> A Companion to the Anglo-Norman World</i>, ed. Christopher Harper-Bill and Elisabeth van Houts (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2002), 152.</font></p><p><font size="3">3 <i>ASC</i>, year 1125.</font></p><p><font size="3">4 Peter Spufford, <i>Money and its Use in Medieval Europe</i>, (Cambridge: University Press, 1989), 95.</font></p><p><font size="3">5 C. Warren Hollister, <i>Henry I</i> (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 354.</font></p><p><font size="3">6 Mark Blackburn, 'Coinage and Currency under Henry I: A Review' in <i>Anglo-Norman Studies</i>, vol. 13 (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 1991), 49-81.</font></p><p><font size="3">7 M. Allen. “Henry I type 14” in <i>British Numismatic Journal</i>, 79 (2009), 72-171.</font></p><p><font size="3">8 Robert de Torigni, <i>Gesta Normannorum Ducum</i>, ed. and trans., Elisabeth van Houts, vol. II (Oxford: University Press, 1995), 236-239.</font></p><p><font size="3">9 Jean Duplessy, <i>Les monnaies françaises féodales</i>, vol. 1 (Paris: Need Publisher, 2004).</font></p><p><font size="3">10 Françoise Dumas, 'Les monnaies normandes (Xe-XIIe siècles) avec un répertoire des trouvailles,' in <i>Revue Numismatique</i>, 6th series, vol. 21 (1979), 84-140.</font></p><p><font size="3">11 Ibid., 93-4.</font></p><p><font size="3">12 Jens Christian Moesgaard, 'Monnaies normandes dans les régions baltiques à l'époque viking' in <i>Revue Numismatique</i>, 6th series, vol. 161 (2005), 130.</font></p><p><font size="3">13 James N. Roberts. <i>The Silver Coins of Medieval France, 476-1610 AD</i>. (South Salem, NY: Attic Books, 1996).</font></p><p><font size="3">14 Dumas, 'monnaies normandes,' 93-4.</font></p><p><font size="3"><br /></font></p><p><font size="3">N.B. - I'm still working on my photo set-up, so I used my old photography method for these coins...</font>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="FitzNigel, post: 2633013, member: 74712"]This was the order given by King Henry I in 1125. Specifically, they should each "lose their right hand and be castrated."[SIZE=2]1[/SIZE] According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Bishop Roger of Salisbury rounded up the moneyers in the city of Winchester and carried out the grisly order. Henry actually had a history of difficulty with the mints of England. Around 1108, Henry ordered that all coins from the mint should be 'snicked;' cut or mutilated before leaving the mint.[SIZE=2]2[/SIZE] The coins in circulation were being cut to test their purity, and this caused many to not accept the coins, since portions were cut off and made the coins a lesser weight. Henry's solution was for the creation of round half-pennies, and for every full penny to come pre-cut. [ATTACH=full]579650[/ATTACH] [SIZE=3]Henry I meets with envoys from France. Picture from a [URL='http://www.historyextra.com/article/premium/how-king-henry-i-made-and-blew-fortune']BBC History Extra Article[/URL] regarding Henry and the moneyers.[/SIZE] In the case of 1125, the Coinage was becoming very debased. In fact, the Chronicler praises Henry's punishment of the moneyers, saying the action was justified because "the man who had a pound could not get a pennyworth at a market."[SIZE=2]3[/SIZE] In some ways, the moneyers almost couldn't be blamed. There had not been any serious silver deposits found in Europe since 1040, and the silver of Europe was primarily draining towards Italy and the East through trade.[SIZE=2]4[/SIZE] The silver supply would be further strained by the continued Anglo-Saxon practice of requiring a recoinage every few years. By only permitting the newest type to be used to pay fines or royal rents, this required people to exchange their coins, and the moneyers could charge a fee for the privilege. A portion of that fee would go to the king, and if a lower finesse was used in the new coinage, then more profits could be made.[SIZE=2]5[/SIZE] People would naturally hold on to older, more fine coins for personal transactions, and it would seem to the moneyers that the supply of silver was seriously dwindling. The documentary evidence of Henry's decree concerning the moneyers lends evidence to dating his coins. M.A.S. Blackburn conducted a study of the types of Henry's coins and attempted to lend a chronology to them.[SIZE=2]6[/SIZE] One of the few certain types were those of 'Type 15' containing a Quadrilateral on Cross Fleury on the reverse. These are fairly certain to have been minted after the purge of the moneyers in 1125, as the number of mints and moneyers who produced these coins dropped dramatically from previous issues. I managed to stumble across one of these type 15 coins recently. It's certainly not pretty, but few of the affordable issues of Henry I are. While the flan is very irregular and damaged, the king's portrait is clear, and there is just enough of the legend on the reverse to make out the mint and moneyer. [ATTACH=full]579651[/ATTACH] [SIZE=3]England Henry I, r. 1100-1135 (1125-1135) Bury St. Edmunds AR Penny, 17.16 mm x 0.8 grams Obv.: +hEN[R]I[CVS]. Bust facing crowned and diademed, head three-quarters left, sceptre in right hand Rev.: [+]G[ILEBE]RT[:ON]:E[DM]N. Quadrilateral with incurved sides and lis at each angle over cross fleury Ref.: North 871, SCBC 1276, De Wit 3186[/SIZE] This coin was minted by Gilebert from Bury St. Edmunds. Martin Allen performed a die study on the 'Type 14' issues, and it does not appear Gilebert issued any of this previous type.[SIZE=2]7[/SIZE] This suggests he was a replacement for one of the previous moneyers. The mint of Bury St. Edmunds was under the direction of the Abbot, who was Anselm of St. Saba, nephew to the more famous St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury. Anselm the nephew was likely appointed simply because of his relation to his uncle, and did not seem to do much as abbot. The ruins of the Abbey still stand, and the burial row of the medieval abbots has been found (they were buried in the refectory/dining hall), unfortunately Anselm was not among them... [ATTACH=full]579653[/ATTACH] [SIZE=3]'Abbots' Row' at Bury St. Edmunds during excavations of 1903. I had the pleasure of visiting here twice in the early 2000s, and was quite pleased to find the grave of abbot Samson (second to last). Photo from [URL='https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bury_St_Edmunds_Abbey#/media/File%3ADead_abbots_Bury_St_Edmunds_Abbey.jpg']Wikipedia Commons.[/URL][/SIZE] The order to mutilate the moneyers seems to have come as a result of events happening in Normandy. Henry had wrested the Duchy from his eldest brother, Robert Curthose, when the latter went off on Crusade. Robert's son, William Clito, naturally resisted when given the opportunity. According to Robert de Torigni, a chronicler from Mont St. Michel, some money from England had arrived to pay his soldiers who were fighting Clito and a rebellious count. According to de Torigni, "...almost all the moneyers of the English kingdom produced, I do not know by what wicked perversity, money out of tin containing scarcely one-third of silver, whereas it should have consisted of pure silver."[SIZE=2]8[/SIZE] This is interesting not only because de Torigni is another chronicler who praised Henry's actions, but that we have another reason why silver was leaving England. Normandy had their own coinage, and were not reliant on England to provide pay for soldiers. [ATTACH=full]579655[/ATTACH] [SIZE=3]French Feudal, Normandy Henry I, r. 1106-1135 AR Denier, 19.53 mm x 0.9 grams Obv.: +NOR[M]MANIA. Short Cross with pellets in each quarter Rev.: Short cross with annulets and bars on either side, triangle above and below Ref.: Dumas XX-13, Roberts, 4837 reverse[/SIZE] The coinage of Normandy is a difficult series to place. The coins produced after Duke William I 'longsword' and his successor Richard I are often cruder and of a lesser quality. Some cataloguers, like Duplessy, simply ignore them, attributing all to Richard II.[SIZE=2]9[/SIZE] There has been some attempts to attribute the various distinguishable types. François Dumas attempted to do so in an exhaustive study in 1979. In his article, "Les Monnaies Normandes (Xe-XIIe Siècles) avec un Répertoire des Trouvailles," Dumas established five different 'groups' to which each type could belong (called simply 'A' 'B' 'B/C' 'C' and 'D').[SIZE=2]10[/SIZE] The above Denier Dumas suggested belonged to the time of William the Conqueror, and that the successive issues which contain the names of moneyers belonged to the reign of Robert Curthose.[SIZE=2]11[/SIZE] In 2005, Jens Christian Moesgaard established a different and wider chronology, suggesting the above coin actually belongs to the years between 1075-1130, or the time of Robert Curthose and Henry I as dukes.[SIZE=2]12[/SIZE] Roberts attributes the type to Henry I with no explanation.[SIZE=2]13[/SIZE] An interesting element to this coin, however, is the inscription on the obverse. It's a little easier to see in hand, but the legend spells out 'NORMMANIA' with an 'I' whereas most of these issues seem to spell 'NORMMANNA.' Dumas suggested that the 'I' was simply missing from most inscriptions, and the plural of the noun may indicate there were multiple mints in Normandy, not just Rouen.[SIZE=2]14[/SIZE] So my coin seems to have the missing 'I,' but is itself missing an 'N.' Such is the variances of Medieval Latin... To return to the historical context of the coin, Perhaps this was also a coin used to pay Henry's troops in addition to the English pennies, or maybe they were just meant for local commerce. It's hard to say. Nonetheless, both of the Norman and English coins of Henry seem to have fallen into my lap near one another at a reasonable price, and I had to snatch them up! [SIZE=3] 1 [I]The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle[/I], Revised Translation by Dorothy Whitelock, David C. Douglas, and Susie I. Tucker (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1961), year 1125. 2 Emma Mason, 'Administration and Government' in[I] A Companion to the Anglo-Norman World[/I], ed. Christopher Harper-Bill and Elisabeth van Houts (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2002), 152. 3 [I]ASC[/I], year 1125. 4 Peter Spufford, [I]Money and its Use in Medieval Europe[/I], (Cambridge: University Press, 1989), 95. 5 C. Warren Hollister, [I]Henry I[/I] (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 354. 6 Mark Blackburn, 'Coinage and Currency under Henry I: A Review' in [I]Anglo-Norman Studies[/I], vol. 13 (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 1991), 49-81. 7 M. Allen. “Henry I type 14” in [I]British Numismatic Journal[/I], 79 (2009), 72-171. 8 Robert de Torigni, [I]Gesta Normannorum Ducum[/I], ed. and trans., Elisabeth van Houts, vol. II (Oxford: University Press, 1995), 236-239. 9 Jean Duplessy, [I]Les monnaies françaises féodales[/I], vol. 1 (Paris: Need Publisher, 2004). 10 Françoise Dumas, 'Les monnaies normandes (Xe-XIIe siècles) avec un répertoire des trouvailles,' in [I]Revue Numismatique[/I], 6th series, vol. 21 (1979), 84-140. 11 Ibid., 93-4. 12 Jens Christian Moesgaard, 'Monnaies normandes dans les régions baltiques à l'époque viking' in [I]Revue Numismatique[/I], 6th series, vol. 161 (2005), 130. 13 James N. Roberts. [I]The Silver Coins of Medieval France, 476-1610 AD[/I]. (South Salem, NY: Attic Books, 1996). 14 Dumas, 'monnaies normandes,' 93-4. N.B. - I'm still working on my photo set-up, so I used my old photography method for these coins...[/SIZE][/QUOTE]
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