Royal Coin Cabinet, Stockholm. Part V: Anglo-Saxon Coins--Edward the Confessor and Harold II, 1042-1066 (Sylloge of Coins of the British Isles, Vol. 54)

Abstract

Edward the Confessor's coinage, like that of the kings before him, was renewed at intervals of two or three years, on each occasion by a distinctive new design. Ten such types succeeded one another during his reign. They were struck at more than 50 mint-places throughout England. Although the outflows of English money to Scandinavia were beginning to dwindle (and there are very few coins of Harold II), the Stockholm coin cabinet has some 1,277 specimens, deriving from various hoards. Dr Colman illustrates them, with excellent photographs, and catalogues them to the very high standard maintained by close editorial supervision of the Sylloge series. (The author notes in her foreword that the General Editor, Dr Mark Blackburn, himself remounted the plates and re-photographed about a hundred of the coins!) She lists more than a hundred Swedish coin hoards which include coins of Edward. The general historian will find interest in the tabulation (pp. 30–32) of the quantities of each type in the hoards, which are arranged chronologically.