The Winchester Mint and Coins and Related Finds from the Excavations of 1961-71

Before and for long after the Norman Conquest, English silver pennies were produced under royal control in a few major cities (Lincoln, London, Winchester, and York) and in a number of smaller towns. This book brings together from all over the world details of about 5500 surviving pennies of the Winchester mint and illustrates 3200 of them.

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Over three and a half centuries from the 880s to 1250, moneyers working in Winchester produced at the very least 24 million silver pennies. About five and a half thousand survive in national and local museums and private collections all over the world and have been sought out, photographed (some 3200 coins in 6400 images detailing both sides), and minutely catalogued by Yvonne Harvey for this volume. During the period from late in the reign of Alfred to the time of
Henry III, dies for striking the coins were produced centrally under royal authority in the most sophisticated system of monetary control at the time in the western world. In this first account of a major English mint to have been made in forty years, a team of leading authorities have studied and
analysed the use the Winchester moneyers made of the dies, and together with the size, weight, and the surviving number of coins from each pair of dies, have produced a detailed account of the varying fortunes of the mint over this period. Their results are critical for the economic history of England and the changing status of Winchester over this long period, and provide the richest available source for the history of the name of the city and the personal names of its citizens in the later
Anglo-Saxon period.