Coins Of The Anglo-Saxons

The following is an article excerpt from Coinweek

IN THE YEAR 410 C.E., the Western Roman Emperor Honorius replied to the city magistrates of Britannia, who had urgently requested help against invaders. Rome had no legions to spare; they would have to look to their own defense. The invaders included Germanic tribes from across the North Sea, a people we know as the Anglo-Saxons. Their language is the ancestor of Modern English.

The pagan Anglo-Saxons came to raid and pillage but stayed to settle and rule. They established a shifting constellation of minor kingdoms that pushed the Christian Romano-Britons north and west. For the first two centuries the Anglo-Saxons issued no coinage, their modest fiscal needs being served by imported Frankish coins. At Sutton Hoo[1] in Suffolk on the east coast, a king (possibly Rædwald, who ruled East Anglia c. 599 - c. 624) was buried with a rich treasure[2]-including a purse with 37 gold tremisses of the Frankish Merovingians, each one from a different mint. Perhaps it was a coin collection.

Read the Entire Article