THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

THE COLLECTOR SERIES
The coinage of Mercia is redeemed from the normal
barbarism of Anglo-Saxon workmanship by the well-
executed pennies of Offa (757-796), which exist in very
numerous types, all more or less uncommon and valuable ;
but the most singular production of the reign is the
imitation of a gold Arabic marcus, with Mohammedan
legends, like the gold dinhero of Alfonso VIII. of
Castile (c. 1193), and Offa Rex added. This piece
appears to be the survivor of a very large number
once existing, if it be the case that it belongs to the
annual oblation of 396 marcuses promised by Offa to
the Pope's Legate. But there is a second, almost
equally striking, which bears the name of his queen,
Cynethrith or Quinred, on the reverse. The story
runs that the daughter of this princely couple died a
beggar in the streets of Pavia. The pennies of Burgred
are tolerably abundant, and do not greatly vary from
each other or from those of his successor, Ceolwulf.
The numismatic annals of East Anglia extend from
690 to 890 ; the pennies of Beonna, the first recorded
king, are rare, as well as those of the other rulers, ex-
cept Edmund, specimens of whose posthumous coinage
subsequent to his canonisation may be easily obtained
in fine state. His halfpenny, the first coined so far as
we know in England, is rare.
Besides the prelates, who struck money at Canterbury
and York, we have pennies of St. Peter, St. Martin, and
St. Edmund (just mentioned), from the mints at York,
Lincoln, and Bury; the ecclesiastical coinage determined
in the ninth century, but the monetary privilege lasted
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