Quite devoid of sense

Harrogate Spring Coin Fair

Swan Hotel,

Swan Road, Harrogate, HG1 2SR 

 (car parking tickets at hotel reception)

3:00pm, Friday 17^th March 2017

 'Quite devoid of sense'?

PART II

Humphrey Sutherland and many subsequent eminent numismatists have condemned the York gold shilling as ‘quite devoid of sense’ and later than seventh-century southern shillings. New research on the inscriptions and iconography now puts the York gold shilling at the forefront of English coinage. This finding challenges the chronology of early Anglo-Saxon coinage, dating the York shilling to the time of the ship burial at Sutton Hoo around 625CE and casting new light on the history of Northumbria, particularly its balance of power. The distribution of finds evidences evangelical activity in the Conversion Period and the literacy of the inscriptions, as with sceats, distinguishes Northumbrian coinage from southern issues.

In January, speaking at the York Stamp and Coin Fair, Tony Abramson gave the first part of this lecture, disclosing that one of the two inscriptions on the York shillings reads PAULINUS EP – Paulinus, first Archbishop of York, 627-33. Uninscribed varieties are arguably earlier.

Mary Garrison of the University of York's Centre for Medieval Studies will now complete the other inscription, revealed in March 2015 by Jonathan Mann, to commence SANCTE….

Mary will also explored possible interpretations of the intriguing iconography on this coinage.