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

Edited by Martin Biddle with a catalogue of the known coins of the mint by Yvonne Harvey, this volume records and illustrates the minting of silver pennies in Winchester between the reigns of Alfred the Great and Henry III, a period of three and a half centuries. At the Mint, which was situated in the area of the High Street to the east of where the city’s cross now stands, at least 24 million silver pennies (possibly as many as 50 million) were struck. Five and a half thousand survive in museums and collections all over the world. These have been sought out and 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.