This thesis examines one labourer group within developing urban society in England during the tenth and eleventh centuries in order to address both its status and whether the internal workplace organisation of this group might reflect on the complexity of an Anglo-Saxon 'state'. In reviewing the minting operation of late Anglo-Saxon England, and the men in charge of those mints, a better picture of the social history of pre-Conquest England is realised. These men, the moneyers responsible for producing the king's coinage, were likely part of the thegnly or burgess class and how they organised themselves might reflect broader trends in how those outside of the artistocracy acted in response to royal directives. In order to address this, a database combining information from multiple catalogues, coin cabinets, and online repositories was developed in Part I and is presented in Part II. The Moneyers of England Database, 973-1086 consists of 3,646 periods of moneyer activity, derived from 28,576 individual coins produced at ninety-nine geographic locations. Parts III and IV provide potential uses for the database through two different types of study. Part III argues that the mints were primarily controlled and operated by families. Pointing to the repetition of the protothemes amongst the moneyers on a large scale across nearly all the mint locations known from the 970s to 1086, I argue that the mints were dominated by a few select families that maintained authority through wars and conquests. Part IV presents two new theories on late Anglo-Saxon mint organisation. The first theory is that groups of moneyers would begin and end activity within the mints together, most often within family units, but regularly in conjunction with other minting families in the same location. The second theory is that these groups would operate in rotation. The moneyers would operate for a set period of time, then withdraw in favour of another member of their dynasty before returning to activity at a later date. I conclude that this was potentially, if not likely, in response to royal imposition on the mints restricting the number of coinages that a moneyer could be responsible for, and take profit on, consecutively. The thesis is structured with a brief introduction and literature review, inclusive of discussion on the status of the moneyers and the concept of an Anglo-Saxon 'state', followed by a methodological section that outlines the creation of the Moneyers of England Database, 973-1086, as well as limitations in the source material. This is followed by the database, two analysis sections, and the conclusion. There are two appendices. The first appendix is an insert diagram of all 425 moneyers in operation in London between 973 and 1086. The second is the coinage record from which this work is derived.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:756765 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | Piercy, Jeremy Lee |
| Contributors | Aird, William ; Sowerby, Richard |
| Publisher | University of Edinburgh |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://hdl.handle.net/1842/31513 |
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