An Afternoon in Numismatics

I feel that Oxford is the only place in the world where I would be able to do what I do. I think it's no coincidence that so much fantasy writing has come out of this city since so much within this city is literally fantastic.

A couple months ago I started a once-a-week course at the Oxford University Continuing Education Department entitled Anglo-Saxon Culture and Society: Offa of Mercia and Alfred the Great. It's been really fun and taught me a lot about pre-Alfred Anglo-Saxon England, which I didn't know a whole lot about previously. I wish it would have been longer but today we did something that I hadn't done in any of the previous courses I've taken at "ContEd", and that is go on a field trip.

Our lecturer arranged for us to hear a talk given at the Ashmolean Museum by one of the staff of the Heberden Coin Room; which is open to the public, but by appointment only. For an hour and a half the numasmaticist (coin expert) talked on various coins found in fields and hoards all over England. He talked about sceattas and thrymsas and gold and light-gold and Pippin and Frisian mints and all sorts of incredible names, concepts, and people.

It was wonderful and I had the largest grin on my face from start to finish. He was also very generous in passing them around, and even allowed me to take a picture holding one of the coins.

The author, with coin from Offa of Mercia's reign. It is made of silver and smaller than a 5p piece (or a dime) and thinner. It bears only Offa's name and no likeness of him, although he would appear in very intricate detail on subsequent coins.

The coin I'm holding is from the reign of Offa King of Mercia, who was on the throne from 757 to 796, which makes it over 1,200 years old. It is the first British coin to be marked with the name of a king, and so is the first British coin that can be accurately dated (within about forty years, of course). It's the smallest thing, but very clearly bears the words Offa Rex on it.

A very similar coin to the one I'm holding. (Found online.)

As much as Numismatology teaches us about the past, it raises so many more questions that it makes an imaginatively-overactive mind like mine roar like a bonfire, and the good people at the Ashmolean were simply feeding the flames with questions of their own. Why was it just in the 700s that coinage was starting to be produced by British kings? It was more than a man could earn in a day, so what exactly was it used for? How was it spent? The concept of objects having a 'monetary value' would have been rather alien because the coin metal itself was the real value of it. A sliver cup, for instance, would have to be worth the weight/mass of silver coins to create it… and yet they're so small. So what, exactly, could you buy for one of them? Where did the precious gold and silver to make these coins come from? Why is Offa's name, surrounded by Arabic script, found on gold dinars in the Middle East?

It was a thrilling and heady afternoon and the good people of the Heberden Coin Room said we were welcome back any time we wished. I think next time I'll ask them what Viking money they have…