Islamic Coins from

Early Medieval England

RORY NAISMITH
INTRODUCTION

A TOTAL of 173 gold and silver Islamic coins minted before c.1100 are known
to have been discovered in England, distributed among nine hoards and about
70 single finds. They provide rare and tangible evidence of contact between
Anglo-Saxon England and a far-off world known only vaguely to most of
Englands inhabitants through hearsay and pre-Islamic written accounts of the
Orient.1 Although fine silver dirhams and gold dinars had substantial monetary
value, they would probably have been seen as exotic curiosities as much as
coins and a source of wealth, and they retain something of this appeal even
today: there is a natural interest in how and why these coins from Iraq, Spain,
Central Asia and elsewhere came to England.
Comparison with other numismatic evidence and with written sources
illustrates the role these Islamic coins played in the Anglo-Saxon economy.
This role was not great, and the use of Islamic coins was never as widespread
as in early medieval Russia and Scandinavia. It was through these areas that
most dirhams found in England are likely to have passed, and the great
majority of English dirham finds can be linked to Scandinavian activity in
Britain. They are concentrated in areas of Scandinavian settlement and
influence and many coins display secondary treatment of a characteristically
Scandinavian kind: they may have been cut, nicked or hacked apart to check
their purity and provide smaller units of exchange.
Because of their exoticism and small number, English finds of Islamic coins
have attracted relatively little study. There has been some comment on the

This paper grew out of work begun in the course of an undergraduate paper on Anglo-Saxon
archaeology at the University of Cambridge, and was subsequently submitted to the RNS as a
successful entry for the Parkes-Weber prize. I would like to extend my thanks to Marion
Archibald, Mark Blackburn, Catherine Hills, Simon Holmes, Lutz Ilisch, Adrian Marsden, Tim
Pestell, Marcus Phillips, and Susan Tyler-Smith for their help, support and advice in the
preparation of this paper.
1
For general discussion of Anglo-Saxon contact with and views of the Islamic world, see K.
Scarfe Beckett, Anglo-Saxon Perceptions of the Islamic World (Cambridge, 2003); pp. 54-60 deal
specifically with coins.

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RORY NAISMITH

Islamic element of several hoards2 and on the general circulation of dirhams

between the Muslim world and Europe.3 Until now there has been no attempt
to bring together a corpus of all English finds of Islamic coins minted before
c.1100.
FINDS OF ISLAMIC COINS IN ENGLAND

Tables 1-7 and Map 1 illustrate the available data on the 173 Islamic coins
found in England. Some hoards contained many more Islamic coins than are
listed here, which were not preserved or recorded.4 This problem is
particularly acute with hoards discovered long ago, such as the seventeenthcentury Harkirke hoard.5 It is also thought, for instance, that there were
originally about fifty Islamic coins in the Cuerdale hoard, as opposed to the 29
surviving specimens.6 Only when precise and reliable numbers are known
have they been included in the corpus and it is certain that the real total is
larger than 173. An additional problem is that the coins are often worn or
fragmentary and it is not always possible to read the date and mint. For this
reason about half the coins in the corpus can only be described as Islamic
with no other information available.
There is also the difficulty of reconciling the date of minting and the date of
loss of a coin. In the case of dirhams found in hoards that can be quite closely
dated, it is clear that (relatively) new and old coins circulated together. The
three Islamic coins in the Croydon hoard spanned a century and the latest was
25 years old.7 The most recently struck Islamic coin in the Cuerdale hoard (a

2
E.g. N. Lowick, The Kufic coins from Cuerdale, BNJ 46 (1976), pp. 19-28; W.S. W. Vaux,
An account of a find of coins in the parish of Goldsborough, Yorkshire, NC n.s. 1 (1861), pp. 6571; and J.S. Strudwick, Saxon and Arabic coins found at Dean, Cumberland, BNJ 28 (1955), pp.
177-80.
3
E.g., A.E. Lieber, International trade and coinage in the northern lands during the early middle
ages: an introduction, in M.A.S. Blackburn and D.M. Metcalf, eds., Viking-Age Coinage in the
Northern Lands, part II (BAR International Series 122; Oxford, 1981), pp. 1-34; J. Duplessy, La
circulation des monnaies arabes en Europe occidentale du VIIIe au XIIIe sicle, RN5 18 (1956),
pp. 101-63; and M. McCormick, Origins of the European Economy: Communications and
Commerce 300-900 (Cambridge, 2001). Comment on the English finds in a wider context can be
found in B. Cook, Foreign coins in medieval England, in L. Travaini, ed., Moneta Locale,
Moneta Straniera: Italia ed Europa, XI-XV secole (Local Coins, Foreign Coins: Italy and Europe
11th-15th centuries), Cambridge Numismatic Symposium 2 (Milan, 1999), pp. 231-84 at 234-6.
4
Lowick, Kufic coins from Cuerdale (n. 2), pp. 19-20.
5
See Table 1, no. 3.
6
M. Archibald, Dating Cuerdale: the evidence of the coins, in J. Graham-Campbell, ed.,
Viking Treasure from the North West: the Cuerdale Hoard in its Context (Merseyside, 1992), pp.
15-20 at p. 18.
7
See Table 1, no. 1.

ISLAMIC COINS FROM EARLY MEDIEVAL ENGLAND

195

dirham of 282/8956) was about ten years old at the date of deposition.8
Roughly ten years also lay between the striking and deposition of the most
recent Islamic coin in the Dean hoard.9 The potentially long period between
production and deposition is also highlighted by the coins found at Barton
Bendish, where two dirhams minted almost exactly a century apart were found
together.10 On the other hand, eleven of sixteen datable dirhams in the
Cuerdale hoard were minted after 252/866,11 and the Warton hoard contained
no coins struck earlier than 285/898.12 Earlier issues, both from hoards and
single-finds, are more likely to be cut into fragments or be in a very worn
state, though this is not always the case.13 Two fragmentary dirhams found
separately at a site near Oxborough, Norfolk, were in similarly poor condition,
yet their dates lay some seventy years apart.14
In the case of single finds, we have no way of knowing how long after
minting they were lost.15 Sometimes coin finds from the same site may
provide a possible indication of a date. At Torksey, for instance, there were no
Islamic coins minted after 21729/83244 (the fragmentary state of the coin
does not allow a closer dating) but the evidence of other coins from the site
indicates that they cannot have been deposited before c.8735.16
THE GOLD COINS

The seven gold coins in Table 4 are a diverse group, testifying to contacts in
the eighth, tenth and eleventh centuries. In this period gold was used only
rarely for large transactions. Anglo-Saxon charters from the late eighth century
onwards often refer to gold in the form of siclos (shekels), solidi or mancosi.
8

See Table 1, no. 2.

See Table 1, no. 4.
10
See nos 50 and 51 in Table 3.
11
See nos 4-39 in Table 2.
12
G. Williams, CH 1999, no. 43 (NC 1999, p. 348).
13
Lowick, Kufic coins from Cuerdale (n. 2), p. 20; and J.S. Strudwick, Saxon and Arabic
coins (n. 2), pp. 177-80.
14
See nos 18 and 19 in Table 3.
15
Such is the case with what is probably the only known English find of an eighth-century
copper coin from the Baghdad area. This potentially important coin appeared on E-Bay in April
2004 and became the subject of a heated debate between the seller and the Islamic Coins Group.
The seller never disclosed the precise find spot, nor explained if the coin was found separately
from several much later Islamic copper coins that were also on offer. Finds of low-value copper
coins are even rarer than gold and silver: for two recorded finds of Islamic copper from Auenberg,
Saarbrcken, Germany (an Umayyad fals probably of Alexandria after 695 found with a bronze
follis of the fourth century) and Avignon, France (a post reform Umayyad fals) see McCormick,
Origins of the European Economy (n. 3), nos A1 and A3 pp. 816-17.
16
M.A.S. Blackburn, Finds from the Anglo-Scandinavian site of Torksey, Lincolnshire, in B.
Paszkiewicz, ed., Moneta Medievalis (Warsaw, 2002), pp. 89-101 at p. 91.
9

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RORY NAISMITH

This latter word mancus is believed to have referred to an Islamic gold coin,
and a variation of it, mancosus is first recorded in northern Italy in 778.17 It is
thought to be derived from the Arabic word manqsh meaning struck or
engraved.18 References to payments in gold are found especially frequently
in charters dating from the 840s to the 970s. These may coincide with a period
when the Anglo-Saxon silver penny was debased. Similarly, insistence upon
purissimus gold may be a reflection of the circulation, from the mid ninth
century onwards, of debased imitative solidi of Louis the Pious (81440).19
The earliest mention of gold dinars in England is found in the promise of
Offa of Mercia (75796) to pay 365 mancuses to the pope every year, as
described in a letter from Leo III (795816) to Coenwulf of Mercia (796
821).20 Two papal letters of thanks from 797 and 802 indicate that the payment
was made.21 From this time on, payments in gold are occasionally recorded,
often specifically in the form of mancosi. Whereas there are some mentions of
payments in gold during the ninth century, there are no dinars of that century
known from England. The volume of gold coinage is not easy to gauge from
documentary sources: the word mancosus was used to refer to a weight and a
measure of value as well as a coin.22 It is possible that some, maybe even
many, of the documentary references to payments in measures originally
denoting gold coins actually represent gold jewellery or bullion, or silver
coins.
There is one exceptional piece of evidence that Arabic gold coins were
known in eighth-century England: the famous dinar struck by Offa which is
closely copied from a dinar of the Abbsid caliph al-Manr dated 157/773
17
McCormick, Origins of the European Economy (n. 3), pp. 332-3; see also P. Grierson,
Carolingian Europe and the Arabs, Revue belge de philologie et dhistoire 32 (1954), pp. 105974 (reprinted with corrections and additions including a correction to his original rejection of the
Arabic derivation of Mancus (p. 1069 and supplement, p. 3) as no. IV in his Dark Age
Numismatics (London, 1979)) for discussion of the mancus. For the most recent discussion of the
origin of the term and the status of the Anglo-Saxon and continental imitations see L. Ilisch Die
imitativen solidi mancusi in R. Cunz, ed., Fundamenta Historiae. Geschichte im Spiegel der
Numismatik und ihrer Nachbarwissenschaften. Festschrift fr Niklot Klendorf (Hanover, 2004),
pp. 91-106.
18
Grierson and Blackburn, MEC I, p. 327.
19
Blackburn, Gold in England in the later Anglo-Saxon period in J. Graham Campbell and G.
Williams (eds), Silver Economy in the Viking Age (Institute of Archaeology London, Occasional
Papers, forthcoming). For the imitative solidi of Louis the Pious, see P. Grierson, The gold
solidus of Louis the Pious and its imitations, JMP 38 (1951), pp. 1-41 (reprinted as no. XXII in
his Dark Age Numismatics (London, 1979)).
20
For text, see P.W.P. Carlyon-Britton, The gold mancus of Offa, BNJ 5 (1908), pp. 55-72 at p.
64; for translation, see D. Whitelock, English Historical Documents I, c.500-1042, 2nd ed.
(London, 1979), no. 205.
21
Grierson and Blackburn, MEC I, p. 330.
22
Blackburn, Gold in England (n. 19).

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197

4.23 It was suggested as early as 1842 that this unique coin (thought to have
been acquired and possibly found in Rome) was one of the 365 mancuses
mentioned above. Alternative suggestions are that it was intended for highvalue overseas trade,24 or simply as a counterpart to Offas existing silver
coinage.25 It must have been copied from a dinar available in England, or just
possibly a very good imitation, but is not included in Table 4 as it was
apparently not found in England. The significance of the Arabic legends was
lost on the die cutter, for the legend OFFA REX is upside down relative to the
Arabic. There are three surviving English finds of eighth-century dinars
similar to the model used for Offas dinar.26 It has also been suggested that
another copy of a dinar comparable in style to Offas but lacking the legend
OFFA REX could be an English product, but this is uncertain.27
Compared to these three surviving eighth-century dinars, there is only one
tenth-century quarter dinar and two gold coins of the eleventh century.28 It is
of course possible that eighth-century dinars remained in circulation in the
same way as silver dirhams. Also, the total number of finds of Islamic gold is
very small only seven in all and their high value may have militated
against loss. We must therefore assume that the surviving coins represent only
a small portion of the original dinar stock available in England, and not
necessarily a representative portion. The will of King Eadred (94655), for
example, gives some indication of the amount of gold that a king could
dispense, and refers to at least 5000 mancuses distributed to various fortunate
priests and nobles.29
While it is dangerous to read too much into the find spots of so few coins, it
is notable that all were found on or near the south or east coast, or in York, a
city with far-flung trading contacts and river access to the North Sea.30 This is
in contrast to the later silver finds, which for the most part are found in the
north and east of England. The southern and eastern distribution of the gold
coins may represent the flow of goods from the continent, and correlates with

23
See Blackburn, Gold in England (n. 19), no. B1; Carlyon-Britton, The gold mancus of Offa
(n. 20); J. Allan, Offas imitation of an Arab dinar, NC4 14 (1914), pp. 77-89; and A. de
Longprier, Remarkable gold coin of Offa, NC 4 (1841-2), pp. 232-4. The coin is now in the
British Museum.
24
C.E. Blunt, The coinage of Offa, in Anglo-Saxon Coins: Studies presented to F. M. Stenton
on the occasion of his 80th birthday, ed. R.H.M. Dolley (London, 1961), p. 51.
25
Allan, Offas imitation (n. 23), pp. 86-7.
26
See nos. 1, 3 and 7 in Table 4.
27
N. Lowick, A new type of solidus mancus, NC7 13 (1973), pp. 173-82 at pp. 178-9.
28
See Table 4, nos. 4, 5 and 8.
29
Cited in Blackburn, Gold in England (n. 19).
30
See Map 1.

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RORY NAISMITH

maps of the find spots of silver coins of Offa minted in the southeast.31 The
small number of dinar finds may also be related to the similarly small number
of later Anglo-Saxon gold objects to survive,32 and it has been suggested that
some gold rings were equivalent in value and weight to a certain number of
mancuses.33 There have recently been finds of ninth- and tenth-century gold
ingots and hack-metal from Scandinavian-influenced areas of England, several
of them from Torksey in Lincolnshire which suggest that gold was not just for
ornamental and ceremonial use but also played a more functional economic
role.34 The rarity of gold dinars may be a reflection, not merely of the rarity of
gold, but of a tendency to turn gold into jewellery or ingots.
Use of gold coins from the Islamic world continued up to and after the
Norman Conquest. In the thirteenth century, it is recorded that oboli and
denarii de musc (i.e. Almohad dinars and half dinars) were imported by Henry
III (121672) specifically for ecclesiastical payments on the occasion of major
church festivals.35 Though this is reminiscent of Offas donations to Rome, the
twelfth and thirteenth century circulation of foreign gold coinage in England
was a very different phenomenon in which Islamic gold played a relatively
small part: when transactions using gold are detailed there are far more
mentions of Byzantine gold bezants than of oboli de musc.36
THE DIRHAMS: TRADE WITH SCANDINAVIA AND RUSSIA

The hoard evidence suggests that dirhams began to enter England in

substantial numbers from the second half of the ninth century and continued to
arrive in the early tenth century. From c.890900 more dirhams come from
Central Asia, especially from the mints of the Smnid dynasty in Khurusan
and Transoxiana. This pattern is more akin to that of Scandinavia and Russia
than with that of western Europe. In France dirhams are rare north of the Loire
31
For maps see Corpus of Early Medieval Coin Finds (Fitzwilliam Museum, http://wwwcm.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/coins/emc/)
32
Blackburn, Gold in England (n. 19).
33
D. Hinton, Late Saxon treasure and bullion, in D. Hill, ed., Ethelred the Unready (BAR
British series 59; Oxford, 1978), pp. 135-58 at pp. 139-41 and 146, quoted in Blackburn, Gold in
England (n. 19).
34
Blackburn, Gold in England (n. 19).
35
See P. Grierson, Oboli de Musc, EHR 66 (1951), 75-81, reprinted as no. VII in his Later
Medieval Numismatics (11th-16th Centuries) (London, 1979); and P. Grierson, Muslim coins in
thirteenth-century England in D.K. Kouymijan, ed., Near Eastern Numismatics: Iconography,
Epigraphy and History. Studies in Honor of George C. Miles (Beirut, 1974), pp. 387-91, reprinted
as no. VIII in his Later Medieval Numismatics.
36
Cook, Foreign coins in medieval England (n. 3), pp. 247-50. For the appearance of bezants
in royal records dating from the reign of Henry II (1154-89) to Henry III, see B. Cook, The
bezant in Angevin England, NC 159 (1999), pp. 255-75. There are no recorded finds of twelfthor thirteenth-century gold Byzantine or Islamic coins from England.

ISLAMIC COINS FROM EARLY MEDIEVAL ENGLAND

199

and finds in southern France are mostly from Spanish and North African
mints, which are rarely encountered in England.37 There are also a number of
hoards and single finds from the Low Countries, mostly fitting into the
Scandinavian/Russian pattern. Some contain rings and jewellery like many
English and Scandinavian silver hoards.38 Outside these areas finds of Islamic
coins are sparse.39 Islamic coins were probably first deposited in Russia in the
late eighth century, though many coins struck before this date were still in
circulation, as were a small number of Sasanian drachms of the sixth and
seventh centuries. Hoards of Islamic coins become numerous in Russia after
c.800.40 By the mid ninth century most hoards are fairly current and do not
contain many antiquated coins: in the 870s and 880s eighth-century dirhams
usually only make up 20-25% of hoards, as opposed to being in the majority in
the 820s. The coins in these ninth-century hoards are believed to have come
north through the Caucasus from the central Abbsid mints such as
Baghdad.41
Around 900 the source of the dirhams entering Russia shifted eastwards, to
the silver-rich lands in Central Asia ruled by the Smnid dynasty which was
producing silver in large quantities from the 890s to around 1000. There is a
notable increase in the number and size of hoards, which become dominated
by Smnid mints such as Samarqand, Al-Shsh (Tashkent) and Andarbah.42
The findspots of Russian hoards are spread over a wide area, with some
clustering along major waterways like the Don and the Dnieper, which were
the main arteries of trade.43

37

McCormick, Origins of the European Economy (n. 3), p. 348.

McCormick, Origins of the European Economy (n. 3), p. 350; and A15, 28, 30 and 36 in
Appendix 3.
39
See the maps in Duplessy, La circulation (n. 3), p. 107; and the more recent McCormick,
Origins of the European Economy (n. 3), p. 348.
40
T.S. Noonan, Ninth-century dirham hoards, in Blackburn and Metcalf, eds., Viking-Age
Coinage, (n. 3) pp. 47-118 at pp. 61-3. A coin in the Cuerdale hoard (Table 2, no. 39) has been
identified as a half drachm of the Abbsid Governors of Tabaristan, R.H.M. Dolley and N. Shiel,
A hitherto unsuspected oriental element in the 1840 Cuerdale hoard, NC 142 (1982), pp. 155-7.
It is more likely that the piece was a clipped drachm of the Sasanian ruler Khusrau II (590-628),
which are commonly found elsewhere. My thanks to Marcus Phillips and Susan Tyler-Smith for
this information.
41
Noonan, Ninth-century dirham hoards, p. 51.
42
A.E. Lieber, Did a Silver Crisis in Central Asia affect the flow of Islamic coins?, in K.
Jonsson and B. Malmer, eds., CNS Nova Series 6 (Sigtuna Papers: Proceedings of the Sigtuna
Symposium on Viking Age Coinage, 1-4 June 1989, London, 1990), pp. 207-12 at p. 207. For a
useful map showing where the principal Islamic mints were located in this period, see D.M.
Metcalf, Viking Age numismatics 3: What happened to Islamic dirhams after their arrival in the
northern lands?, NC 157 (1997), pp. 295-335 at p. 297.
43
Noonan, Ninth-century dirham hoards (n. 40), p. 57.
38

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RORY NAISMITH

The finds from Scandinavia passed through Russia on their way north, and
consequently tell a similar story. Some 200,000 Islamic coins were known
from Scandinavia even in 1974, with especially large concentrations in
Sweden (c.180,000) and above all on the Baltic island of Gotland (c.120,000,
included in the Swedish total);44 and more coins have been found since.45 The
rest of the Baltic rim Finland, Poland, the southeast Baltic has also
produced significant numbers of dirhams.46 In general these Scandinavian
hoards follow the trends of their Russian counterparts: the earliest hoards
probably date to c.800 and they peak in the early tenth century when (as in
Russia) Smnid mints predominate. The Croydon hoard is an important
datable indication that ninth-century dirhams were being used in a
Scandinavian context at least as early as the 870s,47 although it is likely that
some ninth-century dirhams were imported earlier and that many only came to
the north in the early tenth-century heyday of dirham use.
A decline in the number of Islamic coins being brought into Scandinavia set
in after the 950s,48 dwindling almost to nothing by the later tenth century.49
Replacement of Islamic with English and German silver pennies in
Scandinavia was a gradual process,50 and dirhams continue to feature strongly
in Danish hoards until 1000 even though the latest coins were usually at least
thirty years old by this time.51
Study of a large number of Umayyad and Abbsid dirhams from ninthcentury hoards in Sweden has shown a series of peaks and troughs in the
import of dirhams, with the peaks occurring c.71015, c.7405, c.77080,

44

Lieber, International trade (n. 3), p. 22.

Lieber, Silver crisis (n. 42), p. 207 offers a figure of 250,000 known finds in 1993. Lutz
Ilisch (personal communication) however, has pointed out that Liebers figure is rather generous,
and that the only substantial find since the 1970s has been the Spillings hoard of about 1999 which
contained about 15,000 dirham fragments.
46
See Noonan, Dirham exports to the Baltic in the Viking Age, in Sigtuna Papers (n. 42), pp.
251-7 at p. 255.
47
N.P. Brooks and J. Graham-Campbell, Reflections on the Viking-Age silver hoard from
Croydon, in Anglo-Saxon Monetary History, ed. M.A.S. Blackburn (Leicester, 1986), pp. 91-110
at p. 99.
48
T.S. Noonan, Dirham exports (n. 46), p. 254.
49
Lieber, International trade (n. 3), p. 22. A more recent and specific analysis of this decline in
all areas of the Baltic shows that the dirham imports into Scandinavia remained plentiful until
c.960, declining gradually thereafter: T.S. Noonan, The Vikings in the east: coins and commerce,
in Developments around the Baltic and the North Sea in the Viking Age, Birka Studies 3, eds. B.
Ambrosiani and H. Clarke (Stockholm, 1994), pp. 215-36.
50
For a description of this process see P. Sawyer, Anglo-Scandinavian trade in the Viking Age
and after, in Blackburn Anglo-Saxon Monetary History (n. 47), pp. 185-99 at pp. 194-5.
51
A. Kromann, The latest cufic coin finds from Denmark, in Sigtuna Papers (n. 42), pp. 18393 at pp. 186-7.
45

ISLAMIC COINS FROM EARLY MEDIEVAL ENGLAND

201

c.800810 and c.85565.52 It is likely that these pulses, which can be

discerned in individual hoards, show periods of particularly intense minting
activity rather than importation, as they also occur in hoards from the Middle
East and Russia.53 This similarity between the Scandinavian, Russian and
Middle Eastern stock of dirhams indicates that their import into Scandinavia
was of a relatively substantial, consistent and constant nature.54 The high rate
of die linkage seen in some large tenth-century hoards of Smnid coins from
Gotland strongly suggests that the coins stayed together from the time they left
the mint until deposition in the far north and do not show any great mixing of
currency at any point in between.55
The concentration of Scandinavian hoards of Islamic coins in Sweden and
especially on Gotland illustrates that the coins were flowing in from the east,
where the Swedes had begun their penetration of what is now Russia.56
Documentary evidence indicates the presence of Scandinavians in Russia from
the 830s, and a report in the Annales Bertiniani of 839 tells of how a small
number of Scandinavians who had journeyed through Russia to
Constantinople came westwards with Byzantine ambassadors and were
identified as Swedes by their Frankish hosts.57 Several sources from the ninth
and tenth centuries, most famously the Muslim writer Ibn Fadlan in the 920s
and the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII (91359), record considerable
river traffic on the Dnieper and the Volga.58
The pattern of dirham use in Scandinavia and Russia is related in several
ways to that of England. Islamic coins appear in substantial numbers in the
ninth-century hoards roughly coinciding with the beginning of large-scale
Viking activity in England but by c.890900 there is a shift towards Smnid
and Volga Bulgar coins.59 The Islamic coins in the Cuerdale hoard (dep.
c.905), are dominated by central Abbsid mints such as Baghdad (Madnat al52
B.E. Hovn, Ninth-century dirham hoards from Sweden, Journal of Baltic Studies 13
(1982), pp. 202-19.
53
Metcalf, What happened to Islamic dirhams? (n. 42), pp. 310-11.
54
It has been estimated that as much as 40% of dirham imports into Russia were passed on to
the Baltic: see Noonan, Dirham exports (n. 42), p. 251.
55
Metcalf, What happened to Islamic dirhams? (n. 42), pp. 299-300.
56
See G. Jones, A History of the Vikings, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1984), pp. 241-4 for a brief review of
this process; see Metcalf, What happened to Islamic dirhams? (n. 42), pp. 321-33, for the
importance of Gotland.
57
Jones, A History of the Vikings, pp. 249-50.
58
Jones, A History of the Vikings, pp. 164-5 and 256-7.
59
See Table 5 and Table 7; c.890 is also pinned down as a date for change in the pattern of
dirham finds by K. Skaare, Coins and Coinage in Viking-Age Norway (Oslo, 1976), p. 47. Lowick,
in Kufic coins from Cuerdale (n. 2), p. 23, also pointed out that dirhams from elsewhere in the
Islamic world could travel very far even from Spain to Iraq before being taken north. For the
Volga Bulgar coins, see G. Rispling, The Volga-Bulgarian imitative coinage in Sigtuna Papers
(n. 42), pp. 275-82; and nos 33 and 36 in Table 3.

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RORY NAISMITH

Salm), Armnyah and Bardhaa, and probably represent a collection made

shortly before this change.60 Coins from the late ninth century (876900) are
the most numerous group of datable dirhams to have survived,61 and it is likely
that most of the eighth- and early ninth-century dirhams represent ninth- or
tenth-century losses associated with the Scandinavian presence. The general
similarity of the English and Scandinavian find patterns shows that, at least
until c.925, England was part of the network connecting Scandinavia to Russia
and, ultimately, the caliphate.
There are important differences between the pattern of finds in Russia and
Scandinavia and in England. The pulses are only clearly identifiable in large
ninth-century hoards in Russia and Scandinavia. The dirham hoards from
England are small and only one, Croydon, dates from the ninth century. The
Cuerdale hoard may possibly show traces of two of the pulses with two coins
from c.77080, one from c.810 and two from c.86570 but there is also one
from the 840s.62
Smaller Swedish hoards often show a greater mixture of coins and dates than
large hoards. It is thought that these smaller hoards and single finds represent
currency that circulated by unit and was used in smaller transactions, whereas
large hoards represent considerable stores of hoarded metal which had seen
little circulation and been reckoned by weight rather than unit.63 Small
Swedish hoards seem more comparable with the dirham finds from England,
where no more than fifty have ever been recorded in a single hoard.
It is interesting, however, that the Smnid element is not nearly as dominant
in England as it is in Sweden.64 In England there are only about half as many
Smnid coins as there are Abbsid and the majority of the Abbsid dirhams
and dinars belong to the late eighth and early ninth centuries.65 While there are
fewer Smnid dirhams overall from England, unlike the Abbsid coins they
are concentrated in a shorter period of time (c.890c.930 with very few after
910).66 This sharp decline in coins minted after c.910 does not reflect the
pattern of finds in Scandinavia, where the decline in dirhams only begins with

60

Lowick, Kufic coins from Cuerdale (n. 2), p. 22.

See Table 7.
62
See Table 2.
63
Metcalf, What happened to Islamic dirhams? (n. 42), pp. 299-300 and 331-3.
64
B.E. Hovn in On oriental coins in Scandinavia, in Blackburn and Metcalf, Viking-Age
Coinage (n. 3), pp. 119-28 shows that 57.2% of the Islamic coins in the Swedish Royal Coin
Cabinet are Smnid, whilst 27.5% are Abbsid; no other dynasty produced more than 2% of the
total of finds. Figures are also cited in Skaares Coins and Coinage (n. 59), pp. 47-53 that show a
comparable dominance of Smnid coins in Norway of 223 Smnid coins in comparison to 87
Abbsid.
65
See Tables 2, 3 and 6.
66
See Tables 2, 3 and 6.
61

ISLAMIC COINS FROM EARLY MEDIEVAL ENGLAND

203

coins minted in the mid tenth century.67 An explanation for this must be sought
in developments in early tenth-century England, where dirhams were just one
aspect of a Scandinavian-influenced silver economy.
THE SILVER ECONOMY OF THE DANELAW

Nearly every English hoard that contains Islamic coins also contains nonnumismatic silver objects, usually ingots or hack-silver.68 The fragmentary
state of many dirhams from England suggests that they often were seen as
small pieces of hack-silver rather than as coins.69 There are numerous
fragmentary dirhams found in Scandinavia and Russia, and even some in finds
from the Caliphate itself, especially in Iraq.70 The practice was not, however,
extended to western pennies, which were typically of poorer silver and whose
nominal value may have been higher than their intrinsic value.71
The presence of dirhams in the Croydon hoard of c.872 is unusual in
England, as is the hoards diverse mix of English and foreign coins.72 It very
probably represents the coins and bullion belonging to one or more Vikings.
This is also the earliest English hoard to contain dirhams, and its contents
again illustrate the difference that contemporaries saw between dirhams and
western coins: the English pennies and Carolingian deniers were uncut and
flat, whilst the dirhams were frequently cut up or had been nicked at the
edge.73 The practices of edge-cutting and more commonly bending and (from
the late ninth century) pecking, are associated with the Vikings checking the
quality of their silver.74 This may be particularly common in English finds
because dirhams were rarer and less likely to be accepted without checking
their quality, or simply because dirhams that reached England from
Scandinavia had probably changed hands many times and stood more chance
of having been checked or cut at some point.

67
Noonan, Dirham exports (n. 46), p. 254, bearing in mind that there must have been some
interval between production and deposition in distant Scandinavia and England, apparently shorter
in the early tenth than in the ninth century.
68
See Table 1.
69
Roughly a third of the total: see Tables 2 and 3.
70
L. Ilisch, Whole and fragmented dirhams in Near Eastern hoards, in Sigtuna Papers (n. 42),
pp. 121-8 at p. 121.
71
On the poor silver quality of English silver from the second quarter of the ninth century and
the variable fineness of Carolingian pennies, see Grierson and Blackburn, MEC I, pp. 194, 271
and 307-8.
72
Brooks and Graham-Campbell, Reflections (n. 47), p. 98.
73
J. Graham-Campbell, The dual economy of the Danelaw, BNJ 71 (2001), pp. 49-59 at pp.
55-8.
74
Grierson and Blackburn, MEC I, p. 318; and M. Archibald, Pecking and bending: the
evidence of British finds, in Sigtuna Papers (n. 42), pp. 11-24 at p. 15.

204

RORY NAISMITH

The Croydon hoard has been seen as a cache of Viking loot, not least
because the date of the hoard ties up precisely with the presence of the Viking
Great Army in London in 872 recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: Her for
se here to Lundenbyrig from Readingum, ond r wintersetl nam, ond a
namon Mierce fri wi one here (Here [in this year] the [Danish] army went
to London from Reading, and wintered there, and then the Mercians made
peace with the army).75 Torksey (Tureces iege in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle)
was another wintering place of the Great Army, in 8723 , and like Croydon
has produced coins, including dirhams, with a terminus ante quem of c.875,
which, given the strongly Scandinavian character of the site, is very likely to
represent the Viking occupation of 8723.76
The find spots of most single finds and hoards also place them in a Viking
context.77 The majority of finds come from the Danelaw,78 where there is
considerable archaeological, linguistic and toponymic evidence of
Scandinavian settlement.79 The only hoard found outside the Danelaw,
Croydon, can be associated with a historically attested Viking foray. Single
finds are not quite so concentrated, but still show a strong bias towards the
north and especially the east.80
Viking connections with other parts of the British Isles are also apparent in
the use of dirhams in Wales, Ireland and Scotland. Scandinavians settled and
fought on both sides of the Irish Sea, and there were extensive connections
between the Viking kingdoms of York and Dublin. The Irish and HibernoNorse style metalwork found in the Cuerdale and Goldsborough hoards
provides another example of a material connection between England and
Ireland.81 The Vikings who settled in Ireland and Scotland remained in the
Scandinavian economic sphere long after the use of dirhams and the common
use of hack-silver had ended in England: hoards from as late as c.950 in

75

Brooks and Graham-Campbell, Reflections (n. 47), p. 100.

Blackburn, Finds from Torksey (n. 16), pp. 99-100.
77
See Map 1.
78
The Danelaw was an area of eastern and northern England which, from the start of the
eleventh century, is described as being subject to Danish law as opposed to West Saxon or
Mercian law. It comprised fifteen shires, including those in the East Midlands, Yorkshire and East
Anglia as well as Essex, Middlesex, Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire. See K. Holman,
Defining the Danelaw, in J. Graham-Campbell, R. Hall, J. Jesch and D.N. Parsons, eds., Vikings
and the Danelaw: Select Papers from the Proceedings of the Thirteenth Viking Congress,
Nottingham and York, 21-30 August 1997 (Oxford, 2001), pp. 1-11.
79
E.g., D.M. Hadley, In search of the Vikings: the problems and the possibilities of
interdisciplinary approaches, Vikings and the Danelaw (n. 78), pp. 13-30.
80
See Map 1.
81
Graham-Campbell, The Cuerdale hoard: Comparisons and context, in Graham-Campbell,
ed., Viking Treasure (n. 6), pp. 107-15 at pp. 112-13.
76

ISLAMIC COINS FROM EARLY MEDIEVAL ENGLAND

205

Scotland and c.970 in Ireland still contain dirhams, often of relatively recent
production.82 There is also a Viking hoard from Wales datable to c.925.83
Metallurgical studies show that many Islamic coins brought into Scandinavia
were cut apart for use as hack-silver or melted down for re-use as jewellery or
silver ingots.84 The silver used by Central Asian mints at this time is
distinctive, its trace consisting of gold, a comparatively high level of bismuth
and little else.85 Much of the silver used by the Smnids is particularly
extreme in its high bismuth and low gold content and came from mines at
Panjhr and nearby in the Hindu Kush, an area ruled by their vassals the Ab
Dadids.86 Almost all silver objects found in southern Sweden were found to
be wholly or mostly made from melted down Smnid dirhams identified by
these trace elements
By contrast Kruses study of silver objects from England and other areas
around the Irish Sea has not conclusively shown that any English objects are
made from this same distinctive silver. This applies even to objects of
Scandinavian style from England. Silver objects in England were ether made
using metal from another source, or from a liberal mix of metals drawn from
several sources. A few Anglo-Saxon silver coins were also studied, again
without any clear sign of Smnid silver having been used in their
manufacture. If almost all incoming foreign coins were melted down and restruck in mints controlled by the West Saxon dynasty then this mix of metals is
what one might expect.87 Even in Viking-ruled areas it appears that silver from
melted-down Smnid dirhams was not as dominant as it was in Scandinavia.
This lack of re-used eastern silver in England again indicates that the volume
of dirhams circulating in England was not great. Unlike England, ninth- and
tenth-century Scandinavia was still essentially a non-monetary economy in
which business was conducted using silver, coined or uncoined, measured by

82
The Skaill Bay hoard of c.950 contained an Abbsid dirham struck in 945 and Smnid
dirhams from as late as 943 (Hegira dates not given): see Duplessy, La circulation (n. 3), p. 126
no. 18; the Co. Meath hoard including Islamic coins can be dated to c.970: see M.A.S. Blackburn
and H. Pagan, A revised checklist of coin-hoards from the British Isles, c.500-1100, in
Blackburn, ed., Anglo-Saxon Monetary History (n. 47), pp. 291-313, no. 156.
83
The Bangor hoard of c.925 contained five dirhams and non-numismatic silver as well as eight
pennies from the kingdom of Wessex and Viking York: the dirhams were all recently struck,
ranging in date from 287/899-900 to 299/911-12. See C.E. Blunt, Saxon coins from Southampton
and Bangor, BNJ 27 (1952-4), pp. 256-62.
84
S.E. Kruse, Metallurgical evidence of silver sources in the Irish Sea province, in GrahamCampbell, ed., Viking Treasure (n. 6), pp. 73-88 at p. 79; see also Metcalf, What happened to
Islamic dirhams? (n. 42), pp. 328-9 for the use of hack-silver.
85
Kruse, Metallurgical evidence (n. 84), p. 79.
86
See M.R. Cowell and N. Lowick, Silver from the Panjhr mines, in W.A. Oddy, ed., MIN 2
(London, 1988), pp. 65-74.
87
On the exclusion of foreign currency, see Grierson and Blackburn, MEC I, p. 286.

206

RORY NAISMITH

weight.88 To some extent this was also the case in the Scandinavian-influenced
parts of England, where many examples of ingots and hack-silver have been
found singly and in hoards: rings, brooches, ingots and other pieces of silver,
some of non-Scandinavian origin.89
The influence of the Anglo-Saxon monetary economy and the scarcity of
dirhams gradually changed the currency systems of Viking-held areas. Before
the end of the ninth century the use of coinage on the Anglo-Saxon model was
expanding among the Viking settlers, and new designs were adopted after an
initial period of imitating English coins.90 The shift from bullion to coinage
was not immediate and hoards show that coins and hack-silver could still coexist for much of the tenth century.91
The latest hoard to contain Islamic coins is Bossall, dated to c.927, and there
are no known single finds of coins from the Danelaw minted after this date. It
was also coincidentally in 927 that the English King thelstan (924/539)
captured York from the Vikings and effectively ended independent
Scandinavian rule. By 918 most of England up to the Humber had been
wrested from Viking control and mints there were producing coins for the
kings of the West Saxon dynasty.92 The expansion of West Saxon minting and
political control seems to mirror the decline in the use of Islamic silver, while
the Scandinavians elsewhere in the British Isles persisted in the use of dirhams
up to the end of their import into Scandinavia. Economic and political
circumstances in England conspired to deal a killing blow to the bullion
economy; and only a few hoards containing a mixture of foreign and English
coins and hack-silver appear to have been deposited after the first West Saxon
capture of York in 927 in remote locations such as Scotby, Cumberland and
Bowes Moor, County Durham.93

88

Graham-Campbell, Dual economy (n. 73), p. 53.

Graham-Campbell, Dual economy (n. 73), pp. 54-5.
90
Grierson and Blackburn, MEC I, pp. 318-25.
91
See Table 1 and M.A.S. Blackburn, Expansion and control: Aspects of Anglo-Scandinavian
minting south of the Humber, in Vikings and the Danelaw (n. 78), pp. 125-42 at pp. 134-5.
92
M.A.S. Blackburn, Mints, burhs and the Grateley Code cap. 14.2, in D. Hill and A.R.
Rumble, eds., The Defence of Wessex: The Burghal Hidage and Anglo-Saxon Fortifications
(Manchester, 1996), pp. 160-75 at pp. 163-5.
93
J. Graham-Campbell, The northern hoards, in N.J. Higham and D. Hill, eds., Edward the
Elder (London, 2001), pp. 212-29 at pp. 226-7.
89

ISLAMIC COINS FROM EARLY MEDIEVAL ENGLAND

207

THE USE OF ISLAMIC COINS BY NON-SCANDINAVIANS IN ENGLAND

One probably datable single find is a Spanish Umayyad dirham fragment

found in a refuse pit at Southampton, stratigraphically dated to c.750850 and
thought to have been minted at Cordoba c.765815.94 Given its mint, (which
would be unusual for a Scandinavian find), likely deposition date (years before
the earliest hoard containing Islamic coins) and findspot, it is probable that it
came from Spain via Frankia: a possibility that is supported by the presence of
a small number of other continental coins at Hamwic, including one
Carolingian denier from Toulouse,95 a region which made use of Spanish
dirhams in this period.96 It has also been suggested that some dirhams of
eighth- and ninth-century Spain reached Scandinavia alongside Carolingian
coins arriving from the west before the great raids of the ninth century.97 The
use of gold dinars by the Vikings in England is unlikely:98 the dinar of Offa
shows that gold dinars must have been present in England before 796, so
eighth-century dinars should probably be seen as native Anglo-Saxon losses.
The late tenth- and eleventh-century gold coins probably also took a western,
non-Scandinavian route to England.
It is true that Viking raids on England had begun by the end of the eighth
century,99 and a Scandinavian source cannot be ruled out for any coin
considering the long gap between minting and deposition seen in hoards.
There is a possibility that some finds of eighth- and ninth-century dirhams
from the Danelaw were lost prior to the Viking raids or were contemporary
with but not linked to them.
There are also some southern and western finds that would be out of
character in the Danelaw, such as the dirhams from late tenth-century
Umayyad Spain, one of them mounted.100 These coins may represent souvenirs
of travel through Frankia to Spain,101 possibly to the great pilgrimage centre of
Santiago de Compostella. There is probable numismatic evidence of English
participation in this pilgrimage in the shape of a small hoard of pennies of
94
H. Brown, An Islamic dirham, in P. Andrews, ed., Southampton Finds vol. I: The Coins and
Pottery from Hamwic (Southampton, 1988), pp. 25-6.
95
No. 150 in D.M. Metcalf, The coins, Southampton Finds vol. I: The Coins (n. 94), pp. 1759.
96
McCormick, Origins of the European Economy (n. 3), pp. 346-7.
97
U.S. Linder Welin, Spanish-Umaiyad coins found in Scandinavia, Numismatiska
Meddelanden xxx (1965), pp. 15-25 at p. 22.
98
Blackburn, Gold in England (n. 19). There are very few gold single finds and just one gold
hoard from Scandinavia, and the Islamic dinars from Scandinavia are thought to have come from
both east and west.
99
Jones, A History of the Vikings (n. 56), pp. 194-5.
100
See nos 30 and 31 in Table 3.
101
McCormick, Origins of the European Economy (n. 3), pp. 357-61.

208

RORY NAISMITH

thelred II (9781016) found in the Roncesvalles pass in northern Spain.102 It

is possible that other coins, silver and gold, represent the products of long
distance trade with the Islamic world, direct or indirect, carried by pilgrims
travelling across the Mediterranean. A few Anglo-Saxons are known to have
made the long and difficult journey to the Holy Land, most notably St
Willibald in the years 7237.103 There are also a small number of other finds
and written references from England that shed light on connections with the
Islamic world both before and after the Viking period and complement the
numismatic record.104
CONCLUSION

The Islamic silver coins found in England are not numerous by Russian or
Scandinavian standards and it appears that England was on the periphery of
the northern dirham-using world: Islamic silver was far from dominant and
was just one part of a developing economic system.
On the other hand, dirham finds from England are an important reflection of
Scandinavian influence and activity in the British Isles. Find spots of both
single finds and hoards are concentrated in areas of Scandinavian settlement
and show some connections with silver finds from other Scandinavianinfluenced areas of Britain. English hoards containing dirhams were deposited
between c.870 and c.930 bearing witness to a distinctive Scandinavianinfluenced bullion economy in which dirhams, hack silver, ingots and other
coins were used side by side.
Even before 900 the Danelaw had begun to shift towards a monetary
economy. Dirhams and hack-silver continued to circulate, but they were never
as common or as important a part of the currency as they were in Scandinavia.
Neither did the Smnid coins that proliferated in tenth-century Scandinavia
ever become as predominant in England, indicating that the decline came in
England at the beginning of the tenth-century Scandinavian heyday of the
Smnid dirhams. The West Saxon conquest of the Danelaw spelt the end for
the dirham and ultimately the bullion economy in England: after c.927 no

102
F. Mateu y Llopis and R.H.M. Dolley, A small find of Anglo-Saxon pennies from
Roncesvalles, BNJ 27 (1955), pp. 81-91.
103
On Anglo-Saxon visitors to the Holy Land, see Scarfe Beckett, Anglo-Saxon Perceptions (n.
1), pp. 44-54; for western visitors in general see McCormick, Origins of the European Economy
(n. 3), chs. 5-9, in which he points out (p. 275) that pilgrims were very often the vehicles of trade
in all manner of goods.
104
See Scarfe Beckett, Anglo-Saxon Perceptions (n. 1), pp. 60-8. These products include pepper
and incense in the Venerable Bedes (d. 735) possession; other spices, pottery, metalwork, glass,
pigments and medicines are attested elsewhere.

ISLAMIC COINS FROM EARLY MEDIEVAL ENGLAND

209

dirhams appear in English hoards, nor are there any single finds from the
Danelaw minted at a later date.
Although most dirham finds belong in a strongly Viking context, there is a
selection of single finds that probably represent non-Scandinavian use. Single
finds from southern and western England are less likely to represent Viking
activity, or are of mints and dates that do not fit into the Viking pattern. The
gold coins present a similar case of probable native use; but it is likely that
they were never present in any large number, and outside Scandinavianinfluenced areas Islamic coins probably never constituted an important part of
the currency. Their rarity, value and difference from native currency may have
made them objects of wonder as much as objects of value.

210

RORY NAISMITH

Map of single finds and hoards

containing Islamic coins

Key
Gold single find
Site producing multiple gold single finds
Silver single find
Site producing multiple silver single finds
Hoard

x

Goldsborough,
c.920
North Yorkshire
Warton, Lancashire c.920

Thurcaston,
c.925
No
Leicestershire
Bossall/Flaxton, c.927
Yes
North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire Late 9th century. Yes

Uncertain

c.270: English and Viking 2

12: English and Viking

3: None

35 or 37*

20

Uncertain

182-293 / 798-Strudwick 1955

905
276-301 / 889-Graham-Campbell 1992,
914
1993 and 2001; Vaux 1861
285-300 / 898-Williams 1999
912
300/1-3 / 913- Blackburn 2001
16
298 / 911-12 Dolley 1955

AH 169-232 / Brooks and GrahamAD 786-847 Campbell 1986

29 surviving; at 156-282 / 772-Lowick 1976
least 36 in hoard 896
Uncertain
Uncertain
Blackburn and Pagan 1986

No. of dirhams Date range of Reference

dirhams

Simon Holmes, York City

Museum
*There is some uncertainty as to the number of coins in the Goldsborough hoard. Graham-Campbell 1993 (p. 112) states that there were 39 coins
in the hoard, whilst Vaux 1861 (p. 65) claims that there were 37; the contention seems to be over how many worn and unidentifiable dirhams were
present.

Yes

Cuerdale,
c.905
Lancashire
Harkirke,
c.910
Lancashire
Dean, Cumberland c.915

c.AD 872

Croydon, Surrey

Table 1: Hoards
Precious
Total no. of coins and
metal bullion other types
in hoard?
Yes
c.250: English and
Frankish
Yes
c.7500: English, Frankish,
Viking and Byzantine
Yes
c.350: English, Viking and
Frankish
No
31 surviving: English,
Viking and Frankish
Yes
37 or 39: English

Date of
deposition

No. Location

ISLAMIC COINS FROM EARLY MEDIEVAL ENGLAND

211

No.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23

Hoard
Croydon
Croydon
Croydon
Cuerdale
Cuerdale
Cuerdale
Cuerdale
Cuerdale
Cuerdale
Cuerdale
Cuerdale
Cuerdale
Cuerdale
Cuerdale
Cuerdale
Cuerdale
Cuerdale
Cuerdale
Cuerdale
Cuerdale
Cuerdale
Cuerdale
Cuerdale

Authority
Abbasids
Abbasids
Abbasids
Spanish Umayyads
Abbasids
Abbasids
Abbasids
Abbasids
Abbasids
Abbasids
Abbasids
Abbasids
Abbasids
Abbasids
Abbasids
Abbasids
Abbasids
Abu Daudids
Uncertain
Imitation
Imitation
Imitation
Imitation

Date
AH 169-93 / AD 786-809
169-93 / 786-809
227-32 / 842-7
256 / 869-70
156 / 772-3
136-58 / 750-75
193-98 / 809-13
252 / 866-7
256-79 / 870-92 (obverse die of 250 AH)
267 / 880-1
277 / 890-1
277 / 890-1
277 / 890-1
267 or 277 / 880-1 or 890-1
270-9 / 883-92
282 / 895-6
Uncertain
260-79 / 873-92
272 / 885 ?
180 / 796
277 / 890-1
279-89 / 892-902 ?
Uncertain

Table 2: Silver hoard coins

Mint
Unrecorded
Unrecorded
Unrecorded
Al-Andalus
Uncertain
Uncertain
Uncertain
Madinat al-Salam
Arminiyah
Arminiyah / Bardhaah
Arminiyah / Bardhaah
Arminiyah
Arminiyah
Bardhaah
Uncertain
Madinat al-Salam
Uncertain
Panjhir
Andarabah
Urmiyah al-Salam
Arminiyah ?
Uncertain
Uncertain

Condition
Whole
Whole
Whole
Slightly clipped
Fragment
Worn
Worn; small rim die cuts
Fragment
Whole
Whole but buckled
Whole
Whole
Fragment
Worn
Fragment
Whole
Fragment
Poorly struck
Poorly struck
Poorly struck
Fragment; buckled
Whole; reversed legends
Whole; reversed legends

212
RORY NAISMITH

24
25-38
39
40
41
42
43
44-59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76

Cuerdale
Cuerdale
Cuerdale
Dean
Dean
Dean
Dean
Dean
Warton
Warton
Warton
Bossall/Flaxton
Bossall/Flaxton
Thurcaston
Thurcaston
Goldsborough
Goldsborough
Goldsborough
Goldsborough
Goldsborough
Goldsborough
Goldsborough
Goldsborough
Goldsborough
Goldsborough

Imitation
Undetermined
Sasanian or possibly Arab-Sasanian
Abbasids
Samanids
Samanids
Samanids
Undetermined
Samanids
Samanids
Samanids
Unrecorded
Samanids
Samanids
Samanids
Abbasids
Abbasids
Abbasids
Abbasids
Abbasids
Abbasids
Abbasids
Abbasids
Abbasids
Samanids

Uncertain
Uncertain
Tabaristan?
Unrecorded
Unrecorded
Andarabah
Uncertain
Uncertain
Al-Shash
Al-Shash
Samarkand
Uncertain
Al-Shash
Samarkand
Samarqand
Uncertain
Uncertain
Uncertain
Al-Shash
Uncertain
Uncertain
Al-Shash
Uncertain
Uncertain
Al-Shash

Uncertain
Uncertain
?144-160 / 761-77?
182 / 798-9
289-95 / 902-8
293 / 905-6
203-395 / 819-1005
Uncertain
285 / 898-9
300 / 912-13
2xx / 9xx
Uncertain
298 / 911-12
301 or 302 / 913-15
303 / 915-16
276 / 889-90
276 / 889-90
290-9 / 902-11
Uncertain
Uncertain
292 / 904-5
280 / 893-4
Uncertain
297 / 909-10
282 / 895-6

Fragment; reversed legends

Fragment
Whole
Whole
Whole
Whole
Unrecorded
Unrecorded
Unrecorded
Unrecorded
Unrecorded
Unrecorded
Whole
Fragment
Fragment
Unrecorded
Unrecorded
Unrecorded
Unrecorded
Unrecorded
Unrecorded
Unrecorded
Unrecorded
Unrecorded
Unrecorded
ISLAMIC COINS FROM EARLY MEDIEVAL ENGLAND
213

77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95-101
102

Goldsborough
Goldsborough
Goldsborough
Goldsborough
Goldsborough
Goldsborough
Goldsborough
Goldsborough
Goldsborough
Goldsborough
Goldsborough
Goldsborough
Goldsborough
Goldsborough
Goldsborough
Goldsborough
Goldsborough
Goldsborough
Goldsborough
North Yorkshire

Samanids
Samanids
Samanids
Samanids
Samanids
Samanids
Samanids
Samanids
Samanids
Samanids
Samanids
Samanids
Samanids
Samanids
Samanids
Samanids
Samanids
Samanids
Uncertain
Uncertain

Al-Shash
Samarqand
Samarqand
Uncertain
Al-Shash
Al-Shash
Al-Shash
Al-Shash
Al-Shash
Samarqand
Madan
Samarqand
Uncertain
Al-Shash
Uncertain
Uncertain
Uncertain
Uncertain
Uncertain
Uncertain

286 / 899-900
286 / 899-900
288 / 900-1
289 / 901-2
291 / 903-4
291 / 903-4
279-89 / 892-902
289-94 / 901-7
292 / 904-5
292 / 904-5
293 / 905-6
294 / 906-7
29x / 902-12
279-95/ 892-907
279-95 / 892-907
298 / 910-11
298 / 910-11
301-20 / 913-33
Uncertain
Uncertain

Unrecorded
Unrecorded
Unrecorded
Unrecorded
Unrecorded
Unrecorded
Unrecorded
Unrecorded
Unrecorded
Unrecorded
Unrecorded
Unrecorded
Unrecorded
Unrecorded
Unrecorded
Unrecorded
Unrecorded
Unrecorded
Unrecorded
Uncertain

214
RORY NAISMITH

Findspot
Doncaster, Yorkshire
Winchester, Hampshire

Coppergate, York

Croxton, Norfolk

Stowmarket, near Suffolk

Torksey, Lincolnshire
Torksey, Lincolnshire

Torksey, Lincolnshire
Torksey, Lincolnshire
Torksey, Lincolnshire
Torksey, Lincolnshire

Torksey, Lincolnshire
Torksey, Lincolnshire

Torksey, Lincolnshire
Torksey, Lincolnshire
Torksey, L incolnshire
Middle Harling, Norfolk

Oxborough, near Swaffham,

Norfolk

No.
1
2

6
7

8
9
10
11

12
13

14
15
16
17

18

[Al-Basra]
Ifriqiya

Al-Shash

Balkh

Samarkand

892-907

892-907

892-907

Date
AD 892-907
892-907

Cut fragment

Cut fragment
Cut fragment
Uncertain
Whole

Cut fragment
Cut fragment

Cut fragment
Cut fragment
Cut fragment
Cut fragment

Cut fragment
Cut fragment

Whole

Whole

Whole; corroded

Condition
Unrecorded
Broken

Table 3: Silver single finds

Mint
Unknown
Samarkand

AH 136 / 753-4
c.160-70 /
c.776-87
Abbasids
Al-Muhammidiya 1[70-2] / 786-8
Abbasids
Ifriqiya
176 / 792-3
Abbasids
Balkh
184 / 800-1
c.180-5 /
Abbasids
Uncertain
c.796-802
Abbasids
Al-Shash
189-90 / 804-6
Abbasids
Uncertain
149-199 /
766-815
Abbasids
Uncertain
215-18 / 830-3
Abbasids
Uncertain
217-29 / 832-44
Uncertain
Uncertain
Uncertain
Imitation of Unrecorded
892-907
Samanids
Umayyad
Wasit
120-8 / 737-46

Abbasids
Abbasids

Samanids

Samanids

Samanids

Authority
Samanids
Samanids

Bonser, 1998, p. 227 (Fitzwilliam

Museum)

Blackburn, 2002b, no. 46

Blackburn, 2002b, no. 47
Blackburn, 2002b, no. 48
Bonser, 1998, p. 227

Blackburn, 2002b, no. 44

Blackburn, 2002b, no. 45

Blackburn, 2002b, no. 40

Blackburn, 2002b, no. 41
Blackburn, 2002b, no. 42
Blackburn, 2002b, no. 43

Reference
EMC 2001.0927
EMC 1977.0226 (Blunt and
Dolley 1977, no. 26)
EMC 1986.0347 (Pirie 1986, no.
47)
EMC 1996.0265 (Coin Register
1996, no. 265)
EMC 1999.0138 (Coin Register
1999, no. 75)
Blackburn, 2002b, no. 38
Blackburn, 2002b, no. 39

ISLAMIC COINS FROM EARLY MEDIEVAL ENGLAND

215

Uncertain (now in Merseyside) Abbasids

Uncertain (now in Merseyside) Abbasids

Monkton Deverill, Wiltshire

Ramsholt, Suffolk
Claverley, Shropshire

Uncertain (now in Merseyside) Abbasids

Uncertain (now in Merseyside) Abbasids

Wymeswold, Leicestershire
Bylaugh, Norfolk

Uncertain (now in Merseyside) Spanish

Umayyads
Cerne Abbas, Dorset
Spanish
Umayyads
Southampton, Hampshire
Spanish
Umayyads
Cranwich, Norfolk
Volga Bulgar
Imitation

22

23

24
25

26

27

28
29

30

33

32

31

Abbasids
Abbasids

Abbasids
Abbasids

Abbasids

Abbasids

21

20

Abbasids

Oxborough, near Swaffham,

Norfolk
Kingston-upon-Hull

19

786-809

754-75

754-75

745-1269

(Modern Russia

Al-Andalus

Al-Andalus

Al-Andalus

Bardhaah
Al-Shash

Uncertain

Uncertain

Pierced

Whole
Whole

Whole

Whole

Whole
Cut fragment

Cut fragment

Whole; corroded

Whole; corroded

Cut fragment

Cut fragment

Cut fragment
Whole

c.765-815
c.900-30

390 / 999-1000 Mounted

976-1009

277-9 / 890-2
892-902

870-92

870-92

Al-Muhammidiya 786-809
Uncertain
809-33

Uncertain

Uncertain

Uncertain

Uncertain

Al-Muhammidiya 198 / 813-14

EMC 1997.0107 (Coin Register

1997, no. 107)

Brown, 1988

Bonser, 1998, p. 227 (Fitzwilliam

Museum)
EMC 1998.2110 (Coin Register
1998, no. 110)
EMC 1029.1109 (SCBI 29, no.
1109)
EMC 1029.1110 ( SCBI 29, no.
1110)
EMC 2003.0113 (Coin Register
2000, no. 90)
EMC 2001.1210
EMC 1995.0128 (Coin Register
1995, no. 128)
EMC 1029.1111 ( SCBI 29, no.
1111)
EMC 1029.1112 ( SCBI 29, no.
1112)
Bonser, 1998
EMC 1995.0129 (Coin Register
1995, no. 129)
EMC 1029.1108 (SCBI 29, no.
1108)
EMC 1957.0001; Dolley 1957

216
RORY NAISMITH

Samanids

Uncertain

Abbasids

Feltwell, Norfolk

Coltishall, Norfolk

39-49 North Yorkshire

Barton Bendish, Norfolk

Barton Bendish, Norfolk

Swainsthorpe, Norfolk

Caldecott, Norfolk
Bury St Edmunds (near),
Suffolk
Saxton (near), North Yorkshire
Barnetsby, Humberside
Postwick, Norfolk
Wood Enderby, Lincolnshire

38

50

51

52

53
54

55
56
57
58

Uncertain

Aghlabids
Abbasids
Samanids
Uncertain

Umayyad
Abbasids

Uncertain

Samanids

Uncertain
Uncertain
Al-Shash
Uncertain

Wasit
Uncertain

Uncertain

Uncertain

Uncertain

Madan (The
Mines)
Uncertain

Uncertain
Uncertain
Volga Bulgar (Modern Russia)
Imitation
Uncertain
Uncertain

37

35
36

Uncertain

Scampston/Rillington, North
Yorkshire
Mablethorpe, Lincolnshire
Thetford, Norfolk

34

Cut fragment

EMC 1999.0057 (Bonser notes)

800-12
255 / 868-9
298 / 910-11
Uncertain

Whole
Whole
Whole
Cut fragment

Cook, 1999, no. 29

Cook, 1999, no. 33
Coin Register 1994, no. 176
Coin Register 2003, no. 367

Corroded fragment EMC 2000.0309

Whole, bent twice EMC 2001.1266 (Fitzwilliam
Museum)
Uncertain
Whole
Tim Pestell, Norfolk Castle
Museum
315 / 927-8
Pierced
Tim Pestell, Norfolk Castle
Museum
Uncertain
Fragmentary
Simon Holmes, York City
Museum
1(98-9) /
Fragmentary
EMC 2004.0144 (Norfolk Castle
8(13-14)
Museum)
2(95-9) /
Fragmentary
EMC 2004.0151 (Norfolk Castle
9(07-11)
Museum)
Uncertain
Whole
EMC 2004.0146 (Norfolk Castle
Museum)
739-45
Whole
Cook, 1999, no. 26
136-58 / 754-75 Whole
Cook, 1999, no. 27

Uncertain
c.900-30

Uncertain

ISLAMIC COINS FROM EARLY MEDIEVAL ENGLAND

217

Unknown

Abbasids

2 Eastbourne, Sussex

3 Wickhampton, Norfolk

7 Near York

Quarter-dinar
Quarter-dinar
Dinar

Dinar

Uncertain

Filastin?
Sicily
Uncertain

Uncertain

Plated dirham? Uncertain

Date
Condition Reference
AH 105-25 / Uncertain Blackburn, 2002a, no. A1; NC 9
AD 724-43
(1846-7) p. 85
Uncertain
Uncertain Blackburn, 2002a, no. A1; NC 9
(1846-7) p. 85
157 / 773-4 Uncertain Blackburn, 2002a, no. A2 [It is
now known that this and no. 6 are the
same coin and 147 is correct.]
358 / 968-9 Whole
Cook, 1999, no. 42
c.1050-70
Whole
Blackburn, 2002a, no. A24
147 /
Whole
Tim Pestell, Norfolk Castle Museum
764-5
[It is now known that this and no. 3 are
the same coin.]
480-500 /
Uncertain Blackburn, 2002a, no. A25
1087-1106

Table 4: Gold single finds

Denomination Mint
Dinar
Uncertain

Almoravids Dinar

4 Carisbrooke Castle, Isle of Wight Fatimid

5 St Leonards-on-Sea, Sussex
Fatimid
6 Acle, Norfolk
Abbasids

Authority
Umayyad

No. Findspot
1 Eastbourne, Sussex

218
RORY NAISMITH

No.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18

Name of mint
Al-Anadalus
Madinat al-Salam
Arminiyah
Bardhaah
Panjhir
Andarabah
Tabaristan
Al-Shash
Samarqand
Balkh
Al-Basra
Ifriqiya
Al-Muhammidiya
Wasit
Bulgar
Madan
Filastin
Sicily

No. of coins
4
2
4
4
1
2
1
17
8
2
1
2
3
2
2
2
1
1

Table 5: Mints represented in the English finds

Date range of coins
765 390 / 999 - 1000
252 / 866 - 7 282 / 895-6
256-79 / 870-92 277 / 890-1
267 / 880-1 277-9 / 890-2
260-79 / 873-92
272 / 885 293 / 905-6
144-60 / 761-7
189-90 / 804-6 300 / 912-13
892-902 301-2 / 913-15
184 / 800-1 892-902
136 / 753-4
160-70 / 776-87
170-2 /786-8 198 /813-14
120-8 / 737-46
c.900-30
293 /905-6 315 / 927-8
358 / 968-9
c.1050-70

ISLAMIC COINS FROM EARLY MEDIEVAL ENGLAND

219

Abbasids
Samanids
Imitations
Spanish Umayyads
Umayyads
Volga Bulgars
Fatimids
Aghlabids
Arab Sasanian
Abu Daudids
Almoravids
Uncertain/Unrecorded
Total

Dynasty

31
28
5
1
0
0
0
0
1
1
0
40
107

Number of hoard coins

Number of silver
single finds
24
8
3
3
2
2
0
1
0
0
0
16
57

Number of gold
coins
2
0
0
0
1
0
2
0
0
0
1
1
7

Total number of
coins
57
36
8
4
3
2
2
1
1
1
1
57
173

Table 6: Dynasties represented in English finds

32.95
20.81
4.62
2.31
1.73
1.16
1.16
0.58
0.58
0.58
0.58
32.95
100.01

Percentage of total

220
RORY NAISMITH

Based on 95 datable silver coins and 6 datable gold coins. Coins which are datable only to a period rather than to a year are placed in the date band
in which they are most likely to have been struck (e.g. a coin datable 892-902 is placed in the 876-900 band).
Minted (AD)
No. of silver hoard finds No. of silver single finds
No. of gold single finds
Total number of coins
726-50
0
2
1
3
751-75
3
4
2
9
776-800
4
8
0
12
801-25
1
6
0
7
826-50
1
2
0
3
851-75
2
1
0
3
876-900
22
10
0
32
901-25
22
4
0
26
926-50
0
1
0
1
951-75
0
0
1
1
976-1000
0
2
0
2
1001-25
0
0
0
0
1026-50
0
0
0
0
1051-75
0
0
1
1
1076-1100
0
0
1
1
Total
55
40
6
101

Table 7: Finds of coins minted each quarter century

ISLAMIC COINS FROM EARLY MEDIEVAL ENGLAND

221

222

RORY NAISMITH

WORKS CITED IN TABLES 1-7

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Report, NC 161 (2001), pp. 349-52.
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Graham Campbell and G. Williams, eds, Silver Economy in the Viking Age (Institute of
Archaeology London, Occasional Papers, forthcoming).
Blackburn 2002b: Blackburn, M.A.S., Finds from the Anglo-Scandinavian Site of Torksey,
Lincolnshire, in B. Paszkiewicz, ed., Moneta Medievalis (Warsaw, 2002), pp. 89-101.
Blackburn and Pagan 1986: Blackburn, M.A.S., and Pagan, H., Check-list of Coin Hoards, in
Anglo-Saxon Monetary History, ed. M.A.S. Blackburn (Leicester, 1986), pp. 291-314.
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(Woodbridge, 1998), pp. 199-240.
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(Woodbridge, 1993), pp. 79-84.
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Hill, eds., Edward the Elder (London, 2001), pp. 212-29.
Lowick 1976: Lowick, N., The Kufic Coins from Cuerdale, BNJ 46 (1976), pp. 19-28.
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(1955), pp. 177-80.
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Yorkshire, NC n.s. 1 (1861), pp. 65-71.
Williams 1999: Williams, G., Coin Hoards no. 43 (Warton, Lancs.), NC 159 (1999), p. 348.