The Reform of the English Coinage under Eadgar

Abstract

The most important of the primary sources for the knowledge of Eadgar’s coinage are the hoards, discovered in the British Isles, that include issues of his reign. Hoards in which the latest coins are those of Eadgar are far more numerous than those in which Eadgar’s coins occur along with others struck by his successors. The history of mint-organization in the eleventh century presents a contrast with the sudden and considerable increase in numbers which can be traced to the few years after 973. For half a century there were very few changes, and only in the reign of Edward the Confessor, when nine more small mints were authorized, is there anything which can be construed as a definite move to increase the number of the English mints. The English economy was predominantly agrarian and local in character, and one of the chief uses of coinage by the ordinary man was probably for the payment of rents and taxes.

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