Short Articles and Notes the Short Cross Moneyers of Shrewsbury

SHORT ARTICLES AND NOTES THE SHORT CROSS MONEYERS OF SHREWSBURY MARTIN ALLEN AND ALAN DAWSON IN 1964 John Brand successfully elucidated the obverse die seems to belong to a relatively late place in documentary evidence for the minting and exchanging class IVa, like Reinald/Reinaud's first obverse die. The 1 of Short Cross pennies at Shrewsbury. Brand rightly reverse reads IVE-ON-SALOPE, providing a version of concluded that minting operations began in 1194, and the mint-signature not previously recorded from the probably continued after the end of recorded activity at Short Cross coins of Shrewsbury. the associated Carreghova silver mine in 1195. Examination of twenty three class IVb coins of However, Brand's interpretation of the evidence of Shrewsbury has not added to Brand's tally of die- surviving coins was hampered by dependence upon an combinations. He found one pair of dies for incomplete and misleading die-study. His basic Reinald/Reinaud (REINAVD-ONS, pi. 22, 6), and a assumption that Shrewsbury had 'three moneyers in reverse die of Ive (IVE-ON-SALOP) used with two succession' has to be re-examined. obverse dies: Reinald/Reinaud's die (pi. 22, 7) and a Brand was undoubtedly correct to allocate the 'new' obverse die (pi. 22, 8). However, Brand's pennies reading WILLEM-ON-SALO to an early place in assumption that Ive's issues must have followed those his class IVa, as the earliest known Short Cross issues of Reinald/Reinaud is invalidated by the class IVa coins of Shrewsbury. He recorded only one pair of dies for of Ive. All of the dies used to produce the class IVb Willem, but the two British Museum specimens of this coins of Shrewsbury may be contemporary. The two moneyer actually come from two very similar obverse obverse dies are very similar in style, both of them dies used with the same reverse die (pi. 22,1-2). having the large annulet eyes and crown of clearly Brand believed that Reinald/Reinaud2 succeeded separated 'pearls' normal in class IVc. The lettering Willem as the sole moneyer of Shrewsbury, combining and central designs of the two reverse dies are also a class IVa obverse die 'a little later in style' with the similar in style, and comparable with the details of first of his two reverse dies, reading REINALD-ON-S (pi. reverses of many class IVc coins. 22 , 3). However, this supposition is undermined by the It is almost certain that Reinald/Reinaud and Ive existence of a possibly contemporary pair of dies for simultaneously received a pair of dies each on two Ive not recorded by Brand. These new dies are known occasions, relatively late in the production of class IVa to the authors from coins in the Rowley's House and near the end of the production of class IVb. This Museum, Shrewsbury, and the Fitzwilliam Museum, may have followed a precedent established by the Cambridge,3 and from a coin said to have been found in initial supply of dies to Shrewsbury, when the two early the Grimsby area. The Rowley's House specimen (pi. class IVa obverse dies could have been intended for 22, 4) and the 'Grimsby area' find (pi. 23, 5) are both Willem and a colleague: Reinald/Reinaud, Ive or illustrated to show the dies as fully as possible. The another moneyer not yet recorded. 2 Acknowledgements The authors are indebted to three Canterbury coins seem to show a transition from 'Reinald' institutions for permission to illustrate their coins: the British to 'Reinaud', as variants of the same name, during the Museum (pi. 22, 1- 2), Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery production of class IVa. (pi. 22, 3), and the Rowley's House Museum, Shrewsbury (pi. 3 Brand saw the Fitzwilliam Museum specimen (Short Cross 22, 4). Mr Christopher Wren has given invaluable help with Coins in the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge (Rochester, photography. 1963), no. 234), but its obverse is extremely indistinct, and his 1 J.D. Brand, 'Some Short Cross Questions', BNJ 33 (1964), attribution of the coin to class IVb is understandable. 57-69, at pp. 60-1. PLATE 2 BERRY. GAUNT AND THOMPSON: TOKEN ISSUERS 194 SHORT ARTICLES AND NOTES A SMALL SIXTEENTH CENTURY HOARD OF EUROPEAN GOLD COINS B.J. COOK THIS small group of coins, nine in all, was found at excelentes) of Spain at 13s. 4d. and single ducats at 6s Hayleigh Farm, Streat, Sussex, about eight miles north- 4d.3 (The Lucca ducat is a novelty as an English find, but east of Brighton, in September 1989 by Mr William would presumably have been treated as other ducat- Cayhill, metal detecting on the site with the permission of equivalent pieces.) The Streat find would thus have had a the owners. The find was reported to the coroner and went value in English terms in the 1550s of £3 5s. lOd (rating to inquest on 6 December 1989. The coins were declared the coins as in the proclamation of 1554, with the not to be treasure trove primarily because evidence was escudo, as a pistolet, valued at 6s. 2d.).4 given to suggest that the exact site was crossed by two The Spanish double excelente is worthy of note. It has footpaths and was in intermittent use as the archery butts an additional strip of gold inserted into it, threaded 1 of the village in the mid to later sixteenth century. It was though two slits cut into the coin and then hammered flat, thus presented as unlikely that the area would have been an alteration very neatly done, but also very obvious. It chosen for the deliberate concealment of a coin hoard. The was presumably intended to improve the coin's weight, jury accepted this contention and the coins were returned now 6.91 grams (the eleven British Museum specimens to the finder and landowners. range from 6.83g to 7.04g with an average of 6.95g). The The site of the find, Church Field, was part of the coin is clipped and it seems likely that the new gold was demesne lands of the manor of Streat, property of the intended to compensate for this. Adding extra gold to Fiennes family, though in the hands of the crown from improve the weight of a coin is a feature noted by 1541 to 1558, following the attainder of Thomas Fran^oise Dumas on some French pieces of this period, Fiennes, 9th Lord Dacre. specifically ecus of Louis XII and Francis I. Mme Dumas The coins were found over an area of about 26 x 6 feet, quoted a French royal ordinance from Blois of 1541: more or less in a straight line. They are all gold and of 'Autre figures cy faites des especes . que par la dicte continental origin. The core of the group are five crowns ordonnance doivent avoir cours . pourveu qu'elles ne ('imperial' or 'Burgundian' crowns) of the Emperor soyent appertement et visiblement rongnee ny souldee Charles V from the Netherlands, one issued by him as duke . .', indicating this practice to be relatively familiar by 5 of Gelderland and four as duke of Brabant, the latter all that date. Despite this prohibition, altered French coins from the Antwerp mint. They are dated 1543, 1545 (two clearly remained in circulation, and there is now a similar coins) and 1554 (two coins). There are two other coins of Spanish piece to further demonstrate this phenomenon. Charles V: a ducat of Lucca, dated 1552, and an escudo of The obviousness of the repair on this piece may if Spain in the names of Charles and his mother Joanna, anything have encouraged its acceptance. dating to 1537-55. There is one another Spanish coin, a The latest coin is datable to 1554 and one can double excelente of Ferdinand and Isabella, of 1497-1504, suggest a deposit date between that year and perhaps struck at Seville. The remaining piece is a rather battered around 1560-1, when Elizabeth I began a drive against ecu au soleil of Louis XI of France (1461-83). the circulation of foreign coin. English hoards of any The presence of foreign gold in mid-sixteenth century sort from the period 1544 to 1561 are scarce enough, England is well attested, as the return to fine standards of and Brown and Dolley record no gold hoards at all.6 coinage under Edward VI and Mary made the circulation Mayhew's list of sixteenth century finds of foreign gold of foreign gold more feasible than it had been during the includes a few single finds which may date to this previous period of debasement.2 The coins found at period (crowns of Charles V of 1544 and 1549, a Streat fit in well with the types of coin given valuations Genoese scudo issued between 1528 and 1541, and in a proclamation of Mary Tudor in 1554, issued in ecus of Louis XII and Francis I, which could have been advance of the arrival of Philip of Spain in England for deposited at any time up to the 1590s).7 The Streat find his marriage to the queen. 'All manner French crowns of thus provides a rare demonstration of the accuracy of the sun . and all manner of crowns of the Emperor's references to the use of foreign gold in documentary coin' were valued at 6s. 8d., 'double ducats' (double sources of the mid sixteenth century. 1 Information about the site and its history was provided at the 5 F. Dumas, 'Monnaies d'or du XVIe siecle reparees', Bulletin inquest by Mrs Heather Warne, an experienced archivist and local de la Societe Francaise de Numismatique (May, 1967), 151-2.

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