A TALE OF TWO COINS NEW COINS FROM OLD LONDON

Roman rulers of the third and fourth centuries opened a mint in London, one of a relatively small number in major centres of administration across the empire. Like many other facets of Roman infrastructure in Britain, however, London entered a terminal decline in the 5th century. During the generations which saw the end of central Roman rule and the first establishment of what would become Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, London was a ghost town.

The Anglo-Saxon period was to see not only the revival of London, but also its establishment as the foremost centre of minting in the kingdom. This story began with the first production of gold coins there in the 7th century, and culminated in massive expansion around the millennium, at a point when London was beginning to take on a pre-eminent role in the economic, military and governmental life of the kingdom as a whole. The city itself changed substantially over this long period (figure 1). In the later 600s, its rebirth began a mile or so west of the Roman city walls in an area roughly bounded by Lincoln’s Inn Fields and Trafalgar Square. This early settlement profited from the liminal position London occupied politically, with the result that it attracted trade and patronage from multiple surrounding kingdoms and emerged as an attractive prize in the eyes of competing rulers. The winners of this contest were the Mercians, who