Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 1.djvu/82

80 The mark used to be supposed the same with the mancus, but this opinion is now quite exploded. The mark appears to have been a Danish denomination of money, and to have been introduced into this country by the Danish settlers, the first mention of it being found in the articles of agreement between Alfred and Guthrun. Some of the notices would seem to imply that, at first, the mark was accounted equivalent in value to only a hundred Saxon pennies; but it certainly came eventually to be estimated at one hundred and sixty pennies, that is, at two-thirds of the pound. Two-thirds of a pound is still the legal value of a mark. The mark, therefore, may be set down as of the value of 3600 grains troy of silver. The mark has never been supposed to be a real coin, except by those who have taken it for the same with the mancus.

The ora was also a Danish denomination, and appears to have been the eighth part of the mark. Its value, therefore, would be twenty Saxon pennies, or 450 grains troy of silver. There appears also, however, to have been an ora which was valued at only sixteen pennies. The amount of silver, 5400 troy grains, which made an Anglo-Saxon pound, is now coined into 2l. 16s. 3d. sterling. The value, therefore, of each of the Saxon coins, according to the view that has now been taken, would be as stated in the following Table. (See p. 81.)

The Saxon coins are generally sufficiently rude in workmanship; and this circumstance has been used as an argument to prove that the Saxons brought the art of coining with them to Britain from Germany, and did not acquire it by imitation of the Roman models. The earliest Saxon coin that has been appropriated is one in silver (a penny apparently, though commonly called a sceatta) of Ethelbert, king of Kent, who reigned from 561 to 616, the patron of St. Augustine. As the coin does not exhibit the usual Christian symbol of the cross, it may be presumed to have been struck before the year 597, in which Ethelbert was baptized. According to Mr. Rudling's description, "it bears on the obverse the name of the monarch, and on the reverse a rude figure, which occurs on many of the sceattae, and which is supposed to