Page:Devon & Cornwall Notes & Queries.djvu/127

86 61. —The illustration given is of five coins, coined at the Totnes Mint, in the reign of Ethelred, 978 to 1016, which recently came into my possession. The late Mr. H. S. Gill, in a paper on "Devonshire Coins and Moneyers" (Devonshire Association Trans., vol. x, p. 609), gives a list of nineteen coins (including these five) which were coined at Totnes in this reign, and all of which are preserved in the Royal Cabinet, at Stockholm. Nos. 1, 2, 3, are similar, and the obverse has the bust of the King facing left, holding a sceptre with the legend + : the reverse, a cross in centre with the word in the angles: legend +. No. 4 has an obverse bust of the King facing right, without sceptre, legend + +: reverse, "Hand of Providence" pointing downwards from the sky between Alpha and Omega legend,  No. 5 is the similar type to No. 4, but by a different moneyer, +. The fact of Totnes being ten miles up the Dart, and undoubtedly in very early times a place of importance, and a fortified town, would make it singularly suitable for a Mint, and it appears to have enjoyed that privilege with Exeter, Barnstaple, and Lydford.

Of the coiners of these five, the coiner of the first three is found in the Devon Mints at Exeter and Lydford, as well as Totnes, that of No. 4 appears at Totnes only.

It is noticeable that with reference to "Barnstaple, a Mint Town in Anglo-Saxon and Early Norman Times" (II, p. 60, par. 38), the names of the coiners there referred to appear on coins minted at Exeter.

62. (I, par. 143, p. 187; par. 178, p. 210; par. 182, p. 219; II, par. 2, p. 2).—The name is one that is difficult to explain. It can only be decisively determined when (1) all the old spellings have been collated with each other (2) and with the dialectical pronunciation of the name, and when (3) the phonetic changes of its vowels and consonants have been duly considered. Also when (4) all the sites that bear the name have been examined in the light of the several possible derivations.

On examining the written form Silver we find it has two