Page:VCH Northamptonshire 1.djvu/327

 ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS fragments of urns with four or five pieces of copper coin not legible ; as also some little bits of brass of an uncommon form, probably used about the garments of the deceased.' A remarkably well-preserved spearhead now at Northampton was unearthed with a shield-boss in 1867 at Brackley from a depth of eight feet, about one foot below what appeared to be the bottom of an old pond. And from Borough Hill, a British and Roman site which has yielded but little of Anglo-Saxon date, the county museum has a small square-headed brooch like some from Peter- borough, a bronze buckle and pin, glass beads and two coins of the Constantine family pierced for use as pendent ornaments like those already mentioned from Welton. At what period such pieces ceased to be current is uncertain, but Anglo-Saxon coins are practically confined to the Christian period. Though large quantities of our earliest English money have survived to our day, it is seldom that the site of such discoveries is recorded, and rarer still are the occasions when other objects are found associated with coins, and can thus be approximately dated. Of the earliest common type of Anglo-Saxon coins, the small thick silver pieces known as sceattas, single specimens have been found at Brackley, Dingley and Chipping Warden. After the introduction of the penny towards the end of the eighth century, the sceatta was no longer coined ; and the currency now took a more imposing form, bearing in each king- dom the name and image of king or archbishop. A silver penny of Offa, the first to coin them in England, has come to light at Newton Bromshold ; others of Edward the Elder (901-924) and i^thelward. Archbishop of Canterbury (798-805) at Brixworth ; of T^thelstan (925-940) at Bulwick ; of Ethelred II. (978-1016) at Weldon and Ecton ; and of Edward the Confessor (i 042-1 066) at Wellingborough. During excavations at Northampton Castle ' others were found of Edward the Elder, Eadgar (959-975), three St. Edmund pieces of the tenth cen- tury, and one of Edward the Confessor. The value of these finds is slight enough, but a coin of Cuthred, king of Kent (798-806) was found about 1877 in ironstone workings near Brixworth, with a ring-headed pin of iron, about 6 inches long, with remains of silver-plating upon it. On one side of the disc is an interlaced ornament terminating in birds' heads ; the other was originally set with a stone, probably a garnet, and has the head of a quadruped engraved upon it. This somewhat un- common relic is preserved at Northampton, and has been figured with the coin in the Antiquary, vol. xxx. p. 104. It was not till 972 in the reign of Eadgar that a mint * was established in the county. Stamford had been included in the Danelagh, and known as one of the five burghs that figure so largely in the troubled times of the tenth century. The main part of the town always belonged to Lincoln- shire, but the Anglo-Saxon moneyers worked in the Northamptonshire 1 Associated Architectural ^octettes (1882), Northants, p. 246, gives numismatic details. Archirologual Institute, vol. xxxv. p. 272. 255
 * Described by Mr. Samuel Sharp in Numismatic Chronicle, new series, vol. ix. p. 327 ; "Journal oj