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A further Agnus Dei penny of King Æthelred the Unready
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 October 2022
Extract
A further example of an Agnus Dei penny recently surfaced at a London auction.1 It was found in 2018 by a metal-detectorist, in south Lincolnshire. It is the twenty-second recorded example struck from Agnus Dei obverse and reverse dies, and takes the total of surviving specimens, including the two known mules with the Last Short Cross type, to twenty-four. The new coin is well preserved, without piercing, mounting or pecking, but is chipped between two and five o’clock. Both the mint, Leicester, and the moneyer, Æthelwig, are already known for the Agnus Dei type;2 it is in fact a die-duplicate of the other known coin of Æthelwig.3 The new coin brings the number of known examples for Leicester to four, and adds a second example for the moneyer. Allowing for the chip, the weight of 1.46g is consistent with the c. 1.75g noted for more complete examples.
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- © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press
References
1 Baldwins of St James’s, auction 43, 25 March 2019, lot 22.
2 Keynes, S. and Naismith, R., ‘The Agnus Dei Pennies of King Æthelred the Unready’, ASE 40 (2012), 175–223 Google Scholar, nos. 11–13, and ‘A New Agnus Dei/Last Small Cross Mule’, ASE 44 (2015), 307–8. For recent discussion of the wider historical context, see Roach, L., Æthelred the Unready (New Haven, CT, 2016), pp. 275–9 and 286Google Scholar.
3 Æthelwig, no.13, a coin in the Estonian History Museum, Tallinn.
4 Counting as a probable English find transplanted to France, Keynes and Naismith, ‘Agnus Dei Pennies’, no. 1, which first surfaced in Boulogne.
5 Keynes and Naismith, ‘Agnus Dei Pennies’, pp. 201–2, nos. 17, 18, 21 (single finds), and nos. 2, 5, 7–8, 10–16 (hoards).
6 Ibid. nos. 2, 7, 13, 18, 19 and 21.
7 Ibid. nos. 6 (near Epping, Essex), 9 (?Gracechurch Street, London) and 20 (‘South of England’), plus the present coin.
8 Keynes and Naismith, ‘A New Agnus Dei/Last Small Cross Mule’.
9 Keynes and Naismith, ‘Agnus Dei Pennies’, nos. 18–20. The two known Agnus Dei/Last Small Cross mules both have reverse dies naming Stamford. The obverse is a die duplicate of Keynes and Naismith, ‘Agnus Dei Pennies’, no. 18.