Kings of Mercia Burgred AD 852-874 Silver Penny Type A

Kings of Mercia Burgred AD 852-874 Silver Penny Type A,

Bust right, looks up with almond eye/ Moneyer in 3 lines. Moneyer Guthmund.

S938, 19mm, 0.88g.

Recorded with the Early Medieval Coinage database held at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, details and find spot will be provided.

Burgred (852-874): Beginning his reign in a decade where Scandinavian raiding parties were starting to overwinter in England and become extremely bold in their choice of targets, one of Burgred’s first acts as King of Mercia was to engage in a marriage alliance with the Kings of Wessex. Despite this consolidation of power and some mutual successes against the rebellious Welsh – the arrival of the ‘Great Heathen Army’ in 865 would effectively turn the domestic situation upside down. Initially paying off the invaders, Burgred was forced to flee in 874 after Tamworth and Repton were both sacked – he would travel to Rome and spend the rest of his life in exile, effectively a retiree. His coins are the most common of all the Mercian kings, apparently struck in large numbers with a complex administration encompassing over fifty different moneyers. Despite this, his coinage is fairly simple – mainly consisting variants of one main type (the so-called ‘lunettes’ issue).