Will Bennett of Dix Noonan Webb in London forwarded this press release about the firm's upcoming sale of a Anglo-Saxon silver penny of Æthelberht II, recently found by a metal detectorist.
-Editor
FOUND IN A SUSSEX FIELD – A UNIQUE COIN
TO BE AUCTIONED PROVIDES A CLUE TO AN
EAST ANGLIAN ROYAL MURDER
The unique silver penny minted for Æthelberht II found by metal detectorist Darrin Simpson
A unique Anglo-Saxon silver penny which provides a clue to the murder of a saintly
East Anglian king by a neighbouring monarch has been found in a Sussex field
by a metal detectorist. The 1,200 year-old coin minted during the reign of Æthelberht
II will be auctioned at Dix Noonan Webb, the international coins and medals
specialists, in London on 11 June 2014, when it is expected to fetch £15,000 to
£20,000.
Darrin Simpson, a 48 year-old pest control specialist from Eastbourne, Sussex, was
hurrying to shelter from a hailstorm in early March when he picked up a signal on his
detector. Despite the appalling weather he stopped, dug down 6-8 inches and found
the penny which has been identified by experts as the only one of its type ever
discovered.
Mr Simpson, who has been a metal detectorist for 12 years, had been working his way
across the unidentified site in Sussex for about an hour when he was caught in the
hailstorm. As he moved quickly, planning to take shelter under some trees, he got a
signal similar to others he had picked up that day. As they had all turned out to be
Second World War era .303 bullet cases, he was not optimistic as he stopped to dig.
“I thought it was a Saxon coin, the first one I had found, and I was very happy about
that,” said Mr Simpson. It was not until he contacted the Early Medieval Corpus of
Coin Finds at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge that he realised the full
importance of his discovery. “It was a bit of a shock really, I couldn’t sleep for two
nights after it was identified,” he said. “The condition is really good. This is a unique
coin. I doubt if I will ever find anything better.”
The coin is only the fourth ever found from the reign of Æthelberht II, a shadowy
figure who ruled East Anglia in the late 8th-century. The other three are all in
museums and have a different design. The coin found by Mr Simpson is the first to
have Æthelberht’s name and the title REX on the same side.
“This new discovery is an important and unexpected addition to the numismatic
history of 8th century England,” said Christopher Webb, head of the coins department
at Dix Noonan Webb.
Little is known about Æthelberht II’s reign but stories about his piety and his
gruesome end ordered by Offa, king of neighbouring Mercia, have survived down the
centuries. His reign over the kingdom of East Anglia is thought to have begun in 779.
Fifteen years later in 794 he reluctantly agreed to marry Eadburh, Offa’s daughter,
and set off to visit her at the Mercian king’s villa at Sutton Walls in Herefordshire.
In a scene worthy of the television series Game of Thrones, Offa’s queen Cynethryth
persuaded her husband to have their guest killed and Æthelberht was seized, bound
and beheaded. Even in those brutal times, the murder of one king by another was rare.
According to medieval legend, Æthelberht’s severed head later fell off a cart and,
after being found in a ditch, restored a blind man’s sight. The dead king was declared
a saint and became the focus of a religious cult in East Anglia. Many parish churches
in Norfolk and Suffolk are still dedicated to him
Medieval brass depicting the headless St Ethelbert with Christ stained glass in St Ethelbert’s
Æthelberht II Church, Alby, Norfolk
The coin to be auctioned at Dix Noonan Webb may have been one of the reasons for
Æthelberht’s terrible end. The East Anglian king is believed to have struck the other
three known coins from his reign with the approval of his much more powerful
neighbour Offa. However the newly-discovered penny looks like an act of defiance by
the increasingly ambitious Æthelberht.
The fact that Æthelberht’s name and the title REX (King) appear on the same side of
the coin may have demonstrated a degree of independence that was simply too much
for Offa and Cynethryth to bear and they decided to kill him. How this penny came to
be in a Sussex field will never be known but its discovery by Mr Simpson provides us
with a possible motive for a 1,200 year-old Anglo-Saxon royal murder.
For more information, see:
www.dnw.co.uk
Wayne Homren, Editor
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