Speaker
Description
Instead of focusing on the limitations of the relatively scarce and high-value early medieval currency, this talk asks instead why such coins might have been made. In early medieval England the manufacture of coin was probably driven by a wide range of functional demands, but a narrower segment of society, with the needs of the elite wasparamount. This dichotomy can be traced from the seventh century onwards, but will be explored at more depth with reference to the tenth- and eleventh-century English coinage, which carries the names of numerous mint-places and moneyers. It will be demonstrated that moneyers were integrated into networks of elite demand, and occupied a middling position that allowed them to deal both with high- and low-status elements of society.
