EARLY MEDIEVAL COIN

630

A gold Merovingian tremissis of the Nietap type (from Frisia), dating to circa 630-40. The coin is also recorded on the Early Medieval Coin Corpus, ref: EMC 2012.0128. Another Nietap type tremissis from Lincolnshire is recorded on the EMC, ref: 2012.0120, and another from the same site as the present coin is recorded as PAS ref. LIN-0B3EEB.The coin is small, circular, 8mm in diameter and 2.7mm thick. The rim of the flan is irregularly-shaped, showing bumps caused by the initial casting of the flan or by secondary hammering. The obverse bears the motif of a double cross, formed of a single vertical strokes with two crossing bars or, if viewed at 90 degrees, like an H with a single horizontal stroke and two vertical bars. Both tips of each bar are swollen into an irregular enlargement flat above but expanded at either side, somewhat like a heart-shape. Each stroke of the motif is approximately 4.2mm long suggesting that the die was formed by three strokes into the matrix each made with a single blow from the same cutting or impressing tool. Around this central double-cross motif is a ring formed by ten pellets spaced 1mm apart, linked by a connecting bar into a circle. The reverse is crude and 'granulated', and appears to be unstruck or struck from a poor die.This is a rare coin with just a few parallels from England. A single example occurred in the famous Crondall hoard, the primary source of knowledge about the earliest English shillings usually ascribed to Kent or London, dating to 616-640, the reign following AEthelbert I. The Crondall example is given by Metcalf, Thrymsas and Sceattas Volume I, Plate 3, Item 73, together with two plain items of gold of the same size, from the same hoard, all weighing in the vicinity of 1.29-1.3 grams, as does the present example. Metcalf calls them 'Possibly Anglo-Saxon'.They may also be compared very closely with the example found at Sudbourne, Suffolk (PAS ref SF-F8EA61) and the example found near Coddenham, Suffolk, in association with a group of the (later) pale gold thrymsas including the hand and cross portrait type, the two emperors type, the Pada types and the Desaiona types. It is extraordinary that the two outstanding known group finds of thrymsas should both include an example of this rare type, despite the difference of their date horizons, but the fact leaves no doubt that the present Sudbourne object belongs firmly in a mid seventh century numismatic context.