This silver coin minted on the orders of King Cnut in Bath is part of a stylistic deviation from the tradition of copying the designs of Roman currency,¹ but its role as part of Cnut's campaign to stabilize and enrich his holdings goes beyond this aesthetic variation.
Cnut started as a raider, but became King of England in 1016 CE and eventually added Denmark and Norway to his holdings before dying in 1035 CE. The Knytlinga Saga focuses especially on the devastation he wrought upon his enemies and their lands, but once he had accomplished this, he succeeded in building a rich and stable empire. In fact, the saga takes a pause from the action to praise his lavish spending and the wealth he earned from his three kingdoms.²  Adopting a practice of Anglo-Saxon rulers, Cnut converted much of this wealth to coinage, minted in dozens of locations all across his empire. The typical coin had a bust on one side with an inscription along the lines of "Cnut, King of the" followed by an ethnonym for the local population, and the back often noted the mint of origin by moneyer's name and town. Under Cnut's reign, enough Scandinavian-made coinage was used in Scandinavia that modern archeologists can use it to reliably date finds. In Cnut's time, not only would the prevalence of his coins serve as a ubiquitous reminder of his power, it would also bring standardized currency to the hack-silver economy of Scandinavia and very well facilitate trade between Cnut's kingdoms as well.³  All in all, this coin and its fellows are potent reminders of the economic as well as military power wielded by one of the most powerful rulers in Scandinavian history.

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