A Danelaw St Edmund Memorial Coin
The coin shown here is a silver halfpenny, just over a centimeter in diameter. It was produced by stamping, a process where the image is hammered onto the metal. On one side the coin has a Christian cross with SCEADI written in a circle. The other side has a capital ‘a’ in the center with SCEAD written in a circle. The letters refer to St. Edmund, a king and martyr figure from the East Angles, an area that became part of the Danelaw after his death (which was at the hands of Vikings).[2] SCEADI is a shortened version of his whole title, SCE EDMUND REX, the Latin translation of Holy King Edmund. This translation has been seen on many other coins from the time period but spelled in varying ways.[3]
The St. Edmund memorial coins, as they are now known, were produced in the southern Danelaw between 895 and about 917; this coin is from some time then.[4] Though it may seem odd that the Norse would honor through coinage a king whom they had killed, these coins are actually seen as a bridge between the early and late coinage of the Danelaw. The first coins minted in the newly established Danelaw were mostly crude copies of Anglo-Saxon coins.[5] This makes particular sense when considering the fact that the Vikings came from a culture where currency wasn’t used. Their economy depended on the weights of precious metals and currency was not minted, though coins from other countries were used for their weight.[6] It was only after a couple decades in England that Vikings began making coins that deviated from Anglo-Saxon norms, though they never produced truly distinct coins.
The Vikings did more than just adopt English currency standards, they also assimilated somewhat into the Christian religion in England as also seen in the Danelaw coins. The presence of a cross on the coin and the reverence of St. Edmund are indications of the importance the government attributed to Christianity since coinage was regulated, loosely, by the kings.[7] These coins represent the willingness of the Norse to adopt English customs in order to assimilate and please the people they were ruling. What makes them a bridge between the old and new coinage of the Danelaw is that they were not copies of a previous English-produced coin, but created during the reign of the Norse. They weren’t completely Norse either, as evidenced by the presence of an English king on the coin. Instead, they were transitional and a mixture, much like the Norse presence in England overall. Throughout the time of the Danelaw, Norse and English cultural mores mixed freely, creating less a Scandinavian colony than a hybridized society.
