The Crondall Hoard is a hoard of coins and other articles that was found in the village of

Crondall Crondall () is a village and large civil parish in the north east of Hampshire in England, in the Crondall Hundred surveyed in the Domesday Book of 1086. The village is on the gentle slopes of the low western end of the North Downs range, and has ...

in the English county of

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English cities on its south coast, Southampton and Portsmouth, Hampshire ...

. The hoard was discovered in 1828 and is believed to date to the seventh century. It was the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold coins found prior to the 21st century. The coins are now in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum at

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

. The hoard was accidentally discovered by Charles Lefroy on his family's estate in 1828. As discovered it comprised 97 gold coins, together with three unstruck gold

planchet A planchet is a round metal disk that is ready to be struck as a coin. An older word for planchet is flan. They are also referred to as blanks. History The preparation of the flan or planchet has varied over the years. In ancient times, the ...

s and one gold-plated object that could have been a coin forgery. There were also a pair of jewelled ornaments, together with small chains that Lefroy thought may have been the remains of a pouch that had once held the coins and jewellery. Of the 97 coins, 73 were Anglo-Saxon

thrymsa The thrymsa () was a gold coin minted in seventh-century Anglo-Saxon England. It originated as a copy of Merovingian tremisses and earlier Roman coins with a high gold content. Continued debasement between the 630s and the 650s reduced the gold con ...

and 24 were

Merovingian The Merovingian dynasty () was the ruling family of the Franks from the middle of the 5th century until 751. They first appear as "Kings of the Franks" in the Roman army of northern Gaul. By 509 they had united all the Franks and northern Gauli ...

Frankish Frankish may refer to: * Franks, a Germanic tribe and their culture ** Frankish language or its modern descendants, Franconian languages * Francia, a post-Roman state in France and Germany * East Francia, the successor state to Francia in Germany ...

tremissis The tremissis or tremis (Greek: τριμίσιον, ''trimision'') was a small solid gold coin of Late Antiquity. Its name, meaning "a third of a unit", formed by analogy with semissis (half of a unit), indicated its value relative to the soli ...

. The consensus amongst historians is that hoard dates from between 635 AD and about 650 AD., p. 161, p. 84 It is not possible to know if the coins were hidden or lost by accident. It has been suggested by the

numismatist A numismatist is a specialist in numismatics ("of coins"; from Late Latin ''numismatis'', genitive of ''numisma''). Numismatists include collectors, specialist dealers, and scholars who use coins and other currency in object-based research. Altho ...

and historian

Philip Grierson Philip Grierson, FBA (15 November 1910 – 15 January 2006) was a British historian and numismatist, emeritus professor of numismatics at Cambridge University and a fellow of Gonville and Caius College for over seventy years. During his long an ...

that the hoard may be a

wergild Weregild (also spelled wergild, wergeld (in archaic/historical usage of English), weregeld, etc.), also known as man price (blood money), was a precept in some archaic legal codes whereby a monetary value was established for a person's life, to b ...

, compensation paid to the family of someone killed by the killer. Grierson noted that under the laws of the

Kingdom of Kent la, Regnum Cantuariorum , conventional_long_name = Kingdom of the Kentish , common_name = Kent , era = Heptarchy , status = vassal , status_text = , government_type = Monarchy ...

the wergild for killing a free Anglo-Saxon was 100 gold shillings and this matched the amount of gold in the hoard. However, there is no certainty that the 100 coins and blanks recovered by Lefroy was the whole of the hoard, and the place where the hoard was found was actually in the

Kingdom of Wessex la, Regnum Occidentalium Saxonum , conventional_long_name = Kingdom of the West Saxons , common_name = Wessex , image_map = Southern British Isles 9th century.svg , map_caption = S ...

, where the wergild tariffs were different. After discovery, the hoard remained in the Lefroy family until 1895 when it was sold to the 5th Lord Grantley. The fate of the three gold blanks, the possible forgery and the jewellery items is unknown, but all the coins were sold after Grantley's death in 1943 to the numismatic firm A H Baldwin & Sons. They in turn passed them on, at cost price, to the Ashmolean Museum, where they are on display. The hoard is of considerable historical significance, as it is the only large hoard of Anglo-Saxon thrymsa ever found, and a great deal of current knowledge of Anglo-Saxon gold coinage is the result of studying this hoard.

References

External links

Description of the Crondall Hoard, with photographs, from the Ashmolean Museum
Collection of the Ashmolean Museum History of Hampshire Treasure troves in England Treasure troves of Medieval Europe 1828 archaeological discoveries 7th-century artifacts Hoards from Anglo-Saxon Britain {{England-hist-stub