Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Wednesday 30 June 2021

Losing a small fortune at the time of the Black Death


The BBC News website had an interesting account last week of the discovery of two high value gold coins from the mid-fourteenth century at Reepham in Norfolk. One is an extremely rare coin, a leopard minted briefly in 1344 and then withdrawn from circulation, and the other a gold noble from 1351-2. The article sets the coins in the context of the Black Death and the changes in the currency at the time, though it has one mistake in that it does not mention the previous attempt at having a gold coinage in England, the short-lived 1257 issue of a gold penny, valued at 20d, by King Henry III.

If, as it appears they were, the coins were lost, rather than being concealed, then one can imagine their owner being distinctly unamused.



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