Whilst we, at least in spirit, in East Anglia, and more especially medieval East Anglia, it is a suitable coincidence to share an article from the other day on the BBC News website. This is about the discovery in north Norfolk of a medieval silver coin that had been adapted as a brooch.
What makes it more interesting is that the coin was struck by a late thirteenth century Archbishop of Cambrai and bears a very striking image of him. Enguerrand de Créqui held the diocese from 1273. Some sources give 1285 for his death, others 1293. There is a biography of him, in French, from Fr Wikipedia at Enguerrand de Créqui
At that time Cambrai was an ecclesiastical lordship within the Holy Roman Empire. It was taken over by the Emperor Charles V in 1543 and ceded to France in 1678. The history of the city and its lordship is set out by Wikipedia in Cambrai
The BBC article, with comments by my old Oxford acquaintance Dr Adrian Marsden, can be seen at Medieval brooch made from French bishop's coin found near Cromer
Thinking about the find led me to wonder why someone chose the bishop for a brooch. Could it have been a badge for a member of his episcopal retinue or was he so popular that people wanted to carry his image with them?
Given that it bears such a striking image of the bishop one wonders if it had been appropriated to represent a saint such as St Thomas of Canterbury.
The coin is an indicator of the wealth of the city and lordship in the late thirteenth century and of its place in the wider economy of north-west Europe. East Anglia would doubtless have economic ties with Cambrai with its important textile industry, and that might account for the presence of the coin brooch in Norfolk. I imagine another possibility is that it was lost by a continental pilgrim to Walsingham.
1 comment:
I can't help wondering if the BBC misquoted Dr.Marsden when it it wrote:
'Dr Marsden said this would not have happened in England.
"You do get bishops in charge of mints, but the coins would have had the king's head," he said.
"Generally, high-ranking people in France have more independence than in England - no English bishop would be allowed or dream of putting his head on a coin." '
The Bishop of Cambrai was effectively the ruler of a city-state in the Holy Roman Empire, rather than a high-ranking [person] in France, and as such perfectly entitled to issue coinage. I suppose the nearest thing to an independent English bishop was the prince bishop of Durham, who had his own mint from c.1080 - 1541. As Dr.Marsden says, the coins always bore the king's head, tho' apparently in the last century of the mint's existence some of the bishops added their initials, such as Cuthbert Tunstall with C.T.
See further at:
https://www.durhamworldheritagesite.com/learn/architecture/palace-green/moneyers-garth
and
http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/4860/
and
https://www.galata.co.uk/the-durham-mint
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