jewellery, rings and hack-silver being predominant in the ninth and the first half of
the tenth century. During the second half of the tenth century coins became more
numerous, and by the eleventh century coins outnumbered and outweighed silver.
Eventually, by the middle of the eleventh century, when state coinages were established,
hoards were predominantly made up of coins, in total c. 90 per cent (Hårdh 1976 : 140 –
2 ; Gullbekk 2003 : 23 – 4 ). From this point silver was second to coins in the Danish and
Norwegian economy and society until the collapse of state coinage after the mid-
fourteenth century.
COINAGE IN THE VIKING WORLDWherever they settled the Vikings assimilated local customs and habits, adopting
Christianity, statesmanship, law and coinage. The Vikings in England rapidly adopted
the habit of striking their own coins, already from the 890 s (Grierson and Blackburn
1986 : 318 – 9 ). The Anglo-Saxon coinage became a major influence for Scandinavian
coinage even in areas where contacts with German society were strong and German
coins abundant. The explanation for this is the fact that the Anglo-Saxon coinage and
monetary organisation were the most sophisticated at this time, and because Danish
kings also reigned over England and Norway c. 1018 to 1047. Anglo-Saxon moneyers
operating in Scandinavia had an important bearing on the early coinage of Denmark,
Sweden and Norway, as in the case of the travelling moneyer Godwine who made the
dies and inscribed his name on the reverses of the first royal coinages in Denmark,
Sweden and Norway c. 995. Anglo-Saxon moneyers are reported to have worked in
Denmark throughout the reigns of Cnut the Great, Harthacnut and Magnus the Good.
English moneyers are especially prevalent in the reign of Cnut the Great when almost
half of the moneyers were Anglo-Saxon. In some cases official English dies were brought
to Denmark and used in combination with locally produced dies at Danish mints
(Blackburn 1981 : 425 – 47 ; 1985 : 101 – 24 ).
Anglo-Saxon influence is clearly seen in monetary organisation and the use of coin
design. The large series of Scandinavian imitations of contemporary Anglo-Saxon
pennies in the first decades of the eleventh century are significant (Malmer 1997 ). Of the
few coins issued by Olaf Haraldsson (the Saint) of Norway, one uses the extraordinary
Agnus Dei-type issued in England c. 1009 as a prototype. Today only fifteen of Æthelred
II’s prototype Agnus Dei coins survive, most of which have been found within Scandi-
navia. It was struck for only a short period of time, and most probably the size of this
coinage was only a fraction of the common series issued in England in the reign of
Æthelred II ( 978 – 1016 ). This makes the adoption of the Agnus Dei-type in Norway
remarkable, and it suggests that the people commissioning the dies had an awareness of
coinage as an effective tool of communication. Otherwise the influence on Scandinavian
coin design comes from Byzantine and not German coinage. This is especially the case
for Danish and Norwegian coinage in the 1060 s, 1070 s and 1080 s. (For Byzantine
influence on Scandinavian coinage, see Skaare 1965 : 99 – 111 ; Grierson 1966 : 124 – 38 ;
Hendy 1970 : 187 – 97. For Finnish imitations, see Talvio 2002 : 28 – 9 ).
The production of coinage was never developed in any of the island societies that in
many ways played an important role in the history of the Viking world, especially for
the history of wealth and money in this period: Gotland, Öland, Bornholm, Iceland, the
Hebrides, the Faeroe Islands and Greenland. In fact, the production of coins can be
–– chapter 10 : Coinage and monetary economies––