page_title: History of the English penny (c. 600 – 1066)
section_title: The 9th century
hierarchical_section_title: History of the English penny (c. 600 – 1066) / The 9th century
caption_attribution_description: English: Silver coin of Alfred the Great. Coin is property of the British Museum. Ænglisc: Seolfring þæs cyninges Ælfredes. Hit is sundorfeoh þæs British Museum.
context_page_description: The history of the English penny can be traced back to the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of the 7th century: to the small, thick silver coins known to contemporaries as pæningas or denarii, though now often referred to as sceattas by numismatists. Broader, thinner pennies inscribed with the name of the king were introduced to southern England in the middle of the 8th century. Coins of this format remained the foundation of the English currency until the 14th century.
context_section_description: After Offa's death in 796, usurpers in Kent and East Anglia – Eadbearht Præn and Eadwald – took power and issued coins in their own names, following the design of Offa' heavy coinage. After a small issue at London based on this same type, the new Mercian ruler Coenwulf instituted a reform of the coinage leading to the new tribrach type. This non-portrait type used an obverse design modelled on the earlier coinage of Cynethryth, and despite its use of the central M (for Merciorum) was adopted by Eadbearht, Eadwald and even by Beorhtric of Wessex, who struck a very rare coinage around this time.
  By 798 Coenwulf had regained Kent and East Anglia also came back under his power by the 9th century. He appointed a sub-ruler for Kent – his brother Cuthred – in whose name coins were struck at Canterbury. Cuthred and his brother may have minted simultaneously in the cross-and-wedges portrait type current from around 805, but it is equally possible that they had sole control of the mint one after the other. 
  Around the same time, the archiepiscopal coinage at Canterbury also changed: the new archbishop, Wulfred, was very eager to assert his ecclesiastical rights, even at the expense of the king, and instituted an archiepiscopal portrait coinage bearing no reference at all to Coenwulf. This attractive series was modelled on the silver denarii produced by Pope Hadrian I (772–95).
  Coenwulf continued a portrait coinage for the rest of his reign at Canterbury, London, East Anglia and, from c. 810, at a new mint located at Rochester in Kent. Canterbury came to dominate silver coin production, and whilst East Anglia and Rochester remained relatively stable, pennies from London become very rare: despite the recent discovery of a gold coin of Coenwulf with the legend DE VICO LVNDONIAE it is clear that the mint of London was in decline by around 800.
  In the years between Coenwulf's death in 821 and Egbert of Wessex's conquest of Kent and the south-east in 825, the mint at Canterbury weathered a turbulent period that is better reflected in the coins than any written source. Coenwulf's brother and successor Ceolwulf I held Kent, but coins in his name from Canterbury are very rare and struck by only a few of the full complement of moneyers. Nonetheless, his short reign provides evidence of quite strong interest in the coinage, and several types common to a number of mints were introduced: a feature not seen in the latter part of his predecessor's reign. The largest of these new types even encompassed the normally distinct East Anglian mint. Rochester became far more productive under Ceolwulf, perhaps to compensate for lower royal production at Canterbury. It looks like the greater part of Canterbury's coinage from the years c. 822–24 consists of 'anonymous' pennies bearing a royal- or archiepiscopal-style portrait surrounded by the moneyer's name and the mint name (Dorobernia civitas) on the reverse. No reference is made to any king or archbishop. This fascinating coinage seems to reflect a time when the moneyers were uncertain of whose authority to recognise, probably around Ceolwulf's deposition in 823 by Beornwulf. No Kentish coins are known in his name, but there are many in the name of one Baldred, who was probably another Mercian sub-ruler of Kent, though this is difficult to tell for certain from the very scanty written records of this period. However, it is known that when Egbert of Wessex and his son Æthelwulf invaded Kent in 825 they put Baldred to flight and imposed their own rule.
  Egbert's campaign of conquest took him far beyond Kent and even through Mercia to the borders of Northumbria in 829–30. Unusually, this dramatic military success was reflected in an issue of coinage from London, with Egbert named REX M(erciorum). This is one of very few cases in Anglo-Saxon England where it looks like coinage was being used in a propagandistic way: design and production was not as closely tied to politics and current events as in the classical or modern period. 
  After these conquests Egbert retreated and consolidated his position in the so
caption: Silver coin of Alfred the Great, King of Wessex from 871 to 899.
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