established in France by King Dagobert in the seventh century, were the Saxons with the tin and lead of England;[1] and Mr. Macpherson is of opinion that, as we know from Domesday Book that in the neighbourhood of Gloucester there were iron-works in the time of Edward the Confessor, which had probably been kept up since before the invasion of the Romans, iron, too, as well as lead and tin, may perhaps have been one of the few British exports during the Anglo-Saxon period. This writer thinks it also not impossible that mines of the precious metals may have been wrought at this time in England, and part of their produce exported, although the existence of such mines in the island is unnoticed by any historian since the beginning of the Roman dominion, with the exception of Bede.[2] It is certain that large sums in gold and silver were raised in the country on different occasions, and much coin or bullion repeatedly carried out of it; and it appears difficult to comprehend whence all this wealth could be obtained with so few manufactures and so little exportable produce of any kind. The early eminence of the Anglo-Saxons in the art of working gold and silver may be taken as affording another presumption that, whencesoever procured, there was no want of these metals in the island. "We have undoubted proof," says Mr. Macpherson, "that the English jewellers and workers of gold and silver were eminent in their professions, and that probably as early as the beginning of the seventh century....So great was the demand for highly-finished trinkets of gold and silver, that the most capital artists of Germany resorted to England; and, moreover, the most precious specimens of foreign workmanship were imported by the merchants."[3] On the other hand, articles in gold and silver seem to have been the chief description of manufactured goods exported from England in this period.
Among the exports from Britain during part of this period are supposed to have been horses, because one of
