A HISTORY OF HERTFORDSHIRE so that the reverse is incomplete, but the outline of the horse and rider as well as the lower limbs of the standing warrior can be dis- tinguished (fig. 3). There can be little hesitation in referring these pieces to a Romano-British mint, possibly at Verulamium, in the fifth century ; they may indeed be still later, for the distinctive Anglo-Saxon coinage apparently started with the sceatta about the year 600, two centuries after the withdrawal of the Roman officials from these shores. Barbarous imitations of Roman coins have been found, together with specimens of Diocletian (284-305) and succeeding emperors, in the neighbourhood of two Roman villas near Boxmoor railway station; 1 and a ' quantity of Roman and Saxon coins ' 2 found at Hexton may have included some of the same kind. As parallel instances are needed to throw light on this somewhat obscure subject reference may here be made to a discovery of the same kind in the parish of Whittington, Gloucs., where among a total of 700 or 800 were found Romano- British specimens of the period subsequent to Arcadius (395408).* These rude attempts may be contrasted with two interesting pieces found in Hertfordshire, which may be said show the Anglo-Saxon moneyer at his best (figs. 5, 6). Coins of OfFa (757-96), the first to introduce the penny into England, are common enough, but one is here illustrated to accompany a rare specimen of his widow Cynethrith (796) . 4 Both coins are from the neighbourhood of Hitchin, the latter having been discovered by a working man and sold to a cobbler in that town at the end of the eighteenth century. The locality is not of great importance for coins of that date, when intercourse between the various English kingdoms was easy and extensive, but it may be of interest to note that coins of OfFa and his wife have also been discovered not far apart in Sussex. 5 As long ago as 1744 a gold ornament, described in Cough's edition of Camden's Britannia " as a tore, was found at Park Street near St. Albans. The original drawing is repeated in the Journal of the Archaeo- logical Institute 7 for 1849, but is unsatisfactory and leaves the true nature of the object uncertain. It is however about an ounce heavier than the gold armlet in the British Museum from Wendover, with which it has been compared. It may have been used for the same purpose, and if the parallel is just, belongs to the Viking period, as the three centuries between 700 and rooo are usually designated. At the west end of the Abbey church a coin of Charlemagne (768-8 14)" was found nearly half a century ago, and from Boxmoor a circular brooch 9 of cast bronze (fig. 7), the centre of which comes is 1 Society of Antiquaries, Proceedings, ii. 295. a Lewis, Topographical Dictionary, under Hexton. 3 Society of Antiquaries, Proceedings, 2nd ser. ii. 305. 4 Both are from the cabinet of Mr. William Ransom, who has kindly lent them for illustration. 6 Sussex 4rch<tological Collections, xv. 242 ; xxi. 219. 8 Vol. vi. p. 48, fig. 2, and p. 52. 7 Vol. i. p. 347, pi. xvii. fig. 9. 8 Figured in Nicholson's Guide to the Abbey (Wm. Page's edition), p. 50. 9 In the collection of Sir John Evans, K.C.B., who has kindly lent it for illustration. Society of
Antiquaries, Proceedings, iii. 41.
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