A HISTORY OF NORFOLK both of which belong to the latter variety, one was found in a burial and might be supposed to date the other which fell by some accident into the river at Norwich. Both might be referred to the earlier Viking terror of King Alfred's time and the early Danish kingdom in East Anglia, especially as Guthrum became a Christian in 878, and the practice of burying weapons and ornaments with the dead would cease as the new faith spread among his subjects. But according to the evidence at present available, the type with the long straight guard was the earlier of the two, and may have been derived from the same source as the early Anglo-Saxon specimens, as the main difference consists in the substitution of metal for wooden mounts. In a number of graves excavated in Sweden the Santon type was invariably associated with relics of a later date than the year 1000, while the straight guard and triangular pommel accompanied interments of the three preceding centuries.* But this may not be altogether decisive for specimens found in England, for it must be observed that the ornament on the Santon brooch does not include the grasping figure that is seldom absent from these and some other ornaments produced in Scandinavia towards the close of the Viking period. And finally there are examples of tortoise brooches, as those from Barra in the national collection, which do present the motive just mentioned, and at the same time leave no doubt that they are later and degenerate specimens, in which the open-work and double front are no longer to be seen, and the bosses have dwindled into studs that barely project from the surface. This decadent form differs in almost every detail from what is supposed to have been the original type, a quadruped of some kind seen from above ; but intermediate stages have been noticed in the island of Bornholm and elsewhere, and an instructive series figured ^ to show the evolution of the tortoise brooch during several centuries of northern art. Of coins dating from the later Anglo-Saxon period many have been found in the county but few localities are mentioned. A silver penny of Coenwulf, king of Mercia (796-822) is recorded^ from Bircham Tofts, but the chief interest lies in the mints and names of moneyers. Coins were struck in East Anglia under eight Anglian kings, only three of whom are known to history, the series beginning with Beonna, about 760 ; and the peculiar series bearing the name of the martyred king St. Edmund were struck at the end of the ninth and during the earliest years of the tenth century. But the first pieces showing the place of mintage were struck at Norwich in the reign of iEthelstan I.* The Thetford mint seems to date from the reign of Eadgar, and there may perhaps have been a mint at Castle Rising in the time of Alfred. Coins of Edward the Confessor were issued from Dereham and there are some indications of a mint at Walsingham. Specimens of local coins are
- Archaolo^a, vol. 50. p. 532.
^ Antiquaires du Nord, M^moires (1890), p. 12, figs. 16-33. ^ Norfolk Archirohgj, vol. viii. p. 331.
- Journal of British Archaolo^cal Association, vol. xxxvi. pp. 105, 291.
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