Viking-age silver: York pennies, hack-silver and ringed weights
Viking-age silver in Britain. Hack-silver, peck-marks, ringed weights, and the named York Viking kings — Cnut, Anlaf, Eric Bloodaxe.
Viking-age silver in Britain is rich, complicated, and unusually physical — pennies of the York Viking kings, Anglo-Saxon coins that ended up in Norse hands, and a whole secondary economy of cut and weighed bullion (“hack-silver”). The Viking economy was a weight-economy first and a token-economy second, which is why so many surviving Viking-age silver finds look chopped, pecked, or fragmentary.
The hack-silver economy
Viking traders operated a parallel bullion economy alongside struck coinage. The principle was simple: silver was valuable by weight regardless of what it had been before. Whole coins, cut coins, fragments of jewellery, lengths of arm-ring, ingots and amorphous lumps all functioned as currency provided they were silver. Hoards from Viking-age Britain typically mix:
- Whole coins— usually Anglo-Saxon pennies, sometimes Arabic dirhams or Frankish deniers.
- Cut coins— halves and quarters, deliberately chopped to make change to a target weight.
- Ingots— cast bars of various sizes.
- Hack-silver— chopped fragments of arm-rings, neck-rings, brooches, mounts.
The York Viking pennies
From the early 880s to 954, York (then Jorvik) was ruled by a succession of Norse kings who struck their own silver penny coinage on the Anglo-Saxon model. The most important Viking-king coinages:
| Ruler | Dates | Tell |
|---|---|---|
| Guthrum (East Anglia) | c.880 | Imitative of Alfred, sometimes with Christian name ÆTHELSTAN |
| Cnut (early York) | c.895–905 | CVNNETTI penny with sword and hammer types |
| Sword type (early) | c.895–905 | Anonymous; sword as primary reverse motif |
| St Peter / St Martin | c.905–927 | Religious legend (SCI PETRI MO, SCI MARTINI) — York pseudo-ecclesiastical issues |
| Anlaf Guthfrithsson | 939–941 | Raven type — distinctive raven reverse |
| Anlaf Sihtricsson | 941–944, 948–952 | Cross-pattée types |
| Eric Bloodaxe | 947–948, 952–954 | Sword type; the last Viking king of York |
The raven type
Anlaf Guthfrithsson’s raven penny (c.939–941) is one of the most iconographically striking Anglo-Norse coins — the reverse shows a stylised raven with outspread wings, a clear reference to Odin’s pair of ravens Huginn and Muninn. The coin signals a Norse king ruling a Christian York with one foot still in the pagan religious world.
The St Peter and St Martin types
Anonymous Viking-York pennies of c.905–927 carry saints’ legends (SCI PETRI MO = St Peter the moneyer; SCI MARTINI= St Martin). They’re politically complex — struck under Christian Viking rulers who used ecclesiastical iconography on coinage that was also stamped with explicitly pagan symbols (hammer of Thor, sword). The same coin can carry a saint’s name on the obverse and Thor’s hammer in the reverse field.
Arabic dirhams in British Viking hoards
Viking trade networks reached as far as the Abbasid caliphate, and Arabic silver dirhams (struck mostly in central Asian mints — Samarkand, Tashkent, Balkh, Wasit) turn up in Viking-age hoards in Britain as part of the bullion economy. The dirham is a distinctive 25–30 mm thin silver coin with Arabic Kufic script in concentric circles — no portrait, no figural imagery. UK examples are scarce but always significant when found.
Anglo-Saxon pennies in Viking contexts
Most Viking-age silver finds in Britain are actually Anglo-Saxon pennies (Alfred, Edward the Elder, Athelstan, Edgar) that ended up in Norse hands. Reading the penny attributes the coin to an Anglo-Saxon king; the surrounding context (hack-silver, ingot fragments, peck-marks) places it in a Viking circulation. See our Anglo-Saxon kings guide for the named-king coin types.
Ingots and weights
Two non-coin Viking-age silver categories turn up in detector finds:
- Silver ingots: cast bars, usually elongated, weighing roughly a half-ounce or whole ounce. Often deliberately chopped down to make weight.
- Ringed weights: lead spheroids, sometimes decorated with reused metalwork (an Anglo-Saxon brooch fragment, a Roman coin set into the top). Used in scale-balanced transactions.
The decline of hack-silver
After Eric Bloodaxe’s expulsion from York in 954, Norse political control over a significant English region ends. By the time of Cnut’s conquest of England in 1016, the English coinage standard is well-established and Cnut’s own English coinage operates entirely within it. Hack-silver economies persist in Ireland, the Isle of Man, and parts of Scandinavia for another century, but in England the late Anglo-Saxon broad penny dominates from 973 onwards.
Procedural identification
- Look at the form. Whole coin? Cut coin? Fragment of jewellery? Ingot? Ringed weight? Each is a distinct find category.
- Check for pecks. Small chisel marks on the surface indicate Viking-age circulation, whatever the original form.
- For whole coins: identify the king. Anglo-Saxon name (Alfred / Edward / Athelstan / Edgar / Æthelred) or Viking-York name (Cnut / Anlaf / Eric).
- For ingots and hack-silver: weigh precisely (often to 0.01 g). The weight may correspond to a specific fraction of a Norse ounce (~26 g).
- Find-spot is crucial. Note exact coordinates and any associated objects. Viking hoards are productive sites; a single find often signals more in the area.
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