Edward the Martyr Penny, Lincoln Mint, moneyer Robert

Edward the Martyr (975-978), silver Penny, Lincoln Mint, Moneyer Rodbert, draped and diademed portrait left, linear circle and legend with outer beaded circle surrounding both sides, +EADPEARD REX ANGLO, rev. small cross pattée, +RODBERT M-O LINDC, weight 1.34g (S.C.B.I. Glasgow 2:749; S.C.B.I Lincoln 27:16; N.763; S.1142). Toned a little weak in parts, very fine and a very rare moneyer at Lincoln, one of only four known with two of these in museums.

The legends translate on obverse as "Edward King of the English" and reverse "Robert of Lincoln."

Rodbert was one of ten moneyers listed by North working at Lincoln, one of 35 mint towns named for Edward the Martyr, most of the mints being one moneyer only. Lincoln had the second largest number after Stamford and London only had seven moneyers at this time equaling Winchester.

Edward born circa 961, the eldest son of Eadgar was only 14 when he ascended the throne, his mother having died when he was a youngster. He was crowned on the 18^th July 975, however famine and pestilence shortly broke out in the Kingdom, as well as pillaging of monasteries blighting the new reign. Edward's Stepmother Aethelfryth the third wife of Eadgar also favored her youngest surviving son Aethelred for the throne as being "born in the purple" of Eadgar's reign. An unfortunate accident at a Royal council meeting at Calne in Wiltshire in early 978 where an upper storey of a building collapsed killing many important people did not help matters, Dunstan narrowly surviving as he was standing on a beam that withstood the collapse. On the 18^th March 978 Edward was murdered near Corfe Castle in Dorset, the legend being that upon visiting his Stepmother, one of her attendants (or even herself) stabbed him as he leant down from his horse to grasp a drink. The horse bolted and he either died from his wound or from falling from the horse aged around 18. Buried in haste at nearby Wareham it was not long before miracles began to occur in connection to his body and he was later reinterred at Shaftesbury and sanctified as Edward the Martyr.

The City of Lincoln situated on the north bank of the River Witham some 33 miles north east of Nottingham was occupied by the Danes in 918 but the army there submitted to Edward the Elder and in 942 was one of the Five Boroughs. William I built a castle here in 1067 and the minster of St Mary was taken by Remigius of Dorchester as his cathedral in 1072. Later Rannulf the Earl of Chester and William de Roumare Earl of Loncoln, seized the castle to hold against King Stephen in 1140. The King besieged the castle and was captured in defeat at the Battle of Lincoln with the town sacked and burnt. The castle was later surrendered to Stephen by Rannulf who three years later granted it back to him.

In the middle of the reign of Henry I the signature of the Lincoln Mint changes to NICOLE until the end of Stephen's first type and in some later short cross coinage, this being a French name for the city seen in some mediaeval documents, with Lincolnia being the name in Latin.

Provenance

Ex Spink USA Auction, 19^th January 2020, lot 72.

This coin is currently the best example available to a collector, the other in private hands was found in 2013 with a large chip, the one in the Lincoln collections sylloge is poorer than this piece. The ex Dr Hunter piece in Glasgow is slightly better but institutionalized.