What a wonderful early
medieval Anglo Saxon coin! Such a
rarity, as well as historically interesting.
Edgar was probably in
his teens when he succeeded
his father. He
had such a short reign, having been murdered in mysterious circumstances in 978, that you would expect
his impact on
history to be minimal. But it was not. He is a saint in the Eastern Orthodox
Church, the
Roman Catholic
Church and the Anglican Communion. Christians all through the Middle Ages looked to him as a role model and avidly read the highly dubious later
medieval accounts of
his life and untimely death.
I have a few thoughts of why this might be. He must have been very popular with
his subjects. Consider the account of
his death in the Peterborough version of the
Anglo Saxon Chronicle-
"
No worse deed for the English race was done than this was, since they first sought out the land of Britain. Men murdered him, but God exalted him. In life he was an earthly king; after death he is now a heavenly saint. His earthly relatives would not avenge him, but his Heavenly Father has much avenged him."
He also seems to have been capable of taking
good advice.
His short reign saw a much needed improvement in the uniformity of the currency with the
moneyers in the 60 or more mints all striking coins with the same design. The economy apparently improved as well, with currency changing
hands with great efficiency. The evidence for that is that about 66% of single coin finds of Edgar’s silver pennies that are found are outside the
area of their
mint.
It could be postulated that he helped keep Anglo Saxon society strong, perhaps one of the reasons it survived the Norman Conquest to re-emerge centuries later as the core of English culture which was in turn central to the creation of Great Britain- and ultimately the British Empire. As an Australian my nation would not exist without a British Empire.
That might seem a very long bow, but without the early Anglo Saxon kings would anything like the modern world as we know it exist? How many kings could we subtract before the culture would be too weak to survive the terrible aftermath of the Norman invasion?
Granted there is Alfred the Great, we could hardly expect future English
success without him.
But could we have done without the short reign of the young Edgar?
Perhaps not.
A book I can strongly recommend on the Anglo Saxon period is
The Anglo-Saxons edited by
James Campbell with contributions by
Eric John and Patrick Wormald. My much loved copy is a Book Club Associates edition printed in 1982, which contains illustrated sections on the coinage of the different Saxon kings.
Best Regards,
Steve