Most Anglo-Saxon coins came from which country?

• A. Germany
• B. France
• C. Italy
• D. Denmark

Answer: (A)

Think about where the coins in Anglo-Saxon England mostly came from. In the early medieval period, England did strike its own coins in several mints, but a large portion of money in circulation was imported from the Frankish realms across the Channel. Frankish coins were widely used in trade with English kingdoms like Mercia and Wessex, so when archaeologists and historians see coin finds from this era, many of them originate from Francia (modern-day France). Only later, as English mints expanded, did more pennies get produced locally, but the dominant foreign source for much of the coinage circulating in earlier Anglo-Saxon times is France.

Italian and Danish coins show up less frequently in the archaeological record for everyday Anglo-Saxon use, and German coins would be even less typical for this period.