The Viking silver economy was thus based on a mixture of distinct artefact types and coin. But why was silver important, and how was it used? Within Scandinavia, silver fulfilled two important roles, and the same is true in north-west England: it had a currency role, and could pass by weight as a means of exchange within a bullion or metal-weight economy, but it also functioned as a status symbol, and could be worn and displayed in shows of wealth, or given as a gift to reward followers and/or to create allegiances and friendships. In this sense, it is possible to speak of two different types of silver economy: one ‘bullion’ and the other ‘display’, reflecting the monetary and social roles of silver respectively (Williams 2009, pp. 74-75).13 Gold could likewise be used as both a means of payment and of display, although it appears to have been predominantly used in the latter sense.'f Gold objects are occasionally found in Viking-Age hoards from Britain and Ireland, but their occurrence in north-west England is rare. The current corpus includes just six gold discs contained in the Halton Moor (Lancs) hoard, and a handful of gold finger-rings recovered as single finds from Sedburgh and Workington (Cumbria), and Aldersey and Chester (Cheshire) (Ager 2011a, pp. 127-28; Graham-Campbell 2011, pp. 107, 160, Handlist 2).
The diverse role of silver in north-west England is reflected in its varying treatment both within and between the region’s hoards. Within the Scandinavian bullion economy, silver (and gold) passed by weight and fineness regardless of its form. The deliberate cutting of precious metal provided convenient units of payment, which could then be weighed to the required sums using hand-held balances and weights (some examples of which have been found in the North West, as we consider below). One of the hallmarks of bullion use is therefore deliberately fragmented or ‘hack-’ silver. In hoards from our region, it is typical to find ingots cut at one or both ends. Some examples bear transverse hammer marks and deep grooves, both of which were designed to prepare the surface for cutting. Brooches and rings were also deliberately fragmented to generate hack-silver, as were Arabic dirhams (Figure 10.5). Other types of coin, for instance, from Anglo-Saxon England and France, are not usually cut, but this probably
FIGURE 10.5 The Silverdale hoard, Lancashire, contains many deliberately fragmented ingots and ornaments (© PAS).
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FIGURE 10.6 This ingot from West Yorkshire (just outside our region) displays small knife cuts or ‘nicks’, indicating it has been tested for its silver content (© PAS).
Reflects the fact that they were smaller and lighter than dirhams, and thus already in a form suitable for use in small-scale transactions (Williams 2009, p. 78).
Another physical indication of the use of silver as currency is provided by the appearance of test marks on both coins and non-numismatic objects. Testing the silver was designed to expose plated forgeries and/or to test the fineness of silver by means of a resistance test; an object or coin was thus most likely to acquire test marks when it changed hands during a commercial transaction. Small knife cuts known as ‘nicks’ were made to the surface of ingots and ornaments, and are visible today as small, crescent-shaped marks (Figure 10.6). Coins were also tested, by means of sharp, angled ‘pecks’, made by the point of a knife. These survive as small sprues of metal. Interestingly, ‘pecking’ seems to have been introduced by Vikings in England during a period in which both debased and good quality Anglo-Saxon coins were in circulation, suggesting that the phenomenon arose out of the need to distinguish bad coins from good (Archibald 2011, p. 64). In both forms of testing, if the silver was felt to be too soft, there was a chance it had been adulterated with lead; too hard, and additional copper might be present. Since it probably required quite a lot of experience and skill to judge the ‘right’ feel of the silver, testing may have been a job for specialists (ibid, 56).
A hoard discovered in 2011 in Silverdale (Lancs) is a good example of a predominantly ‘hack-silver’ hoard, in which the silver seems to have been primarily treated as currency. The hoard was found in a lead container, deposited face down. It contained a mix of silver ingots and ornaments, as well as Anglo-Saxon, Danelaw, Carolingian, and Arabic coins, on the basis of which it has been preliminary dated to
FIGURE 10.7 A penannular ‘thistle-brooch’ with long pin, Flusco Pike, Cumbria (© British Museum).
C. 900-910. The non-numismatic silver is predominantly in the form of hack-silver, derived from both ornaments and ingots (Figure 10.5). Of 129 ingots in the hoard, for instance, only thirteen are complete, with the remainder cut at one or both ends. Around 75% of the ornaments, chiefly arm-rings, also occur in hack-silver form. Much of the silver in the hoard has also been tested, and many of the coins are bent and/or pecked. Notably, coins minted by Viking rulers from the Danelaw were pecked alongside other types of ‘foreign’ coin, suggesting that they were not trusted any more than Frankish, Anglo-Saxon or Islamic issues.
Other items in Viking-Age hoards from our region are preserved as complete, intact objects. They highlight an altogether different function of silver in the North West, namely, that of display. Ornaments such as the massive ‘thistle-brooches’ found at Flusco Pike (Cumbria), so-called because of the thistlelike appearance of their terminals, were prominent status objects: they served as cloak fasteners and were worn on the shoulder with the pin facing upwards (Figure 10.7). Their weight and design made them impractical for everyday dress (the largest ‘thistle-brooch’ weighs over 700g, with a pin measuring 50cm in length) so it is likely that they were worn only on special occasions, for instance, at public or ritual functions. Such items would have enhanced the status of their owner, but they could also be given as gifts to reward followers and create allegiances. In the Icelandic sagas, kings sometimes give gold rings to members of their retinue as rewards for military service, or to honour court poets (Ager 2011b, pp. 127-28). Perhaps the brooches from Flusco Pike were bestowed for similar purposes. Related brooches are known from the Orton Scar (Cumbria) and Cuerdale (Lancs) hoards, but display objects could also encapsulate items such as complete vessels and weaponry. The Halton Moor hoard, for instance, contained an antique silver-gilt Carolingian cup, which may have functioned as elaborate tableware (Graham-Campbell 2011, cat. no. 4; Wamers 2011, p. 134).
It is important to note that the use of precious metals in these contexts was fluid and flexible. While complete ornaments were primarily intended for display, they also acted as a store of bullion and could be cut up as necessary to generate payment. Indeed, complete objects sometimes carry conspicuous ‘nicks’, which can be distinguished from scratches and dinks that an object might naturally acquire after a prolonged period of use or in the ground. These indicate that they have been tested for their silver content, as is the case with most of the (more or less) intact silver penannular brooches contained in the Flusco Pike (1) (Cumbria) hoard (Graham-Campbell 2011, cat. nos. 2:1-5). Similarly, fragmented silver could be pooled together and melted down to create new items of jewellery, suitable for display. Although there is no direct physical evidence for this from north-west England, such a process is vividly described in an episode recounted in a thirteenth-century Icelandic saga collection known as Heimskringla. In this, the tenth-century poet, Eyvind, receives a reward of silver coins, which is purified and worked into a shoulder-pin weighing 25 lbs (equivalent to over 10 kg of silver, a weight that would have been much too heavy to wear). Rather than wearing the pin, however, Eyvind breaks up the silver, and uses the bullion to purchase a farm (Graham-Campbell 2007, p. 216). Notably, several hoards from our region, including those from Cuerdale and Silverdale, contain both complete ornaments and hack-silver, highlighting coexistence and overlap between the ‘display’ and ‘bullion’ economies.
The merging of the display and bullion functions of silver is also attested by ornaments and ingots manufactured to standardised weights. This is the case with several types of arm-ring, for instance, including Hiberno-Scandinavian broad-band arm-rings, complete examples of which reflect a weight unit (c. 26.15g) which seems to have been commonplace in Viking-Age Dublin (Sheehan 2011, p. 99; Wallace 2013, p. 304). Such weight adjustment would not be necessary if the objects were intended only to be worn, but would make sense if they were also to be traded or stored as countable wealth. Complete ingots appear to reflect a similar, but slightly lighter weight unit of c. 25g: a standard more apparent in Scandinavian material (Kruse 1988). A type of plain penannular ring known as ‘ring-money’, which appears in the Cuerdale hoard, seems to have been made to a target weight of c. 24g (Warner 1976, but see Kruse 1988, p. 288). In a region exposed to influences from both Scandinavia and the Irish Sea, it is perhaps unsurprising that weight units varied across object types. The existence of multiple weight standards will have required traders to be sufficiently flexible to weigh to different units. To ensure confidence in transactions, and to guard against fraud, it is likely that both trading partners measured the silver to be exchanged, using their own hand-held balances and scale weights.
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