Whatever the motivation for hoarding, hoards are distinct from a second category of evidence for the silver economy in north-west England, namely single finds. Whereas hoards represent deliberate deposits of accumulated wealth, single finds are individual items, for instance, ingots or coins, that were most likely dropped or mislaid by their owners. They are typically retrieved during metal-detector surveys and reported to the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS), which hosts an extensive on-line database of such discoveries (Www. finds. org. uk). As a source of information for Scandinavian silver economies, single finds are potentially hugely valuable. Unlike hoards, they are not confined to precious metal, but also include tools used in commercial transactions, such as weights and balances. Moreover, whereas hoards are deliberately concealed deposits, single finds are assumed to represent accidental losses, and will therefore reflect a more or less random sample of silver and related artefacts in circulation.
Given the large number of hoards recovered from the region, we might expect single finds to be similarly plentiful. In fact, this is not the case. The corpus of single finds of silver bullion is small, comprising just a cut fragment of an Arabic dirham, from Skelton (Cumbria); a Frankish silver coin of Charles the Bald (840-77), found in Puddington (Cheshire); and an ingot with ‘nicks’ from Aston (Cheshire) (PAS
FIGURE 10.8 A decorated lead weight, Newton, Lancashire (© PAS).
‘Find-ID’ LVPL522; Cowell and Philpott 1993; Treasure Annual Report 2003, no. 83). A further nicked ingot, together with a piece of hack-silver, is recorded from the village of Neston near the Dee estuary (Griffiths 2010, p. 115, Figure 68; Bean 2000). A silver Thor’s hammer, which may have been worn as a pendant or used in a bullion context, is also recorded, from Longtown (Cumbria) (PAS ‘Find-ID’ LANCUM-ED9222) (a further Thor’s hammer find, said to come from Cumbria, was recently dismissed as a fake). In addition to these silver items, several gold finger-rings of Scandinavian type are on record (see above). These rings are complete, and thus in a form that would appear to relate primarily to the ‘display’ economy.
Somewhat more common as single finds, totalling seven items, are lead weights decorated with inset metalwork (see, for instance, PAS ‘Find-ID’ LANCUM-45FF34; LVPL1049) (Figure 10.8). This is a fairly common type of Viking scale weight, thought to be associated with the weighing of bullion: examples have been found with hand-held balances in Viking-Age graves, and at market and productive sites in presumed commercial contexts (Graham-Campbell 1980, no. 307; Redknap 2009, p. 38). Just outside of our region, two decorated lead weights have been found at the fortified coastal trading-site of Llanbedrgoch, Anglesey, and have been linked to merchant activity (Redknap 2000, p. 61, Figure 82). The added metalwork is usually British or Irish in origin, and thus the weights have been identified as an Insular Viking phenomenon, created mainly during the later ninth century, but remaining in production and use into the tenth. The exact function of the added metalwork is unclear, but one possibility is that it served to personalise weights, allowing the owner to easily recognise their set in a trading environment where multiple sets of weights were in use.
The small number of single finds makes them difficult to evaluate as a group. Nevertheless, their findspots have the potential to reveal locations in which bullion-users were concentrated. Figure 10.2 shows that the single finds cluster in two areas: around the Dee and Mersey estuaries flanking the Wirral, and on the coasts surrounding Morecambe Bay in north Lancashire and southern Cumbria, including on the Furness peninsula. Notably, both areas also see concentrations of hoards, although there is no direct overlap between the two find categories. It is unclear if the single finds represent stray losses made by people travelling across the landscape, or if they relate to permanent settlements or market sites that may have had a more seasonal character. Certainly, the Wirral peninsula is considered by many to have been a focus of Scandinavian settlement and the single finds may relate to concentrations of bullion users at its southern edge (Philpott, Chapter 7). Morecambe Bay was also an important, strategic harbour, and a number of burials and stone sculptures from its coastal edges hint at significant local Scandinavian landholding (Griffiths 2010, pp. 55-56, Figure 19). Metal-weight exchange may thus relate directly to Scandinavian settlement in these two areas.
Overall, the number of single finds from the North West remains small. Notably, the area of the Danelaw has yielded a far greater number of single finds, including over 60 ingots, 50 dirhams and eight neck - or arm-rings/ring fragments. Also found in the region are numerous lead and copper-alloy weights,
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FIGURE 10.9 Roman, Medieval and Post-Medieval finds recorded by the PAS in north-west England as of July 2013 (© author).
Including types not recorded at all in the North West. What factors may explain this difference? Metaldetecting is certainly more common in eastern England than in the west, where much land is unavailable to detectorists because of large urban centres and extensive pastoral farming. However, north-west England, particularly Cheshire and the area of southern Cumbria and northern Lancashire, has produced a significant number of portable antiquities from the Roman, Medieval and post-Medieval periods (Figure 10.9). Metal-detector coverage is not, then, the cause of the low number of bullion-related single finds from the region. Indeed, if we look at other types of early medieval finds such as dress accessories, we find that they are also rare, a pattern which suggests that the frequency of bullion-related finds in particular is representative of broader patterns in contemporary metalwork consumption and loss (Richards et al. 2009, 3.3.1.2). North-west England is a region of highland, and was historically sparsely settled (ibid, 3.3.1.1). Even with an influx of Scandinavian settlement in the early tenth century, it is likely that overall population levels remained low.
Why, then, has the north west yielded so many hoards? It is possible that hoards have a higher chance of being detected and recorded than single finds, both in antiquity, and in modern-day metal-detecting. However, in other parts of England we get the opposite pattern: East Anglia, for instance, has yielded a vast number of single finds, but no certain hoards of Scandinavian character. An arguably more likely explanation for the pattern in north-west England is that the hoards were simply passing through the region at the time they were concealed. Rather than reflecting local silver use, the hoards probably represent wealth in transit. Of course, there may well be exceptions, and, as noted above, individual hoards have been linked to centres of Scandinavian land holding in the region. Nevertheless, the hoards are often located on prominent east-west communication routes linking the northern Danelaw with the Irish Sea region: a pattern that highlights the importance of the North West as a conduit for the movement of wealth, and presumably also people and goods, between the two regions. Despite the richness of the region’s hoards, the overall conclusion must be that north-west England was primarily an area through which silver travelled, rather than one in which it was actively used.
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