RNS Symposium 2026: Coinage in the Late Roman Empire and Early Medieval Europe: Continuity and Crisis
Join us at the Faculty of English, University of Cambridge or Online on September 5, 2026 at 10:00 AM (BST) for a symposium on the world of coinage during the Late Roman Empire and Early Medieval Europe.
To book your place, follow the link to our Eventbrite page: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/coinage-in-the-late-roman-empire-early-medieval-europe-tickets-1987944124390?aff=oddtdtcreator&keep_tld=true#location
Students go free. Online attendance is £5. In-person attendance, which includes a buffet lunch and drinks reception afterward, is £23.50.
Registration
10:00 AM – 10:25 AM
Session 1
10:30 AM – 12:30 PM
1030–1105: Kelly Clarke-Neish, ‘New approaches to the study of Britain’s “last” Roman hoards’
Abstract: Late Roman hoards are a crucial source of evidence to explore the transition from the late Roman to early medieval period in Britain. Collectively, they contain thousands of artefacts including jewellery and tableware, and some hoard containers also exist. Most hoards also contain small silver coins known as siliqua (siliquae pl.) and these coins frequently display evidence of the deliberate removal of silver (‘clipping’) from their edges. Clipping has long been recognised as a key phenomenon which occurred in late and post-Roman Britain (and elsewhere to a lesser degree) and the study of the tens of thousands of coins from the Hoxne hoard, the largest gold and silver late Roman hoard known from Britain, revealed that the practice was a long and drawn out process and coins underwent successive rounds of clipping (Guest, 2005). Though our understanding of clipping has greatly improved, the exact chronology of clipping and whether it was a controlled act remains uncertain and no major study of clipping has been carried out since the study of Hoxne. This paper presents the key findings of an in-depth study of over 10,000 siliquae from over fifty late Roman hoards undertaken as part of the AHRC funded project ‘Britain’s last Roman hoards: wealth, power and culture in the fifth century’ (2024-2026). As well as examining and identifying the clipping of these coins first-hand, statistical techniques were applied to the coin hoard data to identify underlying patterns between these late Roman hoards. Coupled with the results of an independent study of artefacts, a revised chronology for the duration of clipping will be suggested
1105–1140: Roger Bland, ‘Why does Britain have so many coin hoards of the 4th and 5th centuries?’
Abstract: Britain has a uniquely rich record of coin hoards, and the hoards of the Roman period were the subject of an AHRC research project in 2014-20 which produced two books on the subject (Roger Bland, Coin hoards and hoarding in Roman Britain, AD 43 – c. 491, BNS Special Publication 13, 2018, and Bland et al., Iron Age and Roman Coin Hoards in Britain, Oxbow Books, 2020). That project sought to understand why there are so many hoards of the second half of the third century from Britain, but in fact it is in the 4th and 5th centuries that Britain has the greatest number of hoards. The online database of the Oxford Coin Hoards of the Roman Empire project now has over 3,900 hoards that close between 294 and 491 from across the Empire and beyond, 38% of which are from Britain, an extraordinary concentration. While the exceptional number of hoards of silver siliquae from Britain has long been recognised, Britain also has many hoards of bronze coins. This paper looks at possible reasons for this phenomenon and looks at developments in the immediate post-Roman period, into the sixth and seventh centuries.
1140–1215: Marcus Spencer-Brown, ‘The demise of base-metal coinage as a political medium in the Late Roman period’
Abstract: A defining characteristic of Roman coinage was the variety of its designs and the diverse political messages they were intended to communicate. In marked contrast to much of the relatively static ‘Greek’ coinage that preceded it, Roman coin imagery was actively employed by elites of the late Republic and subsequent imperial regimes as an overtly political medium through which contributions to the res publica could be promoted and status negotiated. Scholarship has long connected episodes of rapid iconographic innovation with periods of instability and anxiety, while phases of relative monotony—such as the Antonine period—have been interpreted as indicative of imperial confidence and internal peace.
Yet this interpretative model is less readily applicable to the Late Roman period. Despite recurrent civil wars, religious conflict, and sustained external pressures, such turbulence was not matched by comparable innovation in coin design. Instead, increasingly repetitive and standardised types dominated issues from the empire’s many mints.
This paper argues that the apparent mismatch between fourth-century political instability and the genericised expressions of imperial competence on base-metal coinage reflects a fundamental shift in the medium’s political function. As emperors became more itinerant and autocratic, the imperial state recalibrated the communicative ambitions of base-metal coinage, gradually marginalising it as a primary vehicle of political negotiation. In its place, Late Roman regimes developed alternative mechanisms for articulating authority and managing relationships with key constituencies.
1215–1230: Session 1 Q&A
Lunch (sandwich lunch provided)
12:30 PM – 01:30 PM
Session 2
01:30 PM – 03:00 PM
1330–1405: John Naylor, ‘Coins and the individual: the use of gold and silver coinage in Early Anglo-Saxon burials’
Abstract: Solidi, tremisses and early silver pennies (sceattas) are a regular, if minor, element of furnished burials in Early Anglo-Saxon England. Focusing primarily on gold coinage from graves, this paper explores the evidence from male and female inhumations, assessing their distributions in relation to contemporary coin finds and hoards, the modification (or otherwise) of the coins and their placement in the grave with other items. The study explores the potential for finds of coins in burials to provide us with evidence for both contemporary attitudes to coinage in a formative period of monetisation, and to its role within society and the formation of the period’s power structures. The final discussion assesses the evidence from gold coins in grave contexts to the results from previous work on the later early silver pennies, highlighting the varied and changing roles coins played within elite society across the later sixth to early eighth centuries in England.
1405–1440: Tom Balbin-Estanguet, ‘Monetary evolution and rupture in Merovingian Aquitaine: the hoard evidence (6th – mid 8th c.)’
Abstract: Aquitaine, a peripheral region of the Merovingian kingdom conquered by Clovis in 507, shared a common history and monetary system with the rest of the regnum Francorum. Numerous places produced pseudo-imperial and independent trientes, as well as silver deniers starting from the end of the seventh century, and foreign coinage (Visigothic, Byzantine, Anglo-Saxon…) was also circulating in some parts of Aquitania. However, the centre of gravity of finds and the network of mints changed considerably in this area during Merovingian rule. In particular, the transition from a gold-based to a silver-based system significantly altered the monetary facies of Aquitaine, considerably shifting coin production and circulation. This resulted in a fragmented region, between a southern, under-monetized part and a northern part oriented toward the Frankish heartlands and beyond.
These changes are reflected in the variable frequency and dispersion of Aquitanian coin hoards. The heterogenous coin supply led to notable differences in hoarding practices, which can be observed by close inspection of their content. This structural analysis allows us to question previous dating based on historical events rather than numismatic evidence. In turn, the chronology of these finds challenges the traditional view that war and insecurity is the main factor in hoarding frequency. Moreover, their study sheds light on monetary practices, hoard owners’ selections, and coin supply restrictions, underlining the developments of this period. The aim of this contribution is therefore to present the contribution of coin deposits to our understanding of the evolution of the coinage system in early medieval Aquitaine.
1440–1500: Session 2 Q&A
Tea and coffee break
03:00 PM – 03:30 PM
Session 3
03:30 PM – 05:00 PM
1530–1600: Elina Screen, ‘Coinage in the late Carolingian empire: continuity or crisis?’
Abstract: In the first half of the ninth century, the Carolingian coinage was closely controlled under emperors Charlemagne and Louis the Pious. In the second half of the ninth century, the Carolingian empire was divided between multiple rulers and Carolingian political control frayed, especially after the death of Charles the Fat in 888. Although this period saw the introduction of Charles the Bald’s successful and well-controlled Gratia Dei Rex coinage in 864, royal control over the coinage steadily reduced, and immobilised and ‘feudal’ coinages emerged by the end of the tenth century. These changes are generally linked to political developments and the erosion of the concepts of public authority that had supported the Carolingian administration and its production of coinage. However, this focus on political crisis may neglect the impact of underlying regional differences upon coinage and its use within the Frankish empire. I shall reassess the coinage across this period of transition, placing the emergence of distinctive regional currency zones into a longer economic perspective. The iconography of the coinage also points to elements of continuity.
1600–1630: Rory Naismith, ‘The management of minting in Early Medieval Europe’
Abstract: Between about 400 and 1000, the organisational systems behind minting coin in Europe and the Mediterranean changed profoundly. This paper will survey that process and consider why new models developed along different lines. A starting point will be the large-scale mints of the later Roman Empire, which were keyed closely into provincial administration and imperial fiscal systems. Something similar to this persisted in the Byzantine and Islamic worlds. Other mechanisms depended on looser relationships with central government income and expenditure, and on increasingly assertive forms of local power and economic control. These will be examined with reference to the Frankish and Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.
1630–1640: Session 3 Q&A
1640–1645: Final words from the President
1645–1700: End
Reception with drinks and light refreshments
17:00 – 18:15
Speaker biographies
Kelly Clarke-Neish is based in the Money and Medals Department at the British Museum and is Project Curator: Britain’s last Roman hoards. She is part of the AHRC funded project Britain’s Last Roman Hoards (https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/hoards/) with Ellen Swift (PI, Kent), Eleanor Ghey (Co-I, BM) and James Gerrard (Co-I, Newcastle). Though she is currently researching late Roman coinage, she has a strong background and interest in early medieval numismatics and co-authored an article in 2024 on the reuse of sixth-and-seventh-century gold coins in England.
Roger Bland was curator of Roman coins at the British Museum and retired in 2015 as Keeper of the Department of Britain, Prehistory and Europe. From 1994 to 2002 he was seconded to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, to bring in the Treasure Act 1996 and establish the Portable Antiquities Scheme. He has written Roman Imperial Coinage IV.3 (Spink Books, 2026), other books on Roman coins and the Treasure Act and the Portable Antiquities Scheme.
Rory Naismith is Professor of Early Medieval English History at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He has published extensively on early medieval history and numismatics.