ABSTRACT
Æthelred II’s (978-1016) Long Cross coinage was among the most inuential across the northern world. Very large numbers of these coins survive, a testament to the numbers struck and transported to Scandinavia and beyond. e success of the coinage is also attested by its imitation; both Dublin and Scandinavia copied the Long Cross design soon aer its inception. Discerning between the regular and various imitative series has oen proved a challenge; style, mint and moneyer-name were all copied by skilful die-cutters. Indeed, Long Cross dies were occasionally transported between ocial and imitative mints.1 Mark Blackburn made an important contribution to this subject, suggesting that style could not be the only determining factor in the attribution of coins to English, Irish or Scandinavian series. In 1981, he suggested that a number of ‘Chester’ coins which had been previously attributed to Dublin but had no die-link into the Hiberno-Scandinavian series should be reconsidered, citing their presence in the Shaesbury hoard.2 is chapter presents an interpretation of these pieces. It suggests that they should be viewed as ‘Insular imitations’ and can be investigated
* e authors would like to thank a number of people for the help in the preparation of this article. Stewart Lyon, Bo Gunnarsson and William Lean have read and oered advice on dras. ey have improved it immensely, even if not all of them will agree with its conclusions. Kenneth Jonsson has provided details of a number of Swedish coins which have made the corpus much more complete. Dr. A.J.P. Campbell loaned coins from his collection at an early stage. Lastly, thanks are due to Mark Blackburn for providing advice and encouragement. He truly was the catalyst behind this study.
