Vale of York Hoard

The Vale of York Hoard was the largest hoard of Viking coins since the Cuerdale Hoard (you will see the words "largest" and "Cuerdale" again in the very near future). The illustration shows the silver bowl in which someone decided to stash and bury over 600 silver coins and other artifacts in 927CE.

It was discovered in 2007 by a father-son team using metal detectors in an unplowed field. They brought the find intact to the British Museum. An archaeological dig in the spot shortly after revealed no sign of a settlement, suggesting that the person who hid it went far afield to keep it away from others.

The silver bowl had been lined with gold, and filled with 617 silver coins and 65 other artifacts, including hacksilver and a gold arm ring. The whole had been enclosed in sheets of lead to preserve it. The coins were not all of the same minting: there were coins with Christian, Islamic, and Norse pagan symbols. Dating the coins to the late 9th and early 10th century gave a date after which the hoard could not have been assembled.

The variety of sources for the coins was not the only surprise. The owner was widely traveled, or was the recipient of widely traveled goods. The silver vessel seems to have come from a Carolingian artist, and one coin is a dirham, from Samarkand (present-day Uzbekistan).

How did research lead to such a specific date for burial as 927? In that year, Æthelstan captured York from the Vikings, the final stage of his campaign to recapture Britain from the Vikings. In July of that year he met with the kings of Scotland and Wales to receive their acknowledgement of his authority. He struck silver coins commemorating himself as EDELSTAN REX TO BRIE ("Æthelstan, King of all Britons"). One of these coins in mint condition exists in the hoard, suggesting that it was one of the last additions to the collection and the hoard would have been hidden shortly after.

The Vale of York Hoard (also called the Harrogate Hoard and the Vale of York Viking Hoard) gives a glimpse into the economic breadth of early 10th century Britain. Labeled officially as a "treasure," it had to be offered to museums (instead of kept by the finder or given to descendants of the original owners). Valued at a little over 1.4 million dollars, it was purchased jointly by the British Museum and the York Museums Trust. It is displayed now in the Yorkshire Museum.

Now, let's look at another "largest" hoard, the Staffordshire Hoard.

An Unknown Medieval Bishop

So far as medieval records go, we usually have good lists of rulers and church personnel, especially since churches/abbeys are most likely to keep records. Every once in awhile, however, a chance archaeological find brings us new and unexpected data.

A metal detectorist in 2014 turned up a collection of Viking-age objects from around the tenth century, now called the Galloway Hoard. This hoard includes objects gathered from Britain and Ireland, mostly silver bullion, but also some unique relics.

One such relic took years to examine, because it was wrapped in a textile pouch. The decayed nature of the fabric stymied the researchers until they managed to use 3-D X-ray imaging to see what was inside without destroying the pouch.

The pouch contained a 2-inch tall jar made from rock crystal artfully wrapped with gold wire. The bottom of the jar has a gold base with delicate designs and the Latin inscription "Bishop Hyguald had me made." The name suggests a Northumbrian bishop, and is unknown in any existing records.

Martin Goldberg, senior curator for the National Museum Scotland, calls it unique: 

“The ones that I have seen are in the Vatican collection, where there are different forms of carved crystal columns. And so it was maybe 500 years old by the time it was transformed in the late eighth or early ninth century into a gold-wrapped jar.”

So the medieval relic could even be a classical Roman crystal jar, originally designed to hold perfume, but came into the hands of a Bishop Hyguald at some point who had the gold added for his own purposes. Although we have no specific record of a Bishop Hyguald, the name does show up in the Liber Vitae, but that's a story for tomorrow.