The Cuerdale Hoard

The Vale of York Hoard was the largest hoard since the Cuerdale Hoard. So what was special about Cuerdale? Well, the York Hoard had over 600 items; the Staffordshire Hoard about 4600; Cuerdale, found in 1840, contained more than 8600, the largest Viking hoard ever in the United Kingdom, and surpassed by only one other in the world.

Cuerdale is a parish in the Duchy of Lancaster with very few buildings nowadays. Some workmen repairing an embankment of the nearby River Ribble found a lead box protruding from a bend. It was claimed by the local bailiffs who kept it intact and gave it to Queen Victoria, owner of the Duchy, who in turn gave it to the British Museum. After examining the contents, they were distributed to museums and others, with the greater part kept by the British Museum in the Coins and Medals Department.

The majority of the hoard was silver coins (over 7000) from different areas: the Viking kingdoms of eastern England, Alfred the Great's Wessex, and coins from overseas (one Byzantine coin, early Scandinavian coins, Islamic dirhams, Papal and North Italian coins, and 1,000 Frankish Carolingian coins). Many of the coins probably came from raids on other kingdoms. Besides coins the hoard contained jewelry and hacksilver.

The dates on the coins suggest that it was buried by 910CE but not much before 905. The Ribble flows into the Irish Sea and was a frequent landing spot for those coming from Ireland. The Vikings had been expelled from Dublin in 902, and this hoard might have been buried by Vikings on their way from Ireland for temporary safekeeping because transporting such a large collection made the traveler a target. It may have been intended to finance a re-conquest of Ireland. Why they never returned we will never know.

There is a curious legend in the area, that "Anyone who stood on the south bank of the River Ribble at Walton le Dale, and looked up river towards Ribchester, would be within sight of the richest treasure in England." When and how this legend began no one could say, but it suggests vague knowledge of the treasure, as if it were a more recent stashing in memory. One theory is that, during the reign of Richard II, a Sir Thomas de Molyneux who lived nearby and intended to use it to support Richard, possessed it and hid it there. It is possible that comments made in the late 14th century led to the legend.

After three posts on "largest" hoards, we now will turn to the absolute, unconditionally largest Viking hoard ever uncovered. For this we turn from England to Sweden, and the Spillings Hoard...next time.

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.

What Is Hacksilver?

Silver has always been valuable as a unit of exchange, but it would be wrong to assume silver was always in the form of coins or small (or large) bars. It might be shaped into bracelets or chains or other items, such as a decorative pin or brooch, etc.

Those who wanted silver—for themselves or to trade—did not always need a pin or a bracelet, however. Sometimes it was only necessary to have enough silver of sufficient value to exchange for what you wanted. If the item you wished to purchase was worth less silver than the weight of the silver item in your hand, what would you do? Simple: you would hack off the amount you need.

Hacksilver (from German "hacksilber," meaning exactly what it looks like) refers to pieces of silver that are incomplete, hacked from a larger chunk or finished item, or simply from a time prior to coin-making becoming the norm. The picture above comes from the British Museum, and if you care to click this link, you can see close-ups of many pieces of hacksilver and their sizes.

Picts and Vikings collected—through pillaging, but also through trade—hacksilver—it was easier than finding and mining and smelting ore on their own, and some of the largest hoards of hacksilver are connected to those groups. The Traprain Law Treasure (Traprain holds an ancient hill fort in Scotland), found in 1919, contains 53 pounds of Late Roman silver tableware, all of high quality silver and all sliced up into smaller pieces. It was either given by Romans to Picts, or taken by Picts and stashed underground.

Hacksilver was not just a Pictish and Viking trend; silver was considered valuable long before it was turned into coins. What was Southern Phoenicia has produced several hoards of hacksilver dating as far back as 1200BCE. The collection of these sites is known as the Cisjordan Corpus. The silver came from Sardinia and Spain, showing that there was trade across the length of the Mediterranean a very long time ago.

Here's some interesting trivia: the Russian unit of currency, the ruble, is derived from the verb "rubit" (рубить), meaning "to chop." Hacksilver is a well-known concept in a popular computer game series.

Speaking of huge collections of valuable metals tucked away long ago and found in modern times, let's go treasure hunting and look at some hoards, starting with the Vale of York Hoard.