H2167  - Viking Kingdoms, Danish East Anglia, St. Eadmund Memorial Coinage (c.885 - c.915), Silver Penny, 1.31g., moneyer Adrad, +SCEAINMDR around a large A, rev., small cross within a circle, +ADRADVSS MOI, (N.483; S.960), attractively toned, extremely fine. WAS $1195 NOW $895 SOLD

For a coin struck by the original King Eadmund of East Anglia click here.

This coinage was struck by the Danish settlers of East Anglia in memory of the canonized martyr Eadmund, the last English King of East Anglia, who was brutally murdered in A.D. 869 by the invading Viking army. In its own way this coinage reflects the rapid adoption of 'civilized' Anglo-Saxon habits, like Christianity and coinage, by the invaders following their arrival in England.

Eadmund was the last king of the independent Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of East Anglia. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that in A.D. 870: “[the Vikings] went across Mercia into East Anglia, and took winter-quarters at Thetford; and in that year St. Edmund the king fought against them, and the Danish took the victory, and killed the king and conquered all that land…” The Chronicle goes on to name the Viking leaders who slew the king as Ivar and Ubba. A later medieval source records that he was tied to a tree and filled with arrows.  This act took place at a town called Beadoriceswyrthe, where he is believed to be buried and where a cult grew up around the canonized king and which is still today known as Bury St. Edmunds.