Anglo-Saxon, Penny, Sigired, Kings of East Anglia, Eadmund (855-869)

Obverse: + EADMVND REX, Alpha between pellets
Reverse: + SIGERED MON, cross pattée, pellets in angles

Weight: 1.34 g / ⌀ 20mm
Lightly crinkled, otherwise GVFine/VFine
Reference: (BNJ 52, pp. 78-9; BMC 79; N 456; S 954)
Rare

Edmund, the last king of East-Anglia, was martyred by the Vikings in a most gruesome manner in 869. He was later revered as a saint by the descendants of the very Vikings who had killed him as the St. Edmund memorial coinage. We know little about Edmund, King of East Anglia, but more than about some of his predecessors who are quite unknown to history
other than through their coinage. He is thought to have been born c. 841 and succeeded Æthelweard on the throne of East Anglia c. 855 His death at the hands of the invading Danish army, probably in November 869, turned him into a christian martyr and saint.
Versions of his martyrdom vary; he was tied to a tree and shot to death by arrows like St Sebastian or decapitated by the invaders
who threw his head into a nearby wood where it was guarded by a grey wolf until it could be reclaimed by his loyal followers.
Whatever the truth, in little over a generation he had been beatified and his memory venerated on the St Edmund coinage, found in
quantity in the Cuerdale hoard and thus dated before c. 905 (Source: THE ‘CHARLES’ COLLECTION OF ANGLO-SAXON AND NORMAN COINS)

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