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Y301: The Early Anglo-Saxons c.400–800

Economic and social life in Britain and Ireland: trade, coinage, society, law and burial

  • 3 things to know
  • Unit group 3

Overview

Recall questions on exports and imports, the development of coinage, social ranks and lordship, wergild and the laws of Ine and Aethelberht, pagan burial practice, Sutton Hoo and the decline of furnished burial.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Evaluation

Why did kings promote compensation payments instead of feud?

Evaluation

Why did furnished burial decline after about 700?

Key term

Trace the development of coinage across the seventh and eighth centuries.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What goods did England export and import in this period?

    Model answer

    It exported wool and cloth, slaves, lead and hunting dogs, and imported wine, glass, fine pottery, quernstones and luxury textiles from Francia and the Rhineland.

  2. 2

    Trace the development of coinage across the seventh and eighth centuries.

    Model answer

    Gold shillings gave way from about 675 to small silver coins produced in large numbers, and from the 760s these were replaced by a broader, better-struck silver penny modelled on the Frankish denier.

  3. 3

    Why did a systematic silver coinage matter to a king?

    Model answer

    It gave him a standard means of exchange that stimulated trade, and because coin had to be struck by named moneyers at his mints he could take a profit from recoinage and advertise his authority on every penny.

  4. 4

    Set out the main ranks of Anglo-Saxon society.

    Model answer

    Below the king stood ealdormen and noble thegns, then the free ceorls who formed the bulk of the population, and beneath them the half-free and slaves.

  5. 5

    What did lordship oblige each side to do?

    Model answer

    The lord fed, armed, rewarded and protected his man and answered for him at law, and in return the man owed him service, loyalty in war and support in disputes.

  6. 6

    Define wergild.

    Model answer

    It is the fixed value placed on a person's life according to rank, payable to their kin by a killer or their kin in place of vengeance.

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