Money and society in pre-Roman Britain

Barry Cunliffe

Nearly 40 years ago, in April 1940, Derek Allen presented

his now-classic paper ‘The Belgic dynasties of Britain and

their Coins’ before a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries

in London (Allen 1944). In it he set out to construct a

history of the late pre-Roman Iron Age of Britain, based on

a geographical, stylistic, and chronological study of the

surviving coinage. This work, with periodic updatings, has

remained a standard part of subsequent considerations of

the British Iron Age. The CBA Conference on the Problems

of the Iron Age in Southern Britain, held in London in

1958, provided Allen with the opportunity to reappraise the

origins of coinage in Britain (Allen 1961). His considered

views, stated with great clarity, were readily accepted by

subsequent writers (Frere 1967; Hawkes 1968; Cunliffe

1974), all of whom found that his historical approach

provided a satisfactory model against which to consider the

rest of the archaeological evidence. One should, however,

call to mind Allen’s perceptive warning: ‘It is essential in

interpreting coin evidence to recall constantly that it is only
Part, and not always the most important part, of the

historical record’ (Allen 1961, 98).

The historical approach to coinage has continued to

develop. Rodwell’s detailed restudy of the coinage of south-

eastern Britain extends and refines the arguments, pre-

senting a meticulously argued ‘history’ for the period

based substantially on changes in coin type and distribution

(Rodwell 1976), while the work of Simone Scheers in

France and the Low Countries uses historical events as a

framework for understanding the coinage (Scheers 1972;

1977). The historical model is further examined in the

recent work of John Kent (Kent 1978a and below, pp

4 0 - 2 ) .

Whilst the historical approach thus continues to thrive,

the vogue for discovering and analysing economic systems

in archaeology, which developed in the 1960s, led some

writers to focus attention on the potential of the coin

evidence in studies of this kind (Collis 1971a; 1971 b; 1974;

Haselgrove 1976). The writer, by virtue of his early

archaeological training, must confess to being more in

sympathy with this school of thought. The present paper,

however, is an attempt to consider the quality of the data

against the broad social questions which might reasonably

be asked of it, rather than to engage in the polemic which

surrounds model building whether historical or economic.

The nature of the evidence

Before we can begin we must briefly consider the nature of

the available data. In all some 12 624 Iron Age coins are

recorded from Britain. Probably less than 50% survive

today. Of this impressive total c 3 100 come from the single

‘hoard’ found at Hengistbury and a further 5 200+ from

other hoards. A mere 1 l00+ have been found in excavations

(the majority come from three sites: Camulodunum,

Braughing, and Harlow), and of these a substantial

proportion are unstratified. Furthermore, it is estimated

that of the 5 000 or so coins recorded on the Index housed in

the Institute of Archaeology, Oxford, about two-thirds are

without precise provenance.

Thus it must be realized at the outset that the data have

widely varying levels of reliability. To a numismatist dealing

with metrology, typology, die linking, etc, the data are of

reasonable quality but to an archaeologist working with

distribution patterns they are far from adequate. Not only is

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most of the sample unusable because of lack of locational

detail, it is also regionally biased by the many factors

affecting discovery, and worse still, it is distorted to an

unknown extent by the unscrupulous who wish to please

collectors (including museums) by providing false find spots

for material which is either without a sound location or was

acquired and dispersed under dubious circumstances

(Rodwell, below, pp 43-52). While distribution maps can

quite reasonably be used in generalizing arguments, to

attempt to use them too precisely to generate sophisticated

models can give rise only to a spurious and misleading

impression of accuracy.

Where individual site finds are concerned we are in even

more difficulty. It is only in recent excavations like those at

the temples of Harlow and Hayling or the urban sites of

Braughing, Colchester, and Canterbury that reliable data

are at last being provided. The distorting effects which

these collections have on our maps is a firm reminder of the

inadequacy of much of the rest of the record. This is not

intended to be a counsel of despair but a warning that we

should not ask of the data questions which, in full

knowledge of their limitations, they cannot be expected

reliably to answer. In the following pages we will therefore

use the evidence of the coinage at a general, rather than too

specific, a level.

Britain and the Continent, c 120-40 BC

Most scholars will agree that coinage was introduced into

Britain during the period 120-50 BC, but the economic and

social situation in the south-east of the country, and in

particular the differences in the different regional systems,

are seldom taken into account. Some aspects of these

problems have been dealt with recently elsewhere (Cunliffe

1976; 1978a) but several points deserve mention here.

Foremost is the fact that in the early part of the period the

south-east of Britain can be divided into two distinct

regions: a hillfort-dominated zone stretching from Kent and

Sussex westwards to Wessex and the Cotswolds, and an

area of open settlement occupying the Thames Valley, East

Anglia, and the Midlands. This same division is emphasized

by a consideration of the ceramics of the area. Clearly, two

separate socio-economic systems are implied. In both zones

coinage was adopted and a full-scale market economy

eventually developed.

To suggest however that the idea of coinage in its various

manifestations was completely novel might prove to be

misleading. Widespread use of currency bars appears on

present evidence to have preceded the introduction of

coinage (if overlapping with it), while the discovery at

several sites (including Winklebury and Danebury) of well

made stone weights implies that careful measurement was

being practised. It may well be that salt packed in ceramic

containers formed another unit of value (Cunliffe 1977;

214), while the possibility that storage pits for grain may

have been dug to a series of size standards is a further

reminder that accurate measurement, in the interests of

exchange, may have been widespread. To this we might

perhaps add that some at least of the large numbers of

Greek coins found in south-eastern Britain are likely to be

genuine Iron Age imports, thus familiarizing the natives

with the idea of the coin as a unit of value. In other words,

at the time when large-scale long-distance trade was

re-established in the first half of the 1st century BC, it is

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Cunliffe: Money and society in pre-Roman Britain

Fig 11 Britain and the Continent showing the most convenient points of contact:

ports of trade,

Armorican coins,

Gallo-Belgic coins

reasonable to assume that the communities of the south-east

already practised an ordered economy in which measure-

ment by weight and possibly by volume formed an essential

part. In such circumstances the ready adoption of coinage

need occasion no surprise nor would it be exceptional if a

money economy were to develop soon after.

Pre-Caesarian contact

Two principal axes of contact between Britain and the

Continent seem to have developed in the decades before

Caesar’s invasions in 55 and 54 BC. Not surprisingly, the

routes chosen spanned the shortest sea crossings, requiring

the traveller to spend a minimum of time our of easy reach

of land (Fig 11), One axis linked the western seaways, via

Armorica, to central southern Britain, and the other lay

between northern France and the Low Countries (Belgica)

and the Thames estuary.

Evidence for the western axis, between Armorica and

Hengistbury Head, has recently been discussed by the

writer in some detail (Cunliffe 1978b) and need not detain

us here. Suffice it to say that there is ample archaeological

evidence for widespread trade involving the importation of

pottery from Armorica and wine from Italy in exchange for

which metals are the most evident of the possible British

e x p o r t s . A p a r t f r o m t h e e s t a b l i s h m e n t o f w h a t c a n

Cunliffe: Money and society in pre-Roman Britain

31

Fig 12 Distribution of Gallo-Belgic B and Potin 1 coins mapped after Allen 1961 and Haselgrove I978

reasonably be regarded as a port-of-trade at Hengistbury

and a general improvement in pottery technology in the

south-west of Britain (probably involving the introduction

of the potter’s wheel), the trading axis had little lasting

effect on the socio-economic structure of the Iron Age

communities of southern Britain.

From the point of view of the present discussion it is the

numismatic aspect of the contact that is of interest. It is

represented by 60 or so imported Armorican coins scattered

over central southern England of which 25 come from

Hengistbury, a distribution sufficient in itself to imply some

form of contact even if no other evidence had been

available. That the subsequent local coinages owe little,

apart from adherence to a silver standard, to imported

Armorican types, but instead develop from Gallo-Belgic

models introduced from eastern Britain, strongly suggests

that Armorican coins in Britain represented little more than

valued items of precious metal: they do not seem to reflect

the introduction of a new trading system based on money

economy. The fact that the socio-economic system, as

exemplified by the continued development of hillforts,

appears to remain unchanged is a further indication that

trade with Armorica had little lasting effect on southern

Britain. The reasons for this are obscure. The contact could

have been (and indeed probably was) short-lived, but of

equal importance may have been the fact that the economic

and social systems in the area were not, at this time,

sufficiently structured to allow the easy adoption of the new

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Cunliffe: Money and society in pre-Roman Britain

Fig 13 Distribution of Gallo-Belgic A-F coins (after Allen 1961 and Huselgrove 1978)

exchange system. The Armorican contact seems, then, to

provide an interesting example of one of the many kinds of

relationship, involving the transference of coins, which may

have existed between communities.

The relationship

between the Belgic territories and

eastern Britain was quite different but in view of the

current discussions concerning the chronology of the Gallo-

Belgic coin series (Kent 1978a) it is unwise to argue the

sequence of events too closely. Most writers are agreed,

however, that Gallo-Belgic B coins were probably in use in

Britain in the decades before Caesar’s conquest, and some

of the Gallo-Belgic A examples may well have been in

circulation in this period. The distribution of Gallo-Belgic B

centres upon the Thames estuary favouring Kent, a distri-

bution pattern very similar to that of the Potin I coinage for

which Allen has argued a pre-conquest date. Mapped

together (Fig 12) the gross distribution of Gallo-Belgic B

and Potin I probably reflects the territory within which

coinage first came into regular use in Britain. The Potin

coinage is of particular interest for not only was it minted in

Britain but its very existence must surely imply a system of

currency involving two denominations. Collis has found it

difficult to accept that potin represents small change in a

money economy (Collis 1974), but Rodwell has countered

his arguments (1976, 207-8). While the matter is still open

to debate, particularly in view of the uncertainty of the

dating evidence, we can tentatively suggest that the earliest

development of British coinage took place in Kent and that

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