More than 800 hoards of medieval precious metal coins are known from England and Wales, but the phenomenon as a whole remains poorly understood: who made coin hoards, what did they put in them, how did they assemble them, where did they bury them, and, ultimately, why did they do it? This book provides a pioneering analysis of the archaeological and numismatic evidence for coin hoarding in medieval England and Wales, using innovative multivariate and spatial techniques to shed fresh light on the behaviours, motivations, and mentalités behind the formation and deposition of coin hoards during in the period c.973-1544. It is accompanied by a digital gazetteer describing the 815 hoards used in the study, the largest and most comprehensive corpus ever assembled for this region and period.

Shortlisted for the International Association of Professional Numismatists 2019 Book Prize

AUTHOR
Murray Andrews holds a PhD from the Institute of Archaeology, UCL. He specialises in the archaeology of the medieval economy, with a particular focus on the material culture of money. He currently works as a freelance numismatic specialist for archaeological units.

REVIEW
‘(A)n ambitious analysis of medieval coin hoards from England and Wales, addressing the fundamental questions of what are hoards and how and why are they deposited – and indeed how and why are they recovered.` Barrie Cook, The Numismatic Chronicle, Issue 180, 2020

‘This book is an important contribution to the field of numismatics and archaeology. Murray Andrews shows a deep understanding of these complex statistical methods and numismatic patterns.’ Mr Carl Savage, University of York.

‘The data assembled by Andrews is refreshingly broad. Not only does he bring together the hundreds of hoards which have been found by metal detectorists over the last 40 years, he’s also done the work in the archives to root out evidence of antiquarian and historical hoards that have not previously been published.’ Dr Richard Kelleher, The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

‘This is the most comprehensive analysis of the phenomenon of coin hoarding during the mid to late medieval period in England and Wales.’ Dr Jeremy Piercy, College of Charleston