Struck under the reign of Magnus Barefoot (Magnus Barfot), this penning belongs to a series attributed to him largely through hoard evidence and typological sequencing rather than any inscription naming the king — hence the "anonymous" classification. Magnus spent much of his reign campaigning aggressively in the British Isles, including expeditions to Orkney, the Hebrides, and Ireland, dying in an ambush in Ulster in 1103. Norwegian coinage of this period was produced in tiny quantities relative to contemporary English or German issues, and surviving examples almost invariably come from Scandinavian hoard contexts.
Struck under the reign of Magnus Barefoot (Magnus Barfot), this penning belongs to a series attributed to him largely through hoard evidence and typological sequencing rather than any inscription naming the king — hence the "anonymous" classification. Magnus spent much of his reign campaigning aggressively in the British Isles, including expeditions to Orkney, the Hebrides, and Ireland, dying in an ambush in Ulster in 1103. Norwegian coinage of this period was produced in tiny quantities relative to contemporary English or German issues, and surviving examples almost invariably come from Scandinavian hoard contexts.