Catalog
1 Penning - Olav Haraldsson / Imitating Æthelred II, 978-1016
| Issuer | Norway |
|---|---|
| Year | 1015-1030 |
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| Currency | Penning (995-1387) |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Latin (uncial) |
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| Reverse description | Central device consisting of a double cross, characteristic of the long-cross or cross-type penny design derived from Æthelred II's English coinage. The double cross extends toward the inner beaded ring that frames the field. A circumscribing Latin legend in uncial script names the moneyer and the issuing region. The execution is provincial and irregular, consistent with early Norwegian hammered silver pennies of the Olav Haraldsson period. |
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| Additional information |
Olav Haraldsson's early Norwegian penny coinage was produced by English moneyers — men brought directly from England, almost certainly from mints operating under Æthelred II — at a time when Norway had no established minting tradition of its own. The dependency was total: tools, techniques, and personnel crossed the North Sea intact. Brekke type 3:2 is among the more precisely attributed varieties in this imitative series, distinguished by die-link analysis rather than obvious visual markers.
Olav was baptized in Rouen around 1013, and his years raiding and allying along English and Norman coasts gave him direct exposure to functioning monetary economies before he seized the Norwegian throne in 1015.