David I inherited a kingdom with almost no native coinage tradition and built a Scottish mint system from scratch, drawing heavily on English moneyers — many of whom crossed the border to staff his operations at Berwick, Roxburgh, and Edinburgh. Period B issues reflect a brief window of relative political stability before the turbulence of the Anarchy, the civil war between Stephen and Matilda that consumed England and into which David had deeply entangled himself by backing Matilda's claim. Scottish pennies of this phase circulated alongside English coins interchangeably in the border regions, a practical consequence of the weight standard David deliberately mirrored.
David I inherited a kingdom with almost no native coinage tradition and built a Scottish mint system from scratch, drawing heavily on English moneyers — many of whom crossed the border to staff his operations at Berwick, Roxburgh, and Edinburgh. Period B issues reflect a brief window of relative political stability before the turbulence of the Anarchy, the civil war between Stephen and Matilda that consumed England and into which David had deeply entangled himself by backing Matilda's claim. Scottish pennies of this phase circulated alongside English coins interchangeably in the border regions, a practical consequence of the weight standard David deliberately mirrored.