Penny - Civil War Ornamented group, King Stephen

Stephen's reign produced some of the most chaotically varied coinage in English history. The civil war against Empress Matilda — the period known as "The Anarchy" — saw central control over the mints collapse almost entirely, with local lords and ecclesiastical authorities striking coin on their own authority and to wildly inconsistent standards. The Ornamented group belongs to this breakdown phase, produced between roughly 1140 and 1149 when royal oversight was, in practical terms, fictional.

Weight variation within this type is extreme even by medieval standards, a direct consequence of that mint disorder.