The latest entry in the popular 50 Finds series, this volume focuses on a variety of coins recorded by the Portable Antiquities Scheme.

Mark Blackburn was one of the leading scholars of the numismatics and monetary history of the British Isles and Scandinavia during the early medieval period. He published more than 200 books and articles on the subject, and was instrumental in building bridges between numismatics and associated disciplines, in fostering international communication and cooperation, and in establishing initiatives to record new coin finds. This memorial volume of essays commemorates Mark Blackburn’s considerable achievement and impact on the field, builds on his research and evaluates a vibrant period in the study of early medieval monetary history. Containing a broad range of high-quality research from both established figures and younger scholars, the essays in this volume maintain a tight focus on Europe in the early Middle Ages (6th-12th centuries), reflecting Mark’s primary research interests. In geographical terms the scope of the volume stretches from Spain to the Baltic, with a concentration of papers on the British Isles. As well as a fitting tribute to remarkable scholar, the essays in this collection constitute a major body of research which will be of long-term value to anyone with an interest in the history of early medieval Europe.

This important book [...] is a helpful guide to thinking with things and teaching with things. Each entry challenges the reader to approach objects as historical actors that can speak to the changes and continuities of life in the late antique and early medieval world.― Early Medieval Europe Lavishly illustrated and engagingly written, Fifty Early Medieval Things demonstrates how to read objects in ways that make the distant past understandable and approachable. Fifty Early Medieval Things introduces readers to the material culture of late antique and early medieval Europe, north Africa, and western Asia. Ranging from Iran to Ireland and from Sweden to Tunisia, Deborah Deliyannis, Hendrik Dey, and Paolo Squatriti present fifty objects—artifacts, structures, and archaeological features—created between the fourth and eleventh centuries, an ostensibly "Dark Age" whose cultural richness and complexity is often underappreciated. Each thing introduces important themes in the social, political, cultural, religious, and economic history of the postclassical era. Some of the things, like a simple ard (plow) unearthed in Germany, illustrate changing cultural and technological horizons in the immediate aftermath of Rome's collapse; others, like the Arabic coin found in a Viking burial mound, indicate the interconnectedness of cultures in this period. Objects such as the Book of Kells and the palace-city of Anjar in present-day Jordan represent significant artistic and cultural achievements; more quotidian items (a bone comb, an oil lamp, a handful of chestnuts) belong to the material culture of everyday life. In their thing-by-thing descriptions, the authors connect each object to both specific local conditions and to the broader influences that shaped the first millennium AD, and also explore their use in modern scholarly interpretations, with suggestions for further reading.

Tony Abramson presents this groundbreaking collection of articles centred upon the study of early Anglo-Saxon coinage.

Britain, unlike Europe, does not have a tradition of publishing regional numismatic corpora to agreed national standards. So far, only the Roman coins from North-West England and Wales have been published in detail. Roger Penhallurick was the late Senior Curator of the Royal Institution of Cornwall. From a Cornish family, returned from Wales, Roger truly 'gathered up the fragments that are left, that nothing be lost', (motto of the Federation of Old Cornwall Societies). He worked on his coin corpus for many years and completed it in 2000 before his untimely death in 2004. The corpus is a true testament to his enthusiasm, commitment and awareness of the importance of coin finds to the archaeology and history of Cornwall. The work of reorganising the manuscript was undertaken by Dr. Nick Wells of Cardiff University. This task proved to be rather more complicated than initially envisaged though the Editors feel that the end result is worth the effort.

The coinage of Western Europe following the fall of the Roman Empire in the West.