Reproduction Vikings at York Cnut Penny

Obverse: CNVT REX (King Cnut) arranged around inverted patriarchal cross with pellets at each quarter of the smaller cross, two groups of four pellets to top left and right.

Reverse: Small cross pattée, pellet in each quarter, within beaded border. Text around CVN NET TI, each group of letters split by three pellets.

History: The widely accepted identity of Cnut is that he was the Danish Cnut who was campaigning in Yorkshire in c.900. His reign was brief and he was killed about two years later. The king’s name and title is arranged to represent a monogram, which is derived from the Byzantine and late Roman coinage which, like so many features of the coinage of the Danes of York, was directly inspired by Carolingian models.

The reverse legend CVNNETTI is unexplained, but may be a Latinized rendering of Hunedeus, a historically attested Viking leader, who held power at York so this may be a joint coinage.

The majority of the surviving coins of the Cunetti types come from the largest hoard of Viking coins ever found in the British Isles, the Cuerdale Hoard, found on the banks of the River Ribble, near Preston Lancashire in May 1840. The vast hoard consisted of some 7,000 coins and the original of this coin was from the hoard.

Date: York mint, Circa 895-902 AD

Diameter: 1.8cm