Abstract :
The seventh-century vernacular laws from the kingdoms of Kent and Wessex specify fines or
compensation payments using units of account that have given us familiar terms in the numismatics
of this period: scillingas (shillings), sceattas and pæningas (pennies). In light of the use
of cognate words in Gothic and Old High German, and the comparative values given in the
Old English law-codes themselves and in the fifth-century Theodosian Code, it is suggested that
these represent a regular and durable bimetallic system correlating values in gold and silver. This
proposition is examined further against the evidence of weighing-sets from sixth- and early
seventh-century Anglo-Saxon graves, and it is argued that the results give greater and more
precise meaning to the use of gold and silver in Early Anglo-Saxon artefacts, such as the great
gold buckle from Mound 1 at Sutton Hoo, Suffolk.
