Latest news with #Frankish
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Yahoo
Castle acquires largest Anglo-Saxon gold coin hoard
A museum is to become the new home to what is believed to be the largest collection of 7th Century gold coins found in Britain. Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery in Norfolk has acquired the hoard which is made up of 129 coins and includes 118 different coin designs and 51 different European mints. The hoard was discovered by two metal detectorists in a west Norfolk farmer's field between 2014 and 2020. Charles Bingham-Newland, chair of the Friends of the Norwich Museums, said: "The hoard will add immeasurably to our knowledge of the Anglo-Saxon period." The museum has been able to acquire the hoard with funding by the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the Art Fund and The Wolfson Foundation. The collection is believed to most contain Frankish tremisses which were minted in the Merovingian Frankish kingdoms that occupied modern-day France, Germany, Switzerland and the Low Countries. They are said to be the first coins made and used in Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire and predate the first gold coinage made in Anglo-Saxon England. The find is one of only eight hoards of this type of coin known from Europe and the third in the United Kingdom. Jail for PC who kept gold coin proceeds Largest hoard of gold Anglo-Saxon coins unearthed Anglo-Saxon coin hoard could be worth £400,000 When the coins were declared as treasure by a coroner's court in November 2021, Norwich Castle said it hoped to be able to acquire the hoard. At the time of their discovery, one finder notified the authorities whereas the other tried to sell a number of coins and was jailed for 16 months. Prior to their discovery, the largest hoard of coins from the same period was a purse of 101 coins discovered in Crondall, Hampshire, in 1828. Another purse found that contained 37 coins was discovered at the famous ship burial site in Sutton Hoo, Suffolk, which was excavated in 1939. Giving the coins to the museum will make sure they remain intact and accessible to researchers and visitors. Dr Tim Pestell, senior curator of archaeology at the castle, said: "This internationally significant find reflects the wealth and continental connections enjoyed by the early Kingdom of East Anglia. "Study of the hoard and its find spot has the potential to unlock our understanding of early trade and exchange systems and the importance of west Norfolk to East Anglia's ruling kings in the 7th Century." The hoard going on display marks the reopening of Norwich Castle's Anglo-Saxon and Viking Gallery which has been closed for several years while work to transform the castle's Norman Keep has been under way. Follow Norfolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X. Museum work delay 'causing financial pressure' Detectorist finds hoard of Roman silver coins Country's treasure hotspots revealed by new data Norwich Castle
BBC News
20-05-2025
- General
- BBC News
Norwich Castle acquires largest Anglo-Saxon gold coin hoard
A museum is to become the new home to what is believed to be the largest collection of 7th Century gold coins found in Britain. Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery in Norfolk has acquired the hoard which is made up of 129 coins and includes 118 different coin designs and 51 different European mints. The hoard was discovered by two metal detectorists in a west Norfolk farmer's field between 2014 and 2020. Charles Bingham-Newland, chair of the Friends of the Norwich Museums, said: "The hoard will add immeasurably to our knowledge of the Anglo-Saxon period." The museum has been able to acquire the hoard with funding by the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the Art Fund and The Wolfson Foundation. The collection is believed to most contain Frankish tremisses which were minted in the Merovingian Frankish kingdoms that occupied modern-day France, Germany, Switzerland and the Low are said to be the first coins made and used in Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire and predate the first gold coinage made in Anglo-Saxon England. The find is one of only eight hoards of this type of coin known from Europe and the third in the United Kingdom. When the coins were declared as treasure by a coroner's court in November 2021, Norwich Castle said it hoped to be able to acquire the hoard. At the time of their discovery, one finder notified the authorities whereas the other tried to sell a number of coins and was jailed for 16 months. Prior to their discovery, the largest hoard of coins from the same period was a purse of 101 coins discovered in Crondall, Hampshire, in 1828. Another purse found that contained 37 coins was discovered at the famous ship burial site in Sutton Hoo, Suffolk, which was excavated in 1939. Giving the coins to the museum will make sure they remain intact and accessible to researchers and visitors. Dr Tim Pestell, senior curator of archaeology at the castle, said: "This internationally significant find reflects the wealth and continental connections enjoyed by the early Kingdom of East Anglia."Study of the hoard and its find spot has the potential to unlock our understanding of early trade and exchange systems and the importance of west Norfolk to East Anglia's ruling kings in the 7th Century." The hoard going on display marks the reopening of Norwich Castle's Anglo-Saxon and Viking Gallery which has been closed for several years while work to transform the castle's Norman Keep has been under way. Follow Norfolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
New European
12-03-2025
- Politics
- New European
Why being a convicted felon sucks
Donald Trump, as most readers will know by now, is a convicted felon. It is also clear to most of us that this is not a very good thing to be. But do we know what a felon is exactly? It is not a term that many of us here in Britain are particularly familiar with – it is much more commonly used in the USA, where felon status may have severe and permanent consequences, eg the loss of voting rights. I have warned a number of times in this column that as far as the meaning of a word is concerned, we should beware of the dangers of succumbing to 'the etymological fallacy', which holds that the current meaning of a word should be the same as its etymology, that is, the same as its original historical meaning. This is not necessarily the case, of course. Obviously a chairman was originally the man taking the chair at a meeting; a cupboard equally obviously started off as a board for cups; and a saucer clearly began life as something for serving sauces in. But none of these origins is relevant to today's English language. The fact is that a word means what it means now, not what it used to mean or what some self-appointed 'authority' thinks it ought to mean. It is still the case, though, that it can be helpful and interesting to examine the historical origins of lexical items. And so here I am going to allow myself the luxury of wondering about the origins of this term for a person who has committed a felony. And Trump has committed lots of them: he has been found guilty by a New York jury of 34 felonies involving the falsification of business records. The etymology of the word felony is in fact obscure. It first came into English from Old French felonie 'wickedness, evil, treachery, perfidy, crime, cruelty, sin'. By 1300 the word had become established in English with the additional meanings of 'betrayal; deceit; villainy; violent temper, wrath; ruthlessness; evil intention'. There are a number of different suggestions in the etymological dictionaries as to where the Old French word originated. Felony may be related to Old High German fillen 'to whip': there was a Frankish form fillo 'a person who whips or beats, a scourge'. Second, it could perhaps come from Latin fel 'gall, poison', indicating a person full of bitterness. A third and more indelicate possibility is that it derives from Latin fellare 'to suck', which had an obscene technical secondary meaning in classical Latin that will apparently be known to devotees of the epigrams of Martial and the love poetry of Catullus. I am guessing that neither Donald Trump nor Stormy Daniels falls into those categories, but in any case we should probably not allow Trump to advise us on this matter, even if his current felony count might seem to make him an expert. The fact is that even the real experts have to acknowledge that the ultimate etymology of felon is uncertain. Probably it will be enough for most of us just to know that a convicted felon is not a good thing to be, even if it cannot stop you from becoming the president of the United States of America. Gall Gall is the same substance as bile, a secretion which issues from the gall bladder and is involved in the process of digestion. It is an Old English word which derives from the ancient Indo-European root ghel , which is also the source of our modern colour term yellow.
