TOKEN

British Museum Curatorial Report:
"I have examined an object reported found at "Darrington", West Yorkshire. The object is a piedfort or piéfort version of the coin-type known as the denier of the counts of Blois-Chartres. The reference to the coin is J. Duplessy, Les monnaies françaises féodales (2004) no. 585. This was the last of the anonymous Blois denier series (coins that do not name an individual count) and the only one of them for which there are known examples of piedforts, as several of this type have been recorded. The coin is anonymous, with a highly stylised obverse design derived from a crowned head with no inscription, and on the reverse a cross with the inscription a version of BLESIS CASTRO. This coinage is dated to the early to middle decades of the 13^th century, though it is lacks an established absolute chronology. Subsequent Blois coins bear the name of the issuing count, beginning with Jean I (1241-79), so presumably the transition of the coinage from anonymous to named occurred at some point during his rule.

Finds of single coins are not normally considered as potential Treasure. However, non-functional coins or coin-like objects of precious metal do have the potential to be so considered. The first piedfort reported under the Treasure system was found in 2007 and was declared to be Treasure. Several others have followed.

Piedforts are unusual objects and their actual purpose has never been definitely established. In most cases, they are objects struck from the dies of a currency coin, but using a blank of unusual thickness and weight. However, the weights of surviving piedforts do not seem to relate to the weights of the currency coins - they are never clear multiples of these. This is the most obvious feature that sets them apart from usable currency coins. There is no record of a piedfort being found in a hoard or in a clear currency context, nor are they referenced in any monetary context in medieval documentary sources.

In this case, the weight of the currency coin was something around 1g, but this piedfort weighs 2.65g, well over twice the weight standard of the coin. (The object is in quite a poor state and it may well have originally been heavier.) The fineness of the original coin was set at about 30% silver and piedforts such as this, when tested, have usually been found to be of at least the same standard as the coins. Analysis of this coin at the British Museum has shown it to be of sufficiently high silver to qualify as Treasure. Although all individual piedforts are rare, they are relatively common as a phenomenon in the French coinage; the reign of Louis IX (a contemporary of Jean I of Blois) appears to be when the phenomenon began. The majority of piedforts are regal issues, but since there are several known examples of this particular version, it is one of the exceptions.

A number of ideas have been put forward to explain piedforts. Perhaps the likeliest one is that they were made for the use of important officials, who might utilise them as reckoning counters. This would certainly account for them turning up far from home and away from any context of currency. It is in fact possible that piedforts as a class fulfilled different purposes across time. No examples of the coinage from which this piedfort derives (that of the counts of Blois), have, to my knowledge, been found in England.

Guidance for the Treasure Act defines a coin as 'any metal token that was, or can reasonably be assumed to have been, used or intended for use as or instead of money'. The argument for piedforts being eligible to be considered as Treasure is similar to that employed for coin jewellery, i.e. that they are not usable coins but are in fact something else. The case for piedforts is potentially stronger, since, whatever their purpose, they were not intended to be used as coins in any meaningful sense and probably could not have been (any more than, say, a silver spoon could have). In a world where coins were generally well under a millimetre thick, piedforts would have stuck out very obviously as a different sort of object. If this argument is accepted, then there is a case for this item, being substantially of silver to be considered as Treasure under the terms of the Act.

Dr Barrie J. Cook

Curator of Medieval and Early Modern Coinage

Department of Coins and Medals

British Museum

19 July 2017"

The object is 16.9mm in diameter and 1.7mm thick. It weighs 2.65gm.

Compare WILT-158D62