Mystery of a medieval Chinese coin found in Cheshire, England

IT’S so odd, Britain’s antiquities experts doubt it’s true.

An 11th Century Chinese coin has been unearthed in Cheshire.

No other Chinese coin from that era has ever been found in Britain.

The idea that there was some form of link between Medieval Britain and China’s Song dynasty at some point after 1068AD seems extraordinary.

So Britain’s Portable Antiquities Scheme has judged a worn copper coin, cast during the reign of Chinese Emperor Xining, to be inconsequential.

“It is doubtful that this is a geninue medieval find (i.e. present in the country due to trade and lost accidentally) but more likely a more recent loss from a curated collection,” its official website catalogue states.

But University of Cambridge archaeologist Dr Caitlin Green says the coin is a curious find, especially when placed among other evidence of Medieval contact between East Asia and Britain.

“Needless to say, this coin has ... been the subject of an understandable degree of scepticism,” Dr Green writes.

But she says its find and submission to the Portable Antiquities Scheme begs the question: is it at all possible that such a coin might have arrived in Britain during the Medieval era?

FRAGMENTARY EVIDENCE

The odds are against this coin being dropped by a touring trader.

Instead, its fate seems likely to have been more recent.

Dr Green points out a hoard of 107 Chinese coins dating between the 1600s and 1800s was found buried in Cumbria. It turned out to be a much more modern collection, stashed away for safekeeping — and forgotten.

“Nonetheless, although the possibility of a loss from a curated collection certainly cannot be discounted, it can be perhaps overused as an explanation for ‘surprising’ finds,” writes Dr Green.

The Chinese coin was found among a range of apparently random objects within a 100m radius. Among them were two Roman coins, medieval lead weights, medieval copper casting offcuts — and 15 objects, ranging from musket balls to rings, dating between the 16th and 18th Centuries.

Nothing about this diverse scattering reveals anything about the Chinese coin.

“Whilst no other medieval Chinese coins are known from Britain, this find would not stand entirely alone as a medieval-era East Asian import to these islands if it is genuine,” Dr Greens states.

She points out a shard of distinctive Chinese blue-and-white porcelain was uncovered in a 14th Century archaeological site in Winchester. The other was a bronze object stamped with a Chinese character found in a 13th century context on the banks of the Thames in London.

And the type of currency the Chinese coin represents — minted during the reign of the Song Dynasty — remained in heavy circulation right through the 14th Century.

“As such, if the Northern Song coin from Cheshire is a genuine medieval import then it might quite credibly have arrived at any point up to perhaps the late fourteenth century,” Dr Green notes.

TANTALISING TALES

There are significant numbers of Medieval texts that reference visits to East Asia by the British and Irish, and vice-versa, Dr Green writes.

“Certainly, we know of a number of European merchants who travelled to China at this time, from Marco Polo and Peter of Lucalongo in the late thirteenth century onwards, and there seem to have been communities of Genoese and Venetian merchants living in Yuan China during the fourteenth century, with Latin tombstones moreover known from Yangzhou and Zaiton (Quanzhou) in China,” Dr Green writes. “In this light, it is interesting to note that late medieval English coins have apparently been found in Vietnam.”

One Medieval account tells the tale of explorer William of Rubruck who was surprised to find an Englishman in Mongolia — in 1254AD. His account says the man was named Basil, and may have been the son of a bishop who had been captured by Mongols during a raid near Belgrade.

The chronicler Matthew of Paris also recorded that an Englishman had been acting as an envoy and interpreter for the Mongols in 1242AD. He was said to have been a Crusader, exiled after losing all his money while gambling in the city of Acre in the Holy Land.

And Dr Green writes the future Pope Clement IV (of trial of the Templars infamy) appears to have been upset that Mongol envoys were allowed to cross the English Channel on a visit in 1264AD — even as he sat around waiting for authorisation to be granted for his own august personage as a papal legate: “the inhabitants of the city went forth to meet them, and they asked them, ‘Who are you?’ And Rabban Sauma and his companions replied, ‘We are ambassadors, and we have come from beyond the eastern seas, and we are envoys of the King, and of the Patriarch, and the Kings of the Mongols.’ And the people made haste and went to the king and informed him,” Guy Foulques (later Pope Clement IV) wrote. Explorer Rabban Sauma is believed to have crossed Asia, the Middle East and Europe from Peking.

Further evidence of direct contact includes similar accounts of Eastern adventurers, envoys and traders through the 13th and 14th centuries.

“It may well be that this apparently eleventh-century Chinese coin from Cheshire is a modern loss from a curated collection,” Dr Green writes. “However, given the lack of other ‘exotic’ items from the site where it was found, the possibility that it was actually a genuine medieval loss can perhaps be at least considered.”