Late Roman and early medieval silver has been a focus of recent research at National Museums Scotland. Attention has centred on three hoards: the well-known hacksilver hoard from Traprain Law (East Lothian); and two lesser-known assemblages from Gaulcross (Aberdeenshire) (augmented by 100 new finds made in 2013) and Norrie’s Law (Fife). All were deposited in the fifth to early sixth century, but their diverse contents reveal contrasting responses to the use of Roman silver and its dwindling post-Roman supply. In this impressive volume—the outcome of an AHRC network grant between National Museums Scotland and the Leibniz-Zentrum für Archäologie in Germany—these hoards form a starting point for a wider discussion of the acquisition, use and circulation of silver across the Roman to early medieval transition in Europe.
Sixteen detailed, analytical chapters sit alongside full catalogues of the Gaulcross and Norrie’s Law hoards (Traprain Law was published in Hunter, Kaufmann-Heinimann & Painter Reference Hunter, Kaufmann-Heinimann and Painter2022). Four further catalogues cover new and under-researched assemblages: hoards from Wem (Shropshire) and Tummel Bridge (Perthshire); the hacksilver component from Patching (West Sussex); and the ‘Cavan’ bracelet (Co. Cavan, Ireland).
The editors’ Introduction provides a useful orientation. I then suggest reading Chapter 3, in which Alice Blackwell and Martin Goldberg compare the three Scottish hoards, as a starting point. Unlike the Traprain Law hoard, which contains large quantities of high-purity Roman plate, hacked into bullion reflecting Roman weight standards, Gaulcross and Norrie’s Law combine Roman fragments with objects influenced by British insular traditions. Some of these silver objects reflect Roman weights and appear to stem from Roman alloys, suggesting production within the Empire to suit northern tastes, while others signal the development of local silver products. While Traprain Law was deposited around the mid-fifth century, Gaulcross and Norrie’s Law date to the late fifth/early sixth century (significantly earlier than the seventh-century date once proposed for Gaulcross). This points to a sizeable quantity of silver in fifth-century northern Britain, received as both bulk hacksilver payments and prestige objects, which was handled in fundamentally different ways. Rob Collins argues for army pay as a key vehicle for the channelling of Roman silver towards the northern frontier, which fits with the military origin of some of the hacksilver pieces, such as belt-fittings and shield-rim mounts.
The differential treatment of Roman silver in Pictland matches a much wider picture of varied circulation across northern Europe, as outlined by Fraser Hunter. His use of correspondence analysis is effective in revealing the geography underlying different patterns of silver supply, exchange and reuse: plate was preferred within the empire; ingots at the militarised frontier and clipped siliquae in Britannia, where coins continued to be taken at face value—a subject also considered by Richard Abdy in his note on the siliquae from Norrie’s Law and Gaulcross. The 2018 Wem hoard, discussed by Roger White, Richard Hobbs and Abdy, is notable in this context for including quartered and halved siliquae. Likely deposited in the late fifth century, it represents the tail-end of late Roman silver circulation, with few recognisable Roman items and a predominance of ingots related to silver processing, alongside the coins treated as bullion.
Beyond the northern borders the picture is particularly messy and interesting. Hacksilver hoards from southern Scandinavia, according to Andreas Rau’s contribution, are closest in form to those from Scotland and, like the Scottish hoards, contain local silver products, the Nydam style flourishing at the same time as the import to southern Scandinavia of large quantities of late Roman silver. Thus, while the allure of silver seems likely to have been tied to its imperial connotations, silver was transformed into artefact types that reflected local social economies. There is an interesting parallel here with the massive, linked silver chains from Scotland (including from the site—not the hoard—of Traprain Law), which may echo Iron Age torcs: long-lived symbols of power. The hoard from Wem shows this transformation in process, since it is largely composed of ingots at various stages of being hammered into finished objects. The overall impression is of the central role of wearable silver objects in communicating power in nascent early medieval polities.
An early source of Roman silver in southern Scandinavia was denarii. Aleksander Bursche and Kyrylo Myzgin show that these fine silver coins, which originally reached ‘barbarian’ territories in the second century, had an extended lifespan in central and eastern Europe stretching into the sixth century, something that was not true in Scotland. The coins also appear in Frankish burials, alongside silver jewellery. Dieter Quast observes that, despite the evident availability of silver in the Merovingian period, silver coinage was minted only from c. 675. He ties this to the emergence of a new silver source, namely fresh mining at Melle, but this view may need to be updated in light of recent evidence for the reuse of Byzantine silver in the earliest post-Roman silver coins in north-west Europe (Kershaw et al. Reference Kershaw2024). Matthias Hardt extends this comparison of silver use into the Slavic and Viking worlds, but cautions against assuming continuity. He finds no evidence that fifth- and sixth-century hacksilver practices survived into the bullion economies of the ninth and tenth centuries.
Several shorter chapters take a closer look at specific artefact types. Handpins and spiral finger rings are discussed as objects that developed in copper-alloy in insular settings, before being translated into prestige forms in silver in the fourth/fifth centuries. Joanna Close-Brooks reidentifies copper-alloy mounts from Hillquarter (Co. Westmeath, Ireland) as shield-, rather than saddle-, mounts, which assigns them to a date in the fourth or fifth centuries. Ellen Swift’s analysis of fifth-century silver quoit-style brooches, made in south-east England, reveals their long lives, repair and sparing use of silver: surely these must be reactions to the limited availability of precious metal. Yet, as Hunter and Rau explain, large volumes of late Roman silver were hoarded in nearby Patching (West Sussex) and Hoxne (Suffolk) at a broadly similar date. Access to silver thus appears to have varied greatly by region, even within a confined area.
This raises the wider question of the management and control of silver sources, which is taken up in several chapters. Lore Troalen, Janet Lang and Jim Tate present XRF and µPIXE analysis of silver in Gaulcross and Norrie’s Law. Rather than deriving from a single stock of progressively diluted Roman plate, as might be suspected, the silver is a mix of fine silver, of typical Roman composition, and silver that has been deliberately debased with copper alloys. Fine and debased silver thus circulated side by side, and Roman silver was recycled to extend the available supply. The fascinating discovery at the Pictish settlement of Rhynie, Aberdeenshire, of vessels likely used for cupelling silver (Cruickshanks & Noble) reveals part of this process in operation. It points to the important role of central places as manufacturing areas for high-status metalwork, as paralleled in Scandinavia.
For this reviewer, two future avenues of enquiry seem salient. The first is the landscape context of the hoards. Rau argues on the basis of finds contexts that the Scandinavian hoards were ritually deposited. This theme could have been developed further for the Scottish material, particularly given earlier suggestions for the association of the Gaulcross and Norrie’s Law hoards with prehistoric landscapes (Noble et al. Reference Noble2016). The second is the more extensive use of scientific analysis to investigate the origins of the silver. Lead isotope analysis, both of late Roman silver and the hacksilver under study, could have been fruitfully applied to test source relationships and mixing histories. This approach has seen something of a revival in recent years, and the analysis presented here identifies distinct metal groups, creating a ready framework for future sampling.
Overall, the book is a major achievement, with the international perspective showing how silver was used to negotiate the transition between the Roman and emerging early medieval worlds.
