1044	Edward the Confessor granted the town of St Edmund its own mint.
1066	By this time, there were about 70 mints active in England. Since the time of King Eadgar in 973 the name of the mint had to be put on the coins. King William the Conqueror allowed all 70 existing mints to continue working after the Conquest. Following the Anglo-Saxon tradition, the silver penny was still the only coin struck, but at the time it was fairly valuable. When smaller units were needed, pennies were cut into halves or quarters quite legally by merchants and traders. These coins were always worth their face value in silver and so it was the legal responsibility of individual moneyers to ensure that this was upheld. The dies for coins were all made in London under the King's supervision, then sent out to the provincial mints where coins were struck. Each moneyer had his own dies made for him, containing his name and town, but perhaps because they were made centrally, the spelling was often strange and inconsistent. From 1066 up until 1100 Under both William I and II out of the the total of 70 working mints the local mints were as follows; and the town's marks have been identified as shown: Bury St Edmunds EDM DM Ipswich GIP GIPE GIPSP Sudbury SVBR SVD SVDI Thetford DEOTFORI DEOTF DTFI DTFRDI To ensure that each moneyer could be traced, his name was included after a small cross, followed by ON (meaning OF) and the town name as listed above. This was on the reverse or "tails" side, with a bust of the King on the "heads" side. The moneyer's name was thought to be more important than his town and so if his name was long, the town was greatly abbreviated.
1100	Henry I continued to mint silver pennies, although in 1108 he made provision for round half pennies to be made, but only one has been found. It was otherwise customary, and also accepted practice, for pennies to be cut in half to make halfpennies, and into four to make farthings.
1100	From 1100 to 1135, Henry I issued coins from a total of 59 mints. Our local mints were as follows : Bury St Edmunds SAN EDMN SEDM Ipswich GIPE Sudbury SVD SUTB Thetford TET TETF DTF
1112	The standard of coins and their silver began to deteriorate and counterfeits were rife. The public did not want to accept clipped coins so in 1112 all new coins were snicked officially to ensure the acceptability of all coinage.
1124	Henry I became so enraged by the state of the coinage that he held the "Assize of the Moneyers" at Winchester when all the moneyers of England were called to account for their activities. Some, or all the them, were mutilated for issuing coins of inferior quality. So grave was the debasement of coinage that the standard punishment was said to be loss of the right hand and right testicle.
1135	Stephen of Blois claimed the throne and was king until 1154. From 1135 until 1154, Out of 62 working mints in the country, King Stephen's local mints were as follows: Bury St Edmunds EDM Ipswich GIP Sudbury SUD Thetford FORT TETFOR
1137	Matilda provoked a civil war when she claimed the throne based in Bristol. Many Barons struck coins and some East Anglian coins show Stephen's head defaced. Mints producing coins for Matilda were, however, mainly in the West Country.
1150	By this time the 70 mints from before the Conquest had dwindled to about 55.
1154	Henry II's reign lasted from 1154 to 1189, and he reduced the mints down to 30 in order to issue a uniform coinage. However, Stephen's coins continued in use up to 1158. Henry at first issued Cross and Crosslets coins. The Cross and Crosslets coinage was produced in 30 mints to get the coins established but once this was achieved their number was cut to 12.
1158	The Tealby coinage was introduced and minted at 31 mints. These coins are relatively common today, but are of poor quality and often difficult to read. Because 5,000 Henry II pennies were discovered at Tealby in Lincoln in 1807, this is called "Tealby" coinage. The mint at Bury St Edmunds issued all various types of "Tealby" coins, known to collectors as Classes A to F. The local mints were as follows, together with their coin marks: Bury St Edmunds S.EDM Ipswich GIPES Thetford TED
1180	The King had several foreign artists working at the Royal Mint. The best known is Philip Aimery of Tours, who was brought over by Henry II to oversea the redesign of the coinage from tealby to short cross. After he designed the short cross coins he was sent home in disgrace in 1181 after failing to stop fraud by his moneyers. The poorly struck Tealby type was replaced by the better made short cross penny and continued to be issued as Henry II even under King Richard and King John who had no coins in their names. The 11 mints of Henry II after 1180 included only Norwich in East Anglia. Bury apparently ceased coin production.
1205	Under King John (1199-1216) the new short cross style was introduced by 16 mints, including Bury St Edmunds and Ipswich as well as Norwich. By 1205 King John knew that the quality of his currency had deteriorated to such an extent over the last 15 years that he was determined to sort it out. By this time he was paying his soldiers two shillings a day having massively increased their pay from eight pence a day. The name Henricus Rex was retained right through the reign of King John, just as it had been in King Richard's day. It was more important to have a coin of true weight and fineness that could be offered with confidence in the market place than to confuse the illiterate by new lettering. John needed five new mints for this output of new coins and Chichester, Rochester, Ipswich, Bury and Kings Lynn were chosen. After John's death in 1216, only Bury St Edmunds would carry on striking, of these five. The moneyer at Bury was FULKE, but coins continued to say HENRICUS REX. The local mints were: Bury St Edmunds S.EDM SANTEA Moneyer FULKE Ipswich GIPE Moneyers ALISANDRE IOHAN
1208	King John summoned all his moneyers, together with dies, minting equipment and workmen, to Westminster, probably to verify their methods and ensure a good coinage production. We would expect that this would have included the Bury St Edmunds moneyers.
1216	Under Henry III the short cross coins continued for another 30 years, and continued as HENRICUS REX, the same as for Henry II.
C. 1225	By 1225 minting was again concentrated at London and Canterbury but the Abbot of Bury St Edmunds was allowed to continue minting.

Prepared for the St Edmundsbury website
by David Addy, July 1999

Books consulted:
Seaby's Coins of England
Coincraft's Standard Catalogue of English Coins
Celtic Coinage in Britain - Philip de Jersey
Specimens:
The specimens shown are from private collections.