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The Agnus Dei penny of King Æthelred II: a call to hope in the Lord (Isaiah XL)?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2013

David Woods
David Woods*
Affiliation:
University College Cork
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Abstract

It has traditionally been assumed that the so-called Agnus Dei penny of iEthelred the Unready (978–1016) depicts the dove of the Holy Spirit on the reverse. It is argued here that it may depict an eagle rather than a dove, so that the obverse alludes to the forgiveness of sins as described at Isaiah XL.1–2, while the reverse alludes to the effects of hope in the Lord subsequent to this forgiveness as described at Isaiah XL.29–31. Hence the coin may have been intended to proclaim the hope of Æthelred that, once the English have won the forgiveness of the Lord, they will ‘take wings as eagles’ and rout the Viking foe. If that was the case, however, the issue was quickly abandoned when it became clear that this would not in fact happen.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 42 , December 2013 , pp. 299 - 309
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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