The mint at Bury St Edmunds

The abbot's mint at Bury St Edmunds occupies a unique place in the history of English coinage from the reign of Edward the Confessor for nearly three hundred years. During that period not only was it rare for an ecclesiastic - least of all an abbot - to enjoy the right to mint coins of the realm independently of the workshops commissioned on behalf of the king, but the abbots at Bury established and maintained their prerogative with such success that their mint remained in being while other provincial. mints throughout the country were progressively closed. In eastern England alone the abbots saw the demise of royal mints in such important centres as Cambridge, Colchester, Ipswich, Lincoln and Norwich. The surviving coins and records from the abbey provide a valuable insight into the numismatic and economic history of the period.