ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Coinage in Anglo-Saxon England

Okay kiddo, so a very long time ago, there were people who lived in a place called Anglo-Saxon England. And just like us, they used money to buy things they needed or wanted. But instead of using paper money like we do today, they used something called coinage.

Coins were little round pieces of metal that had pictures and words on them to show how much they were worth. The most valuable ones were made of gold, then silver, and copper was the least valuable.

The Anglo-Saxons made their own coins, and they had lots of different designs on them. Some had pictures of kings or queens, or other important people. Others had pictures of animals, like horses or birds.

But making coins was hard work. First, they had to mine the metal from the ground. Then, they melted it down and made little blobs of it called blanks. Finally, they put the blank in a special machine called a coin press, which would stamp the design onto it to make it into a coin.

Coins were really important in Anglo-Saxon England because they were used to pay for things like food, clothes, and other necessities. They would even bury them with important people as a sign of their wealth and status.

So overall, coinage was a really important part of life in Anglo-Saxon England, and it helped people buy and sell things they needed to survive.