A Carausius coin at the Field of the Cloth of Gold

Sir Thomas More

Sir Thomas More, the Tudor politician, was also a coin collector. In 1518 he was corresponding with Bude, complimenting him greatly on his renowned numismatic work, De asse et partibus euis (1514).

In 1520 he was a member of the entourage that travelled with King Henry VIII to the continent in order to attend the Field of the Cloth of Gold. It is recorded that amongst the belongings that he took with him was his coin collection, a not inconsiderable collection of 200 gold coins and 600 silver. That it was a collection and not just a record of the currency he took with him is evident from an anecdote connected to the trip. 

The Peutinger Table focusing on Rome

More met with the German humanist Konrad Peutinger (1465-1547), the emperor Maximilian I’s archaeological advisor and perhaps most well known for his association with the Peutinger Table, a medieval copy, c.1200 of a late antique (5th century?) map of the Roman road network. 

As part of the meeting More offered Peutinger the opportunity to add any coins from his own collection. Peutinger only accepted one coin and the meeting is recorded as a note in his copy of Polydore Vergil’s Anglicae historiae, libri XXVI (1734). He wrote:

“....... there also then was the ambassador of the English King, Thomas More, who showed me 200 gold and 600 silver coins, and wanted that I should take from them what I wanted. But I saw none, which I did not previously have, except a coin of Carausius, which at my request he gave to me in the presence of the Spanish Juan Luis Vives with the inscription IMP CARAVSIVS PF AVG/FELICITAS AVG HSR/ on the one side his portrait/ on the other a ship with men etc.“

The reported mint mark, HSR, could either be a mis-reading of RSR. There is another possibility and that is that it is a slightly blundered die on this early Carausius coin, for example, SRS is a recorded variant for the mark. Furthermore in a later notebook Peutinger corrects the mint mark reading to RSR. 

FELICITA AVG RSR denarius from plate XXIII of William Stukeley's Medallic History of Carausius. The reverse legend is a slightly contracted form compared to the More, Peutinger specimen

The Peutinger collection remained intact for about 170 years, getting dispersed after the demise of his last male heir in 1718. Although we do not know where More’s coin is now, and there are also no known engravings of it, Sam Morehead has included in the new RIC V.5, where it is recorded as RIC (2nd ed’n) 90. Peutinger’s description is taken as being robust enough to justify the inclusion. 

Dr Mead's Allectus indiscretion **updated**

On 16 January 1750, almost exactly 276 years ago, the Reverend William Stukeley wrote to his old friend Maurice Johnson lamenting the gift of the unique Carausius “Oriuna” denarius to King Louis XV of France, as well as a gold aureus of Allectus. The relevant part of the letter is below, reproducing the spelling and punctuation used:

“Dr Mead had 2 gold Allectus’s; more than any body else had. he gave one to the French king. Not content with this indescretion, he sent him an unique silver coyn of Carausius; on the reverse, his wife ORIVNA AUGUSTA, & this without so much as a drawing taken of it.”

Dr Richard Mead was the doctor who attended Queen Anne on her deathbed and was the court physician to King George II until his death in 1754.

I have already posted, in 2022, about the Allectus aureus that was included in the subsequent sale of Mead’s coin collection:

The provenance of an aureus of Allectus in the BM

Is it possible to identify the aureus given to the French king?

Presumably the royal collection is now in the Bibliotheque National in Paris and, assuming it wasn’t previously exchange or sold, it should be found there. Andrew Burnett lists a total of 24 known aurei of Allectus in his 1984 BNJ paper. Of those there are four that are identified as being in the Paris collection but only two, coins 3 and 19 have recorded provenance s that could potentially fit. Both have the reverse of SPES AVG and are the only recorded Allectus aurei with this reverse.

This is where we now have a problem as both of these coins were stolen in the 1831 robbery and are now lost.

We do, however, have a record of both coins in the Monumenta Historica Britannia by Petrie (1848) where they were represented from previous engravings on the plates. These are also reproduced by Burnett an his plate of Allectan aurei. 

Checking Sam Moorhead's recent revision of RIC for Carausius and Allectus draws a blank on which of the two coins it might be the gifted coin to the French king by Mead. Similarly Shiel, Webb and Cohen, although acknowledging the existence of these coins, all fail to identify the Mead provenance of one of them. 

The main difference between the two aurei is in the obverse titles, number 3 being ALLECTVS PF AVG, whereas 19 is IMP C ALLECTVS PF AVG. We must go back to Kennedy's second monograph on Oriuna from 1756 and there, on page 11, we have the answer to the question as to which coin was from Mead. He tells us that the coin reading ALLECTVS PF AVG, coin 3, is the specimen that came from Mead. 

The loss of both known types of SPES AVG aureus of Allectus is a pity and does, indeed, stem from Mead's indiscretion. 

References

Burnett, A, "The coinage of Allectus" BNJ 54 (1984)

Kennedy, J, Further Observations on Carausius (1756)

Moorhead, S, Roman Imperial Coinage V.5 (2025)

Petrie, H, Monumenta Historica Britannia (1848)

Shiel, N, The Episode of Carausius and Allectus (1977)

Webb, P, "The coinage of Allectus" NC 6 (1906)