Cool Finds

What Are Medieval English Coins Doing in Rome? They Could Be Rare Evidence of a ‘Little England’ Enclave That Received Special Papal Privileges

Researchers argue that the tenth-century coins provide new evidence of a bustling English community located next to the Vatican that was permitted to use its own currency

Christian Thorsberg | Daily Correspondent

October 6, 2026 4:33 p.m.

Share

Copy linkEmailSMSFacebookXRedditLinkedInBlueskyPrint

Add as preferred source

A hoard of medieval coins unearthed in Rome could be the first physical evidence of an English neighborhood that once thrived near the Vatican.

Researchers working in the walled garden of Rome’s Palazzo della Rovere discovered 19 silver pennies and one halfpenny minted in East Anglia, Kent, London and the West Midlands. Dating to the tenth century, the coins bear the names of the kings Edward the Elder, Athelstan and Eadred—all descendants of Alfred the Great. Fourteen were found clumped in two groups, while the others were scattered nearby.

“The coins aren’t pretty, but they have a lot to say,” Rory Naismith, a historian at the University of Cambridge who helped interpret the coinage, says in a statement. “More Anglo-Saxon coins from this period have now been found in Rome than papal coins. This sounds bizarre, but it’s telling us that a very large amount of money was flowing in from England at this time.”

In a chapter published in a new book, Rome and the Others (300-1000): Foreigners in the City Between Conflicts and Integration, Naismith and his co-authors argue that the coinage is material evidence of Rome’s Schola Saxonum, an English enclave that historians had previously known about based on references in surviving medieval texts.

Though its exact size remains unknown, the neighborhood was located within the walled-in district between the Vatican and the Tiber River known as the Leonine City. Founded in the eighth century, the Schola Saxonum was a hub for English pilgrims traveling to Rome. The researchers also unearthed evidence of leather-, bone- and metal-working at the site, suggesting that hundreds of full-time residents may have once lived there.

“The English quarter in Rome really was an interesting and vibrant place,” Naismith tells New Scientist’s James Woodford. “It might be compared with districts in modern major cities that house a specific community, like the Chinatown areas of London, Melbourne, San Francisco and other cities.”

The new discovery corroborates the Schola Saxonum’s hypothesized geography and suggests that its residents enjoyed a degree of economic independence, including the privilege to use their native currency in a foreign land.

The halfpenny discovery is especially significant, researchers say, as the small denomination is typically associated with the everyday transactions that took place in trading hubs. The researchers found no evidence of melted-down silver bullion, which would have suggested that English travelers were converting their money into local currency. 

“To see Anglo-Saxon coins in such numbers, from a site where they must have been used and lost over a sustained period, is therefore surprising and raises questions about the status of English currency in tenth-century Rome,” the researchers write in Rome and the Others, per the London Times’ Kaya Burgess.

Though other foreigners—including the Lombards, Franks and Frisians—also made pilgrimages to Rome and built institutions near the Vatican, they don’t seem to have received the same privileges as the English.

“The English in Rome were quite unique,” Francesca Tinti, a historian at the University of the Basque Country who collaborated with Naismith, says in the statement. “They made the greatest effort to get there. Their journey was really dangerous, and many people died on the way. But once in Rome, they were special. We knew they had the privilege of being able to bury their dead in this area and now, it seems, they were permitted to use their own currency.”

Christian Thorsberg is an environmental writer and photographer from Chicago. His work, which often centers on freshwater issues, climate change and subsistence, has appeared in Circle of Blue, Sierra magazine, Discover magazine and Alaska Sporting Journal.