The Royal Mint is the United Kingdom's official maker of British coins. It is the oldest company in the United Kingdom and is currently located in Llantrisant, Wales, where it moved to in 1968.

Operating under the legal name The Royal Mint Limited, it is a limited company that is wholly owned by His Majesty's Treasury and is under an exclusive contract to supply the nation's coinage. As well as minting circulating coins for the UK and international markets, The Royal Mint is a leading provider of precious metal products.

The Royal Mint was historically part of a series of mints that became centralised to produce coins for the Kingdom of England, all of Great Britain, the United Kingdom, and nations across the Commonwealth.

The Royal Mint operated within the Tower of London for several hundred years before moving to what is now called Royal Mint Court, where it remained until the 1960s. As Britain followed the rest of the world in decimalising its currency, the Mint moved from London to a new 38-acre (15 ha) plant in Llantrisant, Glamorgan, Wales, where it has remained since.

Since 2018 The Royal Mint has been evolving its business to help offset declining cash use. It has expanded into precious metals investment, historic coins, and luxury collectibles, which saw it deliver an operating profit of £12.7 million in 2020–2021.

In 2022 The Royal Mint announced it was building a new plant in South Wales to recover precious metals from electronic waste. The first of this sustainably sourced gold is already being used in a new jewellery division – 886 by The Royal Mint – named in celebration of its symbolic founding date.

History

Origin

The history of coins in Great Britain can be traced back to the second century BC when they were introduced by Celtic tribes from across the English Channel. The first record of coins being minted in Britain is attributed to Kentish tribes such as the Cantii who around 80–60 BC imitated those of Marseille through casting instead of hammering. After the Romans began their invasion of Britain in AD 43, they set up mints across the land, which produced Roman coins for some 40 years before closing. A mint in London reopened briefly in 383 until closing swiftly as Roman rule in Britain came to an end. For the next 200 years, no coins appear to have been minted in Britain until the emergence of English kingdoms in the sixth and seventh centuries. By 650, as many as 30 mints are recorded across Britain.

1279 to 1672

In 1279, the country's numerous mints were unified under a single system whereby control was centralised to the mint within the Tower of London. Mints outside London were reduced, with only a few local and episcopal mints continuing to operate. Pipe rolls containing the financial records of the London mint show an expenditure of  and records of timber bought for workshops.

Individual roles at the mint were well established by 1464. The master worker was charged with hiring engravers and managing moneyers, while the Warden was responsible for witnessing the delivery of dies. A specialist mint board was set up in 1472 to enact a 23 February indenture that vested the mint's responsibilities into three main roles: a warden, a master and comptroller.

In the early 16th century, mainland Europe was in the middle of an economic expansion, but England was suffering from financial difficulties brought on by excessive government spending. By the 1540s, wars with France and Scotland led Henry VIII to enact The Great Debasement, which saw the amount of precious metal in coins significantly reduced. In order to strengthen control of the country's currency, monasteries were dissolved, which effectively ended major coin production outside London.

In 1603, the Union of Crowns of England and Scotland under King James I led to a partial union of the two kingdoms' currencies, the pound Scots and the pound sterling. Because Scotland had heavily debased its silver coins, a Scots mark was worth just  pence while an English mark was worth 6 shillings 8 pence (80 pence). To bridge the difference between the values, unofficial supplementary token coins, often made from lead, were made by unauthorised minters across the country. By 1612, there were 3,000 such unlicensed mints producing these tokens, none of them paying anything to the government. The Royal Mint, not wanting to divert manpower from minting more profitable gold and silver coins, hired outside agent Lord Harington who, under license, started issuing copper farthings in 1613. Private licenses to mint these coins were revoked in 1644, which led traders to resume minting their own supplementary tokens. In 1672, the Royal Mint finally took over the production of copper coinage.

Civil War mints

In 1630, sometime before the outbreak of the English Civil War, England signed a treaty with Spain that ensured a steady supply of silver bullion to the Tower mint. Additional branch mints to aid the one in London were set up, including one at Aberystwyth Castle in Wales. In 1642, parliament seized control of the Tower mint. After Charles I tried to arrest the Five Members, he was forced to flee London and established at least 16 emergency mints across the British Isles in Carlisle, Chester, Colchester, Cork, Dublin, Edinburgh, Exeter, Newark, Pontefract, Salisbury, Scarborough, parts of Cornwall including Truro, Weymouth, Worcester, and York (see also siege money).

After raising the royal standard in Nottingham, marking the beginning of the civil war, Charles called on loyalist mining engineer Thomas Bushell, the owner of a mint and silver mine in Aberystwyth, to move his operations to the royalist-held Shrewsbury, possibly within the grounds of Shrewsbury Castle. However, this mint was short-lived, operating for no more than three months before Charles ordered Bushell to relocate the mint to his headquarters in the royal capital of Oxford. The new Oxford mint was established on 15 December 1642 in New Inn Hall, the present site of St Peter's College. There, silver plates and foreign coins were melted down and, in some cases, just hammered into shape to produce coins quickly. Bushell was appointed the mint's warden and master-worker, and he laboured alongside notable engravers Nicholas Briot, Thomas Rawlins and Nicholas Burghers, the last of whom was appointed Graver of Seals, Stamps, and Medals in 1643. When Prince Rupert took control of Oxford that same year, Bushell was ordered to move to Bristol Castle, where he continued minting coins until it fell to parliamentary control on 11 September 1645, effectively ending Bushell's involvement in the civil war mints.

In November 1642, the king ordered royalist MP Richard Vyvyan to build one or more mints in Cornwall, where he was instructed to mint coins from whatever bullion could be obtained and deliver it to Ralph Hopton, a commander of royalist troops in the region. Vyvyan built a mint in Truro and was its Master until 1646, when it was captured by parliamentarians. In December 1642, the parliamentarians set up a mint in nearby Exeter, which had been under parliamentary control since the beginning of the war and was under constant threat of attack by loyalist troops. In September 1643, the town was captured by the Cornish Royalist Army led by Prince Maurice, leading Vyvyan to move his nearby mint in Truro to the captured town. The exact location of the mint in Exeter is unknown; however, maps from the time show a street named Old Mint Lane near Friernhay, which was to be the site of a 1696 Recoinage mint. Much less is known about the mint's employees, with only Richard Vyvyan and clerk Thomas Hawkes recorded.

Following Charles I's execution in 1649, the newly formed Commonwealth of England established its own set of coins, which for the first time used English rather than Latin and were more plainly designed than those issued under the monarchy. The government invited French engineer Peter Blondeau, who worked at the Paris Mint, to come to London in 1649 in the hope of modernising the country's minting process. In France, hammer-stuck coins had been banned from the Paris Mint since 1639 and replaced with milled coinage. Blondeau began his testing in May 1651 in Drury House. He initially produced milled silver pattern pieces of half-crowns, shillings and sixpences; however rival moneyers continued using the old hammering method. In 1656, Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell ordered engraver Thomas Simon to cut a series of dies featuring his bust and for them to be minted using the new milled method. Few of Cromwell's coins entered circulation; Cromwell died in 1658 and the Commonwealth collapsed two years later. Without Cromwell's backing of milled coinage, Blondeau returned to France, leaving England to continue minting hammer-struck coins.

1660 to 1805

In 1662, after previous attempts to introduce milled coinage into Britain had failed, the restored monarch Charles II recalled Peter Blondeau to establish a permanent machine-made coinage. Despite the introduction of the newer, milled coins, like the old hammered coins they suffered heavily from counterfeiting and clipping. To combat this the text Decus et tutamen ("An ornament and a safeguard") was added to some coin rims.

After the Glorious Revolution of 1688, when James II was ousted from power, parliament took over control of the mint from the Crown, which had until then allowed the mint to act as an independent body producing coins on behalf of the government.

Under the patronage of Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, Isaac Newton became the mint's warden in 1696. His role, intended to be a sinecure, was taken seriously by Newton, who went about trying to combat the country's growing problems with counterfeiting. By this time, forgeries accounted for 10% of the country's coinage, clipping was commonplace and the value of the silver in coins had surpassed their face value. King William III initiated the Great Recoinage of 1696 whereby all coins were removed from circulation, and enacted the Coin Act 1696, making it high treason to own or possess counterfeiting equipment. Satellite mints to aid in the recoinage were established in Bristol, Chester, Exeter, Norwich, and York, with returned coins being valued by weight, not face value.

The Acts of Union 1707 united England and Scotland into one country, leading London to take over production of Scotland's currency and thus replacing Scotland's Pound Scots with the English Pound sterling. As a result, the Edinburgh mint closed on 4 August 1710. As Britain's empire continued to expand, so too did the need to supply its coinage. This, along with the need for new mint machinery and cramped conditions within the Tower of London, led to plans for the mint to move to nearby East Smithfield.

1805 to 1914

Tower Hill

Construction started in 1805 on the new purpose-built mint on Tower Hill, opposite the Tower of London, and it was completed by 1809. In 1812, the move became official: the keys of the old mint were ceremoniously delivered to the Constable of the Tower. Facing the front of the site, stood the Johnson Smirke Building, named for its designer James Johnson and builder Robert Smirke. Construction was supervised by the architect John Lidbury Poole (father of the famous singer, Elizabeth Poole). This building was flanked on both sides by gatehouses behind which another building housed the mint's new machinery. Several other smaller buildings were erected, which housed mint officers and staff members. The entire site was protected by a boundary wall patrolled by the Royal Mint's military guard.

By 1856, the mint was beginning to prove inefficient: there were irregularities in minted coins' fineness and weight. Instructed by Prime Minister Lord Palmerston, the Master of the Mint Thomas Graham was informed that unless the mint could raise its standards and become more economical, it would be broken up and placed under management by contractors. Graham sought advice from German chemist August Wilhelm von Hofmann, who in turn recommended his student George Frederick Ansell to resolve the mint's issues. In a letter to the Treasury dated 29 October 1856, Ansell was put forward as a candidate. He was appointed as a temporary clerk on 12 November 1856, with a salary of £120 per year.

Upon taking office, Ansell discovered that the weighing of metals at the mint was extremely loose. At the mint, it had been the custom to weigh silver to the nearest  and gold to a pennyweight (0.05 oz); however, these standards meant losses were being made from overvalued metals. In one such case, Ansell delivered 7920.00 oz of gold to the mint, where it was weighed by an official at 7918.15 oz, a difference of 1.83 oz. Requesting a second weighing on a more accurate scale, the bullion was certified to weigh 7919.98 oz, far closer to the previous measurement, which was off by 960 grains. To increase the accuracy of weights, more precise weighing equipment was ordered, and the tolerance was revised to 0.10 oz for silver and 0.01 oz for gold. Between 1856 and 1866, the old scales were gradually removed and replaced with scales made by Messrs. De Grave, Short, and Fanner; winners of an 1862 International Exhibition prize award for work relating to balances.

Ansell also noticed a loss of gold during the manufacturing process. He found that 15 to 20 ounces could be recovered from the sweep, that is, the leftover burnt rubbish from the minting process, which was often left in open boxes for many months before being removed. Wanting to account for every particle and knowing that it was physically impossible for gold just to disappear, he put down the lost weight to a combination of oil, dust, and different types of foreign matter amongst the gold.

In 1859, the Royal Mint rejected a batch of gold found to be too brittle for the minting of gold sovereigns. Analysis revealed the presence of small amounts of antimony, arsenic and lead. With Ansell's background in chemistry, he persuaded the Royal Mint to allow him to experiment with the alloy, and was ultimately able to produce 167,539 gold sovereigns. On a second occasion in 1868, it was again discovered that gold coins, this time totalling £500,000 worth, were being produced with inferior gold. Although the standard practice at the mint was for rejected coins (known as brockages) to be melted down, many entered general circulation, and the mint was forced to return thousands of ounces of gold to the Bank of England. Although Ansell offered to re-melt the substandard coins, his offer was rejected, causing a row between him and senior mint chiefs, which ultimately led to him being removed from his position at the mint.

After the high-level practice as deputy engraver in the Royal Mint, Charles Wiener went then to Lisbon in 1864 as chief engraver to the Mint of Portugal. In 1863 he made a commemorative medal for Prince Albert (1819-1861), consort of Queen Victoria. (Victoria and Albert Museum).

Royal Mint Refinery
After relocating to its new home on Tower Hill, the Mint came under increased scrutiny of how it dealt with unrefined gold that had entered the country. The Master of the Mint had been responsible for overseeing the practice since the position's inception in the 1300s. However, the refinery process proved too costly and suffered from a lack of accountability from the master. A Royal Commission was set up in 1848 to address these issues; it recommended that the refinery process be outsourced to an external agency, thereby removing the refining process from the mint's responsibilities. The opportunity to oversee the Mint's refinery was taken up by Anthony de Rothschild, a descendant of the Rothschild family and heir to the multinational investment banking company N M Rothschild & Sons. Rothschild secured a lease from the government in January 1852, purchasing equipment and premises adjacent to the Royal Mint on 19 Royal Mint Street under the name of Royal Mint Refinery.

Colonial expansion

As Britain's influence as a world power expanded, with colonies being established abroad, a greater need for currency led to the Royal Mint opening satellite branches overseas. This need first arose in the then-Colony of New South Wales, as the black-market trade in gold during and following the 1851 Australian gold rush threatened to undermine the colony's economy. In 1851 the colony's Legislative Council sent Queen Victoria a petition seeking a local mint for Sydney, and in 1853 the Queen issued an Order in Council providing for the establishment of the Sydney Branch of the Royal Mint. The Royal Mint's Superintendent of Coining travelled to Australia to oversee its establishment on Macquarie Street within the southern wing of Sydney Hospital, where it opened in 1855. Production increased quickly: assayer's notes from 29 October 1855 indicate that the mint's Bullion Office had purchased  of unrefined gold in the preceding week alone, and the mint's overall coin output averaged over £1,000,000 yearly in its first five years of operation. In 1868, gold sovereigns minted in Sydney were made legal tender in all British colonies, and in February 1886 they were given equal status in the UK itself.

The success of the Sydney branch led to the opening of similar branches in Melbourne and Perth, on 2 June 1872 and 20 June 1899 respectively. Following the Federation of Australia in 1901 and the establishment of a separate Australian pound in 1910, all three branches were used by the Commonwealth government to mint circulating coins for Australia. The Melbourne and Perth branches had capabilities superior to those in Sydney, and they took over production responsibilities for Australia when the Sydney branch closed after 72 years of operation at the end of 1926. Following the establishment of the Royal Australian Mint as a central mint for Australian coinage, the Melbourne and Perth mints were divested by the Royal Mint on 1 July 1970.

In Canada, which had been under British rule since 1763, British coins circulated alongside those of other nations until 1858, when London started producing coins for the newly established Canadian dollar. As Canada developed in 1890, calls were made for a mint to be built in Ottawa to facilitate the country's gold mines. The new mint was opened on 2 January 1908 by Lord Grey, producing coins for circulation, including Ottawa Mint sovereigns. In 1931, under the Statute of Westminster, the mint came under the control of the Government of Canada and was subsequently renamed the Royal Canadian Mint.A fifth branch of the Royal Mint was established in Mumbai (Bombay), India on 21 December 1917 as part of a wartime effort. It struck sovereigns from 15 August 1918 until 22 April 1919 but closed in May 1919. A sixth and final overseas mint was established in the Union of South Africa in Pretoria on 1 January 1923, producing £83,114,575 worth of sovereigns in its lifetime. As South Africa began cutting ties with Britain, the mint closed on 30 June 1941 but was later reopened as the South African Mint.

Although London's Royal Mint officially controlled just six mints, many more independent mints were set up in parts of the British Empire. At New Westminster in British Columbia, the British Columbia gold rushes led to a mint being established in 1862 by Francis George Claudet, under Governor James Douglas. It produced a few gold and silver coins before being shut down in 1862 to aid the city of Victoria in becoming the region's provincial capital. On 26 February 1864, an Order in Council requested the founding of an independent mint (Hong Kong Mint) in British Hong Kong to issue silver and bronze coins. But this mint was short-lived, due to its coins being heavily debased, causing significant losses. The site was sold to Jardine Matheson in 1868, and the mint machinery was sold to the Japanese Mint in Osaka.

1914 to 1966
In 1914, as war broke out in Europe, Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George instructed that gold coins be removed from circulation to help pay for the war effort. The government started to issue £1 and 10-shilling Treasury notes as replacements, paving the way for Britain to leave the gold standard in 1931.

From 1928, the Irish Free State (later the Republic of Ireland) issued its own coins. The Royal Mint produced these until Ireland established its own Currency Centre in Dublin in 1978.

During World War II, the Mint was important in ensuring people were paid for their services with hard currency rather than banknotes. Under Operation Bernhard, the Nazis planned to collapse the British economy by flooding the country with forged notes, leading the Bank of England to stop issuing banknotes of £10 and above. To meet these demands, the Mint doubled its output so that by 1943 it was minting around 700 million coins a year despite the constant threat of being bombed. The Deputy Master of the Mint, John Craig, recognised the dangers to the Mint and introduced several measures to ensure the Mint could continue to operate in the event of a disaster. Craig added emergency water supplies, reinforced the Mint's basement to act as an air-raid shelter and even accepted employment of women for the first time. For most of the war, the mint managed to escape most of the destruction of the Blitz, but in December 1940 three members of staff were killed in an air raid. Around the same time, an auxiliary mint was set up at Pinewood Studios, Buckinghamshire, which had been requisitioned for the war effort. Staff and machinery from Tower Hill were moved to the site, which started production in June 1941 and operated for the duration of the war. Over the course of the war, the Royal Mint was hit on several occasions, and at one point was put out of commission for three weeks. As technology changed with the introduction of electricity and demand continued to grow, the rebuilding process continued so that by the 1960s, little of the original mint remained, apart from Smirke's 1809 building and its gatehouses at the front.

1966 to present

Relocation to Wales

On 1 March 1966, the government announced plans to decimalise the nation's currency, thereby requiring the withdrawal and re-minting of many millions of new coins. At its current site on Tower Hill, the mint had suffered from lack of space for many years, and it would be inadequate to meet the anticipated high demand a recoinage would entail. A possible move to a more suitable site had been discussed as far back as 1870 when Deputy Master of the Mint Charles Fremantle had recommended it in his first annual report. At the time, it had been suggested that the valuable land at Tower Hill could be sold to finance the purchase of land nearby Whitefriars, London and pay for a new mint building. However, after many years of subsequent debate by parliament it had been decided that improvements could be made to the existing site at Tower Hill. With Decimal Day set for 1971, the government quickly decided where to establish the new mint.

Over twenty sites were considered, including suggestions for Scotland and Northern Ireland; however, the small Welsh town of Llantrisant, ten miles (16 km) northwest of Cardiff, was eventually chosen. Work on the new mint began in August 1967 with the construction of a blank treatment plant and a plant for striking. This first phase of the mint was formally opened on 17 December 1968 in the presence of Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip, and Prince Charles. There had been fears that the Royal family would face protests because of the Investiture of Prince Charles as the Prince of Wales; however, no such protests materialised. The second phase of construction began in 1973 and included the addition of a means to mint coins from raw metals; thus completing the full minting process. Upon completion the final cost for the land, buildings and plant came to £8 million. Coin minting gradually shifted to the new site over the next seven years, and the last coin, a gold sovereign, was struck in London in November 1975.

Financial difficulties

After moving to Wales, the mint struggled to be profitable as the Western world fell into a deep recession during the early 1970s. To combat a rising national debt, the mint was established as a trading fund on 1 April 1975, which required it to become self-financing. This measure proved successful, and the mint became more profitable through heavy exports. In April 1990, the mint became an Executive Agency; however, by 2001, the mint had reported its first annual loss: a result attributed to only securing 5% of new Euro coin production rather than the projected 20%. Despite this, the mint began diversifying its product range by offering items outside its usual coin-related merchandise. Around this time, the mint was selling different types of jewellery, commemorative plates and figurines, eventually creating its own Royal Mint Classics range of collectible goods. This part of the business proved popular in attracting new customers, but it suffered from poor product development. Its products included a hip flask with an embedded £2 coin, an Edinburgh Crystal clock combined with a millennium Crown, and a Wedgwood plate featuring Britannia. In 2007, the Mint decided to resume its focus on coins, downsizing non-coin related business and discontinuing its Classics range.

The 2008 global financial crisis was another financial blow: a rescue package costing £500 billion was announced to help stabilise Britain's banking system. This led to fears that the government would attempt to finance the cost by selling off state-owned organizations. In his 2009, pre-budget report the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling stated that the Treasury would "explore the potential benefits of alternative future models for the Royal Mint". A month later in his 2009 United Kingdom budget, he recommended that the mint be made a company with a view to it being sold.

The recommendation was met with outrage by unions and opposition parties in parliament, who called it the "selling off the family silver" and said it would result in job losses. In contrast, the chief executive of the mint, Andrew Stafford, welcomed the proposal, saying that it would lead to further growth and secure the future of the business. On 31 December 2009, rather than being fully privatised, the mint ceased to be an executive agency and its assets were vested in a limited company, Royal Mint Ltd. The owner of the new company became The Royal Mint trading fund, which itself continued to be owned by HM Treasury. As its sole shareholder, the mint pays an annual dividend of £4 million to the Treasury, with the remaining profits being reinvested into the mint. In 2015, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne announced a £20 billion privatisation drive to raise funds, with the Royal Mint being up for sale alongside other institutions including the Met Office and Companies House.

Revival
In 2012 The Royal Mint had a network of hundreds of UK sellers of their products.  This ensured competitive pricing and availability to the UK public.

2012 London Olympics

After London was selected to host the 2012 Summer Olympics, the Royal Mint put in a successful bid to manufacture the Games' Olympic and Paralympic medals. 4,700 gold, silver and bronze medals were produced by the Mint; each medal was struck 15 times with 900 tonnes of force.

{| class="wikitable"
|+2012 Olympic medal specifications
|-
!Medal
!Gold
!Silver
!Bronze
|-
!Weight
|412 g
|412 g
|357 g
|-
!rowspan=3|Composition
|1.34% gold93% silver6% copper||93% silver7% copper||97% copper2.5% zinc0.5% tin
|}

In addition to securing the medal product contract, the Mint held a competition to design a series of commemorative 50p coins that would enter general circulation before the event. The Mint received over 30,000 entries, with a further 17,000 from a children's competition on the television programme Blue Peter. In all, a total of 29 designs featuring a sport were selected by the Mint; the youngest designer was just 9 years old. A £2 coin commemorating London's handover to Rio de Janeiro was also released in 2012.

The Royal Mint Experience
In April 2014, the Mint announced plans for developing a visitor centre in Llantrisant where members of the public could go on a guided tour of the facility and learn about the mint's history. The development contract, estimated to be worth £7.7 million, was awarded to construction firm ISG and design consultant Mather & Co., who had previously designed the Norwegian Olympic Museum, as well as a handful of visitor attractions for sports clubs including Chelsea F.C., Manchester City F.C., FC Porto, and the Springboks. To fund the development, a grant of £2.3 million was provided by the Welsh Government towards the attraction which aimed to attract 200,000 visitors a year to the area. By May 2016, two years after its announcement, the attraction, now named Royal Mint Experience, opened to the public at a final cost of £9 million. The visitor centre includes an interactive museum, a view of the factory floor, an education centre, and a press where visitors can strike their own souvenir 50 pence coin. On display at the centre are more than 80,000 artefacts, including Olympic medals, a pattern coin of Edward VIII, a Janvier reducing machine and a selection of trial plates.

Recent events
In the same month, the mint took in 48 tonnes of silver recovered from the shipwreck of the SS Gairsoppa (torpedoed in 1941), which was used to produce limited edition coins.

In 2015, after nearly 50 years, the mint began producing its own line of bullion bars and coins under its revived Royal Mint Refinery brand. Then in 2016, the mint announced plans for Royal Mint Gold (RMG), a digital gold currency that uses blockchain to trade and invest in gold. Operated by CME Group, the technology is to be created by technology companies AlphaPoint and BitGo.

The Royal Mint, in February 2020, listed its first financial product: the Royal Mint Physical Gold Commodity Exchange-traded fund (ETF): RMAU. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and Deutsche Börse. RMAU is the first gold ETF backed 100% by the London Bullion Market Association responsible sourcing programme. Investors can also convert RMAU into coins and gold bars. The Royal Mint partnered with white label ETF firm HANetf.

Operations

Coin production
As the sole body responsible for minting legal tender coins in the United Kingdom under contract from HM Treasury, the mint produces all of the country's physical currency apart from banknotes which are printed by the Bank of England. On average, it produces two billion pound sterling coins struck for general circulation every year, with an estimated 28 billion pieces circulating altogether. Outside the UK, the mint provides services to over 60 countries, including New Zealand and many Caribbean nations, by producing national currencies or supplying ready-to-strike planchets. In 2015, it was estimated that 2.4  billion coins were minted for overseas countries, exceeding domestic coinage production and providing over 60% of the mint's revenue from circulating currencies. The Mint also regularly produces commemorative coins for the collector's market, with a range of varying quality and made of different precious metals.
{| class="wikitable"
|+Coins minted (billions)
|-
!
!2015
!2014
!2013
|-
|United Kingdom
|2.007
|2.384
|1.996
|-
|International
|2.4
|2.2
|2.0
|}

Bullion
Another important operation of the mint, which contributes half the mint's revenue, is the sale of bullion to investors and the general public in the form of bars and coins. Historically, the mint refined its own metal; but following the advice of an 1848 Royal Commission, the process was separated, with the independent Royal Mint Refinery being purchased and operated by Anthony de Rothschild in 1852. The Rothschild family continued the refinery's management until it was sold to Engelhard in 1967. A year later, the Royal Mint relocated to Wales and ceased its bullion bar interests, but the brand was revived in 2015. Bullion bars produced by the mint are stamped with the original Royal Mint Refinery emblem and come in a range of sizes.
{| class="wikitable"
|+Bullion bars
|-
!Metal
!Fineness
! colspan="7" |Weights
|-
|Silver
|999
| colspan="4" bgcolor=gray|
|100 g
|500 g
|1 kg
|-
|Gold
|999.9
|1 g
|5 g
|10 g
|1
|100 g
|500 g
|1 kg
|-
|Platinum
|999.5
| colspan="3" bgcolor=gray|
|1
|100 g
|500 g
|1 kg
|}Minting of bullion coins began in 1957 to meet a demand for authentic sovereign coins, which suffered from heavy counterfeiting. Coins were released almost every year alongside proof versions up to 1982 when production of uncirculated sovereigns was discontinued, though proof examples continued to be minted. In 1987, the mint started to produce a new type of bullion coin: the gold one-ounce Britannia coin with a face value of £100. A silver version valued at £2 was also released in 1997. Production of the previously discontinued uncirculated sovereigns and half sovereigns resumed in 2000. From 2014, a lunar coin series was minted annually in celebration of the Lunar New Year; and in 2016, a series featuring The Queen's Beasts began.
{| class="wikitable"
|+Bullion coins
|-
!
!Type
!Face value
!Diameter
!Weight
!Fineness
!
|-
| rowspan="2" |Britannia
|1 oz tr silver
|£2
|38.61 mm
|31.21 g
|999
|
|-
|1 oz tr gold
|£100
|32.69 mm
|31.21 g
|999.9
|
|-
|Sovereign
|Sovereign
|£1
|22.05 mm
|7.988 g
|916
|
|-
| rowspan="3" |Queen's Beasts
|2 oz tr silver
|£5
|38.61 mm
|62.42 g
|999
| rowspan="3" |
|-
|1 oz tr gold
|£100
|32.69 mm
|31.21 g
|999.9
|-
|1 oz tr platinum
|£100
|32.69 mm
|31.21 g
|999.5
|-
| rowspan="2" |Lunar Series
|1 oz tr silver
|£2
|38.61 mm
|31.21 g
|999
| rowspan="2" |
|-
|1 oz tr gold
|£100
|32.69 mm
|31.21 g
|999.9
|-
|Landmarks of Britain
|1 oz tr silver
|£2
|38.61 mm
|31.21 g
|999
|
|}

Medals
On occasion, the mint produces medals for government departments and under private contracts for clients such as royal societies, colleges, and universities. Most notably, the mint has made OBE medals as well as many military honours, including the Defence Medal and the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross for the British Armed Forces. For the 2012 Summer Olympics, the mint won a contract to produce 4,700 gold, silver and bronze medals for competitors.

Before 1851, the making of medals at the mint was at the discretion of engravers who could undertake the work independently and receive an additional wage. A royal patent issued in 1669 granted the mint the sole right to produce medals of any metal that bore a monarch's portrait. Engravers would use the facilities at the mint to make commemorative medals of their own design for sale. A key date in the mint's history of producing medals for the military is 1815, when the Battle of Waterloo marked the beginning of awarding military campaign medals. By 1874, the mint was responsible for making all bars and clasps for war medals in the country and was making campaign medals such as the New Zealand Medal, the Abyssinian War Medal, and the Ashantee Medal.

At the start of the First World War, military medals were manufactured by the Woolwich Arsenal and private contractors. However, in 1922, a new medal unit created by the mint became the sole manufacturer of all Royal and State medals and decorations in metal, except the Victoria Cross, which is made by Hancocks & Co. Before 2010, all British military medals were made by the mint; however, they now must compete with other manufacturers.

Trial of the Pyx

The Trial of the Pyx is a traditional procedure to test newly minted coins for conformity to required standards. The trials have been held since the 12th century, normally once per calendar year, and continue to the present day. The form of the ceremony has been essentially the same since 1282. They are trials in the full judicial sense, presided over by a judge with an expert jury of assayers. The trials have since 1871 taken place at the livery hall of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, having previously taken place at the Palace of Westminster. Given modern production methods, it is unlikely that coins would not conform, although this has been a problem in the past as it would have been tempting for the Master of the Mint to steal precious metals.

The term "pyx" refers to the boxwood chest (in Greek πυξίς, pyxis) in which coins were placed for presentation to the jury. There is also a Pyx Chapel (or Pyx Chamber) in Westminster Abbey, which was once used for secure storage of the Pyx and related articles.

Coins to be tested are drawn from the regular production of the Royal Mint. The Deputy Master of the Mint must, throughout the year, randomly select several thousand sample coins and place them aside for the trial. These must be a certain fixed proportion to the number of coins produced. For example, for every 5,000 bimetallic coins issued, one must be set aside, but for silver Maundy money, the proportion is one in 150.

The trial today consists of an inquiry independent of the Royal Mint.

The jury is composed of freemen of the Company of Goldsmiths, who assay the coins provided to decide whether they have been minted within the criteria determined by the relevant Coinage Acts.

Arms

See also

 Banknotes of the pound sterling
 Bullion
 Bullion coin
 Coins of the pound sterling
 Inflation hedge
 Joseph Harris (British astronomer)
 Kevin Clancy
 List of British banknotes and coins
 List of mints
 Mints of Scotland
 William John Hocking

References

Bibliography

External links

886 establishments
Mints (currency)
Mints of the United Kingdom
Government-owned companies of the United Kingdom
Currencies of the United Kingdom
9th-century establishments in England
Currencies of England
Tower of London
History of London
Economy of London
Llantrisant
Tourist attractions in Rhondda Cynon Taf
Bullion dealers
Companies based in Rhondda Cynon Taf
Organisations based in Wales with royal patronage

Royal Mint


Angustinaripterus was a basal pterosaur, belonging to the breviquartossan family Rhamphorhynchidae (more specifically within the subfamily Rhamphorhynchinae) and  discovered at Dashanpu near Zigong in the Sichuan province of China.

Discovery and etymology

Angustinaripterus was named in 1983 by He Xinlu. The type species is Angustinaripterus longicephalus. The genus name is derived from Latin angustus, "narrow" and naris, "nostril", combined with Latinized Greek pteron, "wing". The specific name is derived from Latin longus, "long", and Greek kephale, "head".

The holotype, ZDM T8001, is a single skull with lower jaws, found in 1981 by researchers from the Zigong Historical Museum of the Salt Industry, in the Xiashaximiao Formation (Bathonian).

Description
The skull of Angustinaripterus, of which the left side is severely damaged, is very elongated and flat. The back part is missing; in its preserved state it has a length of ; the total length in a complete state was estimated at . On its top is a low crest,  high. The nares are long, slit-like and positioned above and in front of the large skull openings, the fenestrae antorbitales, with which they are not confluent. Of the jaws, which are very straight, the front part is lacking. There are six pairs of teeth in the maxillae and three pairs in the premaxillae. In the mandible there are at least ten pairs of teeth, perhaps twelve. The back teeth are small, the front teeth are very long, robust and curved, pointing moderately forward. At the front they form a large, intermeshing "prey grab", that may have been used to snatch fish from the water surface. The teeth of Angustinaripterus resemble those of Dorygnathus.

Peter Wellnhofer in 1991, assuming the skull length was , estimated the wingspan at .

Classification
Xinlu placed Angustinaripterus into the family Rhamphorhynchidae. Because of the derived morphology and the large geographical distance with comparable European forms He also created a special subfamily  Angustinaripterinae, of which  Angustinaripterus itself is the only known member; because of this redundancy the concept is rarely used. He concluded that Angustinaripterus was directly related to the Scaphognathinae. David Unwin however, considers it a member of the other rhamphorhynchid subgroup: the Rhamphorhynchinae.

The cladogram (family tree) below is a phylogenetic analysis published by the paleontologists Brian Andres & Timothy Myers in 2013. They recovered Angustinaripterus as derived rhamphorhynchine, within the tribe Angustinaripterini, sister taxon to Sericipterus.

See also
 Timeline of pterosaur research
 List of pterosaurs

References

The Pterosaur Database (pdf)

Literature
He, Xinlu; Yang, Daihuan; & Su, Chunkang, 1983, "A New Pterosaur from the Middle Jurassic of Dashanpu, Zigong, Sichuan", Journal of the Chengdu College of Geology supplement 1, pp. 27–33 [title in 1991 English translation by Will Downs]

Middle Jurassic pterosaurs of Asia
Rhamphorhynchids
Fossil taxa described in 1983

Angustinaripterus


Clementia of Zähringen (died 1175), was a daughter of Conrad I, Duke of Zähringen and his wife Clementia of Namur. By her first marriage, Clementia was Duchess of Bavaria and Saxony. By her second marriage she was Countess of Savoy.

Duchess of Saxony and Bavaria
Clementia was the youngest of six children, her family owned territory in Swabia. She was a great-granddaughter of Conrad I, Count of Luxembourg and his wife Clementia of Aquitaine, herself daughter of William VII, Duke of Aquitaine.

Clementia was firstly married in 1147 to Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, he later inherited Bavaria. The marriage was arranged to confirm her father's alliance with the Welf party in Southern Germany. She was heiress of Badenweiler, although her husband sold these Swabian estates to Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor in 1158, receiving in exchange Herzberg, Scharzfels and Pöhlde south of the Harz.

Clementia and Henry had three children:
Henry, died young
Gertrude (1155–1197), married first Frederick IV, Duke of Swabia, and then King Canute VI of Denmark
Richenza (c. 1157 – 1167), died young

Henry repudiated Clementia because of the growing difficulties between her brother Duke Berthold IV and Emperor Frederick, the latter with whom Duke Henry was by then in close alliance with. Frederick did not cherish Guelphish possessions in his home area and offered Henry several fortresses in Saxony in exchange. The couple were officially divorced at Constance on 23 November 1162.

Countess of Savoy
Clementia remained unwed for two years before she married her second husband, Umberto III, Count of Savoy, she was his third wife. Umberto's first two marriages were not successful, his first wife died young; his second marriage ended in an annulment. Umberto gave up and became a Carthusian monk. However, the nobles and common people of Savoy begged him to marry yet again, which he reluctantly did to Clementia.

Clementia and Humbert had two daughters:
 Sophia (1165–1202), married Azzo VI of Este
 Alicia (1166–1178), betrothed to John of England

Clementia died in 1175, predeceasing both her husbands and three of her four daughters. After her death, Umberto attempted to return to the monastic life yet again but was forced to remarry a fourth and final time to Beatrice of Viennois who bore him the long-awaited son and heir, Thomas.

Ancestry

Notes

References

|-

|-

12th-century births
1175 deaths
Year of birth unknown
House of Zähringen
Duchesses of Saxony
Duchesses of Bavaria
Countesses of Savoy
Burials at Hautecombe Abbey
12th-century German women
12th-century German nobility
Remarried royal consorts

Clementia of Zähringen


Helix DNA was a project to produce computer software that can play audio and video media in various formats and aid in creating such media. It is intended as a largely free and open-source digital media framework that runs on numerous operating systems and processors (including mobile phones) and it was started by RealNetworks, which contributed much of the code. The Helix Community was an open collaborative effort to develop and extend the Helix DNA platform. The Helix Project has been discontinued.

Helix DNA Client is a software package for multi-platform, multi-format media playback. Helix Player is a media player that runs on Linux, Solaris, Symbian, and FreeBSD and uses the Helix DNA Client.
The Helix DNA Producer application aids in producing media files, and Helix DNA Server can stream media files over a network.

Licenses
The code is released in binary and source code form under various licenses, notably the proprietary RealNetworks Community Source License and the free and open source software RealNetworks Public Source License. Additionally, the Helix DNA Client and the Helix Player are licensed under the popular GNU General Public License (GPL) free and open source license.

Use of the RDT, the default proprietary Real data transport, and of the RealVideo and RealAudio codecs requires binary components distributed under the Helix DNA Technology Binary Research Use License.

Helix DNA Client

Helix DNA Client powers many digital media applications, including RealPlayer for MS Windows, Mac OS and Linux (since version 10), RealPlayer Mobile, and Helix Player. It is used on Nokia, Motorola, Samsung and Sony Ericsson mobile phones. 800 million mobile phones with the Helix client have been shipped since 2004. It is also being used in embedded devices like the Internet Tablet OS from Nokia, which is found on the Nokia 770, N800 and N810 Internet Tablets. Cingular Video is also based on the framework. Other projects that use the Helix framework include RealNetwork's Rhapsody online music service, the Banshee and Amarok music players, and MediaReady 4000. Helix DNA also manifests itself as the RealPlayer on Mobile Internet Devices (MID) and on Netbooks.

Developers from the Open Source Lab announced in 2007 they would use Helix technologies for content creation applications and collaboration in the One Laptop Per Child project.

Helix DNA client contains support for the following media formats:
 Audio formats: Vorbis, AAC, AAC+, M4A, MP3, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, RealAudio, WMA, a-law, u-law and audio containers AIFF, WAV, AU
 Video formats: Theora, RealVideo, WMV, H.263, H.264, VC-1, H.261, MJPEG and container formats RealMedia file format, 3GP, 3G2, AVI, ASF
 Description formats: SMIL, SDP
 Image formats: JPEG, GIF, PNG
 Protocols: RTSP, RTP, HTTP, Multicast, RDT

Helix DNA Client for Android

Helix DNA Client for Android provides an HLS, MPEG-DASH, Verimatrix DRM and Microsoft PlayReady DRM media player for Android 2.2 to latest devices. Supporting H.264 and AAC codecs with Adaptive Bit Rate support (H.264 / AAC) including audio only. Armv7 and Armv6 supported using Stagefright media platform. Helix SDK is supplied as a library which is included within Android Java applications for over the air installation.

Helix DNA client contains support for the following media formats:
 Audio formats: AAC, RealAudio
 Video formats: H.264, RealVideo and container formats RealMedia file format, 3GP
 Protocols: HLS (Version 4), MPEG-DASH (ISO BMFF MP4)

Helix DNA Server

The Helix DNA Server, first released on 22 January 2003, supports streaming of following formats:
 RealVideo, RealAudio (.rm, .ra, .rv)
 MP3

It supports streaming to any device or application that supports HTTP, RTSP/RTP, TCP, UDP unicast and UDP multicast streaming protocols.

There is also a commercial version called Helix Server, which has more features and supports more media formats.
It was originally called the Helix Universal Server when it was announced in or before 2002.

Helix Player

It is based on the Helix DNA Client. It is available for Linux, Solaris, Symbian and FreeBSD. Users of Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X can use RealPlayer, which has similar capabilities.

Helix DNA Producer

It is a media encoding engine for creating streaming broadcasts, on-demand streaming content, and downloadable audio video files. The Helix DNA Producer runs on MS Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.

The Helix DNA Producer contains output support for the following data types:
 RealAudio 10, 8, G2
 RealVideo 10, 9, 8, 7, G2
 Ogg Vorbis
Developers who want MP3 encoding can license the code from RealNetworks for a fee. There is also an add-on package for Helix DNA Producer SDK with AAC or aacPlus encoding support.

Helix DNA Producer was also available in a commercial, closed-source version RealProducer Plus for MS Windows and Linux.

See also

 Comparison of video player software
 RealNetworks
 RealPlayer

References

External links

Free media players
Linux media players
Multimedia frameworks
Symbian software
RealNetworks

Helix (multimedia project)


San Timoteo Creek (also called San Timoteo Wash, colloquially known as San Tim) is a stream in Riverside and San Bernardino counties in southern California, United States. A tributary of the Santa Ana River, it flows through San Timoteo Canyon. San Timoteo Creek has a drainage basin of about . The creek receives most of its water from headwater tributaries flowing from the San Bernardino Mountains near Cherry Valley, as well as Yucaipa Creek, which flows from Live Oak Canyon.

In the past the creek was intermittent. Today it flows year-round due to agricultural runoff and secondary treatment discharge from a water treatment plant in Yucaipa.

The name "San Timoteo" was given to the creek and canyon around 1830. It is Spanish for Saint Timothy.

Course
San Timoteo Creek is formed by the confluence of Little San Antonio Creek and Noble Creek west of Beaumont. Coopers Creek joins from the southeast just before the San Timoteo enters the San Timoteo Canyon. The San Timoteo flows northwest through San Timoteo Canyon, north of The Badlands in the southern hills of Redlands. Yucaipa Creek, flowing from Live Oak Canyon, joins San Timoteo Creek in San Timoteo Canyon. After the creek leaves the canyon it flows through Bryn Mawr and Loma Linda to its mouth on the Santa Ana River, near the I-10 and I-215 interchange.

History

Historically, San Timoteo Canyon was used as a travel corridor by Native Americans and Spanish ranchers. San Timoteo Canyon Road was used by stage coaches from the 1880s through the 1920s. By the 1910s the road was being used by cars.

A large Native American village used to exist near the mouth of San Timoteo Canyon. Its inhabitants were ultimately incorporated into the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel.

In the 19th century the village of Saahatpa was established in San Timoteo Canyon by Chief Juan Antonio and his band of Cahuilla Indians. The village was abandoned after a devastating smallpox epidemic in 1862–63.

In May 1877 the Southern Pacific Railroad Company completed tracks through San Timoteo Canyon, over San Gorgonio Pass and east to Yuma, Arizona.

During the great Los Angeles flood of 1938, the creek flooded, causing damage and destruction. In 1969, the creek overflowed its banks again, causing damage in Redlands and inundating two-thirds of Loma Linda. Many of the bridges over the creek washed away, and Loma Linda Academy was completely flooded. These floods led to controversial calls for flood control on the creek. The federal government made appropriations for channelization of the entire creek in 1988, but local opposition to the measure was strong.  Eventually, a compromise measure was reached, in which the creek was only partially channelized in 2008 by the US Army Corps of Engineers. In 2010, the creek again flooded parts of Loma Linda. In 2013, the Corps of Engineers completed a flood control mitigation project which included maintenance and revegetation.

The creek is a popular local venue for hiking and mountain biking.

Flood control and environmental projects
Urbanization is occurring rapidly in the San Timoteo watershed, resulting in an increased potential for floods. The United States Army Corps of Engineers has built flood control structures along most of the lower reaches of the creek. A concrete-lined channel runs from the confluence of the Santa Ana River  upstream. Due to public opposition regarding extending the concrete channel in more upstream portions of San Timoteo Creek, flood control upstream of the concrete section uses a soft-bottom channel through most of the project.

The Environmental Protection Agency, in cooperation with San Bernardino County, Redlands, and Loma Linda, are working to restore sections of San Timoteo Creek's riparian ecosystem to a close approximation of its natural state, while recognizing it is not possible to restore certain reaches to a pristine condition. San Timoteo Creek is one of the few remaining functional wildlife corridors linking the Santa Ana River and Prado Basins on the west with the San Bernardino, San Gorgonio, and San Jacinto Mountains to the east. San Timoteo is one of the last major drainage systems in the inland area of Southern California with some significant remnants of riparian vegetation and habitat.

See also
 Rancho San Jacinto y San Gorgonio
 List of rivers of California
 List of tributaries of the Santa Ana River

References

Further reading

External links
 San Timoteo Nature Sanctuary Project, The Redlands Conservancy

Rivers of Riverside County, California
Rivers of San Bernardino County, California
Tributaries of the Santa Ana River
Loma Linda, California
Redlands, California
San Bernardino Mountains
San Bernardino National Forest
Rivers of Southern California

San Timoteo Creek


The oval electric ray (Typhlonarke aysoni) is a little-known species of sleeper ray in the family Narkidae. It is endemic to New Zealand, where it is generally found on the sea floor at a depth of . Seldom exceeding  in length, this species has a thick, oval pectoral fin disc and a short, stout tail with a single dorsal fin. It is blind, as its tiny eyes are covered by skin. Its pelvic fins are divided in two, with the anterior portion forming a limb-like appendage. These appendages likely allow the ray, which may not be able to swim at all, to "walk" along the bottom. The claspers of adult males extend beyond the disc. Polychaete worms are known to be part of its diet, and its reproduction is aplacental viviparous. It can produce an electric shock for defense. The International Union for Conservation of Nature presently lacks the data to assess its conservation status.

Taxonomy
The oval electric ray was described by William John Phillipps of the Dominion Museum, in a 1929 volume of the New Zealand Journal of Science and Technology. The type specimen was collected off Island Bay, Wellington. A specimen of this ray had been illustrated earlier by Augustus Hamilton, in his 1909 description of the related T. aysoni. Hamilton obtained the specimen at the fish market at Dunedin and made note of its different shape, but did not recognize it as a distinct species. Along with T. aysoni, this species may also be called the blind electric ray.

Distribution and habitat
Confusion between the two Typhlonarke species has led to uncertainty regarding the extent of the oval electric ray's distribution. Both species are found off the eastern coast of New Zealand, between the East Cape of North Island and the Snares Shelf south of South Island, including the Cook and Foveaux Straits and the Stewart and Chatham Islands. Bottom-dwelling in nature, this species is generally found at a depth of  but has been recorded from as shallow as  and as deep as .

Description

The pectoral fin disc of the oval electric ray is ovoid in shape, tapering smoothly towards the rear, and has a very thick margin. The eyes are minute and located  beneath the surface of the skin; though not visible externally, their positions are marked by small white patches. The spiracles follow the eyes and are oval with smooth rims. The nostrils are closely together, with their outer rims curled to nearly form tubes and their inner rims expanded and fused together into a fleshy skirt-shaped curtain, that nearly conceals the small, deeply recessed mouth. The teeth number 11 rows in either jaw and are arranged with a quincunx pattern to form narrow plates restricted to the front of the jaws. The teeth in the back have a single sharp cusp, while those at the front are worn down and blunt. There are five pairs of short, curved gill slits, with the first and fifth pairs smaller than the others.

Each pelvic fin is divided: the anterior portion is formed into a long appendage resembling a finger, while the posterior portion is merged smoothly with the pectoral fin to form part of the disc. The trailing margins of the pelvic fins join the body evenly, without a notch. Adult males have cylindrical claspers that extend past the disc margin. The single dorsal fin has a rounded margin and originates just ahead of where the disc margin meets the body. The tail is short and thick, with faint lateral skin folds running along the sides, and ends in a nearly circular caudal fin. The skin is completely smooth. The oval electric ray is dark brown above, lightening towards the disc margins and on the underside. The area around the mouth and nostrils, and the underside of the pelvic appendages, are white. This species can grow to  long, but most do not exceed .

Biology and ecology
Thick and flabby with a rudimentary tail, the oval electric ray seems virtually incapable of swimming. Instead, it likely relies on its mobile pelvic fin appendages, which are better developed than those of T. aysoni, to push it along the bottom. Like other electric rays, it can produce a defensive electric shock from a pair of kidney-shaped electric organs placed on either side of its head. Each organ consists of 180–200 relatively large, fluid-filled hexagonal columns, which essentially act as batteries connected in parallel. The oval electric ray is sightless and captures prey via suction; it is known to feed on polychaete worms. It is aplacental viviparous, with females bearing litters of up to 11 pups. The newborns measure  long.

Human interactions
The oval electric ray is susceptible to capture in bottom trawls, and the presence of major commercial fishing activity within its range may merit concern. However, given insufficient data the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has listed it under Data Deficient. In June 2018 the New Zealand Department of Conservation classified the oval electric ray as "Not Threatened" with the qualifier "Data Poor" under the New Zealand Threat Classification System.

References

Narkidae
Endemic marine fish of New Zealand
Fish described in 1929
Strongly electric fish
Taxobox binomials not recognized by IUCN

Oval electric ray


Bojna Čavoglave ("Čavoglave Battalion", commonly referred to as just Čavoglave) is a nationalist folk rock song by the Croatian rock singer Marko Perković. The song was composed during the Croatian War of Independence, becoming a popular wartime song. It is also notorious for its use of fascist symbolism in its lyrics.

Production
Marko Perković joined the Croatian National Guard as a volunteer, and was given a Thompson submachine gun, thus giving him the name of Thompson. "Bojna Čavoglave" was the first song by Perković.

The song was later republished by Perković's own band, Thompson. The song was originally released on New Year's Eve 1991.

The video for the song was filmed during the Croatian War of Independence. The song was made to commemorate the soldiers fighting against the Yugoslav People's Army in the town of Čavoglave, which is the birthplace of the singer, Perković.

Music video
The music video of "Bojna Čavoglave" was filmed at the frontline, close to the town of Čavoglave.

Controversy
The first line of the song is "Za dom spremni", a fascist greeting used during the time of the Independent State of Croatia. This caused controversy due to the line being a fascist greeting. The High Misdemeanour Court of Croatia originally found the line to be a criminal offense, which risked a ban of the song, but Thompson appealed the decision. The same High Misdemeanour Court accepted his appeal, allowing Thompson to use the greeting in the song and in concerts.

This controversy was further strengthened by the fact that Croatian association football fans were using the slogan and singing "Bojna Čavoglave" and "Moju Hercegovinu" at the 2023 UEFA Nations League final. Some Croatian fans who were on a flight back to Zagreb from the 2022 FIFA World Cup hosted in Doha, Qatar, also started singing "Bojna Čavoglave" on the plane. In a party in Zagreb after returning from the World Cup, players Dejan Lovren and Marcelo Brozović also sang the song, along with "Anica − Kninska kraljica".

Lyrics

Cover
A Ukrainian version of the song exists, titled "Soldiers of Ukraine" (), which uses different lyrics which are directed towards Russia instead of Yugoslavia, but uses the same melody. This version of the song was introduced during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

References

Croatian folk songs
Croatian patriotic songs
Songs about the Yugoslav Wars
1991 songs
1991 singles
Ukrainian folk songs
Music controversies
Works about the Croatian War of Independence

Bojna Čavoglave


Richard Cowling Taylor (18 January 1789 – 26 October 1851) was an English surveyor and geologist.

Life
Taylor, third son of Samuel Taylor, farmer, was born at Hinton, Suffolk, on 18 January 1789. He was educated at Halesworth, and articled to Mr. Webb, land surveyor at Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire, in July 1805. He received further instruction from William Smith (1769–1839), the "Father of British geology", and finally became a land surveyor at Norwich in 1813, moving to London in October 1826.

In the early part of his career he was engaged on the Ordnance Survey of England. Subsequently he was occupied in reporting on mining properties, including that of the British Iron Company in South Wales, his plaster model of which received the Isis medal of the Society of Arts.

In July 1830 he went to the United States of America, and, after surveying the Blossburg coal region in Pennsylvania, spent three years in the exploration of the coal and iron veins of the Dauphin and Susquehanna Coal Company in Dauphin County in the same state. He published an elaborate report with maps. He also made surveys of mining lands in Cuba and the British provinces.

His knowledge of theoretical geology led him to refer the old red sandstone that underlies the Pennsylvania coalfields to its true place, corresponding with its location in the series of European rocks. He was elected a fellow of the Geological Society of London.

He died at Philadelphia on 26 October 1851, having married in 1820 Emily, daughter of George Errington of Great Yarmouth, by whom he had four daughters.

Works
He devoted much time to archæology, and published 'Index Monasticus, or the Abbeys and other Monasteries … formerly established in the Diocese of Norwich and the Ancient Kingdom of East Anglia,' 1821. His other principal works were:

 'On the Geology of East Norfolk,' 1827.
 'Statistics, History, and Description of Fossil Fuel,' 2nd edit. 1841.
 'Statistics of Coal,' Philadelphia, 1848; 2nd edit. revised, 1854.
 'The Coalfields of Great Britain, with Notices of Coalfields in other parts of the World,' 1861.

He compiled the index to the new edition of William Dugdale's Monasticon (1860), which took him two years. He also contributed fourteen papers to the archives of the United Friars of Norwich, and many articles to the Magazine of Natural History.

References

Attribution

1789 births
1851 deaths
People from Blythburgh
English surveyors
19th-century British geologists
Fellows of the Geological Society of London

Richard Cowling Taylor


The Karen ( ), also known as the Kayin, Kariang or Kawthoolese, are an ethnolinguistic group of Sino-Tibetan language-speaking peoples. The group as a whole is heterogeneous and disparate as many Karen ethnic groups do not associate or identify with each other culturally or linguistically. These Karen groups reside primarily in Kayin State, southern and southeastern Myanmar. The Karen account for around seven percent of the Burmese population. Many Karen have migrated to Thailand, having settled mostly on the Myanmar–Thailand border. A few Karen have settled in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India, and other Southeast Asian and East Asian countries.

The Karen groups as a whole are often confused with the Padaung tribe, best known for the neck rings worn by their women, but they are just one sub-group of Red Karens (Karenni), one of the tribes of Kayah in Kayah State, Myanmar.

Karen insurgent groups, led primarily by the Karen National Union (KNU), have waged war against the Burmese government since early 1949. The original aim of the KNU was to create an independent Karen homeland called Kawthoolei, but since 1976 they have shifted towards calling for a federal system in Myanmar instead. Even so, the KNU has declined invitations to speak with the Burmese government.

Origins

Karen legends refer to a "river of running sand" which ancestors reputedly crossed. Many Karen believe this refers to the Gobi Desert, although they have lived in Myanmar for centuries. Most scholars dismiss the notion of a Gobi desert crossing, but rather translate the legend as describing "rivers of water flowing with sand". This could refer to the sediment-laden Yellow River of China, the upper reaches of which is considered to be the Urheimat of Sino-Tibetan languages. According to the legends, the Karen took a long time to cook shellfish at the river of flowing sand, until the Chinese taught the Karens to open the shells so as to acquire the meat. It is estimated by linguists Luce and Lehman that the Tibeto-Burman peoples such as the Karen migrated into present-day Myanmar between 300 and 800 CE.

Karen refers to a heterogeneous lot of ethnic groups that do not share a common language, culture, religion, or material characteristics. A pan-Karen ethnic identity is a relatively modern creation, established in the 19th century with the conversion of some Karen to Christianity and shaped by various British colonial policies and practices.

"Karen" is an Anglicisation of the Burmese word Kayin (), whose etymology is unclear. The word may have originally been a derogatory term referring to non-Buddhist ethnic groups, or it may derive from Kanyan, a possibly Mon name of a vanished civilisation.

In pre-colonial times, the low-lying Burmese and Mon-speaking kingdoms recognised two general categories of Karen, the Talaing Kayin (), generally lowlanders who were recognised as the "original settlers" and essential to Mon court life, and the Karen (), highlanders who were subordinated or assimilated by the Bamar.

Distribution

The Karen constitute the third largest ethnic population in Myanmar, after the Bamars and Shans.
The Karen people live mostly in the hills bordering the eastern mountainous region and Irrawaddy delta of Myanmar, primarily in Kayin State (formerly Karen State), with some in Kayah State, southern Shan State, Ayeyarwady Region, Tanintharyi Region, Bago Division and in northern and western Thailand.

The total number of Karen is difficult to estimate. The last reliable census of Myanmar was conducted in 1931. A 2006 Voice of America article cites an estimate of seven million Karen in Myanmar. There are another 400,000 Karen in Thailand, where they are by far the largest of the hill tribes. Others live in refugee camps in Thailand.

Some Karen have left the refugee camps in Thailand to resettle elsewhere, including in North America, Australia, New Zealand, and Scandinavia. In 2011, the Karen diaspora population was estimated to be approximately 67,000.

Political history

British period
Following British victories in the three Anglo-Burmese wars, Myanmar was annexed as a province of British India in 1886. Baptist missionaries introduced Christianity to Myanmar beginning in 1830, and they were successful in converting many Karen. Christian Karens were favoured by the British colonial authorities and were given opportunities not available to the Burmese ethnic majority, including military recruitment and seats in the legislature. Some Christian Karens began asserting an identity apart from their non-Christian counterparts, and many became leaders of Karen ethno-nationalist organisations, including the Karen National Union.

In 1881 the Karen National Associations (KNA) was founded by western-educated Christian Karens to represent Karen interests with the British. Despite its Christian leadership, the KNA sought to unite all Karens of different regional and religious backgrounds into one organisation. They argued at the 1917 Montagu–Chelmsford hearings in India that Myanmar was not "yet in a fit state for self-government". Three years later, after submitting a criticism of the 1920 Craddock Reforms, they won 5 (and later 12) seats in the Legislative Council of 130 (expanded to 132) members. The majority Buddhist Karens were not organised until 1939 with the formation of a Buddhist KNA.
In 1938 the British colonial administration recognised Karen New Year as a public holiday.

World War II
During World War II, when the Japanese occupied the region, long-term tensions between the Karen and Burma turned into open fighting. As a consequence, many villages were destroyed and massacres committed by both the Japanese and the Burma Independence Army (BIA) troops who helped the Japanese invade the country. Among the victims were a pre-war Cabinet minister, Saw Pe Tha, and his family. A government report later claimed the "excesses of the BIA" and "the loyalty of the Karens towards the British" as the reasons for these attacks. The intervention by Colonel Suzuki Keiji, the Japanese commander of the BIA, after meeting a Karen delegation led by Saw Tha Din, appears to have prevented further atrocities.

Post-war
The Karen people aspired to have the regions where they formed the majority turned into a subdivision or "state" within Myanmar similar to what the Shan, Kachin and Chin peoples had been given. A goodwill mission led by Saw Tha Din and Saw Ba U Gyi to London in August 1946 failed to receive any encouragement from the British government for any separatist demands.

In January 1947 a delegation of representatives of the Governor's Executive Council headed by Aung San was invited to London to negotiate for the Aung San–Attlee Treaty, but none of the ethnic minority groups was included by the British government. The following month at the Panglong Conference, when an agreement was signed between Aung San as head of the interim Burmese government and the Shan, Kachin and Chin leaders, the Karen were present only as observers; the Mon and Arakanese were also absent.

The British promised to consider the case of the Karen after the war. While the situation of the Karen was discussed, nothing practical was done before the British left Myanmar. The 1947 Constitution, drawn without Karen participation due to their boycott of the elections to the Constituent Assembly, also failed to address the Karen question specifically and clearly, leaving it to be discussed only after independence. The Shan and Karenni states were given the right to secession after 10 years, the Kachin their own state, and the Chin a special division. The Mon and Arakanese of Ministerial Myanmar were not given any consideration.

Karen National Union

In early February 1947, the Karen National Union (KNU) was formed at a Karen Congress attended by 700 delegates from the Karen National Associations, both Baptist and Buddhist (KNA, founded 1881), the Karen Central Organisation (KCO) and its youth wing, the Karen Youth Organisation (KYO), at Vinton Memorial Hall in Yangon. The meeting called for a Karen state with a seaboard, an increased number of seats (25%) in the Constituent Assembly, a new ethnic census, and a continuance of Karen units in the armed forces. The deadline of 3 March passed without a reply from the British government, and Saw Ba U Gyi, the first president of the KNU, resigned from the Governor's Executive Council the next day.

After the war ended, Myanmar was granted independence in January 1948, and the Karen, led by the KNU, attempted to co-exist peacefully with the Burman ethnic majority. Karen people held leading positions in both the government and the army. In the fall of 1948, the Burmese government, led by U Nu, began raising and arming irregular political militias known as Sitwundan. These militias were under the command of Major Gen. Ne Win and outside the control of the regular army. In January 1949, some of these militias went on a rampage through Karen communities.

The Karen National Union has maintained its structure and purpose from the 1950s onward. The KNU acts as a governmental presence for the Karen people, offering basic social services for those affected by the insurgency, such as Karen refugees or internally displaced Karen. These services include building school systems in Thailand and inside Burma, providing medical services, regulating trade and commerce, and providing security through the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), the KNU's army.

Insurgency
In late January 1949, the Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Smith Dun, a Karen, was removed from office and imprisoned. He was replaced by the Burmese nationalist Ne Win. Simultaneously a commission was looking into the Karen problem and this commission was about to report their findings to the Burmese government. The findings of the report were overshadowed by this political shift at the top of the Burmese government. The Karen National Defence Organisation (KNDO), formed in July 1947, then rose up in an insurgency against the government. They were helped by the defections of the Karen Rifles and the Union Military Police (UMP) units which had been successfully deployed in suppressing the earlier Burmese Communist rebellions, and came close to capturing Yangon itself. The most notable was the Battle of Insein, nine miles from Yangon, where they held out in a 112-day siege till late May 1949.

Years later, the Karen had become the largest of 20 minority groups participating in an insurgency against the military dictatorship in Yangon. During the 1980s, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) fighting force numbered approximately 20,000. After an uprising of the people of Myanmar in 1988, known as the 8888 Uprising, the KNLA had accepted those demonstrators in their bases along the border. The dictatorship expanded the army and launched a series of major offensives against the KNLA. By 2006, the KNLA's strength had shrunk to less than 4,000, opposing what is now a 400,000-man Burmese army. However, the political arm of the KNLA – the KNU – continued efforts to resolve the conflict through political means.

The conflict continues , with a new KNU headquarters in Mu Aye Pu, on the Burmese–Thai border. In 2004, the BBC, citing aid agencies, estimates that up to 200,000 Karen have been driven from their homes during decades of war, with 160,000 more refugees from Myanmar, mostly Karen, living in refugee camps on the Thai side of the border. The largest camp is the one in Mae La, Tak province, Thailand, where about 50,000 Karen refugees are hosted.

Reports as recently as February 2010, state that the Burmese army continues to burn Karen villages, displacing thousands of people.
Many Karen, including people such as former KNU secretary Padoh Mahn Sha Lah Phan and his daughter, Zoya Phan, have accused the military government of Myanmar of ethnic cleansing. The U.S. State Department has also cited the Burmese government for suppression of religious freedom.

A 2005 New York Times article on a report by Guy Horton into depredations by the Myanmar Army against the Karen and other groups in eastern Myanmar stated:

Using victims' statements, photographs, maps and film, and advised by legal counsel to the UN tribunal on the former Yugoslavia, he purports to have documented slave labour, systematic rape, the conscription of child soldiers, massacres and the deliberate destruction of villages, food sources and medical services.

Refugee crisis
Throughout the insurgency, hundreds of thousands of Karen fled to refugee camps while many others (numbers unknown) were internally displaced persons within the Karen state. The refugees were concentrated in camps along the Myanmar–Thailand border. According to refugee accounts, the camps suffered from overcrowding, disease, and periodic attacks by the Myanmar Army.

Life in refugee camps
Around 400,000 Karen people are without housing, and 128,000 are living in camps on the Thailand-Burma border. According to BMC, "79% of refugees living in these camps are Karen ethnicity." Their lives are restricted in the camps because they usually cannot go out, and the Thai police might arrest them if they do. Employment for the Karen refugees is scarce and risky. Former refugee Hla Wah said, "No jobs [...] So if adults wanted to work, they had to leave quietly without getting caught by Thai police." Wah is a Karen refugee who lived in a camp where she went to school and helped her family because her parents sought to go out to work, but they earned little money. Wah suffered from malnutrition because her parents did not have money to buy food for her nine siblings.

There is an established governance system in the camps, which are funded by the United Nations, and other donors. The Karen Refugee Committee governs the day-to-day administration of the camp under the authority of the Thai government which guards entrances and exits to the camp. Within the camp there is a robust school system for children up to high school. In some camps there are college courses organized by the Karen Refugee Committee – Education Entity.

Karen diaspora
Beginning in 2000, the Karen started resettling in the United States and Canada. Many Karen have problems fitting in and adjusting to the new country. "90% of the Karen refugees reported no knowledge of English or French on arrival." An estimated 8,500 Karen live in Minnesota, primarily Saint Paul. In 2014, Ler Htoo was sworn in after graduating from the St. Paul Police Academy in Minnesota as the first Karen police officer in the United States. More than 5,000 Karen live in Nebraska, and the Karen have also resettled in Southern California and central New York. Mu Aye is a young Karen woman who has resettled in San Diego, CA. Aye said, "After growing up in a place like I did, I wanted to become a nurse. I wanted to help sick people [...] travel to refugee camps in Thailand and care for people who cannot afford medication." Additionally, Eh De Gray, who graduated from San Diego's Crawford High School, wants to go back to the camps and share his knowledge with the school children. Gray said, "I want to share my knowledge and experiences with them."

Andaman Karen population

There is a population of 2,500 Karen in India, mostly restricted to Mayabunder Tehsil of the Northern Andaman Islands within the union territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Nearly all of them are Baptist Protestant Christians. They retain their language to intercommunicate within community, but use Hindi as a second language to communicate with non-Karen neighbours.

Language

The Karen languages, members of the Tibeto-Burman group of the Sino-Tibetan language family, consist of three mutually unintelligible branches: Sgaw, Eastern Pwo, and Western Pwo.
The Karen languages are almost unique among the Tibeto-Burman languages in having a subject–verb–object word order; other than Karen and Bai, Tibeto-Burman languages typically feature a subject–object–verb order. This anomaly is likely due to the influence of neighbouring Mon and Tai languages.

Religion

The majority of Karen are Theravada Buddhists who also practice animism, while approximately 15–30 percent are Christian. Lowland Pwo-speaking Karens tend to be more orthodox Buddhists, whereas highland Sgaw-speaking Karens tend to be heterodox Buddhists who profess strong animist beliefs.

Animism
Karen animism is defined by a belief in ကလၤ k'lar (soul), thirty-seven spirits that embody every individual. Misfortune and sickness are believed to be caused by k'lar that wander away, and death occurs when all thirty-seven klar leave the body.

Buddhism
Karen Buddhists are the most numerous of the Karens and account for around 65 percent of the total Karen population. The Buddhist influence came from the Mon who were dominant in Lower Burma until the middle of the 18th century. Buddhist Karen are found mainly in Kayin State, Mon State, Yangon, Bago and Tanintharyi Region. There are Buddhist monasteries in most Karen villages, and the monastery is the centre of community life. Merit-making activities, such as alms giving, are central to Karen Buddhist life.

Buddhism was brought to Pwo-speaking Karens in the late-1700s, and the Yedagon Monastery atop Mount Zwegabin became the leading center of Karen language Buddhist literature. Many millennial sects were founded throughout the 1800s, led by Karen Buddhist minlaung rebels. Two sects, Telakhon (or Telaku) and Leke, were founded in the 1860s. The Telaku sect, founded in Kyaing and considered a Buddhist sect, is a mixture of spirit worship, Karen customs and worship of the future Buddha Metteyya. The Leke sect was founded on the western banks of the Thanlwin River, and is no longer associated with Buddhism (as followers do not venerate Buddhist monks). Followers believe that the future Buddha will return to Earth if they maintain their moral practices (following the Dhamma and precepts), and they practice vegetarianism, hold Saturday services and construct distinct pagodas. Several Buddhist socioreligious movements, both orthodox and heterodox, have arisen in the past century. Duwae, a type of pagoda worship, with animistic origins, is also practised.

There are several prominent Karen Buddhist monks, including Thuzana (S'gaw) and Zagara, who was conferred the Agga Maha Saddammajotika title by the Burmese government in 2004. The Karen of Thailand have their own religion.

Christianity

Tha Byu, the first convert to Christianity in 1828, was baptised by Rev. George Boardman, an associate of Adoniram Judson, founder of the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society. Today there are Christians belonging to the Catholic Church and various Protestant denominations. Some of the largest Protestant denominations are Baptists and Seventh-day Adventists.

A popular legend among the Karen people concerns a prophecy about a book which had been lost and would be returned by a "white brother". This is held to have been fulfilled when the first American Baptist missionaries brought the Bible to the Karen people, but this legend is probably of nineteenth-century origin.

Alongside orthodox Christianity, some of those who identify themselves as Christian also have syncretised elements of animism with Christianity. The Karen of the Irrawaddy delta are mostly Christians, whereas Buddhists tend to be found mainly in Kayin state and surrounding regions. An estimated 15 to 20 percent of Karen identify themselves as Christian today and about 90 percent of Karen people in the US are Christians. Though other estimates put the Karen Christian population as high as 30 percent.

The Karen Baptist Convention (KBC) was established in 1913. Its headquarters is in Yangon with 20 member associations throughout Myanmar. The KBC operates the KBC Charity Hospital in Insein, Yangon. The KBC also operates the Karen Baptist Theological Seminary in Insein. The seminary runs a theology program as well as a secular degree program (Liberal Arts Programme) to fulfill young Karens' intellectual and vocational needs. The Pwo Karen Baptist Convention is in Ahlone, Yangon and also operates the Pwo Karen Theological Seminary. There are other schools for Karen people in Myanmar, such as Paku Divinity School in Taungoo, Kothabyu Bible School in Pathein, and Yangon Home Mission School. The Thailand Karen Baptist Convention is in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

The Seventh-day Adventists have built several schools in the Karen refugee camps in Thailand to convert the Karen people. Eden Valley Academy in Tak and Karen Adventist Academy in Mae Hong Son are the two largest Seventh-day Adventist Karen schools.

Culture

Crop rotation agriculture has been a part of Karen culture for at least several hundred years.

The don dance is a traditional Karen performance. "Don" roughly translates to "in agreement". The dance is a series of uniform movements accompanied by music played from traditional Karen instruments. During the performance, a "Don Koh" leads the troupe of dancers. The don dance originated from the Pwo Karen, who developed it as a way to reinforce community values.

The sae klee dance or bamboo dance is a traditional Karen performance held during celebrations such as Christmas and New Year's. Performers are typically divided into two groups. One group creates a platform by holding bamboo sticks in a checkered pattern, while the other group dances on top of the platform. Dancers must be careful to avoid stepping into one of the platform's many holes.

Cuisine
Talabaw or bamboo soup is a traditional Karen dish typically prepared with bamboo shoots, snakehead fish and basil leaves. A small amount of rice and some shreds of meat or seafood may also be added. The soup was traditionally used as a supplement to rice, which was not readily or cheaply available to them. Talabaw is one of the most well known soups in Myanmar, and widely considered to be the essential dish of Karen cuisine.

Holidays
The Karen New Year (ကညီနံၣ်ထီၣ်သီ) is one of the major holidays that the Karen people celebrate. The date of the Karen New Year on the Gregorian calendar varies as the Karen people use the lunar calendar. The Karen New Year usually falls on a date in December or January on the Gregorian calendar.

Karen Wrist Tying (ကညီလါခူးကံၢ်စု) is an important Karen holiday. This holiday is observed annually in August.

Karen Martyrs' Day (Ma Tu Ra) commemorates the Karen soldiers who have died fighting for Karen self-determination. It is observed annually on 12 August, the anniversary of the death of Saw Ba U Gyi, the first President of the Karen National Union.

Eponyms
A species of gecko, Hemidactylus karenorum, is named in honour of the Karen people.

See also
 U Thuzana
 Taung Galay Sayadaw
 Karenni
 Karen Baptist Convention
 Karen Baptist Theological Seminary
 Karen of the Andamans
 Karen Teacher Working Group
 Paku Divinity School
 Rambo, 2008 film

Notes

References

Further reading

 Forbes, Andrew, and Henley, David, 'Chiang Mai's Hill Peoples' in: Ancient Chiang Mai Volume 3. Chiang Mai, Cognoscenti Books, 2012. ASIN: B006IN1RNW

External links

 the Karen people of Burma by David Tharckabaw, Roland Watson (2003)
 San C. Po, Burma and the Karens (London 1928)
 Karenvoice.net, shares the information of Karen interacting in the world from the past, struggling in Burma in the present and transiting in the world again in the future
 Karens Around the World Unite.
 Karen Human Rights Group, a new website documenting the human rights situation of Karen villagers in rural Burma
 Kawthoolei meaning "a land without evil", is the Karen name of the land of Karen people. An independent and impartial media outlet aimed to provide contemporary information of all kinds — social, cultural, educational and political
 Adventist World Radio Karen
 Kwekalu literally "Karen Traditional Horn", the only online Karen language news outlet based in Mergui/Tavoy District of Kawthoolei
 Karen Women's Organization
 Karen Don Dance (YouTube)

Ethnic groups in Myanmar
Ethnic groups in Thailand

Karen people


Morcar (or Morkere) () (died 1015) was a thane (minister) of King Æthelred the Unready. He was given lands in Derbyshire in 1009, including Weston-on-Trent, Crich, and Smalley by King Æthelred in 1011 and 1012. He was also given the freedom from the three common burdens. He and his brother were executed in 1015. Morcar's brother's wife was later married to King Edmund Ironside.

Biography
Morcar was the son of Earngrim, according to John of Worcester, and his brother was Sigeferth. He was mentioned in the will of Wulfric Spot, brother of Ælfhelm and son of Wulfrun. In 1004, when Wulfric died, he made Morcar a major beneficiary, along with Burton Abbey and Ælfhelm.

Morcar was a king's thegn (Latin minister) in 1009 when King Æthelred the Unready issued a charter, in which he gave lands to his minister Morcar. The charter shows that he would control the crossings of the River Trent at Weston-on-Trent, Wilne, and King's Mills in Leicestershire. Although not mentioned explicitly, the land described at Weston on Trent included ownership of what is now the villages of Shardlow and Aston-on-Trent.

The river crossings at Weston, King's Mill, and Wilne control one of the main routes for travelers moving up or down England, as this river was a boundary within Mercia. The Domesday book also used the river as a boundary between counties later that century.

The land that Morcar received was listed as eight hides at Weston upon Trent and a hide each at Morley, Smalley, Ingleby, Crich, and Kidsley. This land was given to Morcar, the King's chief minister, and he was given rights that were normally reserved for the King alone. He was given the responsibility for all types of justice and exemption from the Trinoda necessitas. The threefold tax of Trinoda necessitas usually required an obligation on the land to surrender soldiers, to repair fortifications, and to repair bridges. Morcar alone could decide a fate of life or death without the need of the authority of the King or his sheriff. Morcar was given further lands in Derbyshire. In 1011, he was given five hides at what was possibly Mickleover and in 1012, two more at Eckington.

Death
These land grants again came under the control of King Æthelred when Morcar and his brother, Sigeferth, were murdered by Eadric in 1015. Williams speculates that Morcar may have been involved in swinging support in Northumbria behind Sweyn Forkbeard, who was King of Denmark.

King Æthelred seized both Morcar's and Sigeferth's lands and imprisoned Sigeferth's widow, who was called Ealdgyth. King Edmund Ironside then freed the widow and married her. Edmund redistributed some of the lands that had previously belonged to Sigeferth.

References

Primary sources
Anglo-Saxon Charters
S 922 (AD 1009). Archive: Burton Abbey. Available from anglo-saxons.net and The British Academy.
S 924 (AD 1011). Archive: Burton Abbey.
S 1536 (AD 1002 x 1004), will of Wulfric. Archive: Burton Abbey.
S 1503 (AD 1014), will of Æthelstan, the ætheling. Archive: Christ Church, Canterbury, and Old Minster, Winchester.

Secondary sources
Williams, Ann. 2003. Æthelred the Unready: The Ill-Counselled King. London.
Faith, Rosamund J. 1997. The English Peasantry and the Growth of Lordship. London.

External links

10th-century births

1015 deaths
Year of birth unknown
Anglo-Saxon ealdormen
Anglo-Saxon warriors

Morcar (thegn)