Dr Martin Allen
Senior Assistant Keeper, Department of Coins and Medals
Contact details
Tel. (direct) 01223 332915
Email
mra25@cam.ac.uk
Fax 01223 332923
Responsibilities and research interests
Martin Allen curates medieval and modern coins, medals, tokens and banknotes. He administers the Fitzwilliam Museum's Corpus of Early Medieval Coin Find (EMC). He teaches numismatics and medieval monetary history to students of History and Archaeology in the University of Cambridge and he is currently supervising a PhD student in the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris. His research interests include the English coinage from the twelfth to the sixteenth century, medieval mint organisation, ecclesiastical mints, the analysis of coin finds, and money supply as a factor in medieval economic history.
Appointments and Academic History
2011-
Freeman of the Company of Arts Scholars, Dealers and Collectors
2007
Senior Assistant Keeper, Department of Coins and Medals
2005
MA, University of Cambridge
2004-2007
Assistant Keeper, Department of Coins and Medals
2003
Diploma in Classical Studies, Open University
1999
PhD, University of Durham
1997-2003
Senior Museum Technician, Department of Coins and Medals
1996
BA (Hons), Open University
1979
Associate of the Library Association
1978
BA, University of Northumbria
1975-1978
University of Northumbria
1975-1997
Durham County Library
Other appointments and Awards
2011-
Freeman of the Company of Arts Scholars, Dealers and Collectors
2010-
Co-editor of the British Numismatic Society's British Numismatic Journal
2009-
Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
2006
North Book Prize of the British Numismatic Society
2005-
Senior Member of Wolfson College, Cambridge
2004-
Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries
2004-
Member of the British Academy's Committee for the Sylloge of Coins of the British Isles and Medieval European Coinage
2004-
Member of the Committee of the Cambridgeshire Records Society
2002-2005
2006-2009
Member of the Council of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society
1997-2010
UK editor of the American Numismatic Society's Numismatic Literature
1996
Council Prize of the British Numismatic Society
1993-1996
1999-2002
2008-
Member of the Council of the British Numismatic Society
Principal Publications
Mints and Money in Medieval England (Cambridge University Press), forthcoming.
'Silver production and the money supply in England and Wales, 1086-c.1500', Economic History Review 64 (2011), pp. 114-31.
'A thirteenth-century enquiry into the administration of the Bury St Edmunds mint', British Numismatic Journal 80 (2010), pp. 189-93.
'The output and profits of the Calais mint, 1349-1450', British Numismatic Journal 80 (2010), pp. 131-9.
'Henry I type 14', British Numismatic Journal 79 (2009), pp. 72-171.
'The Proportions of the Denominations in English Mint Outputs, 1351-1485', British Numismatic Journal 77 (2007), pp. 190-209.
'Henry II and the English Coinage', in Henry II: new interpretations, edited by C. Harper-Bill & N. Vincent (Woodbridge, 2007), pp. 257-77.
'The Cambridge mint after the Norman Conquest', Numismatic Chronicle 166 (2006), pp. 237-44.
'The English coinage of 1153/4-1158', British Numismatic Journal 76 (2006), pp. 242-302.
'The volume of the English currency, c. 973-1158', in Coinage and History in the North Sea World, c. AD 500-1200. Essays in Honour of Marion Archibald, edited by B. Cook and G. Williams (Leiden, 2006), pp. 487-523.
'Salaries of Mint and Exchange Officials in the Long Cross Recoinage of 1247-1250', British Numismatic Journal 75 (2005), pp. 173-5.
'The Chesterton Lane Corner Coin Hoard', in 'Castle Hill, Cambridge: excavations of Saxon, medieval, and post-medieval deposits, Saxon execution site and a medieval coin hoard', edited by C. Cessford with A. Dickens in Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society 94 (2005), pp. 73-101 at pp. 86-94.
'The weight standard of the English coinage 1158-1279', Numismatic Chronicle 165 (2005), pp. 227-33.
'The quantity of money in England 1180-1247: new data', British Numismatic Journal 75 (2005), pp. 44-9.
'The interpretation of single-finds of English coins, 1279-1544', British Numismatic Journal 75 (2005), pp. 50-62.
'The fourteenth-century hoard from Chesterton Lane Corner, Cambridge', British Numismatic Journal 75 (2005), pp. 63-90.
'Medieval English die-output', British Numismatic Journal 74 (2004), pp. 39-49.
'The groats of Edward I', British Numismatic Journal 74 (2004), pp. 28-38.
'The English currency and the commercialization of England before the Black Death', in Medieval Money Matters, edited by D. Wood (Oxford, 2004), pp. 31-50.
'The archbishop of York's mint after the Norman Conquest', Northern History, 41 (2004), pp. 21-34.
'England, Wales and Scotland: medieval' in A Survey of Numismatic Research 1996-2001, International Association of Professional Numismatists Special Publication 14, edited by C. Alfaro and A. Burnett (Madrid, 2003), pp. 405-22.
The Durham Mint, British Numismatic Society Special Publication 4 (London, 2003).
'Italians in English mints and exchanges', in Fourteenth Century England II, edited by C. Given-Wilson (Woodbridge, 2002), pp. 53-62.
'The volume of the English currency, 1158-1470', Economic History Review 54 (2001), pp. 595-611.
'Ecclesiastical mints in thirteenth-century England', in Thirteenth Century England VIII: Proceedings of the Durham Conference 1999, edited by M. Prestwich, R. Britnell and R. Frame (Woodbridge, 2001), pp. 113-22.
'The chronology, mints and moneyers of the English coinage, 1180-1247', in J. P. Mass, The J. P. Mass Collection of English Short Cross Coins, 1180-1247, Sylloge of Coins of the British Isles 56 (2001), pp. 1-12.
'Hoards and the circulation of the Short Cross coinage', in The J. P. Mass Collection of English Short Cross Coins, 1180-1247, pp. 112-30
'The archbishop of York's mint in the 1330s', Numismatic Chronicle 161 (2001), pp. 295-301.
'The volume and composition of the English silver currency, 1279-1351', British Numismatic Journal 70 (2000), pp. 38-44.
'Two fourteenth-century mint indentures and related documentary evidence', British Numismatic Journal 70 (2000), pp. 61-6.
'Ecclesiastical mints in fifteenth-century England', Numismatic Chronicle 160 (2000), pp. 249-59.
'The Pembroke College, Cambridge hoard of Tudor and Stuart gold coins', British Numismatic Journal 69 (1999), pp. 222-6.
'Mint output in the English recoinage of 1247-1250', British Numismatic Journal 69 (1999), pp. 207-10
'Documentary evidence for the output, profits and expenditure of the Bury St Edmunds mint', British Numismatic Journal 69 (1999), pp. 210-13.
'Documentary evidence for the Henry VI Annulet coinage of York', British Numismatic Journal 65 (1995), pp. 120-34.
'The Durham mint before Boldon Book', in Anglo-Norman Durham, 1093-1193, edited by D. Rollason, M. Harvey and M. Prestwich (Woodbridge, 1994), pp. 381-98.
'The provision and use of Short Cross class V dies', British Numismatic Journal 59 (1989), pp. 46-76.
'The Carlisle and Durham mints in the Short Cross period', British Numismatic Journal 49 (1979), pp. 42-55.