Ralph "the Moneyer,"

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ChartsAncestors of Adele La Force
Ancestors of Harriet Hanson Robinson
Ancestors of Wilford Ervie Billings
Ralph "the Moneyer,", whose ancestry is unknown (or not traced here), was born before 1035.1 He died before 1061.1

Ralph "the Moneyer," appears to have been the subject of a miracle by St William of Norwich:
iii. Of Ralph the moneyer of Norwich who was healed of an illness and his ma[i]d servant who was cured.
About the same time Ralph the moneyer of Norwich was oppressed with a very severe disease. Attracted by the examples of many, he vowed a vow to St William, paid it, and recovered forthwith. When his recovery was complete, the glorious martyr appeared to him in a vision saying: "I am the boy William, who at God's bidding cured you; thank me and remain devout. This too, I bid you: visit Thomas my warden and secretary and tell him to be comforted and not to faint,__to continue diligent in my service: for I hold the obedience dear which his devotioni shows to me."2

As this Ralph "the Moneyer," lived and died well before the conquest, the following is probably about a descendant. A treatise on numismatics in the reign of of Henry I, discusses the mint at Oxford. Note the suggestion that Ralph the Moneyer of London and Oxford is perhaps Ralph Fitz Almer mentioned in an 1130 Pipe Roll entry:
To reintroduce the art of coining, there is little doubt that the King sent his Loudon moneyer RAPVLF to Oxford, for he had coined at London in several of the types until and including 262 (1129-1131), when his name disappears from that mint, and simultaneously appears at Oxford on type 255 (1131-1135), where he remained during Stephen's first, but finally returned to London to coin in one of his later types. On his last type (262) of Henry's reign in London, his name appears in three forms, RAPVLF, RAWLE, and RAVF, and in the following type at Oxford (255) as RAPVLF and RAWLF, for no doubt he furnished his own instructions to the King's aurifaber for the legends on his dies. In the 1130 Pipe Roll there is an entry under Oxford that Ralph fitz Amalr paid a fee of half a mark of gold for his land, because he had traversed against William of London—i.e., for the land at Oxford which he had acquired from or exchanged with William of London [? William Travers, see page 312]—and so, as we have the coincidences of the name of Ralph of London appearing for the first time at Oxford on the type for the following year, and that of William appearing for the first time at London on the same type, it would almost appear as if Ralph the moneyer was Ralph fitz Amalr, and had paid the fee to obtain his qualification for the office as a tenant in capile at Oxford, by exchanging his own house at London for that of William at Oxford, who, no doubt, after instruction, succeeded to his office in London, and struck the WILLELMVS ON LVN coins. As the fee was payable after the exchange, the latter would then rightly be described as William of London. If this is correct, it would not only further explain the return of the £10 to the citizens, as the revival of the Oxford mint was then promised, but would also fix the date of the qualification of the moneyer immediately prior to the issue of type 255 (1131-1135). Such a qualification must have been necessary, or Domesday's list of the tenants in capite would not have included the names of all of the six moneyers then coining at Oxford. Ralph is again mentioned in a list of the King's burgesses of Oxford, in the transcript of Stephen's charter to Christ Church, as "Radulfus Hons," which latter word is probably a corruption of Mons = monetarius (Monasticon). Ruding quotes the mention of " five shillings from the land of Eadwin the moneyer," in an Abingdon charter of 1116, and of " land held by Godwin and Brihtric, moneyers," in the foundation charter of Oseney Abbey, 1129. The first—which, by the way, Mr. Spicer corrects to " five shillings from the land of Edwin the moneyer and bis brother "—is merely the description of the land which was still known as the land of Edwin the moneyer and his brother, although the former, and therefore both, had lived in the days of the Confessor and was the EADPINE of his Oxford coins. This was the usual practice in legal documents at that date and it has survived until modern times, although we sometimes prefix "now or formerly," and in the Pipe Rolls, for instance, we have "the land of William Peverell" long after he had disappeared from history. The second instance, "land held by Godwin and Brihtric," is precisely similar and almost proves the case, for in the charter the correct reading is "terras quas tenuerunt." Hence the "Godwine" and "Brihtred" of Domesday and on the coins of William I have, in the course of copying, forty-three years afterwards, become "Godwin and Brihtric," and are similarly repeated in an Oxford charter of two generations later!

The mint was continued until the accession of Edward I.3

Family

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This person was last edited on23 Jul 2016

Citations

  1. [S1845] Henry James Young, The Blackmans of Knight's Creek: Ancestors and Descendants of George and Maria (Smith) Blackman (Carlisle, Pennsylvania: s.p., 1980), 121 (Gen XXX 75), further cited as Young, Blackmans of Knight's Creek.
  2. [S2060] Augustus Jessopp and Mountague Rhodes James, The Life and Miracles of St. William of Norwich by Thomas of Monmouth (1896; reprint, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 168, further cited as Jessopp & James, Miracles of St. William.
  3. [S2061] W. J. Andrew, "A Numismatic History of the Reign of Henry I (1100-1135)," The Numismatic Chronicle, and Journal of the Numismatic Society, Fourth series--Vol I, (London: Bernard Quartich, 1901), 305-6, 356-59, 465, further cited as Andrew, "Numismatics & Henry I."