Anglo-Saxon Coins in Rome Reveal a Medieval Little England

Archaeologists digging beneath a walled garden near the Vatican have uncovered the first physical proof of a medieval Little England in Rome. The evidence is almost absurdly ordinary: twenty Anglo-Saxon coins, lost or dropped in the rubbish pits of a busy neighborhood more than a thousand years ago, now telling a story that no medieval manuscript ever could. Together with traces of leather, bone and metal craftwork, the coins show that a thriving English community lived, worked and spent its own money in the shadow of St Peter's Basilica — with what looks like the pope's blessing.

The discovery was reported by Scienmag in early October 2026, drawing on research by Francesca Tinti of the University of the Basque Country and Rory Naismith of the University of Cambridge. The two historians were invited to study the finds after excavators working beneath the Palazzo della Rovere noticed something unusual in the soil of the old Little England district: coins that did not belong to Rome at all, but to tenth-century England.

How Rome's Little England Was Finally Found

The story begins in 2020, when archaeologists started excavating deep beneath the walled garden of the Palazzo della Rovere, close to St Peter's Basilica. The site made global headlines in the summer of 2023 with the announcement of the ruins of Emperor Nero's theatre, but the medieval layers sitting above the Roman remains have now yielded a find of equal weight for early medieval history. Nineteen silver pennies and a single rare halfpenny turned out to be Anglo-Saxon, minted in England across roughly four decades under Edward the Elder and his grandsons Athelstan and Eadred.

The coins were not a buried treasure. Fourteen of them came from rubbish pits in two clusters that have fused into solid lumps after a millennium underground, while the rest lay scattered nearby. That scatter pattern is the point: the coins look like money dropped by craftspeople and shoppers in the course of daily life, not a hoard someone meant to retrieve. The excavators found no sign of silver being melted down for reminting, which means the English coins were simply being spent — a striking detail in a city where written sources imply only papal currency was meant to circulate.

By examining the dies and designs, the researchers traced the coins to mints across East Anglia, Kent, London and the West Midlands. They also mapped a craft-working area covering roughly three thousand square metres, about half a football pitch, with evidence of leather, bone and metal working. That scale, Naismith argues, points to a settled community numbering in the hundreds, living in Rome on a permanent basis — a Little England far larger than the texts alone had suggested. As he put it, the English were "keeping a miniature Anglo-Saxon town going" on the banks of the Tiber, with craftsmen who may have arrived from Winchester, London or York to set up shop.

What the Coins Say About Life in Rome's Little England

Historians have long known from written sources that an English quarter existed in this part of Rome. Medieval texts refer to the Schola Saxonum from the second half of the eighth century, record two ninth-century fires, and describe a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary where the expats worshipped. Tradition holds that Burgred, King of Mercia, was buried there after being driven from his kingdom by Viking raiders. But until now, Tinti notes, she and her colleagues had spent most of their careers hoping that physical remains of the Little England quarter might one day come to light.

The coins change the picture in two ways. First, they suggest the quarter was far more than a hostel for pilgrims. The halfpenny is especially telling: as reported by Popular Science, halfpennies were the small change of trading hubs, the kind of money that changes hands constantly in markets where everyday goods are bought and sold, not the currency of ceremonial gifts or royal alms. Their presence alongside workshop debris paints Rome's Little England as a working neighborhood, not a waystation.

Second, the coins challenge a long-held assumption that the papacy forbade foreign currency in Rome. Documents from the period generally mention only papal money, and a ninth-century letter preserves a Frankish abbot fretting about exchanging his travel funds before arriving. Yet here are English coins circulating freely near St Peter's — and, strikingly, more Anglo-Saxon coins from this period have now been found in Rome than coins minted by the papacy itself. No other foreign coins from the period turn up in the excavations: hardly any from the Frankish world, or even from northern Italy. Whatever arrangement allowed English money to circulate seems to have been a privilege granted to the English alone.

Why Rome's Little England Still Matters

The special treatment enjoyed by this Little England has deep roots. England's devotion to Rome stretches back to the late sixth century, when Pope Gregory the Great sent a mission to convert the Anglo-Saxons. By the late eighth century the ties were formalised into money: Offa of Mercia instituted an annual payment of gold to keep candles burning in Rome's churches, and in the late ninth century Alfred the Great secured an exemption for the Schola from every tribute and toll at the request of Pope Marinus. That exemption is documented — but the researchers are careful to add a counterpoint. It does not prove that Alfred personally arranged the currency privilege, and the exact terms of the deal remain unknown. What is certain is that his son's coins were in use in Rome.

For readers today, the find quietly rewrites a stereotype. The Anglo-Saxons are often imagined as isolated islanders on the edge of Europe; the coins show them firmly embedded in the continent's networks of faith, diplomacy and trade, undertaking a dangerous journey to Rome in large numbers and building a home away from home. The quarter's memory survives in the modern city: the embankment road called Lungotevere in Sassia takes its name directly from the Schola Saxonum, and the Santo Spirito in Sassia hospital continues the charitable work the area once offered to English visitors.

The full findings appear in a chapter co-written by the excavation team and the two historians, published in a new Italian-language volume on foreigners in Rome between the years three hundred and one thousand. The dig beneath the Palazzo della Rovere continues — and with medieval layers still being peeled back above Nero's theatre, Rome's Little England may yet give up more of its secrets.

For more ancient-world finds, read about the burned Gallic wall that may be lost Lutetia or browse the Old World topic page.