Roman Coins, Money, and Society in Elizabethan England. Sir Thomas Smith’s ‘On the Wages of the Roman Footsoldier’

Citation

Jackson Williams K (2019) Roman Coins, Money, and Society in Elizabethan England. Sir Thomas Smith’s ‘On the Wages of the Roman Footsoldier’. Review of: Andrew Burnett, Richard Simpson and Deborah Thorpe, Roman Coins, Money, and Society in Elizabethan England. Sir Thomas Smith’s ‘On the Wages of the Roman Footsoldier’. New York, American Numismatic Society, 2017. ISBN978-0-89722-352-2. 222 pp., 27 col. illus., 7 b. & w. illus. £60. Journal of the History of Collections, 31 (2), pp. 431-432. https://doi.org/10.1093/jhc/fhy048

Abstract
First paragraph: Sir Thomas Smith (1513–1577) is not a household name, but in his own time he was recognized as one of Elizabethan England’s leading intellects. After a meteoric career at Cambridge, beginning as an undergraduate and progressing as a fellow of Queens’ and would-be reformer of Greek pronunciation, he was appointed vice-chancellor of his Alma Mater in 1543. This was followed by appointments as Clerk to the Privy Council, Master of Requests, Provost of Eton College, Dean of Carlisle, and a variety of other civil and ecclesiastical positions, but it was his role as a distinguished humanist that set him apart from his colleagues. Smith’s diverse œuvre includes linguistic and political tracts, his Discourse of the Commonweal (an important treatise on economics couched as a humanist dialogue), De republica Anglorum (a widely reprinted analysis of English civil and legal institutions), a proposal to colonize the Ards in northern Ireland, and, of course, On the Wages of the Roman Footsoldier, the first major numismatic treatise to be written in England. It is this last work which forms both the text and the subject of commentary for the volume under review.

Keywords
Museology; Visual Arts and Performing Arts; Conservation

Notes
Output Type: Book Review

Journal
Journal of the History of Collections: Volume 31, Issue 2

People

Dr Kelsey Williams

Associate Professor, English Studies