Coinage & Coining It in Glasgow – The Molendinar Lecture 2021

The Molendinar Lecture has been a feature of the Festival since its inception. It aims to provide an opportunity for a speaker of note to discuss the city of Glasgow and the idea of the City, its past and future, more generally.

This year’s lecture starts at some point in the early seventh century with King Rydderych Hael: King of Strathclyde and royal patron of St Mungo. It will go on to discuss the minting of coins in Glasgow under King Alexander III in the thirteenth century, the role of heraldic Pursuivants in the Scottish Mint, the wonderful coins in Glasgow’s Hunterian Museum, the Merchants House’s c.1695 board of Scripture Rules on Buying and Selling and reaches as far as the slave trade in the eighteenth century – a survey, in short of a thousand years of coin and coining it in St Mungo’s city.

The talk will be shown as part of a Zoom event and will be followed by a Q&A for which you will be able to send in questions during the event.

Roderick Macpherson formerly Lyon Macer, was appointed Falkland Pursuivant Extraordinary in the Court of the Lord Lyon in March 2018. A messenger-at-arms and sheriff officer, he is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and sometime Secretary of the Oxford University Heraldry Society. He is current Convener of trustees of Glasgow Unitarian Church SCIO; an ex preses of the Grand Antiquity Society of Glasgow; past president of the Glasgow Highland Club; a former director of the Merchants House of Glasgow and sometime Chairman of Citizens' Theatre Limited.

Previous speakers have included:

• The Most Rev. Mario Conti, Archbishop Emeritus of Glasgow
• Bishop Cameron of St Asaph
• Professor Sir Harry Burns
• Professor Pamela Gillies CBE, Principal and Vice Chancellor, Glasgow Caledonian University
• David Mackay, Architect
• Gordon Matheson CBE, 'Saints, Trains and Commonwealth Games'
• Neil Baxter Hon FRIAS, Hon FRIBA, 'The Story of Glasgow in Four Chapters'
• Professor Sir Tom Devine, 'New Glaswegians: Migrants to the City since 1950’
• Dr Tristram Hunt , Director Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A)  ‘Preserving the Past: Curating the Future’

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Mediaeval Glasgow Trust's mission is to share and promote interest in the mediaeval history and heritage of Glasgow from its foundations in the 6th century AD, with a focus mainly on its mediaeval development within the period 1100 to 1600. You can also follow their Twitter feed.

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