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- "A. E. Packe finds considerable variation in engraving and workmanship of the coins of the first three Norman kings, and suggests that the good coins were made with dies sent out from London and that some good and many bad coins came from dies made in the local mints. Die engraving was part of the 'mystery' of the goldsmiths. Packe finds a German influence in English die engraving and thinks that Otto was of German extraction. He notes that the moneyers were a distinct class from the die engravers. [...] In 1086, as recorded in Domesday Book, Otto the goldsmith (aurifaber) held the manor of Gestingthorpe in Essex in chief of the king. [...] After the death of William the Conqueror at Rouen on 9 Sept. 1087, his body was buried at Caen in the church of St. Stephen. William Rufus instructed Otto to erect a tomb over his father as a splendid memorial. Otto obeyed the king's orders and completed a tomb shining with gold and silver and precious style. The memorial survived without molestation until 1522, when the tomb was opened on instructions from Rome, and the body, after examination, was reinterred. But in 1562, the tomb was completely destroyed by the Calvinists, and the remains, except for one thigh bone, were scattered and lost." [F. N. Craig, "Descent from a Domesday Goldsmith." The American Genealogist 65:1, January 1990, p. 24.]
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