This guide is only intended to introduce the short cross coinage to new collectors and beginners generally and to assist in classifying these coins. It is not a scholarly work; it does not include any significant original material and some of the details and complexities have been simplified. If it enables collectors, archaeological site personnel, detectorists and others to identify the majority of normal coins at need, then its aims will have been achieved. The introduction sets out very briefly the historical context of the short cross coinage and the development of the classification system in used today. Numismatists have studied the coins for many years, but it is only since the original written records or 'Rolls' (some of which have survived from the time when these coins were struck) have been transcribed and studied that many matters have been determinded. The Rolls contain many references to financial matters of the time and the names and details of some moneyers and mint officials are recorded (sometimes with their dates of appointment, death or removal) and this information has provided to be invaluable in establishing a chronology and in placing coins of the different types in sequence.