The exact parameters of this volume of Medieval European Coinage (MEC), the first of three on the coinages of Britain and Ireland, evolved over the course of its preparation. According to the plan originally published in MEC 1, the series was to include two volumes covering the British Isles from the tenth century onwards, the first picking up from the end of MEC 1 in 924 and running down to 1279 (vol. 8), with a second continuing to 1509 (a single vol. 9 in the original scheme). A preliminary evaluation of the Fitzwilliam collection in 2012 showed, however, that the collection had grown too much since these divisions were laid down to be published in two volumes as intended. Moreover, new acquisitions (especially of the Blunt and De Wit collections) had transformed the museum's holdings of early medieval British coinage dating to the period covered by MEC 1 (c. 600–924). As early as 1990, Mark Blackburn envisaged the Blunt collection alone providing the material for two supplementary volumes of MEC (Blackburn 1990a, 121). It was therefore decided to undertake a reframed vol. 8 covering the period from the end of Roman Britain down to 1066 (1170 for Ireland), with a slightly modified title (‘Britain and Ireland’) to match changing scholarly approaches to the early Middle Ages. This would provide an ideal opportunity to publish the museum's expanded holdings in their entirety, the better to place the totality of the collection in context and provide a thorough conspectus of the period as a whole.

The arrangement of the catalogue is discussed in detail elsewhere (pp. 492–4). In most respects its organisation follows the traditional arrangement for coins of this period, especially within reigns and major types. The early pennies have been laid out on the model of T&S and SCBI 63 to facilitate easy comparison between major collections of these complex coinages. Later eighth- and ninth-century Anglo-Saxon coins break from Chick 2010 and Naismith 2011a in being organised by kingdom rather than phase or mint: this decision was prompted by the larger chronological scope of this catalogue, which runs through the entirety of Anglo-Saxon numismatic history. However, the corresponding text chapters take a more integrated approach, with the intention that these two layouts should complement one another.