Ex libris & * Florence Marion Whitehill THE ARTS IN EARLY ENGLAND PI. A Frontispiece to Vol. lit See p. 5 1 1 f. THE KINGSTON BROOCH sSSME II I, about | natural size ; II, enlarged about 2^ linear THE ARTS IN EARLY ENGLAND By G. BALDWIN BROWN, M.A. WATSON GORDON PROFESSOR OF FINE ART IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH * * * SAXON ART AND INDUSTRY IN THE PAGAN PERIOD WITH EIGHT PLATES IN COLOUR, ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-EIGHT HALF-TONE PLATES, TWENTY-NINE LINE ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT, AND EIGHT MAPS NEW YORK E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY 1915 CONTENTS PREFATORY NOTE LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY: THE ARRANGEMENT AND SCOPE OF THE VOLUMES i CHAPTER II THE ARTISTIC ASPECTS OF THE EARLY ANGLO- SAXON COINAGE 5 6 CHAPTER III THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY OF THE PAGAN PERIOD 114 CHAPTER IV TOMB FURNITURE: (I) ARMS 192 CHAPTER V TOMB FURNITURE : (II) THE MORPHOLOGY OF THE FIBULA 243 vi CONTENTS CHAPTER VI PAGE TOMB FURNITURE: (III) ORNAMENTATION ON FIBULAE AND OTHER OBJECTS 290 CHAPTER VII TOMB FURNITURE : (IV) BUCKLES AND OTHER ADJUNCTS OF THE DRESS 346 PREFATORY NOTE The Introductory Chapter (p. i to 55) is intended to explain the scheme followed in the treatment of the various subjects in the present and the following Volume, and the reader is there informed of the headings under which the letterpress is divided, as well as of the intention and character of the illustrations. The present Note is necessary in order to afford explanations of the arrangement of the volumes on the mechanical side, and to give the opportunity for personal references of a grateful kind. As is noticed in the Introductory Chapter (p. 3), the number of things referred to is embarrassingly large. On the plates there are figured more than eight hundred objects or groups of objects, each one of which is described in the text, while a large number of them are mentioned more than once. An endeavour has accordingly been made to render it as easy as possible for the reader to refer from illustration to text or vice versa, and an elucidation of the system of reference should come in the forefront of these explanations. In the first place, there is a continuous pagination through the two volumes so that all references to ' Vol. in ' and * Vol. iv ' are eliminated. References to the pages are always included within brackets as (p. 100), and this will save the confusion due to uncertainty whether in a particular case a citation refers to the pages of the book itself or to those of some other work that may have just been referred to, and will also abolish the ' antea ' and ' postea ' which are inelegant and tiresome. To viii PREFATORY NOTE facilitate reference from the text to a plate, especially in the cases when these are some distance apart, the page facing which the plate will be found is in most cases added, as PI. ex (p. ioo) and the different objects on the plates are marked in clear arabic figures, the plates being distinguished by Roman numerals. For the reverse process of referring from the plate to the text the following is the system adopted, and the reader is asked kindly to mark it. In a book of this kind to notice an object on a plate and not to be able to find easily the corresponding portion of the text is a very trying experience. It may be explained accordingly that each plate is as a rule inserted just before the place where there occurs in the text the first reference to any of the objects figured on the plate, and the references to all the objects thus figured will generally speaking be found on one of the four succeeding pages. The plates are arranged to face forwards towards the right hand page of the opened volume, and the reader who keeps his finger in the place where the plate comes will find reference back to it quite simple. There are cases however when an object may be described or referred to not, or not only, on one of these four pages but in some other portion of the text, and in these cases guidance will be found in the List of Illustrations that will be found at the beginnings of Vol. in and Vol. iv. This List gives the colour and half-tone plates, A to H, and i to clviii, with certain needful details about each object illustrated, including as a rule its provenance, its present habitat, the character and material of the object, and above all its dimensions, for as explained in the Introductory Chapter (p. 28 f.) these cannot be safely deduced from the illustrations. These details given in the List render it un- necessary to put upon the plate itself more than its number, PREFATORY NOTE ix position, and title, with a note below it indicating (i) the approximate scale of the illustrations, and (2) the fact, where needful, that the particular object was not found in this country but is of continental provenance. Now in those cases when the descriptions or references in the text are not all included within the four pages following the plate, page numbers will be found in the List appended to the succinct notice of the object and will give the necessary guidance. In the same way when cross references are given from one part of the text to another an indication where the notice of a particular object will be found is in normal cases given by the number of the plate on which it is figured, but when the description does not occur within the four following pages the correct page reference is the one given within the brackets. The List of Illustrations is followed in Vol. iv by a second giving in alphabetical order the chief Anglo-Saxon cemeteries that have yielded the specimens discussed in the volumes. The first reference after the name of the cemetery is to the page where it will be found in its order in the geographical survey, and there are added sometimes one or two other references, but there is no attempt to refer to all the places where objects from the particular cemetery may happen to be mentioned. The survey in question, (see p. 38 f.), occupies the latter half of the second of these two volumes (p. 589 f.) and is supplied with the needful Maps, so inserted as to be convenient for reference as the text is perused. The blank space of the ' guard ' portion of the folding Map is used for necessary notes of explanation, for which see especially Map v (p. 589). The Maps are based on the view that the lines of penetration of the Teutonic sea rovers into the country were the rivers, and not, as some have assumed, the Roman roads, x PREFATORY NOTE and in their preparation great assistance has been derived from Petermann's beautiful hydrographical map of Great Britain published in 1868, while in their execution much has been owed to the care and expert knowledge of Mr. A. Shawe, on Mr. John Murray's staff at 50 Albemarle Street, who has skilfully carried out the writer's intentions. To Messrs. Constable of the Edinburgh University Press who have printed the volumes, and to Messrs. Hislop and Day the engravers the writer's cordial acknowledgements are due. The colour plates, A to H, are successful reproductions by the latter firm from 'Lumiere' autochrome transparencies taken by the writer direct from the actual objects, and there is thus a guarantee of photographic accuracy in details not easily secured when the plate is made from a water colour drawing. In books like the present much space is commonly occu- pied with expressions such as ' in the beginning of the seventh century,' ' of the middle of the sixth century,' ' fifth century work,' and so on. In order to save some of this space the plan has been adopted of using large Roman numerals to in- dicate the century, the appropriate prepositions being, where needful, understood. Thus the last phrase would be printed in the text * V work.' It would be a great saving of space in archaeological works, and would really conduce to clearness, if type were cut indicating by horizontal lines across the Roman numerals the period of the century, so that a line across the top of the V would signify the beginning, across the centre the middle, of that century, and so on. In the meantime the modified scheme just explained will, it is hoped, be easily understood and accepted by the reader. In the case of the List of Illustrations referred to above, the writer, with some misgiving and not without a sense of his temerity, has added PREFATORY NOTE xi indications of date to most of the objects figured on the plates illustrative of tomb furniture. Such indications are not mere guesses but depend on the results of comparative study, though it would be absurd to claim anything like infallibility in the judgements expressed. For the purpose in view the centuries have been divided into three parts, marked V *, V 2 , V 3 , accord- ing to a system adopted in Vol. n of this work to show the approximate date of Anglo-Saxon churches. This is far better than a division into halves or quarters for it is so often found needful to indicate a date ' about the middle ' of a century, or 1 in the first part ' or ' the last part ' of it, and V 2 , implying the fifteen years or so on each side of 450 a.d., V 8 the last third of the century, are useful notifications. Another point to which attention has been paid is unifor- mity in giving information as to the orientation of graves. The direction of the feet of a corpse is always the one given, as this is the direction in which the body would be looking did it rise upright in the grave. It is confusing when orientation is given at one time by the feet and at another by the head. ' Right ' and 'left' always mean the right and left of the spectator, save of course in phrases like ' the right hand of the figure.' The word ' cinerary,' as applied to an urn, is never used except there is direct evidence that the vessel actually contained calcined human bones. In the Index, which is placed at the close of Vol. iv. the special entries are in many cases grouped under more general headings, so that, for example, ' Shield ' does not appear under ' S ' but as a sub-entry under ' Arms.' Other comprehensive headings are * Fibulae,' ' Ornament,' c Technical processes,' etc. In the references the often-used abbreviation Jlrch. Journ. stands for the Journal of the Royal Archaeological Institute ; Ass. for the Journal of the British xii PREFATORY NOTE Archaeological Association ; Handbuch for Professor L. Lindenschmit's Handbuch der T>eutschen Alterthumskunde ; die Alterthumer der Merovingischen Zeit, Braunschweig, 1880-89. Acknowledgements of help received during the progress of this work are owed to proprietors of private collections of Germanic objects, to the councils of archaeological societies, and to the custodians of public and semi-public museums both at home and abroad. Due thanks are paid in the notes to the text to the numerous private owners who have accorded to the writer access to their treasures with permission to photo- graph for reproduction selected objects. The Council of the Society of Antiquaries of London is hereby thanked for the kind permission to make use of one or two of the illustrations contained in the Troceedings of the Society, and other anti- quarian societies such as those of Kent, Sussex, Essex, Wilts, Burton-on-Trent, Newcastle-on-Tyne, and York, have aided the work in kindred fashion. To the Keeper and the Staff of the Department of Mediaeval Antiquities in the British Museum the writer offers the most cordial expression of his gratitude. Among the many individual custodians of collec- tions who have furnished valuable information as to objects in their care, a special word of thanks is due to Mr. Reginald Smith of the British Museum, also to Baron von Hiigel of the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology, Mr. Thurlow Leeds of the Ashmolean at Oxford, Mr. Entwistle of the Liverpool Museum, and particularly to Mr. Hubert Elgar of Maidstone, who has furnished information as well as photographs of much value. In regard to public museums, the writer has shared the experience of all workers in the field of antiquities in that he PREFATORY NOTE xiii has everywhere, abroad as well as at home, been welcomed and aided in his work in the spirit of a common interest in scientific studies which overleaps all racial or national bound- aries. Anglo-Saxon art, it must be remembered, is a branch of Germanic art, and has its affinities in the Alamannic and Gothic as well as in the Frankish and Lombard regions of Europe, so that it cannot be properly studied without refer- ence to collections on the Continent. These chapters are published at a time when the principal nations of north- western Europe are engaged in bitter strife, but they were written and partly printed when in the things of the intellect all these peoples formed one great community throughout which there ruled a spirit of devotion to the common task of the advancement of knowledge. Hence in spite of all that is happening at the present crisis, it is a pleasure as well as an act of justice to acknowledge the kindness shown by the custodians of European museums where Germanic art is to be studied, in Vienna, Budapest, Munich, Mainz, Berlin, as well as in Petrograd, Kiev, Paris, Brussels, Namur, or in Rome, Bucharest, Stockholm and Leiden. The trea- sures of these collections have been opened even more freely than those of our own British Museum, for no hint of a charge for the privilege of photographing has ever been made in any one of them. These personal reminiscences cannot end without a pious tribute to the august Manes of two scholars to whom the writer owes much and who passed away before the present evil times the late Professor Hampel of Budapest, and Robert von Schneider of the Kunsthistorisches Hof-Museum at Vienna. G. B. B. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN VOLUME III COLOUR PLATES PLATE AT PAGE A. THE KINGSTON BROOCH .... Frontispiece Vol. in. I, vn *, The ' Kingston' brooch, a disc fibula of gold inlaid with garnets and glass pastes, diameter 3$ in., thickness at the rim in., thick- ness in the middle (not counting the central boss) $ in., found in 1771 at Kingston, Kent, Museum at Liverpool (p. 511 f.). II, Portion of the face of the brooch enlarged about 2 \ linear. B. PENDANTS, BEADS, BUCKLES, ETC 353 I, vn 2 , Necklet found at Sarre, Kent, with central pendant in mosaic glass, 1 in. in diameter, and gold coins imitated from Roman and Frankish solidi, date second quarter of vn, British Museum (pp. 444,450- II, vn, Chain of beads, with inlaid pendant and looped gold coins, Alamannic, Museum at Munich (pp. 431, 451). III, vn, Inlaid pendants and looped gold coins from King's Field, Faversham, Kent, about | full size, British Museum (p. 547). IV, From the left, vn *, one of a pair of bronze gilt clasps, 4^ in. long over all, from the Taplow Barrow (p. 362); above in the middle, vn 1 , golden buckle, ij in. long, from King's Field, Faversham, Kent (pp. 362, 542) ; below in the middle, vn, bronze and gold buckle, same provenance (p. 352) j on the right, vn l , golden buckle with garnet inlays, 4 in. long, from the Taplow Barrow (p. 352), all in the British Museum. xvi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS HALF TONE PLATES PLATE AT PAGE I. ROMAN AND GERMANIC COINS CONNECTED WITH EARLY ANGLO-SAXON ISSUES .... 59 (From examples in the British Museum.) 1, 1', 3, Roman bronze coins of the Constantinian period. 2, 2', Gold solidus of Magnus Maximus, struck in London. 4, 4', Gold solidus struck by Theodebert 1, King of the Austrasian Franks (534-548), Prou, Les Monnaies Merovingiennes, no. 39. 5, Reverse of similar gold solidus, Prou, no. 56. 6, Bronze piece, struck by Theodahad, King of the Ostrogoths, c. 536 A.D. II. MEROVINGIAN SOLIDI AND TRIENTES, AND GALLO-BRITISH COINS FOUNDED ON GREEK EXAMPLES 65 (Nos. 1 to 15' in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris ; nos. 16 to 20 in the British Museum.) 1, Prou, Les Monnaies Merovingiennes, 1368. 2, Prou, 177. 3, Prou, 198. 4, Prou, 1053. 5, Prou, 1107. 6, Prou, 1928. 7, Prou, 1921. 8, Prou, 1269. 9, Prou, 1 05 1. 10, Prou, 2234. 11, Prou, 2818. i2,Prou,272. i3,Prou,2873. i4,Prou,277. i5,Prou,57o. 16, Gold stater of Philip of Macedon. 17-20, Degraded imitations of the types on the above in the Gallo- British coinage. III. THE CRONDALL HOARD, OBJECTS FROM FRISIAN TERPEN, ETC 69 1, Imitated gold solidus with runic inscription, British Museum. 2, Gold trinkets with garnet inlays found with the Crondall hoard, Lord Grantley's Collection. 3, View of Frisian terp in course of demolition. 4, Gold objects found in a Frisian terp, Museum at Leeuwarden, Friesland. 5-8, Gold coins from the Crondall hoard, Lord Grantley's Collection. IV. SCEAT COINS IN BRITISH AND DUTCH COLLEC- TIONS 79 I, British Museum, sceattas, Mercia. 2, Sir Arthur Evans' Collection. 3, British Museum, sceattas, Mercia. 4, Do, do., do. 5, Lord Grantley's Collection. 6, Leeuwarden, Hallum find. 7, Hunterian Collection, Glasgow. 8, Sir Arthur Evans. 9, Leeuwarden, Hallum find. 10, Hunterian. II, Mejuffr. de Man's Collection, Middelburg, Holland. 12, Broadstairs, Kent. (The above are all obverse and reverse.) 13, British Museum, sceattas, no. 14, Hunterian. 15, British Museum, sceattas, 92. 16, Do., do., 115. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xvii PLATE AT PAGE V. SCEATTAS, ENGLISH AND DUTCH, WITH OBJECTS OF TOMB FURNITURE FOR COMPARISON . .81 I, Lord Grantley's Collection. 2, Middelburg Museum. 3, Mejuffr. de Man's Collection, Middelburg. 4, British Museum, sceattas, 77. 5, Lord Grantley's Collection. 6, Sir Arthur Evans' Collection, Youlbury, Berks. 7, Formerly in Mr. Carlyon-Britton's Collection. 8, British Museum, sceattas, 78. 9, Mejuffr. de Man's Collection. 10, From the Hallum find, at Leeu- warden, Holland. I I, vii 1 , Upper plate of applied brooch, 1^ in. in diameter, from St. John's College Cricket Field, Cambridge, Cambridge Museum (p. 106). 12, v 3 , Bronze buckle, i T 5 ^ in. wide, found with skeleton at Royston Heath, Cambs, do. (p. 107). VI. SCEATTAS, ENGLISH AND DUTCH . . . .85 1, Hunterian Collection, Glasgow. 2, Mejuffr. de Man, Middelburg, Holland. 3, British Museum, sceattas, 160. 4, Do., do., 151. 5, Hunterian. 6, British Museum, sceattas, 106. 7, Lord Grantley's Collection. 8, British Museum, sceattas, 189. 9, The Hague, Coin Cabinet. 10, Formerly in Mr. Carlyon-Britton's Collection. 11, Hunterian. 12, British Museum, Montague Collection. 13, British Museum, sceattas, 193. 14, Do., do., 198. 15, Do., do., 200. 16, Do., do., 182. 17, Do., do., 199. 18, Do., do., 170. 19, Mr. Carlyon-Britton. 20, Do. 21, British Museum, sceattas, 12. VII. SCEATTAS, AND A ROMAN PROTOTYPE ... 89 I, Leeuwarden Museum. 2, Do. 3, British Museum, sceattas, 183. 4, Do., do., 171. 5, Do., do., 187. 6, Sir Arthur Evans' Collection. 7, Do. 8, Hunterian Collection, Glas- gow. 9, Middelburg Museum, Holland. 10, Mejuffr. de Man's Collection, Middelburg. II, Middelburg Museum. 12, Leeuwarden Museum. 13, Do. 14, Do. 15, Do. 16, Middelburg Museum. 17, Do. 1 8, Do. 19, The Hague, Coin Cabinet. 20, Middelburg Museum. VIII. ENGLISH SCEAT COINS WITH ARTISTIC TYPES . 1, British Museum, sceattas, 151. 2, Do., do., 153. 3, Formerly in Mr. Carlyon-Britton's Collection. 4, Do. 5, British Museum, sceattas, 154. 6, Hunterian Collection, Glasgow. 7, British Museum, sceattas, 191. 8, Do., do., 157. 9, Do., do., 189. 10, Do., do., 115. 11, Do. do., 170. 12, Do., do., 116. 13, Do., do., 184. 14, Lord Grantley's Collection. 15, Hunterian. 16, Sir Arthur Evans' Collection. 17, Hunterian. 18, Reverse of coin of ^thelberht of East Anglia, British Museum, East Anglia, 2. 19, Hunterian. 20, Bodleian Library Collection. 21, Reverse of bronze coin of Constantine, British Museum. Ill b 99 xviii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PLATE AT PAGE IX. OBJECTS ILLUSTRATING THE CONNECTION BE- TWEEN SCEAT COINS, TOMB FURNITURE, AND CARVED STONES 103 1, 4, V 3 , Small cast bronze objects called 'hinged handles,' natural size c. 1 \ in. long, with birds and with a leaf ornament ; 1, from Wang- ford, Suffolk, 4, from Lakenheath, Suffolk, Museum at Cambridge (pp. 105, 107, in). 2, v 3 , Outline of leopard (?) from a Roman original stamped on a bronze pail from Chessell Down, Isle of Wight, figured postea, PI. cxix, 6 (p. 475), British Museum. 3, Cast bronze medallion with hole in rim, no attachments at back, i| in. in diameter, with full-face head in debased Roman style, found, probably with Anglo-Saxon relics, at Princethorpe, Warwickshire, Bloxam bequest, Art Museum, Rugby. 5, Head of a wolf (?) from carved stone of about x at Stanwick, N. Riding, Yorkshire. 6, vii 3 , Half of a clasp (?) in gilded silver with fantastic animal in open work, 1 in. long, from Gilton, Kent, see Faussett, Inventorium Sepulchrale, p. 16, Museum at Liverpool (pp. 107, in, 362). 7, vi 1 , Cast bronze pendant, ij in. across, with figure of winged creature in relief, partly mutilated, from Saxonbury near Lewes, Museum at Lewes. 8, vi 1 , Part of the bronze mounting of a bucket representing a quadru- ped, 2^ in. long, from Bidford, Warwickshire, Museum at Worcester. 9, Part of the east face of the Bewcastle Cross, Cumberland. 10, Merovingian silver coin, de Belfort, no. 6217, with rings near ends of cross-arms. u,Sceat coin with the rings attached to the ends of the cross-arms, Hunterian Museum, Glasgow. X. EARLY CHRISTIAN OBJECTS IN ANGLO-SAXON GRAVES . .115 1, iv, Bronze mount of drinking horn found in A.-S. warrior's grave close to Roman cemetery at Strood, Kent, diameter 3 in., see Collectanea Antigua, 11, pi. xxxvi, Liverpool Museum (p. 462). 2, 2, vii 2 , Silver crosses; from Kingston, Kent, see In 7, vi *, Bronze ' cocked hat ' sword pommel from Alfriston, Sussex, Lewes Museum. 8, 9, vi 1 , Bronze 'cocked hat' pommel from Bowcombe Down, Isle of Wight, Carisbrooke Castle Museum. XXVII. SWORD HILTS, Continued 22 1, vii, Ornamented sword pommels from Sweden, Stockholm Museum. 2, Vii, Enriched sword hilt from Bildso by Slagelse, Denmark, see Sophus Muller, Nordische Altertumskunde, 11, 190, Copenhagen Museum. 3, vii 2 or 3 , Sword hilt from Combe, Kent, see Akerman, Pagan Saxon- dom, pi. xxiv, Saffron Walden Museum. 4, Cocked hat pommel with ring arrangement from Faversham, Kent, in British Museum. 5, vi *, Button of sword knot (?) from Brighthampton, Oxon, Ashmolean Museum. 6, vi ', ' Cocked hat ' pommel from above, ibid. 7, vi *, Top of scabbard of sword from above, ibid. 8, vi *, Ornamented silver chape of scabbard of above, ibid. 9, vi, Sword from Croydon, in British Museum, 36^ in. long over all (p. 210). LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xxiii PLATE AT PAGE XXVIII. SCRAMASAXES, KNIVES, ETC. . . . .227 1, vii or viii, Cutlass of abnormal form from Saffron Walden, 10^ in. long, Saffron Walden Museum, Essex. 2, vii, Long-handled scramasax from Snodland, Kent, total length 20 in., length of handle 8 in., Rochester Museum. 3, Two-edged dagger of exceptional form, from Cookham by the Thames, blade 9 in. long, Reading Museum (p. 231). 4, vii, Short heavy scramasax from Kent, 9 in. long, Maidstone Museum. 5, and 9, Curved knives of Romano-British form, about 4 in. long, from Winklebury excavations in Cranborne Chase, Rushmore Museum, Farnham, Dorset. 6, 'Langsax' from Folkestone cemetery, 15 in. long, with iron pommel in same piece with tang, Folkestone Museum (p. 218). 7, vii, Full-sized scramasax from Uncleby, Yorkshire, 23I in. long, York Museum. 8, 11-18, Iron knives from various localities. No. 13 is 6 in. long. 10, x, Knife-scramasax from the City of London, found with coins of -#sthelred II, 979-1016, length 13 in., British Museum. 1 9, vii, Long-handled scramasax with iron pommel, from Purton, Wilts, c. 23 in. long, Devizes Museum. 20, vii, Scramasax of exceptional size, from Kidlington, Oxfordshire. Length 31 in., greatest width 2^ in., thickness at back ^ in., British Museum. [The relative sizes as figured are approximately correct except in the case of the longer pieces, Nos. 2, 6, 7, 19 and 20, which should be about half as large again.] XXIX. AXE HEADS, ANGLO-SAXON AND CONTIN- ENTAL 231 1, v, Frankish axe head (francisca) with part of handle remaining, from Nesle Hodeng, Rouen Museum. 2, v, Francisca from Martin Eglise, 7 in. from back to front, Rouen Museum. 3, Iron axe head with long handle in one piece with it, length 17 in. over all, found with two iron spear heads in a Roman villa at Alresford, Hants, Colchester Museum. 4, vi, Axe head of Frankish form, from Hob Hill by Saltburn-on-Sea, Yorkshire, 8 in. from back to front, Saltburn-on-Sea. 5, vi, Do., from Mitchell's Hill, Icklingham, Suffolk, Colchester Museum. 6, vi, Do., from Croydon, Grange Wood Museum. 7, vi, Do., see Coll. Ant., 11, pi. L, 7, Maidstone Museum. 8, Diminutive axe head, 3 in. long, found at Little Kimble, Bucks, see Records of Buckinghamshire, 11, 48, Aylesbury Museum. 9, vi (?), Axe head of different form, Rouen Museum. 10, Axe head from Aldworth, Berks, cutting edge more than 9 in. long, Reading Museum. xxiv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PLATE AT PAGE ii, V s , Axe head found in the tomb of Childeric, 7| in. long, Biblio- theque Nationale, Paris. 12, Axe head of peculiar form found at Bifrons, Kent; Maidstone, K. A. S. Collection. XXX. AXE HEADS, ETC 233 1, Axe head in Oldenburg Museum, of local provenance, cutting edge 10 J in. long. 2, VI 2 , Axe head from Chapel Farm, Horton Kirby, Kent, s| in. long, Maidstone Museum. 3, Axe head of drop-bladed type, from bed of Thames by Reading, Reading Museum. 4, X, Axe head of characteristic 'Viking' form, 7 in. long, iron, with inlaid silver ornamentation and gilding, from Mammen by Viborg, Denmark, see Worsaae, ' La Sepulture de Mammen,' in Memoires de la Soc. Roy. des Ant. du Nord, 1869, p. 227, Copenhagen Museum. 5, v and vi, Pins for the hair with axe-head terminations, Frankish, Museum at Namur. XXXI. SPEAR HEADS 235 1, vi, Group of spear heads from High Down, Sussex. The longest measures 17 in., Ferring Grange. 2, VI, Spear heads from Kent ; a, from Sarre at Maidstone, 18 in. long; the others from Kingston at Liverpool. 3, VI, Group from Little Wilbraham, Cambs. The longest measures 21 in., at Audley End. 4, vi, Group from Darlington. The longest is 16 in. long, Mr. Ed. Wooler's Collection, Darlington. 5, V 3 , Spear head of Childeric, 9 in. long, Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. XXXII. THE ANGON, ARROW HEADS, ETC. . . .237 1, Arrow heads from Buttsole, Eastry, Kent. The lengths vary from 4^ in. to z\ in., Maidstone Museum (pp. 203, 242, 708). 2, 3, Open and closed spear sockets from Saxby, Leicestershire, at Midland Institute, Derby (p. 235). 4, v 3 , Spear head with closed socket, from early burial at Brighton, Brighton Museum (pp. 235, 682). 5, Arrow head from Kent, Douglas Collection, Ashmolean (p. 242). 6, Arrow head from Chesterton Camp, Warwickshire, Warwick Museum. 7, Do. from churchyard at Radford Semele, Warwickshire (mediaeval ?), Warwick Museum. 8, vi, Three iron objects from Bifrons. The barbed spear head is 9^ in. long, Bifrons House. 9, Spear head from Suffolk, in Pitt Rivers Museum, Farnham, Dorset. 10, Spear head from Fairford, Gloucestershire, Ashmolean. 11, iv (?), Barbed spear (angon ?), 1 ft. 9^ in. long, from Carvoran on the Roman Wall, Black Gate Museum, Newcastle-on-Tyne. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xxv PLATE AT PAGE 12, vi, Angon from Harmignies, Belgium, 3 ft. 6 in. long, Musee du Cinquantenaire, Brussels. 13, Ferule for butt end of spear, Guildhall Museum, London (p. 241). 14, Do., of different form, from Rochester, Kent, Rochester Museum. 15, vi, Angon from Croydon, Surrey, 3 ft. 2^ in. long, British Museum. XXXIII. FIBULAE AS WORN 243 1, 2, vi 2 , Theodora and Justinian, with an ecclesiastic behind, from the mosaic in S. Vitale, Ravenna (p. 274). 3, v, *Roma' from a late Roman ivory at Vienna (p. 270). 4, IV, A Roman emperor from a late Roman ivory at Vienna. XXXIV. SQUARE HEADED FIBULAE FROM THE CEME- TERY AT BIFRONS, KENT . . . .245 (See p. 256 f.) 1, vi *. 2, vi 1 . 5, VI 3 . 7, vi 2 . 10, 11, v 3 (p. 266). 12 (p. 266). XXXV. ROUND HEADED FIBULAE FROM THE CEME- TERY AT BIFRONS, KENT 245 (See p. 255 f.) 1, 4, v 3 (p. 258). 2, vi 3 (p. 258). 5, vi 1. 6, 7, vi 2 . 10, 12, v 3 . 11, vi 2 (p. 280). 9, 13 (p. 256). XXXVI. PLATE AND RING FIBULAE FROM BIFRONS, KENT 245 (See p. 273 f.) 6, 8, v 3 . 10, vi 2 (p. 273). 13, vii 1 . XXXVII. SOME TYPES OF FIBULAE NOT REPRESENTED AT BIFRONS 247 1, vi 3 , Bronze fibula, Lombard, from Val di Ledro, c. 3^ in. long, Museum at Trient. 2, vi 3 , Do., do., from Monte di Terlago, ibid. 3, VI 1 , Penannular brooch from Higham, Kent, Rochester Museum. 4, Penannular brooch from Duston, Northants, Northampton Museum. 5, vi l , Pair of small equal armed brooches from Alfriston, Sussex, Barbican House, Lewes. 6, Small equal armed brooch, 2J in. long, from Stapenhill, Staffordshire, Burton-on-Trent. 7, VI 2 , Equal armed fibula of early type, 2^ in. broad, from Kempston, Beds (pp. 248, 271, 562), British Museum. 8, vi, Pair of trefoil headed bronze brooches, 3| in. long, from Stapen- hill, at Burton-on-Trent. xxvi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PLATE AT PAGE 9, vi, Trefoil headed fibula from High Down, Sussex, at Ferring Grange. 10, vi, Do., 2 in. long, from Birdoswald on the Roman Wall, at Black Gate Museum, Newcastle. XXXVIII. EARLY FIBULAE: FIBULAE FROM SACKRAU, BY BRESLAU 251 1, iv B.C., Bronze fibula of La Tene type I, Museum at Innsbruck (p. 258). 2, iv, Roman ' cross bow ' fibula, Trieste Museum. 3, IV 1 , Three silver-gilt triple-coiled fibulae from Sackrau. 4, iv \ Front view of double-coiled fibula of gold from Sackrau, Museum at Breslau. 5, iv *, Back view of do. [Nos. 4 and 5 are somewhat enlarged, the three under No. 3 are con- siderably reduced. The middle one of 3 is 3J in. high. No. 4 is 2 in. high.] XXXIX. MISCELLANEOUS ROUND AND SQUARE HEADED FIBULAE 255 1, vi 3 , Silver fibula of a form hardly known in this country, from Market Overton, Rutland, 3^ in. high, at Tickencote Hall, near Stamford. 2, vi 2 , Bronze fibula from Kent, Lord Grantley's Collection. 3, vi 2 , Bronze fibula from Kent, as above. 4, vi 2 , Bronze fibula from Barrington, Cambs, Ashmolean. 5, vi *, Bronze fibula imitating the early sheet silver type, from Enver- meu, Normandy, Museum at Rouen (p. 253). 6, v l , Part of round headed fibula from Hammoor B, in Museum at Kiel. 7, v 3 , Round headed fibula from a Frisian terp, Museum at Leeu- warden, Holland. XL. EARLY CRUCIFORM FIBULAE 259 1, 11, Early fibula with ' returned foot,' from S. Russia, in Antiquarium, Berlin (p. 258). 2, v l , Early cruciform fibula from Hammoor B, in Holstein, Museum at Kiel. Date about 400 A.D. 3, v 2 , More advanced cruciform fibula, as above. 4, v 3 , Early cruciform fibula from Suffolk, Norwich Museum, Fitch Collection. 5, V 3 , Early cruciform fibula from Holme Pierrepont near Cotgrave, Notts, 3^ in. long, Sheffield Museum (p. 262). 6, iv 3 , Fibula of very early type found at Dorchester, Oxon, 2 in. long, Ashmolean. 7, vi, Fibula of early type from Midlum, Kreis Lehe, Hanover, Pro- vincial Museum at Hanover. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xxvii PLATE AT PAGE XLI. CONSTRUCTION OF ENGLISH CRUCIFORM FIBULAE 261 1, v 3 , Early cruciform fibula found in a tomb near Cestersover on the Watling Street not far from Rugby, 3^ in. long, see H. Schetelig, Cruciform Brooches of Norway, p. 98, Rugby School Museum. [Front and back view.] 2, v 3 , Bronze cruciform fibula finely wrought, from Malton Farm, Cambs, 4 in. long, Ashmolean. [Perhaps imported.] 3, vi, Head of cruciform fibula from Sancton, Yorlcs, showing mode of attaching the side knobs, Ashmolean. 4, VI * (c. 500 a.d.), Cruciform fibula, front and back views, found at Corbridge, Northumberland, 3$ in. long, at Beaufront Castle, by Hexham. 5, vi 2 , Fibula from Blaby, Leicestershire, Leicester Museum (p. 265). 6, vi *, Fibula from East Sheffbrd, Berks, 3| in. long, Museum at Newbury. 7, vi 2 , Fibula from near Mildenhall, Suffolk, with traces of enamel, collection of Mr. S. G. Fenton, London (p. 268). XLII. SOME SPECIAL FORMS DERIVED FROM THE CRUCIFORM FIBULA 265 1, VI, Group of fibulae from Kempston, Beds, British Museum. 2 3> v 1 , Fibulae from Borgstedt, Schleswig, in Kiel Museum. 4, Enlarged view of a Kempston fibula, about 3J in. long, British Museum. XLIII. FEET OF CRUCIFORM FIBULAE . . . .267 1, vi 2 , Cruciform fibula from Hornsea, 5 in. long, Museum at Hull. 2, vi 1 , Do., from Exning, Suffolk, 4$ in. long, Norwich Museum. 3, vi 2 , Do., from Hornsea, 4J in. long, Museum at Hull. 4, Foot of cruciform fibula in Lord Grantley's Collection. 5, Do., from Saxby, Leicestershire, in Midland Institute, Derby. 6, vi 2 , Cruciform fibula from Little Wilbraham, Cambs, see Neville, Saxon Obsequies, pi. 4, 105, 5J in. long, at Audley End. XLIV. CRUCIFORM FIBULA FROM LONDESBOROUGH . 268 vi 2 , Length 5^ in. Remarkable for its fine preservation, Museum at Hull. XLV. FLORID LATE CRUCIFORM FIBULAE . . .269 1, vi 3 , From West Stow Heath, Suffolk, 6 in. long, Museum at Bury St. Edmunds. 2, vi 3 , From Little Wilbraham, Cambs, 5 in. long. See Neville, Saxon Obsequies, pi. 2, 8 r ; Haakon Schetelig, Cruciform Brooches of Norway, pp. 80, 109, 153. He dates it 550-600 a.d. At Audley End. 3, vi 3 , From Hornsea, 4$ in. long, Museum at Hull. xxviii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PLATE AT PAGE 4, vii x , From Upton Snodsbury, Worcestershire, 4^ in. long, Victoria Institute, Worcester. 5, VI s , From Barrington, Cambs, Ashmolean, Evans Collection (pp. 270, 597). 6, VII !, Foot of fibula similar to No. 3, from Whitehill, Tynemouth, Northumberland, Black Gate Museum, Newcastle. 7, vi 3 , From Chesterford, Essex, Liverpool Museum (pp. 270, 597). XLVI. PLATE AND EQUAL-ARMED FIBULAE . . .271 1, v, Base of ' applied ' brooch with traces of enamel, Museum at Hanover (P. 278). 2, v, Back, view of similar piece, Museum at Geestemiinde near Bremen (p. 278). 3, v, Base of applied brooch of different pattern. See Neville, Saxon Obsequies, pi. 3, 22 for a similar piece, Museum at Hanover (p. 278). 4, vi ', Fibula in form of a duck, from Chessell Down, Isle of Wight, Carisbrooke Castle (p. 280). 5, IX, Pewter brooch, if in. diameter, found with others in Cheapside, London, late Saxon, Guildhall Museum, London (p. 280). 6, vii x , Silver brooch enclosing cast of silver coin of the Emperor Valentinian, York Museum, Croft Collection (p. 279). 7, Vii, Equal armed fibula from Kief, Russia. 8, vii, Do., from Trient, Austria. 9, vii, Do., do. 10, vi, Equal armed fibulae from Sweden, Museum at Stockholm. Date vi. XLVII. SAUCER, ETC., FIBULAE FROM KEMPSTON, ETC. 275 1, vi, Group of saucer and applied fibulae from Kempston, Beds, British Museum. 2, vi 3 , Saucer brooch of unusual construction from Duston, Northants, 2 in. diameter, Northampton Museum. XLVIII. PETROSSA FIBULAE AND PLATE FIBULAE OF SPECIAL FORMS 279 1, vi 3 , Ibis ' fibula from the Treasure of Petrossa, io-in. high, University Museum, Bucharest (pp. 247, 273, 280). 2, IV 3 , Fibula from the Treasure of Petrossa, as above (p. 273). 3, vi 2 , Fibula of Swastika form with four birds' heads and red enamel in centre, i in. diameter, bronze, from neighbourhood of Mildenhall, Suffolk, collection of Mr. S. G. Fenton, London. 4, vii *, Tri-lobed bronze fibula, z\ in. across, from Lakenheath Warren, Suffolk, Museum at Cambridge. 5, vi 3 , Swastika brooch, 1 in. across, bronze, from Alfriston, Sussex, Lewes Museum. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xxix PLATE AT PAGE 6, vi 3 , Circular bronze brooch, i| in. across, pierced with a 'swastika' pattern, from Market Overton, Rutland, at Tickencote Hall, Rutland. 7, vi 2 , 'S' shaped brooch with two birds' heads, one broken, from Iffley, Oxon, i in. long, British Museum. XLIX. DECORATED QUOIT FIBULAE 281 1, vi 8 , Quoit fibula from Sarre, Kent, silver parcel gilt, 3^ in. diameter^ British Museum (p. 687). 2, vi 3 , Quoit fibula from Alfriston, Sussex, silver, with niello, i in. diameter, Lewes Museum (p. 304). 3, vi *, Quoit fibula from Alfriston, Sussex, bronze silvered, 1 fy in. diameter, Lewes Museum. L. NON-SAXON RING FIBULAE 285 1, Penannular bronze fibula from Ham Hill, Somerset, Romano-British, Museum at Taunton. 2, Penannular bronze fibula from High Down, Sussex, probably Romano- British, c. 3 in. diameter, collection of Edwin Henty, Esq. 3, Pair of bronze annular fibulae found in the garden at Audley End, Essex, probably mediaeval, at Audley End. 4, Bronze annular fibula found on Coquet Island, Northumberland, with No. 5, i in. diameter, Alnwick Castle Museum. 5, Enamelled plaque found with No. 4. From the shape of the ornaments in the outer rim probably mediaeval, ij in. diameter, Alnwick Castle Museum. LI. ANGLO-SAXON RING FIBULAE 287 1, V s , Quoit-brooch of penannular type, bronze, ij in. diameter, Bloxam Collection, Museum at Rugby (p. 284). 2, vi 2 , Annular brooch, bronze, ijin. diameter, from Stapenhill, Museum of the Burton-on-Trent Archaeological Society, Burton-on-Trent. 3, VI *, Ring of bronze annular brooch, faceted, 1 J in. diameter^ from West Stow Heath, Suffolk, Fenton Collection. 4, vi 2 , Annular bronze brooch, \\ in. diameter, from Hornsea, Museum at Hull. 5, Ring made of the tine of stag's horn, 3 in. diameter, possibly used as an annular brooch, from Londesborough, East Yorkshire, Museum at Hull. 6, vii J , Two small annular brooches, about 1 in. diameter, from Uncleby, East Yorkshire, Museum at York. 7, vii 1 , Annular bronze brooch with garnet settings, ig in. diameter, as above. 8, vii 1 , Annular brooch, bronze, with knobs and animals' heads, i| in. diameter, from Bifrons, Kent, Museum of Kent Archaeological Society, Maidstone. xxx LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PLATE AT PAGE 9, v 3 , Bronze penannular brooch, ij in. diameter, Bloxam Collection, Museum at Rugby. 10, vn 1 , Annular brooch, silver, i^ in. diameter, from Faversham, Kent, British Museum. ii, vn 1 , Silver annular brooch, with animals' heads, ij in. diameter, from Uncleby, Museum at York. 1 2, c. 400, Two animals' heads terminating a golden necklet from near Abo, Finland, Museum at Stockholm. LII. ILLUSTRATIONS OF ORNAMENT AND TECHNIQUE 293 1, Stone at entrance to tumulus at Newgrange, Ireland (p. 292). 2, Piece of ivory or bone from Frindsbury near Rochester, Kent, found with Roman objects, Liverpool Museum (p. 305). 3, Late Celtic bronze gilt fibula from Aesica on the Roman wall, length 4J in., see Arckaeologia, lv, 179 f., Newcastle Museum (p. 292). 4, Buckle of bone, Alnwick Castle Museum. 5, Metal strap-end with spiral inlays, Museum at Worms (p. 292). 6, Burgundian bronze buckle, Museum at Lausanne (p. 303). 7, Enlarged portion of foot of Roman fibula, PI. xxxvm, 2 (p. 304). 8, Piece of bone from Croydon, Surrey, Grange Wood Museum. 9, Enlarged portion of Roman silver incised and nielloed plaque, Museum at Mainz (p. 304). 10, Back plate of fibula, silver, incised and nielloed, from Faversham, Kent, Ashmolean, Oxford, with central portion enlarged (p. 537). 11, Enlarged portion of quoit brooch from Alfriston, Sussex, PI. xlix, 2 (p. 304). LIII. ILLUSTRATIONS OF TECHNIQUE . . . .305 1, iv B.C., Golden ear pendant of fine Greek workmanship from Kertsch, Hermitage, St. Petersburg (p. 310). 2, vn I, Portion, enlarged, of filigree work on a Kentish disc fibula from Abingdon, Berks, British Museum (p. 311). 3, Golden eagle of Roman workmanship, Museum at Stockholm (p. 310). 4, Portion of ivory box from Old Park, Dover, Dover Museum. 5, Enlarged view of gold ring, from Bossington, Stockbridge, Hants, late Saxon, Ashmolean Museum (p. 311). 6, 7, Golden pendants in the Maclean Collection, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, see Catalogue of Collection (pp. 306, 310). 8, vn 1 , Golden jewel inlaid with garnets from Twickenham, Middlesex, British Museum, diameter 1^- in. (p. 311). 9, 10, The Herpaly Shield boss. Barbaric work, Museum at Budapest, with portion enlarged. LIV. SCANDINAVIAN GOLD WORK 309 Enriched necklets in gold from Sweden, in the National Museum, Stock- holm. Date v. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xxxi PLATE AT PAGE The finest work is on the necklet with three strands. That on the necklets with five and with seven strands is not quite so good. See Bernhard Salin, Thierornamentik, p. 211 f. The reproduction is about the size of the originals. 39 311 LV. SCANDINAVIAN GOLD WORK Part of the three strand necklet of gold as above, and portion of golden girdle, Museum at Stockholm. Date V. In front four bracteates. LVI. THE WINDSOR DAGGER POMMEL .... Silver pommel of dagger with enriched gold plate on one face, found at Windsor, from the Evans Collection, in the Ashmolean Museum. Date vii. Enlarged five diameters. LVII. APPLIED AND SAUCER BROOCHES . . . .313 1, VI 1 , Applied brooch from Fairford, Gloucestershire, in British Museum, 2 in. diameter. 2, VI 3 , Applied brooch from Frilford, Berks, in Ashmolean Museum, i in. diameter. 3, vi 3 , Saucer brooch from Upton Snodsbury, Worcestershire, in Wor- cester Museum, i in. diameter. 4, vi 3 , Pair of saucer brooches from Mildenhall, Wilts, in Museum at Devizes, 2J in. diameter. 5, VI 1 , Pair of saucer brooches found at Horton Kirby, Kent, Museum of Kent Archaeological Society at Maidstone, 2 in. diameter (p. 611). 6, v 3 , Saucer brooch found at Mitcham, collection of Captain Bidder, 1 1 in. diameter. 7, vi 3 , Saucer brooch from Fairford, Glos. In Ashmolean Museum, 2 1 in. diameter. LVIII. SAUCER BROOCHES WITH CONVENTIONAL ORNAMENT, AND BUTTON BROOCHES . .315 1, vi 3 , Large saucer brooch from Ashendon, Bucks, 3 J in. diam., with settings of garnet, at Audley End. 2, vi 8 , Pair of saucer brooches, probably from Linton Heath, Cambs, at Audley End. 3, 4, vi 3 , Small button brooches from Alfriston, Sussex, in Lewes Museum (p. 321 f). 5, vi l , Applied brooch from interment 4 in the pagan Thames-Kennet cemetery at Reading, Reading Museum. 6, vi 2 , Small button brooch, in. diameter, from Woodyates on the borders of Wilts and Dorset, Devizes Museum (p. 321 f.). 7, vi 8 , Button brooch from Chessell Down, Isle of Wight, Museum at Carisbrooke Castle (p. 321 f.). xxxii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PLATE AT PAGE LIX. SAUCER BROOCHES, ETC., WITH SCROLL ORNA- MENT, AND BUTTON BROOCHES . . .317 1, VI 1 , Gilded bronze saucer brooch from Alfriston, Sussex, i in. diameter, Museum at Lewes (p. 316). 2, Do., from Higham near Gravesend, Kent, Rochester Museum (pp. 611, 629). 3, Small saucer brooch from Duston, Northants, Northampton Museum. 4, Small button brooch from Kempston, Beds, British Museum (p. 321 f.). 5, vi I, Do., from Alfriston, Sussex, Lewes Museum (p. 322). 6, v 3 , Saucer brooch from Mitcham, Surrey, 1$ in. in diameter, collection of Captain Bidder (p. 316). 7, VI 1 , Scabbard mount of silver with gilded ornaments, from Bright- hampton, Oxon, enlarged, Ashmolean. LX. THE HUMAN FORM AND FACE IN TEUTONIC ORNAMENT 319 1, vii 1 , Bronze mounting of drinking horn from the Taplow Barrow, Bucks, British Museum. 2, vi J , Foot of square headed gilt bronze fibula, from Alfriston, Sussex, twice natural size, Lewes Museum. 3, Head from Roman bronze bowl found in Denmark, Copenhagen Museum. 4, Head from bronze bowl from Denmark of barbaric workmanship, Copenhagen Museum. 5, v, Two heads from the golden necklet with three strands on PL lxv, from Westgothland, Sweden, enlarged four and a half diameters, Museum at Stockholm. 6, VI 3 , Portion of applied brooch from Barrington, Cambs, 3 in. across, ornamented with parts of the human form, Museum at Cambridge (p. 276). 7, vi 1 , Pair of button fibulae 1$ in. across, from Bifrons, Kent, K. A. S. Collection, Maidstone (p. 323). 8, Small buckle from Blekinge, Sweden, 6ee Salin, Thierornamentik, p. 211, Museum at Stockholm. 9, Bracteate-like pendant with head and arms of human figure in repousse, from Alten Elsing, Museum at Regensburg (p. 323). LXI. ROMAN AND BARBARIC ORNAMENT . . .323 1, in, Breast ornament of bronze, silver plated and gilt, 5 in. diameter, from Thorsberg Moss, Denmark, Museum at Kiel. 2, ill, Portion of similar breast ornament with the original plating on the outer circle removed and replaced by barbaric work, Museum at Kiel. 3, v 3 , Bronze plaque or pendant from near Rochester, Kent, tin or silver inlays on outer rim, Museum at Rochester. LXII. BIFRONS FIBULA 326 vi ', Square headed fibula of silver, original 5J in. long, made in three pieces, K. A. S. Collection, Maidstone, Kent. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xxxiii PLATE AT PAGE LXIII. INTERLACING ANIMAL ORNAMENT . . .329 1, vii 2 , Bronze disc, gilded, probably used, like the Kiel plaques, PI. LXi, as a breast ornament, from Alton Hill, Bottisham, Cambs, diameter 3 in., Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. 2, x, Animals with interlacing work on carved stone of about x, in the Gloucester Museum. 3, vii 2 , Embossed silver plaque, i in. in diameter, found in a tumulus at Caenby, Lincolnshire, British Museum, see Akerman, Remains of Pagan Saxondom, pi. xv. 4, vii *, Cocked hat pommel of a sword from Crundale, Kent, with interlacing animal ornament, British Museum. Below is an orna- ment of the hilt. 5, vii 1 , Embossed silver plaque of an 'applied' brooch, if in. across, found in St. John's College Cricket Field, Cambridge, with naturally treated animals, Museum at Cambridge (p. 106). 6, vii *, Cast bronze pendant finely chased and gilt, from Gilton, Kent, i\% in. across, Museum in Liverpool, see Salin, Tkierornamentik, P- 327- LXIV. SQUARE HEADED BRONZE FIBULAE OF PLAIN TYPE'. . . " 335 1, vi 2 , Square headed fibula from Market Overton, Rutland, 6 in. long, at Tickencote Hall. 2, vi 1 , Square headed fibula from Kenninghall, Norfolk, 6j in. long, British Museum. 3, VI 3 , Square headed fibula from High Dyke, near Welbourn, Lincoln- shire, in Alnwick Castle Museum, Catalogue number 292, 5^ in. long. LXV. SQUARE HEADED FIBULAE, BRONZE AND SILVER 336 1, VI 2 , Square headed fibula from Billesdon, Leicestershire, bronze, 6 in. long, Museum at Leicester. 2, vii 3 , Square headed fibula, silver, from Richborough, Kent, Mayer Collection, Liverpool (p. 342). 3, vii 2 , Square headed fibula, silver, 4 in. long, from Gilton, Kent, grave 48 (p. 342). Mayer Collection, Liverpool. Inset, portion of silver ornament found with the above (p. 342). 4, VI 2 , Square headed fibula with stud on bow, bronze, 6 in. long, from Ipswich, Christchurch Museum, Ipswich. LXVL ORNATE SQUARE HEADED BROOCHES FROM THE MIDLANDS 337 1, vi 3 , Square headed bronze fibula from Rothley Temple, Leicestershire, $\ in. long, Museum at Leicester. 2, vi 3 , Ornate bronze square headed fibula damaged below, found on site of St. Andrew's Hospital, Northampton, Northampton Museum. 3, vi 3 , Square headed bronze fibula from Duston, Northants, length 5| in., Northampton Museum. ill c xxxiv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PLATE AT PAGE LXVII. SQUARE HEADED FIBULAE FROM ALFRISTON, SUSSEX . . . 339 1, vi 3 , Square headed ornate brooch of gilded bronze from Alfriston, Sussex, 4J in. long, Lewes Museum. 2, vi 3 , Do., do., 4 in. long, same places. 3, vi 3 , Do., do., 5 in, long, same places. LXVIII. LATER ANIMAL ORNAMENT . . . .341 1, vii l , Portion of the silver gilt rim of a vessel with late animal orna- ment in repousse work, from the Old Park, Dover, in Dover Museum (p. 462). 2, 4, vi 3 , Pair of saucer brooches from Broughton Poggs, Oxon, i in. in diameter, Liverpool Museum. 3, vi 2 , Saucer brooch from Filkins, Oxon, if in. diameter, Liverpool Museum (p. 689). 5, vi 3 , Saucer brooch from Brockbridge, near Droxford, Hants, i in. in diameter, Winchester Museum. 6, vii 1 , The 'Myton' or 'St. Nicholas' brooch from Warwick, 5^ in. long, Museum at Warwick (p. 340). 7, VI 3 , Saucer brooch from Alfriston, Sussex, 1 x 5 ^ in. diameter, Museum at Lewes. 8, VI 2 , Applied brooch from Kempston, Beds, 2^! in. diameter, British Museum (p. 340). 9, vi 3 , Saucer brooch from Alfriston, Sussex, 1 J in. in diameter, Museum at Lewes. LXIX. LATEST SAUCER AND CRUCIFORM BROOCHES . 343 1, vii 2 , Saucer brooch from Wheatley, Oxon, 3^ in. across, Ashmolean Museum. 2, vii 2 , Saucer brooch from Bidfoid, Warwickshire, 2j in. across, Museum at Worcester. 3, vii 2 , Late cruciform brooch from Longb ridge, Warwickshire, 7 J in. long, British Museum. 4, vii 1 , Saucer brooch from East Shefford, Berks, if in. across, British Museum. 5, vii 1 , Saucer brooch found in a cinerary urn in a tumulus at Marton near Rugby, z\ in. across, Bloxam Collection, Museum at Rugby (p. 669). LXX. BUCKLES OF SIMPLE TYPES FROM BIFRONS, KENT Portion of card with buckles and other small objects from Bifrons Cemetery, Kent, at Bifrons House, three quarters full size. 347 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xxxv PLATE AT PAGE LXXI. EARLY GOTHIC BUCKLES: BUCKLES WITH RECTANGULAR AND OVAL PLATES . . .349 1, iv, Three small golden buckles with encrusted plates, from S. Russia, Museum fiir Volkerkunde, Berlin (p. 348). 2, Small buckle set with garnets at back of pin, from Crundale, Kent, British Museum (p. 348). 3, ill, Cross set with carbuncles, from the Crimea, Museum in Odessa, dated by Prof. Posta II] a.d. 4, vii 2 , Buckle of silver gilt with rectangular plate set with garnets, from Gilton, Kent, 3^ in. long, Museum at Liverpool, see Akerman, Pagan Saxondom, pi. xxix. 5, vii *, Small square-plated buckle set with carbuncles, from East Boldon, Co. Durham, Museum at Newcastle, probably vii a.d. 6, VI 3 , Bronze buckle with oval plate, from Ipswich, Christchurch Museum, Ipswich. LXXII. BUCKLES WITH OPEN-WORK PLATES . . .351 1, Small buckle, 1^ in. long, formerly encrusted (with large garnet?), from Barfriston, Kent, Museum at Liverpool (p. 350). 2, Bronze buckle with curious pin arrangement and open-work plate, Museum at Rochester, Kent (p. 350). 3, vii *, Bronze buckle with open-work plate, 2| in. long, from Kingston, Kent, Museum at Liverpool. 4, Pierced bronze plate, Roman work, Provincial Museum at Bonn. 5, Pierced bronze plates, late Celtic work, from the Marne burials, France, British Museum. 6, vii *, Bronze buckle with open-work plate, 2 \ in. long, from Uncleby, Yorkshire, Museum at York. LXXIII. BRONZE AND IRON BUCKLES . . . .355 1, vii 2 , Ornate bronze buckle, 6 \ in. long, inlaid and gilded, from Crun- dale, Kent, British Museum (p. 352). 2, vii 2 , Large iron buckle, 6 in. long, diameter of ring (much corroded), 2^ in., from Faversham, Kent, Museum at Maidstone (p. 174). 3, Back view of bronze buckle with complementary plate, from Lavar- cherie, Belgium, Museum at Brussels. 4, Bronze buckle with oval plate and detachable studs, from Wancennes, Belgium, Museum at Namur. 5, vii 3 , Bronze buckle with triangular plate and fixed studs, provenance unknown, Museum at Canterbury. LXXIV. BUCKLE SUITES 357 1, vii 2 , Bronze buckle, 4 in. long, with complementary plate, from Bar- friston, Kent, Museum at Liverpool. 2, vii 3 , Bronze buckle, tinned, 3^ in. long, with square plate en suite, from Sibertswold, Museum at Liverpool. xxxvi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PLATE AT PAGE 3, Bone buckle, i in. across, from Ozengel], Kent, Liverpool (p. 348). 4, vn 3 , Back view of No. 2, with Faussett's original label upon it. 5, vn 2 , Back view of No. 1, as above. LXXV. BELT PLATES, ETC 358 1, vi *, Buckle and three belt plates, bronze, the buckle and one plate set with glass beads. The band on which the plates were fixed appears by the rivets to have been about ^ in. thick, from Mitcham, Surrey, at Mitcham Vestry Hall. 2, vi \ Set of belt plates of bronze, tinned, from Bifrons, Kent, the three largest are 1 ^ in. high. The plates are double and the band passed between them, a swastika device on face, Maidstone, K. A. S. Collection. 3, vi 1 , Iron buckle from Mitcham, Surrey, at Mitcham Vestry Hall (P- 355). 4, vi 1 , Iron buckle from Croydon, Surrey, in British Museum (p. 355). 5, V 3 , Bronze buckle, with portions of leather strap pierced by the tongue, found on a skeleton on Royston Heath in 1858, 1^ in. extreme width, Museum at Cambridge. 6, vi, Belt plate from Stowting, Kent, bronze, if in. long, Stowting Rectory. 7, vi 1 , Shoe-shaped stud, bronze, 1^ in. long, as above. LXXVI. STRAP ENDS, SPIRAL WIRE CLASPS, ETC. . .359 1, Two bronze strap ends from Ozengell, Kent, 2J in. long, with split shanks, Liverpool Museum. 2, Three bronze strap ends from Bifrons, Kent, longest 2^- in. long, K. A. S. Collection, Maidstone. Also two below from Faversham, Kent, British Museum. 3, Silver girdle fasteners, c. 6 in. long, with hook and eye attachment, found between Twyford and Borough Hill, Leicestershire, Museum at Leicester. 4, VI 2 , Hook and eye attachments formed of spirally coiled silver wire, the wire in the inner part of the coil being beaten out flat and orna- mented with concentric circles, width across from side to side as shown 2J in. Found at Market Overton, Rutland, now at Tickencote Hall. 5, vi 1 , Spiral wire attachments found near the skull of a skeleton at Twyford, Leicestershire, c. 2 in. in width, Museum at Leicester. LXXVII. CLASPS OF THE LARGER KIND . . . .361 1, viii (?), Bronze girdle clasp with pierced work, from the Forman Collection, 8 in. long, Lord Grantley's Collection. 2, vn 1 , Clasp, gilded bronze, with zoomorphic ornament of the early part of vn, 4^ in. long, from the Taplow Barrow, Bucks, British Museum. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xx ii> xxvii, xxix, lxxvi. 2 1786-186 1, 'Polish historian, geographer, and numismatist' (Enc. Brit.). He lived in exile in Brussels for the last thirty years of his life, an ardent student and writer. The work quoted from is his Numismatique du Moyen Age, Paris, 1835, pt. 11, p. 7. ROMAN AND GERMANIC COINS All enlarged about two diameters IMPERIAL ROMAN 'SOLIDI' 59 Premising that the subject is here approached from the artistic side, we may now go on to give some account of the sceat series, reserving for a future volume a similar notice of the stycas and the pennies. The reason for this separation is that the sceattas are connected both in time and place with the first group of objects representing Anglo-Saxon art which form the subject of the present volumes, whereas the stycas and later pennies are connected, the one by place the other by time, with the carved stones, manuscripts, and later objects generally, to which a subsequent volume will be devoted. The early Anglo-Saxon coinage is only one of many issued by the Teutonic conquerors of the western Roman empire. These are all based on the Roman imperial coinage which was at first imitated as closely as possible. ' Tous les barbares,' write Engel and Serrure, 1 ' debuterent dans leur monnayage par la copie litterale des types romains.' The most important of the imperial coins were the gold pieces known as ' solidi aurei,' or simply as ' solidi ' or ' aurei,' the first issue of which is ascribed to Constantine. They are handsome pieces, rather larger than a half-sovereign, and, as struck at Byzantium, remained through the early middle ages the chief gold coins of the West, the famous ' bezants.' The imperial gold coins included also halves and thirds of the solidus, the latter under the name ' trientes ' of much importance in connection with the barbarian currencies. The solidus exhibited on the obverse the portrait of an imperial personage either of the western or the eastern part of the Empire ; the representation was at first in profile, but from the time of Justinian, VI, onwards the full face supersedes it. An inscription indicating the name and titles of the personage accompanies the head or bust ; the reverse devices are multiform. These obverse types, with head facing or profile, and many of the numerous reverse types appear in a more or less degraded form on the barbarian coinages, and we shall meet with abundant examples 1 Traite de Numismatique du Moyen Age, Paris, 1891, 1, 16. 60 EARLY ANGLO-SAXON COINAGE as we proceed. On PI. i, 1 Nos. i and 2 show two Roman obverses with profile heads, one helmed, the other bound with a fillet, and No. 1 on PI. 11 gives in a barbarian copy a Roman full-faced head of the Emperor Maurice Tiberius. The reverses of the coins with profile heads show in one case, PI. 1, 2', two seated imperial personages side by side with the upper part of a figure of Victory above, in the other, No. i 7 , two captives between whom is a standard with the letters VOT and other marks, while another Roman reverse on the same plate, No. 3, exhibits the same three letters, with others below, inscribed upon an altar. These are all common types that reappear on early Anglo-Saxon and other Teutonic coins. The other pieces on PI. 1 are not Roman but of bar- barian origin and will be referred to later on. The barbarian issues are numerous. We possess coins issued by the Vandals in Africa, by the Suevi and the Visigoths in Spain, by the Ostrogoths and the Lombards in Italy, and by the Burgundians and Franks in Gaul. The only one of these coinages that need be noticed here is that of the Mero- vingian Franks, for the reason that it is much more closely connected with that of the Anglo-Saxons than is the case with the other continental issues. Anglo-Saxon coinage owes much to that of the Franks, but taking the latter as its start- ing point it develops on lines so independent that it furnishes a striking proof of vigour and originality on the part of our native craftsmen. Coinage, it needs hardly to be said, is a form of art wherein absolute originality on the part of the barbarian craftsman is in the nature of things impossible. It is an institution of comparatively advanced civilization, and just as the Teutonic invaders of the Empire as a whole were indebted for their coinages to the Romans, so the compara- tively barbarous Anglo-Saxons depended for this part of the apparatus of civilization on their neighbours the semi-Romanized 1 The coins on this and on succeeding plates are as a rule enlarged in order more effectively to show the devices. See note 1 (p. 65). THE FRANKISH CURRENCY 61 Franks. It does not of course follow that either the Teutons in general as opposed to the Romans, or the Anglo-Saxons in comparison with the Franks, were similarly dependent as regards other products and forms of art. The barbarian may dispose of weapons and objects of personal adornment that are purely native alike in form and in technique, while for other objects such as coins, connected with a state of civilization at which he has not arrived, he may adopt the productions of more advanced peoples. Numismatic history among the Franks begins with the coins found in the grave of Childeric, the chief of the Salian Franks, who was buried at Tournay in 481 a.d. When this tomb was accidentally discovered in the year 1653 there were found therein more than three hundred coins, of which about a hundred were golden solidi and had been contained in a purse or pouch worn at the belt, while the rest, of silver, had probably been placed at the feet of the dead in some kind of casket. 1 These coins were all either in an official sense Roman or had been carefully copied from Roman examples. Clovis, the son of Childeric, and the kings of the Franks that suc- ceeded him struck similar aurei with Roman types and inscrip- tions, but with certain distinctive marks, such as the * C ' which appears on coins of Clovis himself. It was reckoned a striking innovation when, about the year 540, Theodebert 1, grandson of Clovis, a young prince of brilliant promise and boundless ambition, issued a fine coinage of gold solidi, on the obverse of which the Roman type, a conventional full-face bust, was retained but was understood to represent himself, while the Roman legend around it was replaced by his own designation reading in full DOMINUS NOSTER THEO- DEBERTUS VICTOR. PL i, 4, 4 ' and 5 give an obverse and two reverses of Theodebert, who in No. 5 is represented as treading down an enemy. In an often-quoted passage Procopius 2 tells us that the Franks in southern Gaul at the 1 Cochet, Le Tombeau de Childeric I", p. 409 f. 2 De Bella Goth'ico, m, 33. 62 EARLY ANGLO-SAXON COINAGE time he was writing had struck gold money from native Gallic metal and had substituted their own effigy for the customary imperial device, a thing that neither the Persian monarch nor any barbarian ruler had ventured to do. It must be observed that barbarian princes had long before this put their names on their coins, 1 and had even added their effigies, as for example an Ostrogothic prince, Theodahad, who, prob- ably in $2>6 * na d issued a fine bronze piece with a distinct and individualized portrait of himself upon it which can be seen PI. i, 6. The moustache is here characteristically Teutonic, and it is noteworthy that the head is surmounted by a closed crown ornamented by jewels. This is a non- classical feature and prefigures the employment of the crown which becomes common on later regal heads. He wears a cross on the breast and his robe is richly jewelled. The point of the remark by Procopius is that these named and iconic barbarian coins of V and VI had been in the less precious metals, and constituted no invasion of the jealously guarded imperial privilege of issuing pieces in gold. This privilege the young Frankish monarch now boldly challenged. So excellent in technique, so even in intrinsic quality, were the numerous aurei of Theodebert, that M. Deloche believed they were struck under his own eye at a single royal mint in his capital at Metz. 2 They represent at any rate a centralization in the matter of the currency that was entirely Roman, and that contrasts markedly with the state of affairs which pre- vailed under his successors of the Merovingian house. It is well known that among the Franks in VII the royal authority suffered eclipse, and its weakness is reflected in the numismatic history of the period. The issue of the large and 1 Keary, ' Coinages of Western Europe,' in Numismatic Chronicle, N.S., xvm and xix. 2 Revue Numismatique, 1 889 ; see however Prou, Catalogue des Monnaies Francoises de la Bibliotheque Nationale, Les Monnaies Mdrovingiennes, Paris, 1892, Introduction, Ch. 3. MEROVINGIAN TRIENTES 63 handsome aurei practically ceased, and the fractional piece, the gold triens, or third of the solidus, already issued by the earlier kings, became the characteristic Merovingian coin. 1 The Frankish triens of VI and VII became the parent of the earliest "Anglo-Saxon coin, the above-mentioned sceat, but between the trientes and the sceattas there exist differences that are for the purpose in view of the utmost importance. The first difference is that the sceattas are of silver while the Merovingian triental currency was one of gold. To dis- cuss the reason of this would involve too long a digression, and it is only necessary to note the fact. Another striking difference resides in the fact that the Frankish trientes are lavishly inscribed while on the sceattas lettering is infrequent. Unlike the earlier Roman coins however the trientes very rarely bear the name of a sovereign. The legend in nearly every case contains the indication of a place of origin and of the name of the moneyer who struck the coin. These places and names are extraordinarily numer- ous. M. Babelon 2 reckons the number of the former at nearly a thousand, that of the moneyers at fourteen or fifteen hundred, and the question has naturally arisen in what circumstances and under what authority the trientes were struck. Into this discussion it is not necessary to enter. The practical disappearance of the royal designation is not easy to explain, and it is held by some authorities, such as M. Babelon and M. Prou, 3 that the issue of the trientes was in private hands, and that the moneyers would coin their own gold, and that brought to them by clients, without the active supervision of any central authority. 4 1 ' Les triens ou tiers de sou constituaient le numeraire courant a l'epoque me"rovingienne,' Prou, I.e., p. lxii. 2 La Theorie Feodale de la Monnaie, Paris, 1908, p. 8. 3 Catalogue, etc., Les Monnaies Carolingiennes, Paris, 1896, p. xlvi. 4 For another theory, that explains on an attractive hypothesis the same curious phenomena, see Engel & Serrure, Trait'e de Numismatique du Moyeu Age, 1, 86 f. 64 EARLY ANGLO-SAXON COINAGE To what extent the economic conditions of sceat production in Britain resembled or differed from those that obtained in Gaul is uncertain, but we do find upon the former occasionally the royal name, while names of moneyers and of places, with the exception of one locality, are hardly known. The North- umbrian stycas, which, as we have seen, resemble and carry on the tradition of the sceattas, were certainly issued by royal authority, and the names of numerous kings appear upon them, with several moneyers, but no names of places. On the whole there is no ground for believing that the peculiar conditions under which the trientes must have been struck prevailed also on this side of the Channel, though the actual part played by the royal authority in the production of sceattas and the centres of their fabrication are only very slightly known to us. The remarkable number of Merovingian mints and moneyers, however we may account for it, is of great significance when we come to the question of designs. The third point of difference between the trientes and the sceattas concerns their designs. The multiplicity just noticed might have been expected to result in a similar variety of types, but this is not the case. The designs on the gold trientes, though sometimes of much interest, are wanting in the variety and inventiveness that are so characteristic of the sceat types. The obverse of the Merovingian coins, inherited from the earlier Roman trientes, is almost always a profile bust, though the full face also occurs, and occasionally other devices. The reverse types are naturally more varied, and in most cases can be referred to Roman originals. The earliest in point of time is the figure of a Victory but from about 600 this is replaced by the cross, which in the words of M. Prou 1 ' constitue le type du revers de la plupart des monnaies emises en Gaule depuis la fin du VI e siecle jusqu'au milieu du VIII e siecle.' This cross appears in diverse forms and the variations may stand to 1 Les Monnaies Merovingiennes, p. lxxxvi. MEROVINGIAN AND GALLO-BRITISH PIECES Enlarged less than i^ diameters CELTIC AND FRANKISH COIN TYPES 65 the credit of the Gallic designers. It occurs on a globe, on steps, in a Latin shape or a Greek, with pendants from the extremities of its arms, and with these * gammees,' ' potencees,' 1 ancrees,' or treated in some other of the decorative fashions distinguished by heraldic terms, that are said to number several score. It always however remains the cross, and this fact suggests a remark on the general subject of the treatment by the barbarian artist of ornamental motives derived from classical sources. The illustrations on PL 11 comprise, first. No. 1, a fine gold coin of the solidus class that is a very careful reproduction by a Gallic moneyer of Marseilles of an aureus of the Emperor Maurice Tiberius, 582-602 a.d. ; second, a number of Mero- vingian trientes, generally in gold but in the case of certain later issues in silver, which give a fair idea of triental types, while there are added below for purposes of comparison a few examples of the interesting and well-known Gallo-British coins of pre-Roman times that show the treatment by the Celtic moneyer of classical types introduced into Gaul from Greece. With this plate should be compared those which follow, PH. iv to viii, on which are numerous representations of sceat types from various collections at home and in Holland. 1 A glance at the material thus presented will show that practically every device is a degradation of some classical type or of the representation of some animal or object in nature. The monogram types such as those in PI. 11, Nos. 11, 15', or devices like Nos. 10, 13, on PI. 11, and Nos. 14 to 17 on PI. vi (p. 85), are exceptional. In the case of the Celtic pieces the 1 In the interests of the general reader the coins have been reproduced on an enlarged scale. The sceattas and the trientes are minute coins, not more than three-quarters the size of a threepenny piece, and the designs can only be appreciated on the scale of the original by a reader who is either a practised numismatist or takes the pains to look very closely. Even numis- matists now sometimes reproduce these little pieces double their natural size. On the plates which follow the enlargement varies from one and a half to two diameters. Ill E 66 EARLY ANGLO-SAXON COINAGE prototype is the noble Hellenic coins, the ' regale nomisma Philippos ' of Horace, 1 which formed a sort of international currency under the Macedonian hegemony of Greece, and was freely introduced through central Europe or through Massilia and other Greek colonies into Gaul and Britain. Upon the trientes and the sceattas the obverse type generally reproduces in a more or less barbarized semblance the full face or profile imperial bust or head, while reverses like the Victories of PI. ii, 8, PI. iv, 13, the crosses, and numerous others, go back also to Roman prototypes, though there are very many devices especially among the sceattas for which no Roman original can be produced. The treatment of these classical prototypes varies in the three classes of coins under review. The Celtic start with the best example but not only reproduce it in degraded fashion but modify it altogether out of existence as an intelligible representation, reducing it to a meaningless jumble of irregular marks. In juxtaposition with the Greek originals, PI. 11, 16, are placed the obverse and reverse of two Celtic coins, PI. 11, 17, which show this degradation carried to extremest limits. The intermediate stages, Nos. 18 to 20, show what has happened. The face of the obverse No. 17 has preserved reminiscences of the wreath and some of the front curls, though the features, still recognizable in No. 20, have in No. 1 8 already disappeared. On the reverses, in the wreck of the representation as a whole, the single horse of No. 18' preserves his anatomy and the use of his limbs but in No. 19 he has stiffened to lifelessness and in No. 17 he has disappeared leaving only recognizable by the aid of No. 1 9 two legs, and by that of No. 1 8' the detached wheel of the original chariot. In the case of the trientes and the sceattas this solution of a type into a mere congeries of disjecta membra does not occur. In the trientes the head, the cross, the bird, always retain their form, though reduced to such shapes as Nos. 4, 12' on PI. 11. The same may be said of the sceattas, but they 1 Epist., 11, i. 232. < DEGRADATION ' IN ORNAMENT 67 possess a characteristic in which their artistic superiority over the trientes comes into prominence. The designers of the sceat types possessed the power, which is not in evidence across the Channel, of constituting new types out of the wrecks of older representations, and a word may here be in place about the meaning of the term so often used in the present connection 'degradation.' The word carries with it a certain ethical suggestion which in matters of art is out of place. Just as it is a mistake to demand on ethical grounds prosaic truthfulness in the works of the formative art, so in ornamental design we are wrong to complain of a so-termed c degraded ' motive on the ground that it is lacking in exact correspondence with its prototype. The question is not whether it keeps true to the original form that happened to be its starting point, but whether the resultant shape appears a consistent unity with some feeling of structure and is disposed with decorative tact in the space it adorns. This structure need not be organically possible from the point of view of physiology or botany. The Greek Centaur is not anatomically justifiable but is a consistent and even convincing creation of the highest artistic value. Hence the term ' degradation ' is used here in a purely technical sense without any depreciatory suggestion. We shall be able to follow the life history of several sceat types and see that each changes not only by the loss of features of the original, or by an arbitrary shifting of these, but by the perpetual creation of new devices that may have the very slightest resemblance to the original type but possess in themselves independence and artistic value. In other words there is a certain activity in creation in the Anglo-Saxon designer that is lacking in his more prosaic predecessor and contemporary among the Franks. He is not so good a copyist as the latter, and the sceattas do not show such well-modelled heads as those in PI. 11, 2, 3, nor, except very rarely, such neat execution as on their reverses, but in point of fancy and of artistic composition he is immeasurably the superior designer. 68 EARLY ANGLO-SAXON COINAGE We return here to what is after all, from the present point of view, the most important difference between the sceattas and the trientes, the far greater variety and interest in the types which the former exhibit. As we shall see in examining the sceattas there is a large field of design, well within the com- pass of Teutonic artistic powers, into which the Merovingian moneyer does not trouble himself to enter, but in which the insular artist revels with the most delightful freedom. This is the field of animal design. There are animals on Roman coins that furnish starting points, and either from these or from his own imagination the Anglo-Saxon designer has evolved a whole menagerie of quaint and often pleasing shapes that are without parallel in numismatic history, of course putting out of account the incomparable ' Thierwelt ' of the Greek coin designer. In France there are two delight- ful reverses among the gold trientes of Cahors in M. Prou's catalogue, given in Nos. 6, 7, of PI. 11, and these birds pecking at grapes will meet us again on the sceattas. There are one or two other birds in triental designs, but the quadrupeds and other wingless creatures that riot on the sceattas are only represented in France by PI. 11, 14' and a pair of others, so that in his discussion of types M. Prou only says 'a Neaufles (see No. 14) et a Nantes, nous trouvons un quadrupede ; a Loci Velacorum, une tete de loup.' 1 It was noticed above that the Anglo-Saxons had an early currency in gold though they settled down in the sceat period to silver. The British Museum possesses one exceptional piece, given, enlarged to nearly two diameters, in No. 1 on PI. in, in the form of a gold solidus with types imitated from those of a coin of Honorius, that bears a runic inscription which from the form of one of the characters locates the coin either in this country or in Frisia. When the British Museum catalogue was drawn up about 1887, Dr. Wimmer dated the piece on the evidence of the runes about 600, but quite 1 Les Monnaies, p. xcv. Ill facing p. 69 THE CRONDALL HOARD, ETC. No. 1, enlarged 1^ diameters; the other coins about 2 diameters. The coins are gold THE CRONDALL HOARD 69 recently Professor von Friesen of Upsala has given an authoritative opinion that there is nothing in the nature of the runes that would prevent its origin being put back for another century. Its provenance is not exactly known but it ' is believed to have been found in this country,' ' though, as was said above, it might conceivably be of Frisian origin, for it is now recognized that the Frisians employed the runic characters which used to be claimed as exclusively British. If we may regard it as of English provenance it becomes a document of the utmost importance in its bearing on the history of the Anglo- Saxon coinage. The inscription is blundered and unintelligible, but the representation of the profile head and of the figure treading down an opponent on the reverse compare favourably in point of art with the famous Theodebert coins of about 540 shown PI. 1, 4, 5, and even with the excellent Massiliote copy of the aureus PL 11, 1. The Roman prototype would date from about the first decade of V and this copy so far as the runic inscription is concerned may have been made not much more than a century later. The piece may of course have been fashioned as an ornament rather than a unit of a regular currency, but it is not pierced for suspension. There is no doubt however that gold coins proper were minted in England in VII if not in VI, and the proof of this is the well-known Crondall hoard. In the year 1828 a labourer cutting turf on what was a portion of Bagshott Heath, near Crondall in Hants not far from Farnham, disclosed under a sod he had raised some glittering objects. These proved to be one hundred small gold coins together with three ' blanks ' or ' flans,' that is plain discs of gold punched out of a plate and ready to receive the impress from the dies, and two characteristic Anglo-Saxon jewelled objects of gold inlaid with garnets attached to delicately wrought chains, that may have served as the fastenings of a pouch or purse. A word is necessary on 1 British Museum Catalogue, 1, i. 70 EARLY ANGLO-SAXON COINAGE these adjuncts of the find as they are of some significance. The jewelled objects, shown with two * blanks' PL in, 2, 1 exhibit in design and technique a marked similarity with fibulae, pendants, and buckles, that occur in the more richly furnished Anglo-Saxon graves of about VII. This conjunction bears upon the question of the date of the hoard and will be returned to later. Another point of importance is the sur- mise which the conjunction suggests that goldsmith and moneyer were one person. The presence of the ' blanks ' seems to show that the owner, and loser, of the hoard was a moneyer. There is no proof that he was also the fabricant of the jewelled fastenings, but it seems at first sight unlikely that a person in his position would possess choice * objets de luxe* of the kind unless he had made them for sale. There is however an exhibit in the museum at Leeuwarden in Friesland that suggests another explanation. This region it will be seen is of special importance in connection with sceat study, and a reference to it is quite to the point. At the present moment no hunting-ground offers more attractions to the student of early mediaeval antiquities than the Frisian 'Terpen.' These are artificial mounds of no great height but of considerable area, common in Friesland where some four hundred are known 2 and occurring also in the pro- vince of Groningen, which served as platforms to keep houses and villages above the level of the floods. Since XIX many of these mounds have been wholly or partially levelled on account of the value as manure of the material of which they are composed. This material is earth containing animal and vegetable remains in successive strata, thickly sown with the relics of human occupation that provide archaeological treasures dating from pre-Roman times to our own. The museum at Leeuwarden contains objects from more than a hundred 1 The coins and other objects are in the collection of Lord Grantley, who has kindly permitted the writer to take some photographs of them. 2 Boeles, De Friescbe Terpen, Leeuwarden, 1906. WERE MONEYERS GOLDSMITHS? 71 terpen. The cutting down of these mounds is now carefully watched on behalf of the Frisian Society for History and Antiquities, and No. 3 on PI. in gives a view of one in pro- cess of being partially removed. The church on the summit dates back to about XII. In a terp at Dronrijp near Leeu- warden there came to light in 1876 a small find of gold objects, 1 including (1) an ingot of gold about three inches long and three-eighths of an inch thick, (2) thirty little bean-shaped trientes with imitations of Merovingian types, (3) a couple of blanks apparently partly struck and suitable for similar coins, and (4) in a crumpled condition the broken-up goldwork of a buckle closely resembling a well-preserved buckle from a similar terp at Wieuwerd, also near Leeuwarden, now in the museum at Leiden. Some of these Dronrijp objects are shown PI. in, 4. Both finds can be dated VII. The Dron- rijp find is evidence that the moneyer might obtain his metal by breaking up and melting down disused gold ornaments, but is no proof that he manufactured them. The Crondall gold trinkets may in the same way have been merely prospec- tive material for the mint. In the nature of things, it is true, it would be probable that those who struck coins in the precious metals also worked these same materials for other purposes. In early mediaeval days technical processes were not so specialized as has been the case in more modern times, and the worker in a particular material would manipulate it to all the recognized ends for which it was employed. In the Life of St. Eloi, the famous ecclesiastical craftsman of Merovingian days, we learn that he acquired the art of fine work in gold from Abbon, who exercised at Limoges the public function of a moneyer, 2 and St. Eloi himself is most likely the ' Eligius ' 1 J. Dirks in Tie Vrije Fries, Deel xvn, Leeuwarden, 1887, published the find. See also the Catalogue of the Frisian Museum at Leeuwarden, by Mr. Boeles, 1909, p. 70. 2 . . . 'pater tradidit eum ad imbuendum honorabili viro, Abboni voca- bulo, fabro aurifici probatissimo, qui eo tempore in urbe Lemovicina publicam fiscalis monetae officinam gerebat,' Audoenus, Vita S. Eligii, 1, 3. 72 EARLY ANGLO-SAXON COINAGE who signs as moneyer the coins of Dagobert i and other sovereigns of the time. On this hypothesis it will be inter- esting to compare the workmanship and designs on Anglo- Saxon coins with those of the gold ornaments which would proceed from the same source, and it may be said at the outset that in these respects there is very little resemblance between the coins and the tomb furniture. In the matter of the rendering of animal forms, to take one point only, the coin designer is far ahead of the goldsmith, who is satisfied to adorn a magnificent piece like the Kingston brooch (see frontispiece) with shapes that not only as animal representa- tions exhibit degradation in its extremist form but have no quaintness or interest in themselves. The relations between the coin designs and those on other objects of the same period must be dealt with later on at more length, but here it is suffi- cient to say that the evidence of these designs taken alone would not bear out the orthodox view that moneyer and gold- smith were one and the same person. The owner of the Crondall hoard was therefore certainly a moneyer and, very problematically, also a goldsmith, and was dealing with and striking coins for use in this country. The pieces are of different dates and kinds. Some are Merovingian trientes struck abroad and imported to this country while others are of insular origin. These again are of two kinds, some being obviously imitations of trientes in the same material gold, while a few specimens show types which do not appear on the trientes and seem to have been copied directly from Roman originals. If the insular pieces were all of early date the Crondall hoard might be used as evidence of a gold currency preceding the silver, but this is not the case. There may be instanced the remarkable coin given PI. in, 5. 1 This is shown by the inscription LONDUNI(U) to be a product of the London mint, and it would seem to follow from the appearance on the same side of the cross that it is subsequent 1 British Museum Catalogue, 1, xiv. AN ECCLESIASTICAL TYPE 73 to the conversion of south-eastern England about 600. It may be said here at once that the mere use of the cross as part of an early Saxon coin device need not necessarily prove that the piece is of the Christian period. The Franks were Christians long before the Anglo-Saxons, and a Christian symbol may often have been copied as a mere device by a pagan Saxon from an object wrought by a Christian workman of Gaul. It is to be noted however that in the special case of coin devices the cross did not come into vogue in Gaul till rather late. Mr. Keary said not ' until nearly the end of the sixth century,' and M. Prou 1 is in agreement with this. Of the piece now under notice, PI. in, 5, the ecclesiastical character is evident, and it is of insular origin. On the obverse is a rudely delineated full face apparently of a priest with a half- circle round his neck terminating in crosses. This was interpreted in the notice publishing the coins in the Numis- matic Chronicle 2 as a stole, but this is very improbable, for the ends of a stole as normally worn hang far away down by the feet, and there is the further difficulty that if it were a stole it would be by far the earliest known representation of this vestment, which Father Braun cannot trace further back in art than the altar front at Cividale of King Rachis, 744~749. 3 It is surely much more likely to be the pall, the importance of which at the period is obvious from the correspondence of Roman bishops reported by Bede. Early palls, as for in- stance in the VI mosaic picture of Justinian and his retinue in S. Vitale, Ravenna, 4 are thrown round the neck and have the cross conspicuous on the ends as on the coin. Now if struck in London with ecclesiastical significance the piece might 1 Les Monnaies, p. lxxxv f. 2 N.S.,x, 174. 3 Dr. Joseph Braun, S.J., Die Liturgische Gezvandung, Freiburg i. B., 1907, P- 577- 4 The upper part of the figures of ecclesiastics on the right of the Emperor are original. The lower portions, in which the ends of a long stole appear, are now recognized to be restorations of XII. J. Braun, I.e., p. 576. 74 EARLY ANGLO-SAXON COINAGE conceivably be the work of Mellitus during his tenure of the see, 604-c. 617, and the head that of an archbishop, either Augustine or Laurentius. The next effective bishop of London was Earconuald, consecrated 675, and if he put on his coin the head of the contemporary archbishop who con- secrated him this would be the head of Theodore. A much better wrought head in profile occurs on an interesting gold piece, No. 6, like the rest on PI. in in the Grantley collection, that was once in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh. This bears on the reverse the legible inscription WITMEN MONITA. The same obverse with the head degenerate, and the same reverse with the inscription blundered, are seen on the Crondall piece, No. 7, and as this type in various modifications occurs twenty-one times among the Crondall coins while another example was found near Canterbury in 1844, they are accepted as Anglo-Saxon. 1 The heads which have a curiously shaped object in front of them are connected in general appearance and by this feature with a ruder example in gold, No. 8, the reverse of which bears an inscription that has been brought into connection with Win- chester (Winton). Here the inscription is not so clear as in the British Museum example, figured, Catalogue, PI. 1, 3. We find accordingly on the Crondall gold coins and their affinities indications of two English mints and the name of a moneyer, characteristics that connect the issues with the trientes while they at the same time vindicate them as of insular origin. In style no doubt these pieces are transitional between the trientes and the sceattas, but they are by no means necessarily so in time. There may be really early English pieces in the Crondall find and among other examples in gold, but those that have been noticed seem to proclaim by the appearance of the cross that they are of VII origin. 2 The question now to be asked is : What is the probable date of the earliest silver 1 Vte de Ponton d'Amecourt in Num. Chron., N.S., xn, 80. 2 The caution given on the last page may however be borne in mind. DATE OF THE FIRST SCEATTAS 75 sceattas, and how do they compare in point of time with these gold pieces ? There seems now to be no reason to doubt that real coins intended for circulation were issued from Anglo-Saxon mints in the course of VI. The old view that we cannot have possessed a coinage before the advent of Augustine, or at least the marriage of iEthelberht of Kent with the Frankish Princess Berchta, has now been seriously impugned, 1 and we are enabled in this way to accord a natural meaning to an important ancient document which has been subjected to a rather forced interpretation. In the Laws of iEthelberht of Kent, issued after his conversion, the amounts of fines payable in connection with various offences are reckoned in ' shillings ' and ' sceattas.' These terms have been held to represent mere ' money of account,' that is to express values but not to imply the existence of actual coins. It has been suggested more recently however that * shilling ' may have meant a real solidus of gold and not merely its value, while Professor Chad wick in his recent discussion of the Anglo-Saxon monetary system states that ' there can be little doubt that in iEthelberht's Laws at all events sceatt is used to denote a silver coin, in all probability coins of the small and comparatively thick type to which the name has been applied by numismatists.' 2 If the silver sceattas were being coined VI while many at any rate of the gold pieces just noticed were VII productions, a gold coinage can hardly be said to have preceded in England a silver one, though the gold coins may be nearer the ultimate prototype of all our earliest coins, the Frankish trientes. The study of the sceattas, in any case difficult owing to their anonymous character, is complicated by the fact that they are not only found in our own country but also in considerable numbers in what is now Holland. In England, 1 H. M. Chadwick, Studies in Anglo-Saxon Institutions, Cambridge, 1905, p. 60. 2 I.e., p. 8. 76 EARLY ANGLO-SAXON COINAGE so far as the provenance of specimens is known, the currency in question belonged to the southern and eastern parts of the country, extending into the Mercian midlands and penetrat- ing into Northumbria, where it was superseded by the so-called ' styca ' series. The facts about the discovery of sceattas in Holland have some significance. 1 Three localities have furnished them. One is the ancient Frisia, where on three sites compact hoards of sceattas and sceattas alone have come to light. In 1863 at Terwispel, a commune of Opster- land in Friesland, 161 sceattas all of one single type were found accompanied by an ingot of silver, one or two flat pieces, and the silver mount of a jewel. At Hallum, north of Leeuwarden, in 1866, 250 coins, seven-ninths of which were of one type, were found in an urn and had all evidently been freshly minted. At Franeker, two years later, 410 pieces also just fresh from the dies, and to the extent of seven-eighths all of one type, were discovered lying together as if they had been contained in some receptacle. The circum- stances of these finds, the freshness of the pieces, and the fact that so few types were represented, are all points of interest. The other two localities are Wijk bij Duurstede, on a branch of the Rhine near Utrecht, and the old seaport in Zeeland, Domburg, on the north-west coast of Walcheren. These were both localities of commercial importance and the sceattas found there were accompanied by earlier Roman, by Frankish, and by later Carolingian pieces. At Duurstede the finds have been sporadic. At Domburg, 2 where the sea has encroached upon the land, there existed a large ancient ceme- tery long ago submerged, and objects washed from the wooden coffins, that seem to have been in habitual use, have come to 1 J. Dirks, 'De Angel-Sakscn en hunne oudste Munten (sceattas),' in De Vrije Fries, xn, Leeuwarden, 1872. 2 Mejuffr. Marie de Man, ' Que sait-on de la plage de Domburg ? ' in Tijdscbrift van bet Nederlandscb Genootscbap voor Munt- en Penningkunde, Amsterdam, 1889. ARE SCEATTAS OF ENGLISH ORIGIN ? 77 light at different dates from XVII to our own day. Among these are numerous coins Roman and Frankish and also sceattas in number as many as the Frankish pieces, which last were of the silver mintage as well as of gold. The Domburg coins, which exhibit great variety in types, are chiefly to be studied in the collection of Mejuffr. de Man at Middelburg and in the Museum there of the Zeeland Society, while the compact hoards found in Friesland may be seen displayed in the fine Museum of the Frisian Society at Leeuwarden. The pieces discovered at Duurstede are scattered, but several are in the Cabinet at the Hague. The question at once arises whether the sceattas in general are of British or continental origin, or were minted contem- poraneously in both regions. In the case of the pennies and also of the stycas no doubt as to their provenance is possible, for they have on them the names of known English kings and of moneyers whose appellations are with few exceptions Anglo- Saxon in sound and spelling, while the accidental fact that the pennies have been found in great numbers abroad, as in Scandinavia and in Rome, is susceptible of easy explanation. The sceattas on the other hand are mostly anonymous and the devices on some of those found abroad seem to suggest a continental origin rather than importation from England. That specimens of the same currency should be found on both sides of the North Sea is not in itself surprising, for good harbours face each other on the opposite coasts, and Bede 1 tells us of a Frisian engaged in buying and selling in London. A close connection between the two regions, the historical significance of which will be discussed later on, is attested by the occurrence in Frisia, though not elsewhere on the Con- tinent, of runic characters of a supposed specifically English kind, a fact that has led runic scholars of to-day to make one common Anglo-Frisian runic province. It is therefore a simple and plausible hypothesis that both countries minted 1 Hist. Ecci., iv, 22. 7 8 EARLY ANGLO-SAXON COINAGE contemporaneously these small pieces of silver and that their commercial intercourse led to the adoption of a large number of common types. Mr. Dirks imagined the owner of the Terwispel hoard a trader who had recently supplied himself with a stock of coins intended for use in trading between Frisia and Britain, but he naively confessed his inability to determine which country had actually supplied the money. More recent investigations have however led to the general conviction that, though there were doubtless Frisian mints, yet the sceattas are essentially an Anglo-Saxon product, and in the official catalogue 1 of the Frisian Museum all the finds at Hallum, Franeker, and Terwispel are grouped under the single heading ' In England gestagen munten. Sceattas (omstreks 600-760 n. C.).' The find-places of the English sceattas are fairly distributed over the extensive region in which they occur, while in Holland they are limited to one or two spots favourably placed for commerce. The English coins again exhibit more varied types and on the whole types that are earlier in morphological development. They are also more interesting artistically, and it is noteworthy that the one particular type that is frequent in Holland while it hardly makes its appearance among ourselves is a conventional device of no artistic value. This is the so-called ' Sigillum Davidis,' a device of two interlocked triangles, for a specimen of which see the Frankish silver coin of triental form No. 13 on PI. 11. This occurs on Dutch sceattas, as at Hallum and Franeker, and is later on taken up and perpetuated in the Carolingian penny series which everywhere superseded the sceattas. The device occurred on an object in the famous Gallo- or, rather, Franco-Roman tomb of about 400 opened at Vermand in the Aisne district of France and described by M. Eck of St. Quentin, 2 and is found on a fine Carolingian gold ring in 1 Leeuwarden, 1909, p. 77. 2 Les deux Cimetieres gallo-romains de Vermand et de Saint-^uentin, Paris, 1 89 1. SCEATTAS ENGLISH AND DUTCH All silver; enlarged about 2 diameters VALUE OF INSCRIBED SCEATTAS 79 the museum at Zurich. It belongs apparently to this part of Europe, but it does not occur in Anglo-Saxon ornamenta- tion on the tomb furniture and only in one or two instances on coins, as on a sceat that was a late addition to Mr. Carlyon- Britton's collection and on a penny of Offa in the British Museum. Its occurrence in Holland gives sceat fabrication a local habitat in that country, for the sceattas found there cannot in their entirety be an import from England as we do not seem to have had any ' Sigillum Davidis ' coins to send away. There is a certain treatment of the animal form very common in Holland and comparatively rare in Britain that also seems a product of Frisian mints. This is noticed later on (p. 91). On the other hand the occurrence on certain sceattas of the name of London as a place of mintage, and on certain others the names of known English kings such as iEthelred of Mercia, establish without a question sceat pro- duction in our own country, while the fact that ' London,' * -ZEthelred,' and other certainly English coins are found on the Dutch sites shows that importation from England did actually take place. On the whole it will probably be quite safe to postulate England as the real home of the sceat currency while at the same time we allow a certain independ- ence to Holland. In a letter to the writer a few months before his death, Mr. Wigersma, the late custodian of the coin cabinet at Leeuwarden, expressed his belief that many sceattas with degraded types found in Holland had been manufactured at Duurstede. PI. v, 10 shows an extraordin- ary profile head that is of Dutch and not English character. Illustrations of the inscribed sceattas may here be given as some of them are valuable for dating. This is the case with those sceattas, of which a fair number have been found both in this country and in Holland, that bear in runic characters the royal name ' iEthelred,' PI. iv, 1, 2. The known dates of this Mercian king fix the mintage of the coins to the last 80 EARLY ANGLO-SAXON COINAGE quarter of VII. Other sceattas are marked with the runic letters equivalent to PADA, and these are claimed for Peada son of the famous Penda of Mercia, whose date would be about 656, see PI. iv, 3, 4. There are other inscriptions in runic and in Latin characters on the sceattas that cannot be connected with known persons and need not be enumerated here, though the study of them possesses much fascination for the numismatist. Among the inscribed coins those marked with a form of the Latin name for London, PI. iv, 5, 6, 7, 8, are some of the first in the sceat series to which attention is naturally directed. These coins possess the remarkable technical peculiarity that nominally silver their metal is so debased as to be little better than bronze. The Hunterian specimen, PI. iv, 7, shows this clearly. This same characteristic reappears in the later Northumbrian stycas and in both cases it has been explained as a survival of a Roman tradition. The Romans of the later empire coined chiefly in gold and bronze, and the predilection for bronze rather than the silver of old Teutonic tradition is supposed to have lingered in highly Romanized centres such as London and York. The significance of this numismatic fact in con- nection with the position of London in early Anglo-Saxon days will be noticed on a later page (p. 605). The London coins cannot as a whole be placed very early, for the reverses of the majority of them show a figure that holds two crosses in his hands, PI. iv, 5, 7, 8. The example found at Hallum in Friesland, PI. iv, 6, has a reverse that presents a very ' degraded,' and hence presumably late, form of its type, and can hardly be an early coin. This question of date is further discussed later on in this chapter (p. 1 10). The criterion of comparative date here indicated is one on which reliance is generally placed. A classical original being assumed, it seems natural to regard copies which repro- duce it with fair completeness as earlier in date than those in which it appears in a very imperfect and blundered condition. V facing p. 8 1 THE FULL-FACED HEAD 81 This mode of argument from typology has been doubtless a little overpressed, for it takes no account of the possibility of variations due to differences in skill and practice among crafts- men, and to their location at places near or remote from the centres where art and learning were at each epoch chiefly flourishing. It must also be remembered that Roman coins might come freshly to light at any time and might be imitated at quite a late period as well as at an early one. Bearing in mind these cautions we may discuss from this point of view some characteristic sceat types. There has already been shown an excellent full face on a Merovingian triens of Chalon, PL n, 3. One or two English sceattas exhibit heads not very far below this standard. The best is perhaps one in Lord Grantley's possession but the one reproduced here in an enlarged form, PL v, 7, from Mr. Carlyon-Britton's collection now dispersed, makes a good second. The reverse, it will be noted, has a fairly consistent quadruped. This head may be regarded as the parent of a very large number of full faces on the sceattas at home and in Holland, while the creature on the reverse may be adjudged, though not without caveats, progenitor of a still more numer- ous brood of vertebrates. There is a form of the full-faced head represented on PI. v, 3, 5, in which we discern a bearded countenance somewhat wild of aspect and with hair that some- times starts up from the head. There is so much distinctive character here that attempts have been made to see in it an embodiment of the Teutonic conception of the national deity Woden. The moustache is certainly a barbarian rather than a classical feature and we may regard the device as a Teutonizing in the bold original sceat fashion of the classical Head of PI. v, 7. The treatment of the hair at the sides of the head shows the connection of the pieces and the more far- etched derivations may be set aside. 1 The head in question 1 e.g. those of Mejuffr. de Man, and Mr. Wigersma, in Tijdscbrift van het Ion. Ned. Genootschap voor Munt- en Penningkunde, Amsterdam, 1903 and 1907. Ill F 82 EARLY ANGLO-SAXON COINAGE is a stage in the evolution of a degraded type that occurs with great frequency in Holland, PI. v, 9. Almost all these vary- ing full-faced heads have reverses that are similarly related and that in Holland consist in a spidery-looking creature of which several examples are shown on the plates, see PL iv, 9, PI. v, 9, PI. vii, 1,2. This animal, a degraded quadruped, seems to be in its rendering rather Frisian than Anglo-Saxon, for with us the treatment of similar types is artistically different. This may be judged later on from examples that will be subsequently discussed. On PI. v in No. 7, the reverse of the good full-faced head, it will be noted how very effectively as a matter of composi- tion the crest of the creature sweeps round to cut the line of the legs below, and do away with their one, two, three, four, appearance, while the far hind-leg for the same motive but in contradiction to what is natural is brought in front of the curl. We may search the trientes and the Gallo-British coins in vain for an artistic device so tactful. In Nos. 3, 5, the quadruped has become decidedly thin and 'leggy,' and his paws begin to resemble the claws of a bird. 1 In No. 9 the quadruped form is still discernible, but the creature is aptly described by the name ' monster ' by which it is known in Holland, where all the 161 sceattas found at Terwispel and seven-ninths of the Hallum hoard of 250 were like No. 9. There is no reason to seek for a Scandinavian or a Celtic origin for this type from bracteates or coins. It descends clearly enough from No. 7, and still keeps a portion of the long curved crest. It is another question what can be the origin of PI. v, No. 7. No Roman coin which is obviously its prototype is known and it may be an original creation of the Anglo-Saxon designer. Too narrow a search into external sources for the varying animal devices on the sceattas is a 1 There may be some doubt as to the kinship of the animals which have the heads down with those with the heads turned back, but the obverses are the same, and serve to connect them. THE FANTASTIC ANIMAL 83 waste of time. Given the quickness of fancy of which sceat designers must certainly have been possessed these bewildering changes are quite natural. The creature turns his head over his back, in Nos. 7, 9, not through imitation of a bracteate, but because his forebears have been taught to do so ever since an engraver of a gem or a coin-die in the ancient world first made them stand within a circular field. It is a clear case of Darwinian adaptation of an organism to its environment. He is fantastic, not because he apes similar weird beings on Gallic coins, but because he represents in his own person the same artistic process that went on in the case of the earlier pieces where we find his counterparts. He begins as they began with being a rational quadruped with four legs and tail and other members of modest proportions and normal adjust- ment. If in the course of time he is reduced to such anatomical disarray that only Dr. Bernhard Salin can tell whether a leg is an ear or a tongue a tail, this is due to the waywardness of the artist's creative fancy and not to any prosaic tutelage from without. The same fanciful creature still more degraded appears in PI. iv, 9, a Hallum piece at Leeuwarden, where the single foreleg, which is still a leg in PI. v, 9, is now lifted up and used like an arm. The obverse type here is no longer the full-face head but a rather bold though rude profile, with an indication of a front view of the shoulders. This introduces us to the profile type which we have already seen in a debased form on the ' London ' coins, and more classically designed on 1 the Crondall pieces, PL in, 6, 7, 8. No sceat profile is so : well executed as the Chalon obverse in the triens series shown PI. 11, 2, and it is not often that we find one equal to the Crondall example, PI. in, 6. This however, as the cross on the reverse suggests, may be after 600, and sceattas of VI would on the principle of the gradual degradation of designs be more classical still. Fairly wrought profiles occur with reverse types that may be early. One in the Hunterian collection 84 EARLY ANGLO-SAXON COINAGE at Glasgow, PI. iv, 10, similar to No. 5 on PI. 1 of the British Museum Catalogue, carries in front of the face the enig- matical letters TIC and bears on the reverse in an early form the very familiar ' standard ' type. This may be derived from such a Roman coin as that given No. i' on PI. 1, where a military standard exhibits the letters VOT with two crosses below. Among the Crondall pieces are one or two which show this device apparently (from the obverse) imitated from a copper coin of Licinius. 1 These, which are independent of the Frankish trientes, may be VI productions, and the sceat PI. iv, 10, might be equally early. There are coins like this in several collections, with a neat and well-formed ' standard ' reverse, the style and execution of which would point to VI. On the other hand this same ' standard ' type occurs in such blundered forms and with such late obverses that in itself it cannot be held a mark of early date. Fairly wrought profile heads occur on coins of various epochs and these too cannot in themselves be taken as evidence of date. Mejuffr. de Man has a particularly good one, PI. iv, 11, that occurs with the Merovingian reverse of a bird on the top of a cross, reckoned as later than 600, and it is an interesting fact that only the other day a coin, so like this that one would think it must have been struck by the same moneyer, came to light in the grave of an Anglo-Saxon at Broadstairs, PI. iv, 12. The conjunction is a striking proof of the commercial intercourse across the North Sea. The well-designed head on PL iv, 3 occurs with a reverse with the PADA legend in runes which is fixed to about 656. The profile heads on the earliest pennies are of course still later, and are of special merit, though they must have been executed by the same class of Anglo-Saxon workmen that were busy on the later sceattas. Without entering further into questions of chronology a word may be said about an interesting series of profiles in which the figure is holding something in his hand. This is 1 British Museum Catalogue, 1, xiii. SCEATTAS ENGLISH AND DUTCH All silver, enlarged from i^ to z\ diameters PROFILE HEADS 85 sometimes a cross, but is also commonly a cup, and occasion- ally a bird. PI. vi, Nos. 1 to 7 give specimens. Noteworthy in several of these is the arrangement of the hair. The starting point is no doubt the Roman fillet, as in PI. 1, 2, and this is still apparent in PI. vi, 3. In the other examples shown, PI. vi, 1, 4, 6, the artist has played with the ends of the band and tied them in picturesque knots, so that the pieces are said by Mr. Keary to have 'hair and dress of Saxon character.' 1 There is undoubtedly an originality about the treatment that makes these heads easily distinguishable from anything in the Frankish series, and the feeling for knot-work is significant of the Anglo-Saxon artistic tendencies at the time. Their reverses are in some respects of much interest. Some particularly spirited animal designs, given on PI. viii (p. 99), occur with these heads, and if the heads seem speci- ally Anglo-Saxon so, as we shall see, do the animals. Other reverses however occur with these same heads, as for example PI. vi, 1. Some of these reverses may be taken in connection with those of the ' London ' coins on the former plate, and with some other obverse and reverse types given in the lowest line of this same PI. iv. In the ' Londons ' a standing figure 2 holding a long-stemmed cross in each hand is supported on some object of curved form, while in the case of several of the heads now under notice, PI. vi, 1, 2, the same figure holds on the reverse a cross in one hand and a bird in the other. The latter, a good specimen from Domburg in the de Man collec- tion, shows the curved object very distinctly in a form resembling a boat, while this resemblance appears still more clearly in Lord Grantley's fine coin PI. vi, 7, where one seems to have a view in perspective into the boat. This makes more reasonable than would appear at first the suggestion which was once made that the figure represented the earliest Christian 1 British Museum Catalogue, 1, 12. 2 Described in the British Museum Catalogue, 1, iof., as * helmeted,' but on this see postea p. 88. 86 EARLY ANGLO-SAXON COINAGE missionary sailing over the North Sea to convert the pagans ! One reverse, PI. iv, 16, offers this same figure equipped with a very aggressive pair of moustaches. No. 1 5 on PL iv, with the cross and bird, has the peculiarity that he is seated in a chair, on which he turns with a gesture reminiscent of the antique. No. 14, next to this, shows two standing figures holding one long cross between them, a type somewhat resembling one on a Frankish silver coin shown PL 11, 11. Lastly No. 13 on PL iv gives a device resembling the * Victory ' common on the Merovingian trientes of VI. About some of these reverses, e.g. No. 1 5, PL iv, there is a certain delicacy of execution worthy of notice. The bird in No. 1, PL vi is charmingly wrought. Some attention has now been paid to various types of heads that appear on the sceattas, and with these have been noticed some of the reverse types that accompany them. The relations between obverse and reverse types on the sceattas are irregular. A large number of examples may agree in showing the same devices, but then another example may come to light that with a similar obverse or reverse to all the others has a totally different type upon the other side. This is the case for example with the moustached figure with the two crosses, PL iv, 16, the obverse of which is quite different from the pro- file heads, with which the standing figure is generally associated. In sceat study the relations of obverse and reverse must always be taken account of, and the possession of a common reverse may furnish an argument for the connection of two obverse types which otherwise might be treated as distinct. To exhibit a different reverse on the other hand does not remove one of a set of obverses out of its apparent relation to its fellows. A notice of a particularly interesting sceat type that stands somewhat apart may here be introduced. This is the female centaur, which occurs twice in the British Museum, at the Hague, in the Hunterian collection and in the former THE FEMALE CENTAUR 87 collection of Mr. Carlyon-Britton, and no doubt elsewhere. In all these five cases it is associated with the same fanciful reverse, belonging to a series of devices on which something will have to be said, and this fact may suggest that it was the product of a single mint. This device on the other side is shown in connection with the Hague example PI. vi, 9. It represents its original motive in an advanced stage of morpho- logical change (p. 100 f.), whether we envisage such change as degradation or evolution, and may accordingly be so late in the sceat period as to show the influence of the Carolingian Renaissance. The type of the female centaur is of course familiar in classical art. Introduced it seems by the painter Zeuxis, the motive occurs in Pompeian wall decoration, and it is interesting also to find it on a piece of Roman silver work in the form of a cup ornamented with repousse designs found at Bernay in Normandy and now in the Louvre. This shows that the type was known in this part of Europe, and the Bernay cup may actually have furnished the model. From the Carolingian epoch we possess a poem by the famous Theodulf, made bishop of Orleans in 78 1, 1 the ' Pindar ' of the Aachen literary coterie, in which he describes an antique silver cup on which was represented the Centaur Nessus, though not necessarily any lady relative. In the British Museum Catalogue the creature is described as winged, but a comparison of examples seems to show that it brandishes in both hands branches of trees, a favourite occupation of the Centaurs, though not perhaps of the female members of their community. The head is always shown in profile to the right, the hair appears to be long and flowing, and there is a magnificent tail. The Hunterian specimen is on the whole the best and is given in No. 1 1 on PI. vi, Mr. Carlyon- Britton's, which gives the head and arms, is No. 10, while one of those in the national collection is added for comparison in No. 8, and the Hague specimen in No. 9, with obverse 1 Carm. 28, v. 179 f. 88 EARLY ANGLO-SAXON COINAGE and reverse. It should be noted that this reverse type occurs in all the examples. It was noted above x that the standing figure with the two crosses or cross and bird is described as ' helmeted.' The head-piece in the centaur coin looks very like this same helmet of the standing figures, but the artist of PI. vi, 8, who is fully convinced of the femininity of his model, would not have crowned her with a casque. A comparison of Nos. i to 6 on PL vi will probably convince the observer that this is only a conventional rendering of the nose and the hair which, distinct in No. 3, are run together in No. 4 and are reduced to a single conventionalized feature in the reverse of No. 1 and the rest of the series. It will be convenient to notice here one or two types of a miscellaneous kind which serve to show the great variety that exists in sceat devices, and which in some cases will be useful later on in connection with the designs on other artistic objects of the period. The remainder of PL vi is occupied with these, and they may have a passing word before we go on to examine the treatment of certain special animal forms on the sceattas wherein as we shall see their chief interest and value consist. The coin given in No. 12 passed from the Montague collection to the British Museum since the publica- tion of the Catalogue to which reference has so often been made. The obverse shows a profile head with uplifted hand rendered in a remarkable fashion with a tall cross apparently lying across the palm. The hand appears on Merovingian trientes at Clermont and elsewhere. The reverse is sui generis in so far as no similar device is known. At first sight it looks like a rather careful representation of some definite object triangular in plan, but this appearance is probably deceptive and the type may be simply a result of degradation. The two crosses below appear in the same position in some versions of the well-known * standard ' type, and the three 1 ante, p. 85, note. SCEATTAS, AND A ROMAN PROTOTYPE Silver, enlarged 2 to 2^ diameters SOME SPECIAL DEVICES 89 dots in the angle formed by two sweeping lines above can be seen on the particularly good example of the device in the British Museum given PI. vi, 21. The three pellets in the design under review have been brought into connection with the three heads, of two Emperors with a Victory above, on a familiar Roman reverse shown PI. 1, 1' . In any case how- ever, the motive may be taken as evidence that the Anglo- Saxon designer liked to work towards some more or less definite form, and was not satisfied, like his Gallic predecessor, with the mere 'disjecta membra' of older types. No. 13 gives us a minute full face in the centre of the field surrounded with ten little bosses each within a ring. This reminds us a little of designs that occur in the tomb furniture of the period (p. 324). No. 14 shows on the obverse a full-face bust with hair on both sides treated after the fashion of the profiles higher up on the same plate, and on the reverse a device of interlacing lines not unlike what we have already seen on one of the Merovingian pieces, PL n, 10. On No. 15 are four Latin crosses, each in a quadrant of a square. No. 16 shows a motive which occurs far more often on the Continent than among ourselves, and resembles in this the kindred pattern already noticed under the name * Sigillum Davidis ' and shown in No. 13 on PI. 11. In No. 17 we are disposed to see a modification of the ' step pattern,' so familiar in the design of the cloisons in inlaid Kentish jewellery, as seen for example on the frontispiece and occurring also on a unique ornament at Devizes (p. 425). No. 1 8 is regarded as a cross of the so-called 1 Maltese ' type with the spaces between the arms filled in with rosettes. No. 1 9 shows on the obverse two profile heads facing, with between them a cross that ends below in three prongs like a trident. This suggests a portable wooden cross that might be carried in procession and set up where required. Readers of Bede will recognize such an object as one well known at the time. There is a Hunterian specimen of the same type that shows the continuous stem quite distinctly. 9 o EARLY ANGLO-SAXON COINAGE The reverse has something of the appearance of an open rose, but is made up of four birds each perched on the end of one arm of a central Greek cross. Lastly, No. 20, formerly in the Carlyon-Britton collection (see also British Museum Catalogue, PL iv, No. 1), shows in the centre a bird standing on and surrounded by objects the interpretation of which is not clear. There is something which resembles a bent pin with a round head and a point that is enclosed in a double row of pellets. A torque or bracelet of some kind has been suggested. The most important branch of sceat study from the artistic standpoint is that on which we now enter, as we pro- ceed to examine the varied and interesting types in which the animal form, naturalistically treated or disguised, is the pre- dominant feature. One animal form has already been noticed, the quadruped of PL v, 3, 5, 7, which we see on the plate changing from a more or less normal creature to the monster of No. 9, that appears on numberless examples especially in Holland. The two similar reverses, PL vn, 1, 2, were aptly cited by Mr. Wigersma as illustrating the degradation of a type. He believed that No. 2 was a blundered copy of No. 1 . The latter is sharp and clear in its delineation, with the eye well made out and tail, crest, and dewlap finished off with round knobs. In No. 2 the beast looks the other way, to the right instead of the left, and this is just what would happen if a coin like No. 1 were being copied in intaglio to make a new die. When the die was used for stamping, the impression would of course be in relief and would be reversed. The copy was evidently made by a comparatively inexpert artist. It is pro- posed here to regard all the fantastic creatures of the so-called ' Wodan-Monster ' type x so common in Holland as descended through forms like PL v, 3, 5, from PL v, 7, a creature that from the form of his jaws appears to represent a wolf. 1 This is the type with a full-face head on one side and a debased animal form on the other, see PI. v, 9. THE BIRD FORM 91 These jaws and the general form of the beast affiliate with the reverses of the c Wodan- Monster ' type some English pieces of which the British Museum coin, PI. vn, 4, may serve as a specimen. He has the turned back head and the single leg of the monster on the Dutch coin, PI. iv, 9, but the jaws carry him back nearer to the original of PI. v, 7. Is it going too far to see in this rendering, PI. vn, 4, and similar pieces, English work, while the * monsters ' generally, as in PI. iv, 9, PI. v, 9, PI. vn, 1, 2, are of Frisian fabrication? The British Museum pieces, for there are several there, and similar coins such as were in Mr. Carlyon-Britton's collection, seem more massive in their forms and modelled with more plastic feeling than the thin and scraggy atomies that spread their spidery limbs over the coins with the full-faced c Wodan ' head, of which more than 350 examples were found at Terwispel and Hallum alone. The full-faced head, PI. v, 9, in the form in which it occurs with these reverses in Holland, is not common in our native collections, and it is quite possible that these coins were made on the other side of the North Sea. As in a way intermediate between the quadruped proper and the bird, there may be noticed one or two griffins as sceat types. The best is on an unpublished ' Montague ' coin in Lord Grantley's collection, and the two shown in PI. vn, 3, 5, are in the British Museum. The obverse of one gives us a bird in an upright perky attitude and of a slender build, a type which will meet us again later on in another connection (p. 105). The bird type generally on the sceattas may have a word. A bird perched on the top of a cross has already occurred as the reverse of coins with well-designed heads in Nos. 1 1, 12 on PI. iv. The type occurs on a triens of Laon, Prou, Catalogue, PI. xvn, No. 19, see PI. 11, 9 (p. 65), and on this M. Prou asks the question 1 : ' Serait-ce a une monnaie de Marc-Antoine qu'un monetaire de Laon aurait emprunte une 1 I.e., p. xcv. 92 EARLY ANGLO-SAXON COINAGE aigle legionnaire,' implying in his opinion a possible early- date for the piece. The bird thus used does not seem to suffer any transformations on the sceattas. It is the same creature which multiplied by four makes the rose-like pattern on the reverse of No. 19 on PI. vi. A natural bird, often very happily treated, is held falcon-like on the wrist of the standing or seated figure with the long cross, and appears in front of some of the Anglo-Saxon profile heads, of which there has been question on a previous page, see PI. vi, I, 5. 1 A far more important bird form, for which the proto- type is also to be found among the trientes, has been already given in Nos. 1, 4, 8, on PI. v and is shown here in another example from the Evans collection, PI. vn, 6'. A bird is seen pecking at a bunch of grapes, for it is certainly the vine which is represented not, as Mr. Keary suggested, an ear of corn. No normal corn stem gives off branches. The suggestion for the design may very well have been furnished by the beautiful trientes of Cahors, by far the most artistically pleasing of all those figured in M. Prou's Catalogue, where they are numbered 1921 and 1922 ; these were given PI. 11, 6, 7 (p. 65). Here in one case a single bird and in the other a pair of them is shown contemplating, but not actually biting at, a vine. The birds are seen from the back and turn their heads to the side. The bird on the second Cahors coin, PI. 11, 7, is very well made out and serves to explain the less naturalistic Anglo-Saxon rendering, where, as in the unpublished British Museum example, PI. v, 8, the upper parts of the two wings are seen like shoulders, while there is some pretence at feathering along the tail. In some of our native examples however, as is well seen in the Evans specimen, PI. vn, 6', the creature is opening its beak to the extreme limit as if to take in a whole bunch of 1 This is of some importance in relation to the question of the history of falconry in England that emerges in connection with the ' falconer ' on the Bewcastle Cross. THE BIRD PECKING AT GRAPES 93 grapes at a mouthful, a significant mark of the Anglo-Saxon artist's vigour in design. On the other hand, as showing the feeling for variety in the treatment of these common types in individual renderings, we note that Lord Grantley's bird, No. 1, PL v, seems to have delicately picked off a single grape in the dainty avian fashion. Let us consider the pieces first of all from the artistic side. Note how effectively the two vine stems with their curved lines enclose the long oval of the bird and give it a just relation to the circular field of the coin, and how boldly the firm straight legs of the animal cross and oppose these curves, and end in the three emphatic talons, which in PI. v, 1, 8, have an indication of the joint where the actual claw issues from its sheath. In its style and distinction the design will compare favourably with the best coin types known to numismatists, though of course the work is very sketchy. As regards the motive, the bird pecking at the vine is a familiar Early Christian device and has a distinctly religious significance. We shall meet with it often on the carved stones of the Anglo-Saxon period. It is however in its origin pre-Christian, as will be seen when the motive is discussed on a later page, and it might quite easily be adopted by a pagan designer in this country from a Frankish coin or other object, without any other than an artistic significance. Hence the pieces with this type might well be of VI origin. They are not common, and the writer has met with no example on the Continent. Lord Grantley has several, there are two in the British Museum, a well-preserved one in Sir Arthur Evans' collection at Youlbury, PI. vu, 6, and one in the Hunterian collection. The reverse 1 though not so interesting as a piece of art is 1 In the British Museum Catalogue the wolf and twins are regarded as the obverse type, but on the Roman coins from which this device comes it is always a reverse, and appears later on in the Anglo-Saxon penny series, as a reverse type, PI. vm, 18, 94 EARLY ANGLO-SAXON COINAGE historically of greater importance than the beautiful main type. It gives us the twins Romulus and Remus suckled by the she-wolf, a device that occurs elsewhere in Anglo-Saxon art as on the ' Franks ' casket in the British Museum. Roman coins often show it, and one of the best of these, a fine coin of Carausius, found at Bampton in Oxfordshire and in Sir Arthur Evans' possession at Youlbury, is given PI. vil, 7. (The original is perfect, the photograph is defective on one side.) When compared with the Youlbury sceat reverse, No. 6, the likeness is unmistakable. The thighs, tail, udder, forelegs, and head with pronounced ears turned round towards the children, are easily to be recognized, and the legs though not the arms of the twins are in evidence. The body of the beast however has lost substance and becomes little more than a series of parallel strokes that imitate the fell, which is clearly indicated on the Roman examples of the type, such as that shown, PI. vii r, 2 1 (p. 99). The twins on PL v are not so well made out, but in all cases the rendering of the Roman original is close enough for us to regard the pieces as typologically early. It may be objected to this that a much later rendering of the same classical original, on a coin of iEthelberht of East Anglia who was killed by OfFa of Mercia in 794, see PL viii, 1 8, is far more exact and workmanlike than any of these sceat reverses. This may be seen by comparing it with a Roman original as they both appear on PL viii, 18, 21. There is however a good reason for the excellence of this remarkable penny. It is to be regarded as a striking proof of the influence on the England of that day of the Carolingian renaissance, and as representing a careful and conscientious study of the antique, such as we find evidenced in other works of the time. In VI or VII Roman models were taken unconsciously as a matter of course, and while the first reproductions would be fairly close there would be no scholarly esprit de corps, such as existed at periods of classical renaissance, which would call the artist back to his duty when he began to deviate fancifully THE LIFE HISTORY OF A TYPE 95 from his pattern. Hence a process of * degradation ' in the handling of the type would go on unchecked, and it might either be broken up into meaningless elements as in the case of the Gallic coins on PI. 11, or manipulated to new and unex- pected results as by the constructive fancy of the Anglo-Saxon artists. Hence we may safely assume that the typological changes which transformed the original wolf and twins to something quite different follow each other on the whole in order of time, and there was no temporary recovery which might result in a rendering near to the original occurring at a comparatively advanced date. Hence the reverse as well as the obverse of these coins may very well be VI work. Sundry later or ' degraded ' devices may be affiliated to the wolf and twins along at least two lines. In the one case the descent can be traced with practical certainty but in the other we have to take a decided jump and be as satisfied as we can with a plausible hypothesis in place of demonstration. The latter case may be taken first. No sceat type is more common, especially in Holland, than the one already shown PI. iv, 1, 2, 6. It exhibits disposed across the field whether horizontally or vertically depends on the theory we take of its origin a curved form, that in many examples is more plump and cushion-like than in the examples just quoted, from the extrados of which a series of spines start up like the quills of a porcupine. Within the curve are commonly certain strokes or dots or nondescript forms dotted irregularly over the space. Sir John Evans took the view that the device was a degradation of the profile head so common on the coins and this is also the view of Mr. Keary in the British Museum Catalogue 1 of the Anglo-Saxon coins. On this theory the curved form should of course be disposed vertically. The chief objection to this, probably now the general English theory, is that it is difficult to see how the earlier stages in this complete transformation were accom- 1 Vol. 1, p. 7. 96 EARLY ANGLO-SAXON COINAGE plished in view of the constant production during all the time of real profile heads, the tradition of which never dies out. One can hardly imagine one moneyer or one set of moneyers gradually effacing in their heads all resemblance to the human profile while the face was being intelligibly rendered by their colleagues all about them. A certain restraining force must one would think have been at work which would militate against the supposed process. Indeed the coin which to the eyes of the writer seems most like a degenerate head, see PI. vn, 1 6, a Middelburg specimen, has actually on the other side of it a real though clumsily rendered head in profile. Some Dutch numismatists think that such examples tell fatally against the * head ' derivation, on the ground that no moneyer would use on the same coin a degraded and a naturalistic form of the same type. The other theory was enunciated by Mr. Dirks in his epoch-making paper on the Frisian finds, 1 and has been generally held in Holland. It derives the device in question from the she-wolf of the reverse now before us, and in agree- ment with this the Dutch numismatist published these coins with the curved form horizontally disposed and called the type * Wolvin.' In favour of this view are the facts (i) that the she-wolf in its proper shape is rare on the sceattas and would not have acted with the restraining force just accredited to the profile heads, (2) that the erect spines do occur as we shall see on the backs of creatures that certainly descend from a she-wolf mother, and (3) that at least one intermediate piece can be produced which seems to show the process of degradation actually going on. Reserving the second point for future elucidation, we may enforce the third by the example shown in No. 9 on PL vn, a sceat in the Museum at Middelburg, whereon, unless the forms have come together by some curious accident, we seem to see the wolf and twins actually in process of disintegration. The body of the creature and the bristles 1 De Vrije Fries, twaalfde deel, Leeuwardcn, 1872. TRANSFORMATION OF A TYPE 97 on her back, which can be seen in examples of the genuine type such as PI. v, 8, appear in PI. vn, 9, though the bristles are more accentuated and start from round dots instead of only ending in these as in No. 8 on PI. v. The two dots joined by short lines meeting at an angle seen at the right in PI. vn, 9, may be explained by the similar dots indicating the head of the beast, as in No. 4 on PI. v. The children's heads and arms seem unmistakable, and if it be objected that arms do not appear on the four sceat reverses, they may be seen fully in evidence on the Roman prototype, PI. vu, 7. There are enough bent lines below in PI. vu, 9 to stand for the legs of the twins and to leave some over for those of their foster mother. This question however of the ultimate origin of the con- ventional device under analysis may be left uncertain while attention is now paid to the curious modifications which the device suffers, in the course of which it is carried further and further away from its primal shape whether that were profile head or she- wolf body. These modifications are illustrated on the lower part of PI. vu, Nos. 10 to 20. They are grouped, it must be ex- plained, in an arbitrary order and the simplest, No. 10, from the de Man collection, has been taken as the starting point. Here the curved piece is almost perfectly symmetrical but in No. 1 1 it has as it were a head and tail. The former in Nos. 12, 13 is cut off from the body by a sort of neck ornament. In the last piece on this line the strokes within the curve, so regular in the first three, are now tumbled about anyhow, and soon, in No. 14, they are coming together in the form of a triangle, and this triangle, in No. 15, is attached to the end of the curved form like a head, while in No. 16 it is provided with an eye, which appears in the form of a circle. This is the Middelburg example already noticed for its resemblance to a degraded form of the profile head. To bring this out more clearly the curved form is placed in a HI G 98 EARLY ANGLO-SAXON COINAGE vertical position. The significance of the type on the other side of the coin has just been noted (p. 96). No. 1 on PI. iv (p. 79) shows a variation in that there is no triangle, but the plain head of PI. vu, 12, 13, is forked as if to suggest open jaws. PI. vu, 17, gives a coin at Middelburg that is too much damaged to admit of an assured reading, but, if at the end opposite to the triangular head we can discern a leg like that of a bird ending in a claw, we see the beginning of a feature that in other examples comes fully into evidence. No. 18 presents us with a fully formed bird with head up, the spines being treated like the feathers of a wing, and finally Nos. 19, 20, give us a completely formed bird with all its parts, a new type that has been evolved before our eyes from the wrecks of some former representation. The scheme here followed has been already acknowledged to be an arbitrary one, and it may be regarded at best as a harmless play of fancy for the reason that it can legitimately be argued that No. 10 may just as well be a simplification of an earlier form, say Nos. 14 or 15, as a stage in its evolution. To set against this is the fact that the triangle, and also the forked end, are late and are found with obverses of iEthelred dating from the last quarter of VII, PI. iv, 1, 2. The other side of No. 17, at Middelburg, exhibits an utterly inchoate reminiscence of the ' standard ' type that must be very late. On the whole perhaps a derivation from the she-wolf is the more probable, and it may be claimed as a point in favour of this that No. 9 on PI. vu, which has been adduced as an inter- mediate stage, possesses the ' standard ' for its reverse, which is normal for the numerous Frisian examples of this group, PI. vu, 10 to 20. One obverse in the Hunterian, PI. vu, 8, has also a reveise with the 'standard' type, and gives us a design that has a bearing on this question of derivation. There is no doubt that we have here a degraded form of a wolf or other quadruped similar to No. 7 on PI. v. The jaws show this, and the loss of the legs will not surprise us when ENGLISH SCEAT COINS WITH ARTISTIC TYPES Silver, enlarged about 2 diameters CHANGES IN THE SHE-WOLF TYPE 99 we have gone over the next series of types presently to be examined. The body of this creature gives us the curved form already discussed and the spines upon its back start from round dots as the spines do in PI. vn, 10 to 20. If the head were dropped off the remainder would correspond with the curved form and spines of PI. vn, 10 to 15. There now offers itself for consideration an interesting series of devices derived from the she-wolf through gradations that can clearly be traced, in the course of which the animal form passes through extraordinary morphological changes. On following these one is astonished and delighted at the exuberant fancy of the designer, and the decision with which he gives accent to the picturesque features that evolve them- selves successively through the transformations. To vindicate for the Anglo-Saxon artist of VII and VIII a reputation for vigour and originality nothing is needed but a study of these sceat types in which the wolf starts with his normal anatomy and proportions but ends as a mere elongated ' Wurm,' still armed however as a rule with a head of full vulpine ferocity. The affiliation of the types is in this case not an arbitrary matter for we possess here, what is lacking to the set of types last considered, an assured starting point. This starting point is found in a rendering of the she-wolf represented by such an example as No. 6 on PI. vu, where the animal has an elongated body with hardly any substance in it and a head bent down and looking inwards. No. 1 on PI. vin is clearly derived from a quadruped of this kind, though it is open to question whether there is a direct derivation from any of the she-wolves with twins that we happen to possess. In the examples of the latter that have been before us the creature's head is seen from above, not in profile as in PI. vin, 1, and the latter head with its pronounced front teeth and long tongue is a novelty. Nevertheless the deriva- tion from a vulpine quadruped with head bent down is quite unmistakable, and the hind-legs of PI. vin, 1, are very like ioo EARLY ANGLO-SAXON COINAGE those of the wolf in PI. vn, 6. The design of PL vm, I, is an excellent one, with the masses well distributed, and character- istic points of the model boldly emphasized, and it is one of the best of the sceat series. In No. 2, a worn example in the British Museum, where the collection is particularly strong in these types, the hind-legs have practically disappeared, and in Mr. Carlyon-Britton's coin, No. 3, both sets of legs have gone, though the body with upright spines still endures. It may be noted as differentiating these coins from the series in the lower half of PL vu that here the spines end in round knobs while there, on PI. vu, they begin with them. In PL vm, 4, from the same collection as the last, the body is reduced to a series of round pellets, the head being all the time carefully preserved and even improved. No. 5, another admirable device very crisply and daintily executed, has added to the main type of No. 4 a second lacertine animal curl- ing round the first with a head of its own kind, which is of special interest because it resembles one on a piece of remarkably excellent gold work noticed later on (p. 311). In No. 6, a clumsier piece of work, two creatures like the last but with heads not so definitely wolfish are coiled together in the midst. No. 8 gives us the head alone and may be regarded as one of the chefs-d'oeuvre of the Anglo-Saxon designer. It has some of the qualities of a fine early Baby- lonian seal in its force and accent, and is masterly in composi- tion. The two devices on each side of this on the plate illustrate a tendency which is to be observed in other groups of sceattas, that towards a rotary effect. PI. vm shows us three motives treated in this revolving fashion, one, the wolf- head motive with the protruding tongue ; two, the bird motive, and three, a foliage motive which is of the highest interest. In No. 7 three wolf heads, and in No. 9 four, are arranged like a wheel around a central boss, the type of countenance closely resembling that in No. 1. Between No. 9 and the following types there is a lacuna. A gradual FOLIAGE ORNAMENT 101 degeneration of the vulpine whorl to a mere play of radiating lines is conceivable, and from this might be gradually evolved a bird, somewhat after the fashion of the types in the lower part of PI. vn, but the writer has not found any sceattas which bear this out. At any rate Nos. n and 12 are nonde- script radiating forms with birds' legs attached, while in No. 10 the bird form is more or less clearly made out, the rotary feeling still being in evidence. No. 10 exhibits a motive, carried further in No. 14, that combines with the bird form foliage, of which we have already seen examples in the bird pecking at the grapes and the Cahors trientes. The fifth line of PI. viii gives us in No. 14 a rather elegant bird, built on rotary lines and far less naturalistic than the bird with the grapes of Plates v and vn, but agreeing with the latter in pecking at berries or fruit. There is no suggestion of the vine, but the waving bough is treated with a good deal of natural feeling. In Nos. 13 and 15 the animal form is absent and a foliage scroll occupies the field. This is treated in a fresh and original fashion and is of much interest, especially in connection with the use of foliage on carved stones of the Anglo-Saxon period, such as the Bewcastle Cross. It has no resemblance to any form of the classical acanthus nor to the vine scrolls so common in Early Christian art, but may be compared with the foliage sprays that occur here and there in the Book of Kells, which will be noticed in a forthcoming volume. In both cases the floral scrolls are not naturalistic, in that no special flower or leaf seems to have been copied, but the grace and waywardness of growing tendrils have been noticed by the artist and are rendered with a dainty touch. This quality is still more apparent in a set of sceattas, best represented in the Hunterian collection at Glasgow, in which foliage is introduced in a very artistic manner in connection with the human figure and quadrupeds. No. 16 on PI. vm is a very remarkable Youlbury coin in which the standing 102 EARLY ANGLO-SAXON COINAGE figure in the boat has dropped his two crosses and taken up instead a couple of tall stems of some flowering plant. This makes a much prettier device than the orthodox arrangement, and we may credit the Anglo-Saxon designer with some bold- ness in discarding the well-established Christian symbol in favour of a natural object that struck his fancy, and Lelewel might have quoted the piece in support of his contention that relics of paganism cling to the sceattas all through their history. 1 The Hunterian pieces PI. vm, 17, 19 and that in the Bodleian, No. 20, exhibit quadrupeds with which the same flowering stems are effectively composed. There remain two questions on which a word must be said. One is that of the chronology of the sceat issues, and the other is the question of the relation of sceat designs to the ornamental work on other contemporary objects of Anglo- Saxon manufacture. These two questions are so far connected that the tomb furniture, which can in so many cases be approximately dated, might be expected to throw a welcome light on the chronology of the sceattas. It happens however that the relation between the tomb furniture and the coins is such a distant one that this expectation can only be fulfilled in the most partial manner. Points of contact between the two sets of designs are as a matter of fact very hard to find, and it is as much as we can do to believe that the creators of the two sets were contemporaries and fellow-countrymen, the old idea that they were the same people being obviously no longer tenable. For example, in the tomb furniture it is the rarest thing to find a trace of floral ornament, whereas the sceattas on the lower half of PI. vm exhibit foliage treated with no little freedom and grace. The human figure, or portions of it, can be just recognized on some pieces of decorative work from the cemeteries that are however so few in number that 1 'Les sceattas jusqu'au dernier jour de leur existence ne se sont pas debarrasses de marques singulieres provenant du paganisme.' IX facing p. 103 MOTIVES CONNECTED WITH SCEAT DESIGNS NATURALISTIC ANIMALS 103 they can be counted on the fingers, whereas the whole form, quaintly rendered no doubt but complete and in reasonable proportions, is not uncommon on the coins. The human head in profile or full face is the commonest of all devices on the coins, and here the difference is not so great, for while the profile human head hardly ever occurs on the tomb furniture the full-face head is rather a favourite motive. In regard to animal ornament a distinction must be made. There does exist within the area of Anglo-Saxon tomb furniture animal enrichment of a normal kind, such animal ornament as is found on the best of the sceattas, like those on the two lowest lines on PI. vni, or. the bird pecking at the grapes. This animal ornament is distinctly founded on classical models, and, save in the case of a very few exceptional pieces presently to be considered, it is confined to the earliest Anglo- Saxon period when Roman works of art that would serve as examples were abundantly in evidence. One or two instances may be noticed. PI. ix, 2, shows the outline of part of a leopard stamped on a bronze pail, PI. cxix, 6, in the British Museum, found in the cemetery at Chessell Down in the Isle of Wight. This is clearly copied from part of an animal frieze such as is found on ' Castor ware ' pottery and some- times on Roman glass vessels. PI. ix, 3, may serve as a specimen of work that is either debased Roman or a barbaric copy of a Roman original. It is a cast bronze medallion, 1 1 in. across, found at Princethorpe, Warwickshire, probably with Anglo-Saxon relics, and is part of the Bloxam collection in the Art Museum at Rugby. At High Down, Sussex, there was found in an Anglo-Saxon grave a small cast bronze head of a faun, which may be a barbaric copy of a Roman original. Another piece with a classical lion's head came to light at Harnham Hill, Wilts. Later on, in Chapter x, there will be found figured and noticed a number of early examples of animal design of pronounced Roman character. These examples date from before the end of V, and to judge 104 EARLY ANGLO-SAXON COINAGE from the analogy of the sceattas they might have been the starting point of a development of animal design such as we find on the coins. As a matter of fact however, after about the year 500, the animal form in Anglo-Saxon tomb furniture is as a rule treated in so wayward a fashion that it soon loses all resemblance to nature. It is true that in the animal designs on the coins also we have to deal with very arbitrary render- ings of the quadruped, as in the ' monster ' of the Frisian reverses or the wolf forms on the upper part of PI. viii, but the point is that the conventions of the coin types are totally different from those we find on fibulae or buckles. The dis- membered animal whose acquaintance we shall make in con- nection with the tomb furniture never presents himself upon the sceattas, while conversely the wolves and birds of the coins make no appearance in the cemeteries. Furthermore the forms of geometrical ornament which we shall find fairly common on some classes of funereal objects, such for example as the l saucer ' fibulae, are not to be found in the monetary artist's repertory, the only exception being the pearl border, formed by a succession of little knobs or bosses. This occurs frequently on both classes of objects, but it is, we must re- member, a very simple and widely diffused motive of enrich- ment that may be met with almost anywhere. The foregoing has been put in absolute terms for about the general rule here enunciated there is no doubt at all, the one or two exceptions that may be adduced being so few that they serve only to establish it. To these exceptional cases of correspondence between the two sets of objects attention may now be given. It was noticed in passing (p. 89) that the step pattern common in the cloisons of Kentish inlaid jewels occurs on one at any rate of the sceattas. The ring of heads of PL vi, 13 will be found as an occasional motive in Germanic metal-work, PH. lxi ; G, in ; the serpent's head of PI. viii, 5, appears again on the exceptional piece PL lvi. PL ix, 10, 11, COIN DEVICES ON OTHER OBJECTS 105 are worth a moment's attention. No. 10 is a Merovin- gian silver coin with a cross, near the ends of three arms of which there appear rings. On No. n, a sceat in the Hunterian collection, these rings appear attached to the ends of all four arms of a similar cross. This constitutes a special form of ornamented cross and we find this used as a motive of enrichment on a bracteate probably made in this country that is figured PI. E, iv. It makes its appearance also in another connection, and this renders it necessary to bring within the present survey another class of Anglo-Saxon monuments that otherwise would not be noticed till they receive regular treatment in a subsequent volume. The reference is to the sculptured stones that are such conspicuous monuments of the Christian Anglo-Saxon period. If some of the sceat devices appear on the tomb furniture they may be detected here and there also on the stones, though these are in most cases later in date than the sceat series. The cross with rings at the end of the arms is a case in point for this is found occasionally on stones in the north. PI. ix, 5, shows a wolf's head on a X stone in Stanwick Church, Yorkshire, that perpetuates the type of the wolves' heads on the upper part of PI. vin. One or two of the exceptional pieces of tomb furniture signalized above seem to be connected alike with the sceat coins and with the earliest of the carved stones, and these must obtain their share of notice. They are Nos. 11, 12, on PL v, and 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, on PL ix. PL ix, 1, 4, in the Cambridge Museum, of cast bronze gilded, are called hinged handles ' and were found at Wangford and Lakenheath in Suffolk, though there is unfortunately no record of the circumstances of their dis- covery. On both parts of No. 1 there are birds with long ostrich-like necks and broad wings that readily offer them- selves for comparison with some of the birds on the sceattas. PL vin, 10, 14, for example show the creature with the two legs, wing, tail, and upright neck and open beak of the birds io6 EARLY ANGLO-SAXON COINAGE of the hinged handle, PI. ix, I, and there may be brought into comparison also PI. v, 2, 6, where similar creatures are represented. On another piece of tomb furniture figured PI. ix, 7, there is a similar bird. This is a cast bronze pendant ornament that was found at Saxonbury, outside Lewes, Sussex, and is now in the Museum there. The shape of the plate is that of a square superimposed on a quatrefoil, and the right-hand upper corner is mutilated so that the fashion of the bird's head and neck cannot be clearly made out. 1 Legs, tail, and wing are however quite sufficiently distinct. This piece may be dated in VI. PI. ix, 8, is part of the bronze mounting of a bucket from Bidford, Warwick- shire, in the form of a quadruped, cut out in thin sheet bronze. It is quite an exceptional piece, and the ornamental treatment of the surface is of a kind suggesting an early date. On the other hand the remarkable object, PI. v, II, was discovered in association with other items of a rather advanced date. It is an embossed plate of thin silver that formed the face of a brooch of the ' applied ' type (p. 275), if in. across, and is published in Archaeologia, lxiii, 191. It was found in St. John's College cricket ground at Cambridge, and is now in the Museum there. For the present purpose we are only concerned with the frieze of quadrupeds which are treated with a naturalism quite unprecedented on tomb furniture of the period, that may be early VII. In detail it is not like any of the animals on the sceattas, but is on about the same grade of art as some of the animals in the lower part of PL viii, and has been adduced here for the sake of com- parison. The very interesting piece, PL ix, 6, exhibits a union of animal and foliage motives that makes it of especial value for 1 For a careful report on the piece the writer has to thank Mr F. Bentham Stevens, Honorary Curator of the Museum at Lewes, who kindly examined it on his behalf. ANGLO-SAXON LEAF ORNAMENT 107 comparison with the coins. It came to light in a Jutish grave at Gilton, Kent, and was published in Inventorium Sepulchrale, pi. viii, 7, and p. 16. The material is silver, once heavily gilded, and it appears to be the half of a clasp. It is 1 in. long. The ornament is in open work, and gives us a fantastic creature with two forelegs and a curling tail that divides into three, each branch ending with what looks like a flower bud. In the case of this piece we have Faussett's note of the objects found with it, and these give indications of a late date that would however almost certainly fall within VII. It is dis- cussed in a subsequent chapter in association with clasps (p. 362), and is noticed here and (p. in) on account of its connection both with the coins and with the early carved stones. The terminations of the tripartite tail are curiously like what we find on PL viii, 19, while the creature itself occurs almost in propria persona on the eastern face of the Bewcastle Cross, shown PL ix, 9. The two objects, Pll. v, 12 ; ix, 4, present to us the most marked examples of a floral motive that the tomb furniture as a whole can furnish. The leaf form in both cases is unmis- takable, but it is very noteworthy that the structure of the leaf and its relation to the stem are not understood, and it is only a blundered presentment, the production of a designer who was trying to copy a bit of Roman foliage ornament without understanding it. PL v, 12, was found at Royston Heath, not far from Cambridge, in company with a skeleton, but that is all the information available. It is a bronze buckle, 1^ in. across, and still has in it part of the leathern strap which it fastened. The bow ends on the side where the tongue is hinged in two animals' heads, and the exposed surface of the bow is decorated with what is meant to be a floral scroll with leaves given off" alternately on the two sides of an undulating stem. PL ix, 4, shows a single leaf, and it is noteworthy that Bernhard Salin in his Thierornamentik, fig. 408, gives a draw- ing of a bronze fragment at Hanover with exactly the same 108 EARLY ANGLO-SAXON COINAGE pattern upon it, and considers the piece of early date, that is about V. Foliage forms of this kind do not show themselves on the sceattas, but a leaf of the same shape makes its appear- ance on the Bewcastle Cross, PL ix, 9, where we see it under and to the right of the creature resembling PL ix, 6, in which we have already noticed traits that connect it on the other side with the sceattas at the bottom of PI. viii. These details may seem of somewhat trivial importance, but the fact is that there is so little evidence for the chronology alike of the sceattas and of the carved stones that any indica- tions even of an indirect kind are of value. Employing now the scanty evidence to be derived from the side of tomb furniture as well as arguments drawn from the sceat designs themselves and the circumstances of the discoveries of the coins, we may essay a chronological distribution of some of the principal types within the general limits of the sceat period. Comparatively few sceattas have been found in tombs where associated objects might afford indications of date, or have appeared anywhere in conjunction with datable objects such as foreign coins of known origin. The find of sceattas in one of the recently explored graves at Broadstairs, Kent, is as important chronologically as any discovery of the kind, for the Broadstairs cemetery is on the whole an early one though approaching 600 a.d. quite as near as 500 a.d., a date which has been suggested for it. For one thing the c lobed' glass vessel which will be found figured later, PI. cxxiii, 1 (p. 483), probably dates at the earliest from the latter part of VI. Of the eight sceattas in question half had the ' standard ' reverse, half that in which a bird hovers over a cross, PL iv, 12, the obverses being in all cases fairly executed heads. For reasons given above (p. 84) the ' standard' coins may date in VI while the bird and cross is evidence of a date after 600 a.d. The indications of an early date, even within VI, for the Broad- stairs coins is a little discounted by the fact that some other DATING OF THE SCEATTAS 109 sceattas with these self-same types came to light in 1843 in association with a distinctively Christian object, at earliest of the first half of VII. The place was Breach Down, Kent, and the object the pin for the hair with head in the form of a cross, shown PL x, 5 (p. 1 1 5). At Ozengell, Thanet, a cemetery that yielded up objects of early date, three sceattas with the bird on the cross were found, but the particular grave that furnished them is not known. The cemetery, though an early one, produced an imitated coin of Justinian that cannot be earlier than the last part of VI. Two coins, found in a grave, no. ccxxvi, at Sarre that contained only a broken knife, can be accurately dated by the occurrence on them of the name ' Pada,' indicating, as we have seen (p. 80), a date about the middle of VII. A sceat with the type of two figures holding between them a cross, like PL iv, 14, was found at Saxby, Leicestershire, in a cemetery of the end of VI or early part of VII. Apart from a very few * Fundberichte ' such as these just given, and of course the inscribed and dated ' iEthelred ' and * Pada ' coins, we are compelled to use for the dating of the sceattas either the internal evidence of their designs or else such indirect indications as those derived from comparisons with the tomb furniture. The profile head and standard type may be accepted as early, the last half of VI, and a corresponding nearness to Roman or Early Christian proto- types may be used in favour of an equally early date for the wolf with twins and bird and grapes. Charles Roach Smith published two sceattas found at Richborough, 1 one of which is of this type the other of the ' standard ' type, but unfortun- ately he does not tell us whether or not they were found together. If we may date the wolf and twins in the latter part of VI we have a long period of time during which, throughout VII, the gradual transformations of the type that have been followed (p. 94 f.) can have worked themselves out. 1 Richborough, Re culver and Lymne, Lond., 1850, p. 157. no EARLY ANGLO-SAXON COINAGE The introduction of the interlacing motive in the long hair of the bust on the obverse of many of the coins with degraded wolf types on the other side, as PI. viii, i, 4, is a chrono- logical indication, for this motive does not appear in the tomb furniture till VII and greatly flourishes as time goes on. The evolution of the 'whorl' motive, PI. vm, 7, 9, etc., carries us on through VII. It may be conjectured that the whorl motive on the coins is due to the same revival of a Late-Celtic design which produced in VII those extraordinary ' scutcheons ' of bronze bowls ornamented with flamboyant Celtic scrolls of which there is question in a later chapter (p. 475 f.), see PL cxix. The whorl motive does not occur in the designs of early Teutonic coins on the Continent and may be due in our own country to the cause just mentioned. The whorl of four wolves' heads is connected, PL viii, 9, with the female centaur type with which it is always conjoined, and we have seen reason to regard the female centaur in spite of its classicism as not an early type, but one inspired by the coming Caro- lingian renaissance, like the wolf and twins of iEthelberht, PL viii, 18 (p. 94). It would in this case fall within VIII. A similar whorl of three wolves' heads, PL vm, 7, carries with it on its reverse the rosette motive in a cruciform scheme, which is thus established as late. A similar rosette device forms the reverse of the whorl-like bird PI. viii, 11, while Nos. 10 and 12, obviously related to No. 11, have on their other sides the standing figure with two crosses in the boat, a type that is thereby shown to occur at a com- paratively advanced epoch. This figure in the boat is rather closely associated with the head with the inscription 'Londonia,' PL iv, 5, 7, 8, and the 'Londonia' coins are not likely to be very early, see the reverse of PI. iv, 6. In spite of his crosses the figure in the boat is far more likely to be a merchant than a missionary, and we may take it that his conjunction with the ' Londonia ' inscription testifies to the activity of London commerce when people were resorting thither as Bede tells us, CHRONOLOGICAL INDICATIONS in by sea and land.' This same standing figure in PI. vm, 16, has we have seen dropped his crosses and assumed instead two flowering stems, and this brings with it the foliage motive to the use of which we owe the charming designs on the lower part of PI. vm, while the foliage motive again is inseparably- connected with the excellent animal designs illustrated in the same place. We see accordingly various decorative motives joining hands as it were and drawing each other in till they gather together at an epoch that may be set down as the last half of VII, from which time onwards till the sceat issue ceases we may regard them as flourishing. Of the various pieces of tomb furniture on PH. v and ix there is really only one that can give us direct support for this chronological argument, the others standing as it were neutral. This piece is the clasp in pierced work, PI. ix, 6. On tomb-furniture evidence the piece would find its habitat in VII and probably in the last part of VII. It was found with a coin imitated from one of Justinian (527-565 a.d.), the piece showing considerable evidence of usage, and the open work technique suggests a date decidedly advanced. The floral terminations to the creature's tail point to the same period, and the appearance of its counterpart on the Bewcastle Cross would agree with this, if the Cross be rightly dated VII. The connection with coins or stones of the other pieces, PI. v, II, 12, and PI. ix, 1, 4, 7, 8, is not quite so clear. The quadrupeds PI. v, 11, and PI. ix, 8, have no great significance for the purpose. On the probable date of PI. v, 12, and PI. ix, 1, 4, a word may be said. The heads on the buckle bow, its leafage, and the single leaf on PI. ix, 4, probably have a Roman connection and date before 500 a.d. The appearance of the same leaf on the Bewcastle Cross so long afterwards may be easily explained. The Cross, whatever its actual date, is certainly one of the earliest examples of stone carving of the kind in the period, and the sculptor takes the Roman vine scroll for his model ii2 EARLY ANGLO-SAXON COINAGE just as it had been taken at an earlier date by the maker of the cast bronze buckle and hinged handle. The date, and special connection with sceat designs, of the birds on PL ix, i and 7 are not easy to fix, but the parallelism in the work is undoubted, and in the case of a few objects of the kind the old theory that the moneyer and the metal worker were one and the same still has its plausibility. In leaving now the subject of the sceat coin types we may notice in a word of summary, first, the place they hold in the general history of Anglo-Saxon art, and, second, their aesthetic value. As regards the former, as the sceattas extend in point of duration not only through VII but through a great part of VIII they provide us with specimens of our native art at a period when datable examples are very hard to find. We shall see reason for believing (p. 173) that the use of the pagan cemeteries, and with it the interment and consequent preserva- tion of tomb furniture, ceases before the beginning of VIII, 1 though on the Continent this use may have lasted on till a later epoch. Hence the last part of VII and VIII are barely, if at all, represented in tomb furniture, and it is of all the more importance to note that throughout this period the art of the moneyer flourished in full vigour. The sceattas moreover represent the art of the southern districts of the country, whereas what examples we have of the productions of the time in MS. illuminations, carvings, etc., belong to North- umbria. Were there no sceattas we should not possess any documents to give us an idea of VIII art in the regions of the country where in VI and VII the crafts connected with objects of tomb furniture had been specially active. On the aesthetic question the text for a few concluding words may be taken from the sentences in which Mr. Keary sums up the points of interest in our Anglo-Saxon coinage in 1 In a few exceptional cases this use may have extended into VIII. The King's Road cemetery at Reading, Berks, is a case in point, and so is Saffron Walden, Essex. AN AESTHETIC ESTIMATE 113 the conclusion of his Introduction to the second volume of the British Museum Catalogue of the Anglo-Saxon series. In the sceat series, he says, c we have a number and variety of designs which in proportion to the extent of the issue is perhaps without precedent in any other coinage of the world. The designs on the sceattas are not themselves for the most part artistically beautiful, but in any history of the develop- ment of ornament they ought to take a conspicuous place. They present . . . some striking examples of the degradation of types, and, through degradation, of the evolution of fresh types.' The points here indicated have been illustrated in some detail on the plates, 1 to vin, on which appear nearly two hundred coin devices. To some of these the quality of beauty cannot reasonably be denied. In numismatic history as a whole, beauty in the highest sense is perhaps only repre- sented in the coins of the classic and the Gothic periods and in some Renaissance pieces, but beauty that is a matter more of feeling and suggestion than of perfection of form certainly belongs to sceattas such as PI. iv, 15, PI. vn, 5, PI. vin, 14, 15, 16, 19, or the bird pecking at the grapes on PI. v. The artistic merit of good disposition of masses and composition of line belongs to very many of the designs that perhaps strike us first by their quaintness. PI. vin shows good examples of this. The highest merit of the coins however resides in the freshness and variety of the devices, which represent the Anglo-Saxon artist of VII in a most favourable light, and make us long for a little of his animation and fancy to enliven the inane and spiritless devices of our modern British coins and postage stamps. The execution of the sceat designs we may characterize if we will as ' rude,' but this is really a term of praise when we compare the boldness and accent in their handling with the thin machine-like regularity of the orthodox productions of to-day. in CHAPTER III THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY OF THE PAGAN PERIOD The tombs that have furnished practically all the objects, save the coins, noticed in these chapters are grouped in cemeteries which served the needs of different bodies of Teutonic settlers. With these cemeteries various topics connect themselves, of which the following are the most important : (1) the Anglo- Saxon cemetery in VI and to-day ; its supersession by the churchyard and consequent disappearance from view ; its re- discovery and exploration in mediaeval and more modern times : (II) the number and extent of the cemeteries : (III) the location of the cemeteries in relation to the distribution of the Teutonic population, the natural features of the country, and the social and sepulchral arrangements of the earlier in- habitants whom the invaders dispossessed : (IV) the treatment of the body before burial, and the disposal of it or its ashes in the receptacle prepared for it : (V) the arrangement and the forms of the graves : (VI) orientation and tomb furniture : (VII) the mark or monument, if any, that indicated at the time and to posterity the place of interment : (VIII) the indica- tions, if any, in connection with the above of social customs, or of class or other distinctions among the interred. I. It is a curious reflection that there are two periods in the history of this country at which the pagan Anglo-Saxon cemetery has been a conspicuous monumental or social fact, and these periods are separated by about a thousand years. From the first settlement down to about 700 a.d. these cemeteries were in use and honour, but from that date till 114 X facing p. 1 1 5 CHRISTIAN OBJECTS IN CEMETERIES 115 about 1700 they passed not only out of use but out of memory almost as completely as did the Roman catacombs, while within the last century and a half they have resumed a place of importance among our national institutions. The cause of their passing out of use was the establishment of the churchyard, within which, if not within the church itself, the clergy gradually brought the faithful to lay their dead. The early history of the churchyard is obscure and nothing needs here to be added to what was written in the first volume of this work, 1 where it was noticed that the first Christian bury- ing grounds were apparently attached to monastic churches and that these may have been used for the burial of faithful persons not in monastic orders. It was only gradually that the temenos or enclosed area around the country church was made the effective place of burial for the local population, and it would be very interesting to know exactly when and under what conditions this change worked itself out. Some archaeo- logical evidence will be adduced later on (p. 172 f.) tending to show that this change was accomplished sooner in this country than on the Continent, for late objects are less often found in our own non-ecclesiastical ceme- teries than in foreign ones. Pagan cemeteries were cer- tainly in use even for the burial of Christians during VII. One or two examples that bear on this may here be introduced. What are at first sight the most striking cases occur at Strood by Rochester in Kent and at Long Wittenham, Berks, at both of which places were found bronze plates, that had mounted or covered, in the one case a drinking horn, in the other a pail or stoup, and on which figure subjects from scripture had been 1 The Arts in Early England, 1, 256 f. Fig. 1. Outline of Design on the Strood Mount. n6 THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY represented in repousse work in relief. The Strood piece is shown PL x, i, and the design which is repeated six times round the mouth of the horn is given more clearly in Fig. i } The subject is probably Christ as Teacher. This is un- doubtedly Christian, but whether the owner of it was an adherent of the new faith is another question. It was found in the grave of a warrior buried with sword, spear, shield and knife on a site contiguous with the old Roman cemetery that lay along the course of the Watling Street on the western side of the Medway opposite Strood church. Now Rochester received a Christian church at the very beginning of VII, 2 and as this was monastic it may have supplied grave- yard accommodation for the faithful, 8 yet we find a body buried with distinctly Christian grave furniture close to the pagan Roman cemetery across the river. It is quite possible that as the weapons suggest rather an early date for the inter- ment the warrior was not himself a Christian and had acquired the bronze-mounted horn by foray or traffic from France. Bronze plates of a similar kind with Christian figure subjects on them may be seen in the Museum at Worms and were found also at Vermand in northern France. 4 In the last case an early date, not later than 400 a.d., is indicated by the nature of the cemetery, and the piece in question must be the work not of a Frank but of a Christian Gallo-Roman craftsman. This is rendered practically certain by the fact that at Vermand and other cemeteries of the same class embossed bronze plates of the same kind have been found with figure subjects from classical mythology, that obviously proceed from Gallo-Roman workshops. 5 A similar proven- 1 From Collectanea Antiqua, 11, pi. xxxvi. 2 The Arts in Early England, 11, 119. 3 ibid., 1, 258. 4 Pilloy, Etudes, it, pi. 13 and p. 216. For the important Franco-Roman cemetery at Vermand see postea (p. 549 f.). 5 ibid., 1, 169, 176 ; 11, pi. 12. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CROSS 117 ance may be confidently assumed for the examples at Strood and Long Wittenham, and the Strood warrior may not have been a Jute of Kent but one of the raiders of the valleys of the Thames and its tributaries, about whom there is question in a later chapter. The Long Wittenham stoup was found in the grave of a boy together with a beaten bronze bowl of a kind represented at Croydon in a probably pagan grave, and the occupants of the Long Wittenham graves may belong to the same section of the invaders as the warrior buried at Strood. The Wilton pendant discovered in Norfolk 1 is certainly Christian though it is not proved that it came from a grave. On the other hand in the Kentish cemeteries at Kingston and Chartham Down, Kent, and in a barrow on Winster Moor, Derbyshire, 2 crosses obviously and professedly Christian and worn as pendants came to light, PI. x, 2, 2, 3, 4. On Breach Down, Kent, there was found a pin for the hair, now in the British Museum, PI. x, 5, the head of which is a cross in the Christian form. In the Gibbs collection from Faversham, now in the British Museum, two bronze mounts for bowls, PI. x, 6, 6, of a kind discussed later on (p. 474), show the motive of the Latin cross standing between two fantastic creatures, that occurs on Burgundian buckles where its derivation can be traced from Daniel between two lions. 3 The above are all avowedly and beyond all question Christian, but there are other appearances about which we cannot be so certain. It is not infrequent to find the patterns on inlaid jewels and bracteate-like pendants in gold worked into a cruciform shape, but these are not always convincing, for the arrangement of a design in fours may very well pro- duce this appearance without any religious intent, and the well-known shape of the equal-armed cross, in which the arms 1 Norfolk Archaeology, in, 375, see Chapter x (p. 510). 2 Catalogue of Sheffield Museum, 1899, p. 222. 3 M. Besson, V Art Barbare dans P Ancien Diocese de Lausanne, Lausanne, 1909, p. 64 f. (Cycle des monstres affrontes.) n8 THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY increase in width as they diverge, will necessarily form itself if any one divide a round disc like a pendant into eight spaces by radiating lines. There is no reason to suspect the Roman enamelled brooch at Chesters, Fig. 2, of Christian leanings because the spaces are so partitioned. It is an acci- dent that they are here divided into fours while on the similar brooch shown PL e, i F IG . 2. Part of a (p 5 X 9) tne urut IS nve - As we saw in the Roman Brooch. case of the sceat coins a pagan Saxon work- man might copy the cross merely as a decorative or as a prophy- lactic motive (p. 73) from some Gallo-Roman or Merovingian Christian piece. The cross appears on the two inlaid pendants, PL xi, 1, 2, of which the first, at Liverpool, comes from Sibertswold, Kent, and the other, No. 2, from a barrow at Uncelby, Yorks (in York Museum). These are very doubt- fully Christian. On the other hand the damaged pendant from Sibertswold, Kent, PL x, 7, and that from Suffolk in Mr. S. Fenton's collection, PL xi, 5, give the cross in a pro- nounced form that may well be Christian. Unmistakably Christian is a pewter chalice found in a grave in the King's Road cemetery at Reading. This cemetery is apparently a late one as no arms were found, and its use is conjectured to have extended to the exceptionally late date of about the middle of VIII. The chalice, PL xi, 3, which approaches the Romanesque form is not only Christian but sacerdotal, and its appearance in a cemetery not attached to any church is signi- ficant. It may be held attested as a local product through the discovery in the same cemetery of another object in pewter, this time a large fibula. The use of pewter by the Anglo- Saxon craftsman need not surprise us, as the Romans freely employed the material. Enough has been said to show that in VII and probably in exceptional cases in the first part of VIII there was in the use of cemeteries an overlap, Christians still continuing to be EARLY FINDS IN CHURCHYARDS 119 buried even with the insignia of their religion in the pagan cemeteries though country churchyards were ready to offer them accommodation. It is a question whether or to what extent the converse holds good and early burials in the church- yards were accompanied by the ' Beigaben ' customary in pagan interments. Thus it is stated on the excellent authority of Charles Roach Smith that in the burying ground attached to the very ancient church of St. Martin outside Canterbury were found a garnet inlaid pendant, a Roman gem, and some gold coins furnished with attachments for suspension, probably the necklet of an Anglo-Saxon lady of distinction. 1 It is true that these objects are sometimes described as having been found ' near St. Augustine's, Canterbury,' but the statements of Roach Smith are very explicit, and in the Numismatic Chronicle he comments on the discovery of the pendants in the early burial ground, where he thinks they may have been interred as part of the belongings of one of Queen Berchta's ladies of honour. This seems a genuine case of pagan ' Beigaben ' in a grave in a consecrated churchyard. Other instances are more doubtful. For example, in the beautiful churchyard at Minster in Thanet, a site full of memories of early Saxon Christianity, about 1786, parts of a skeleton were found at a depth of 7 ft. and by the skull was a ribbed glass vessel in the form of a bell. 2 In 1853 a tumbler of green glass together with a portion of a skull are said to have been found in a churchyard at Faversham. 3 At Wing and at Mentmore, Bucks, skeletons, some of which were unmistak- ably Saxon, were found quite close to the churchyards, 4 and within the churchyard at Wyre Piddle, Worcestershire, skeletons were found accompanied by iron shield bosses of 1 Coll. Ant., 1, 176 ; Num. Cbron., 1st Ser., vn, p. 187, and Proceedings, p. 28. The coins are figured later on, PI. cvii, 3 (p. 449). 2 Archaeologia, vm, 449. 3 V.C.H., Kent, 1, 385 ; Ass., xm, 313. 4 Archaeologia, xxxv, 379 f. 120 THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY Anglo-Saxon type. 1 The coffined skeleton, a part of which is shown PI. xviri, 2 (p. 177), was an intrusive burial in a Bronze Age tumulus in the churchyard of Ogbourne St. Andrew, Wilts. All these interments however, save the one at St. Martin's, may be of older date than the respective churches. On the other hand at Reading there are some churchyard burials in consecrated ground that are held to go back to the later Anglo-Saxon period but are unaccompanied by tomb furniture. As a general rule there can be no doubt that the practice of furnishing the tomb was pagan but sur- vived by a sort of overlap into the Christian period, so that tomb furniture might find a place in a Christian burial in a pagan cemetery. On the other hand even while the older cemeteries were in use the practice of grave-gifts would be gradually declining under the influence of the new faith, and it would only make its appearance in very exceptional cases when the burials were in the later consecrated graveyards. In the case of cemeteries where the interments were marked by burial mounds or tumuli the site of them would still be known even after they had passed wholly out of use, and these mounds figure as landmarks in the indication of the boundaries of estates in Anglo-Saxon land charters. 2 Kemble writes that the burial mounds of the heathen are mentioned in this con- nection 1 50 times in his Codex Diplomatics . The same phrase, 1 tumuli paganorum,' is applied to the old burying grounds that are contrasted with * cimiteria ecclesiae ' in an ordinance of Charles the Great. 3 In other cases movable memorials that might have been erected above new-made graves would in time be levelled or destroyed and the place pass entirely out of remembrance, though accidental discoveries, often through agricultural or mining operations, might at any time be made. A very curious narrative of events that occurred near St. Albans in 1177, preserved to us by Roger of 1 Ass. Soc. Reports, 1888, 427. 2 The Arts, etc., vol. 1, p. 85 f. 8 ibid., p. 260. SIR THOMAS BROWNE 121 Wendover, 1 shows that at any rate at that time and place burial mounds were no longer recognized as pagan sepulchres. In some open ground at Redbourne three miles north of St. Albans there were two eminences called ' hills of the banners ' because they were gathering places for religious processions. In some way it must have come to be known that they enshrined human remains, for in that year the mounds were solemnly opened and bodies supposed to be those of early martyrs were discovered and borne in ecclesi- astical state to the Abbey Church. These were really of course the skeletons of Anglo-Saxons of the pagan period buried in or under tumuli, and we learn that one of the ' martyrs ' had two ' large knives ' by him, one in his skull and the other in his breast obviously the usual spear head which is generally close to the skull, and the knife worn at the waist. There is evidence on the Continent that old Teutonic sepulchres were invaded in the middle ages in search of treasure, 2 and the laws against the rifling of graves occurring in the early Teutonic codes show that this practice began betimes, but the writer knows of no special evidence to prove this in our own country. In XVII cremation urns found in Anglo-Saxon cemeteries in Norfolk gave the text on which Sir Thomas Browne framed his famous discourse entitled Uydrio- taphia, Urne Buriall? In this the eloquent stylist moralizes at large on the subject of mortality, and introduces some interesting paragraphs on the special objects that had attracted his attention the * sad and sepulchral Pitchers, . . . silently expressing old mortality, the ruines of forgotten times.' Some of his observations are acute and accurate, but his point of view was of course literary rather than archaeological, and the 1 Rolls Series, No. 84/j, p. no. 2 Boulanger, Marcbelepot, p. 3. 3 The Works of Sir Thomas Browne, ed. Charles Sayle, Edinburgh, 1907, in, 104. f. 122 THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY modern scientific era of exploration does not begin till the first half of XVIII when in 1730 Dr. Mortimer, secretary to the Royal Society, opened some barrows on Chartham Down in Kent and reported to the Society on their contents. The extensive operations carried on in that county in the last half of the century are a credit to British archaeology, and a word or two about them will not be out of place. In the year just mentioned Bryan Faussett, who had been born and reared in ' an old castellated mansion of the reign of Stephen,' 1 watched as a boy of ten this opening of sepulchral tumuli on Chartham Down, and the antiquarian tastes which this experience and all his early surroundings at Heppington had fostered 2 were given full play in the extensive series of excavations he carried on in the ancient cemeteries of his county from 1757 to 1773. The results of his discoveries as they proceeded he wrote down in what has been well called a c plain, clear narrative of facts, daily recorded with cautious attention to the most minute circumstances,' 3 but as a fact neither these records nor the objects that were their subject matter ever saw the light till more than three-quarters of a century had elapsed since his operations were concluded. In 1854 the collections and manuscripts passed into the hands of Mr. Joseph Mayer of Liverpool and both were soon made accessible to the public, the first by their public exhibition in what is known as the Mayer-Faussett collection in the Liver- pool Museum, the latter by their publication in the well- known Inventorium Sepulchrale, ably edited by Charles Roach Smith. Meanwhile, still in XVIII, a younger contemporary and compatriot of Faussett, the Rev. James Douglas, had pub- lished in 1793 under the title Nenia Britannica the results of similar researches to those of the Squire of Heppington. The work was remarkable not only for the facts it adduced but for the sagacious and thoroughly scientific view that the author 1 Inventorium Sepulchrale, Appendix, p. 203. 2 I.e. 3 ibid., p. 1. BRYAN FAUSSETT AND JAMES DOUGLAS 123 took of the antiquarian questions which these facts suggested. Here the contrast between Faussett and Douglas is very marked. The former has earned the gratitude of all students of our early antiquities, not only for what he brought to light, but for the precise information he gave of the contents of every tomb he opened, though even here in one respect his information is defective in that he did not furnish plans of the cemeteries, by which the place of any single grave or group of graves in relation to others could be fixed. With all his accuracy however in recording details he never succeeded in forming for himself a true idea of the nature of the pheno- mena investigated. To the end of his life he believed that the tombs which by the hundred he was opening enclosed the remains of people he called * Romans Britonized or Britons Romanized,' and that they dated as a rule early in the fifth century. Exceptionally, he thinks, burials of such people may have gone on till long after the Romans properly so called had left the isle, and even till after the arrival of the Saxons. 1 He is always careful nevertheless to guard himself from drawing the obvious inference that the graves may in part at any rate be Saxon ones, and insists more than once that nothing he had found in any one of them suggests such a provenance. 2 There is nothing very remarkable in such a misunder- standing of newly revealed antiquarian phenomena. There were competent archaeologists who thought at first that Schliemann's citadel tombs at Mycenae contained the bodies of Gothic warriors. Faussett's error brings out however into clearer light the perspicacity of his fellow-worker, Douglas. There are instances, to be afterwards particularized, in which 1 Inv. Sep., 38. 2 He writes of the Beakesbourne cemetery, one of his latest fields of exploration, p. 146, ' I am persuaded, that the persons here deposited were not Saxons ; nothing which I have hitherto met with, either here or in any other place where I have dug, having the least appearance of the remains of that people.' 124 THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY an earlier cremated interment makes its appearance among a number of graves tenanted by the unburnt skeletons of the Teutonic settlers. Faussett as a rule recognizes the former as survivals but draws no chronological or racial inferences from the facts. Douglas on the contrary regards these and other allied phenomena with the eyes of an enlightened archaeologist of to-day. The occurrence of a coin of Justinian (527-565), in grave 41 at Gilton only leads Faussett to infer that his supposed Romans ' of Richborough continued to bury here ' even to the very dregs of the empire/ 1 but Douglas fastens at once on this very fact as a clue to the date of objects found with the coin, and inferentially to that of the whole cemetery or group of cemeteries. These he conjectures may date from between the earliest possible year for the coin, that of Justinian's accession in 527, to 742 when the decree went forth that the suburban cemeteries were no longer to be used. If pagan the graves would date from Justinian's accession to the conversion of Kent by Augustine, if Christian between that time and the middle of VIII. In one passage he regards the cemeteries as belonging in the main to c the Christians of the sixth and perhaps beginning of the seventh century' though in another he extends the time to the first part of the eighth, 2 while for their owners he looks to the inhabitants of the * small burgs or stations within their vicinity,' and in the case of the barrows on Sibertswold Down he enumerates Sibertswold itself, Waldershare, Eythorn and Barfreston, all as ' Saxon places.' This is of course all in general accord with the pre- vailing opinions of to-day, and his summary of the whole matter needs no correction from the present point of view. " The discovery of coins,' he writes, 3 ' the workmanship of the relics, arms, and nature of the burial places, either considered externally or internally, show them to belong to a people in a state of peace, and in general possession of the country. Their 1 Inv. Sep., 19. 8 Nenia Britannica,^. 97, 131. 3 ibid., p. 177. PERSPICACITY OF DOUGLAS 125 situation near villages of Saxon names, their numbers propor- tioned to a small clan of people existing at a particular aera, afford the critical evidence of their owners. They are scattered all over Britain in places which the Saxons occupied, and are not discovered in the parts of Wales which they had not subdued.' In matters of detail also Douglas is refreshingly modern. He is as puzzled as we are as to the exact significance of the orientation of graves and of the presence or absence of tomb furniture. 1 The occasional traces of cremation he notes as attesting that a succeeding people had buried near one of a more ancient date, when cremation had been used,' 2 and he is quite alive to the difference between cremation urns, or, as they used to be called, c ossuaries,' and those placed, for what exact reason it is difficult to say, with the inhumed skeletons. 3 He notes that the swords in his collection had no guards, 4 and understands, what puzzled Faussett, the use of the handle- bar of the shield crossing the hollow of the umbo. 6 On the question of the provenance of the coloured beads which figure so largely in Anglo-Saxon finds he is almost startlingly up to date with his remark that * they were in all probability introduced into this country by barter from Marseilles.' 6 About the origin and affinities of the tomb furniture in general he lays it down that ' the nature of the arms, the most convincing proof of a parity of custom, found in the barrows, affix them to their Saxon owners,' 7 and the plausible theory, that has so often found expression, according to which this tomb furniture is proximately, or in ultimate origin, Roman, he cannot away with. ' The Roman claim to these sepulchres, notwithstanding their coins have been found, must be totally out of the question,' he writes, 8 and he suggests 1 Nenia Britannica, p. 63 note. 2 ibid., p. 125. 3 ibid., p. 114. 4 ibid., p. 121. 5 ibid., p. 113, cf. Inv. Sep., pp. 10, 63. 6 Nenia Britannica, p. 177. 7 ibid., p. 128. 8 ibid., p. 127. 126 THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY what not a few in these days would hear with some sympathy, that much of the tomb furniture might have an Eastern origin. To see, as he does, 1 ' Gothic art ' in the fashion of the fibulae (radiated and square headed) is for the time almost an act of divination. The fact that he doubts the power of the native Anglo-Saxon craftsman, in the early days of the settlement, to execute fine work need not count against him, for this view has been held by many excellent authorities and still survives among us. John Yonge Akerman, writing in 1847, 2 gives it as his opinion that ' the more costly articles of personal ornament were generally imported,' and the same supposition is, we have already seen, not uncommon among our fellow- countrymen even of to-day. The main point in which Douglas's explanations are markedly of a bygone type is his insistence on a superstitious or magical origin for many objects and arrangements of which a more prosaic account would now be given. With this reserve one may treat him as one would treat a modern authority, and it is a fact to be duly noted that the first book published on this important branch of our national antiquities is of such great and permanent value. In his illustrations also Douglas adopts modern methods. For example his first plate gives in business-like fashion a view of the skeleton in its tumulus showing the position of the tomb furniture, and adds representations of the different objects on a larger scale. This is reproduced on PL xm in this Volume (p. 153). Since the days of Faussett and Douglas explorations of Anglo-Saxon cemeteries have been constantly in progress, and in many instances have been watched and reported on in accordance with the standards observed in the scientific age in which we live. This has not however always been the case, and many cemeteries accidentally discovered have been pillaged 1 Nenia Britannic a, p. 130. 2 An Archaeological Index, Lond., 184.7, P l2 &- CEMETERY EXPLORATION 127 at hazard and the contents of the graves dispersed without any proper record having been kept. The earlier investiga- tors had the advantage that they worked on sites known as those of ancient cemeteries through the presence on them of burial mounds, and they proceeded with deliberation and system. Where there is no external mark the discovery is generally a chance one, and the results noticed above have too often followed. Even the best of the old explorers however and many of the moderns have paid far more attention to the single graves than to their connection and to their place in the cemetery as a whole, and in this way a good deal of valuable evidence has been lost. Almost all the larger cemeteries had clearly been in use for a considerable period of years, and the digging of the graves for successive generations must have proceeded according to a certain system. Either the burial ground was extended in concentric fashion round an original centre, or it was enlarged progressively in one direction or in two. In any case if the system pursued were known we should have a valuable indication of chronology. To work out the scheme is of course a matter of inference, based on the appearance in this part or in that of the area of objects the approximate date of which is otherwise known. If a number of graves in one part contain early tomb furniture and a group of others in another part late objects, while transitional pieces occur in between, there is already a basis for a hypothesis of the history of the cemetery, and if this can be established there is acquired a means for arriving at the date of things the chronology of which has been hitherto uncertain. It is very seldom indeed that graves have been divided up in this way by their explorers into groups in their chronological aspects. Careful investigators like Faussett and very many of his successors have numbered their graves in correspondence with their inventory, but about the topographical relations of these graves we are too often left in doubt. 128 THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY II. The number and extent of the cemeteries. The term ' cemetery ' is clear enough in its meaning but exactly how much it must be taken to denote is uncertain. One burial can hardly constitute in ordinary parlance a cemetery, yet there are interments in which only a single body has been found but which in respect of tomb furniture are of the utmost importance. Such for example are the single burials at Taplow, Bucks, and Broomfield, Essex. As a rule however where one body comes to light others are found near it, and the Teutonic cemetery seems on the whole to testify to a strong social instinct among the people that in death drew the units of the population together. Whether each Anglo-Saxon village community had its cemetery or several villages took their dead to some one central burying ground is hard to say, but no cemetery that has been properly examined appears to have been divided up into portions such as might be expected if the latter arrangement prevailed. On the other hand the village communities in Saxon times seem on the whole to have been isolated and self-contained, 1 just as they were in the later middle ages when each village had its own special church and graveyard, and it is most probable that each early Teutonic community possessed its own little necropolis. If this be the case, only an infinitesimal proportion of the whilom country cemeteries has been recovered, for in most of the English districts they are few and far between as compared with the villages. At the same time in exceptional regions the known cemeteries are proportionately plentiful and this pro- portion may have been general throughout the country. The case is probably the same with the cemeteries as with the churches of the period, upon which it was remarked in a previous volume that the known Saxon churches in the country tend to fall into groups while pretty wide regions are on the other hand left blank. The explanation partly is that when one example in a certain district is brought to light and com- 1 Vol. i, p. 81. DISTRIBUTION OF CEMETERIES 129 merited on, the interest thereby excited leads to the recognition of other examples of a similar style of work in the neighbour- hood. So with the cemeteries. A fortunate discovery in one part sharpens people's eyes, and indications in other spots in the vicinity are more quickly noted and followed up. It was noticed in the Victoria History l in connection with East Anglia that cremated burials are much more likely to pass unnoticed than those in which the skeleton remains, for cinerary urns, which seldom contain any conspicuous object that would strike a casual finder, must have been destroyed unnotified by farm labourers in a countless number of cases. Hence in the cremation area of Teutonic England many cemeteries may have been actually discovered but passed unrecorded. In parts of Kent, about Cambridge, along the valley of the Lark in north-western Suffolk, and perhaps elsewhere, the known cemeteries seem almost as numerous as the local villages. For example, about what was formerly the haven of Rich- borough, on the comparatively elevated ground from Ramsgate round to Walmer, there were extensive cemeteries at Ozengell, Sarre, and Gilton, and lesser ones at Ramsgate, at Goldston- under-Ash, near Woodnesborough, at Eastry, and at some places on the downs between this and the coast by Kingsdown, a number that corresponds fairly with that of the known early settlements on the same circuit. This agrees with what Linden- schmit 2 says about the cemeteries in the middle Rhine district where they ' are so surprisingly abundant that almost all the villages which, with slight exceptions, can be recognized as very ancient settlements also possess their Frankish cemeteries, so that a district some eight or nine miles across may contain from eight to ten of these.' Of course the whole number of identified graves is very small indeed in relation to the prob- able Anglo-Saxon population. Bede tells us that the South Saxon kingdom contained 7000 ' familiae,' which might imply 1 Norfolk, vol. 1, p. 344. 2 Handbuch, p. 90. Ill I 1 3 o THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY a population of some 35,000, but less than 500 Sussex graves of the period are known. None of our English cemeteries compares in extent with the largest ones abroad, but Mr. G. W. Thomas, the explorer of Sleaford cemetery, Lincolnshire, estimated the whole con- tents of it at about 600 bodies, 1 its area at |- acre. That of Kingston in Kent where Faussett in XVIII opened 308 tombs is one of the most extensive of those fully inventorized, though the one at the King's Field, Faversham, may have sur- passed it. At Sarre nearly 300 graves were found. These are very small when compared with a cemetery like Keszthely in Hungary where three or four thousand graves were exca- vated, 2 or that of Marchelepot near Peronne in northern France, with its 4000 graves in a space of about 4 acres of ground. 3 The total at Eprave in Belgium is reckoned at about iooo. 4 At Herpes on the Charente in western France M. Delamain opened 900 tombs. Alamannic cemeteries and those of the Marcomanni from whom the Bavarians descend are large. Lindenschmit gave the contents of that at Fridolfing at 3000 to 4000 bodies, 5 and the recently explored field at Reichenhall near Salzburg furnished evidence that at least 1000 bodies had been interred in it. 6 This difference in populousness between English and foreign graveyards will be noticed from another point of view under heading VI (p. 172). III. The location of the cemeteries in relation to the dis- tribution of the Teutonic population, the natural features of the country, and the social and sepulchral arrangements of the earlier inhabitants whom the invaders dispossessed. 1 Archaeologia, l, 385. 2 Hampel, Alterthiimer in Ungarn, 1, 18. 3 Boulanger, Marchelepot, p. 3. 4 Annales de la Societe Arch'eologique de Namur, xix, 43 5 f. 5 Handbuch, p. 91. 6 Max von Chlingensperg-Berg, Das Gr'dberfeld von Reichenhall, p. 39. CONTINUITY IN BURIALS 131 It is, we have just seen, more in accordance with likelihood that each village community possessed its own graveyard than that big cemeteries provided for the needs of whole districts. These burying grounds differed from the later churchyards in that they were not in the centre of or even within the circum- ference of the village but at some distance from it, on ground that would be called technically in modern parlance ' the waste of the manor.' The inclusion of the c mounds of the heathen ' in the boundaries of estates (p. 120) shows that these were not away in the wild in a sort of ' no man's land ' but on the perimeter of the property, though it does not follow that all cemeteries had just this kind of location. There are cases in which they seem to have been much nearer to the centres of habitation than the indication just given would imply. For example, at Sleaford in Lincolnshire, the extensive cemetery was found in a field only 100 yards south of the town, 1 and that at Filkins in Oxfordshire is described as c obviously within the ancient limits ' of the village. 2 Furthermore the situation of the graveyard must have been at times determined by the existence of earlier cemeteries near the places of settlement. In ancient days the cemetery was religiosum,' and the sacred places of a people were often viewed with respect and even reverence by later immigrants who came in to occupy that people's lands. Old oriental and classical examples of this are numerous, for example Bethel in Palestine, and the site of the temple of Artemis at Ephesus in Ionia. The Teutonic conquerors of Britain, who held at any rate sufficient intercourse with the older inhabitants to learn from them the Celtic names of the rivers, may well have accepted as a local institution, not to be lightly ignored, the traditional place for the disposal of the dead. It bears upon this to find it noticed at times by explorers that when an earlier cremation burial has been disturbed by a later Anglo- Saxon interment the previous remains were treated with 1 Archafologia, l, 383. 2 ibid., xxxvn, 145. 132 THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY reverent care. This was observed by Faussett at Gilton and by Akerman at Long Wittenham. It is the case at any rate that in many parts of the country the new comers continued to use older burying places. This is to be observed for example on the chalk downs of Kent, Sussex, the Isle of Wight, and Wiltshire ; the wolds of the East Riding of Yorkshire, the heaths of East Anglia, the hills of North Derbyshire, 1 the shores of the Thames and its affluents. In Kent in the case of 10 sepulchral areas out of the 25 analysed in a later chapter there was this evidence of preoccupation, and the striking instance at Broadstairs (p. 22) will be remembered. VALETTA HOUSE BRONZE AGE 0R.AVEJ ABCDEPGHJKU ANGLO-SAXON GRAVES Qt (3 y S . * 6 C eiscovE-n.eo 1S11 s T m W // 9 l '"' A HGLQ'SAytON ,3MvKi em -^ "" "? ^-^ -^> Fig. 3. Recently discovered Burying Ground at Broadstairs. Accidental discoveries here in 1910-11 revealed the fact that an Anglo-Saxon burying ground underlay the carriage drive and lawn of a modern villa. A thorough exploration was conducted and recorded with scientific completeness and accuracy by Mr. Howard Hurd, the Borough Surveyor of Broadstairs, who has kindly furnished the accompanying plan, Fig. 3. Below the level of the Jutish graves there were dis- 1 Bateman, Ten Years' Diggings, Introduction, p, xiii. BURIALS IN EARLIER BARROWS 133 closed two concentric circular trenches, the outer ring being 70 or 80 ft. in diameter and the two trenches averaging in width about 4 ft. at the bottom by 8 ft. at the top with a depth of about 4 ft. Within the inner trench which formed a circle of 46 ft. diameter or close to the edge of it were nine human skeletons for the most part in a crouching position (p. 153), and a careful examination of the skulls coupled with other indications pointed to a date for the interments in the Later Bronze Age. Quite distinct from these were the later Jutish graves in which the bodies were laid at full length. The plan, Fig. 3, will show the positions and relations of the two sets of interments. On the high ground above Glynde to the east of Lewes in Sussex in close conjunction with Saxon graves were found earlier cinerary urns containing cremated bones. 1 A large barrow on Bowcombe Down in the Isle of Wight contained in the centre a primary interment of Celtic date and in the outlying portions several Saxon inhumed bodies. 2 Intrusive Anglo-Saxon burials in earlier barrows in Wiltshire have been noted, as in the Wiltshire Magazine, vi, 332 ; x, 91 ; xxn, 345 ; and by General Pitt Rivers in the case of Winklebury Hill s ; another Wiltshire case has been noticed above (p. 120). At Avening in Gloucestershire a tumulus showed clear traces of cremation burials in its centre and in the outer area were seven or eight skeletons buried with Saxon tomb furniture. 4 At Oldbury near Atherstone, Warwickshire, a secondary Anglo-Saxon interment was found in a prehistoric barrow. 5 The riparian cemetery at Frilford in the Thames valley, three or four miles from Abingdon on the tributary stream of the Ock, presented a remarkable example of the use of a single 1 Victoria History, Sussex, 1, 388. 2 Ass., xvi, 254 f. 3 Excavations in Cranbourne Chase, 11, 257, 4 Proc. Soc. Ant., 1st Sen, 1, 241. 5 Coll. Ant., 1, p. 38. i 3 4 THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY burying ground by successive peoples and by the same peoples at different epochs of their culture. It was systematically explored by Professor Rolleston who communicated an ela- borate report on his researches to vol. xlii of Archaeologia. He divides the burials into no fewer than five classes of which two were British and three Saxon. The burials on the Wolds of East Yorkshire have been carefully described by Canon Greenwell in his British Bar- rows? and by Mr. J. R. Mortimer in a work entitled Forty Tears Researches in British and Saxon Burial Mounds of East Yorkshire. 2 In both cases the writers were primarily con- cerned with Celtic burials in round barrows of the Bronze Age but intrusive interments of Anglo-Saxon date are not infre- quently noticed, and while Canon Greenwell only signalizes these without describing them, the work of Mr. Mortimer contains full records as well as illustrations of the Teutonic tomb furniture thus brought to light. The group of burials here in question is instructive enough to merit some special notice. It is situated on the chalk uplands that sweep in a great curve from near the Humber a few miles west of Hull, by Market Weighton and Malton, and then round eastward to near Flamborough Head, and that rise, especially between the towns just mentioned, to heights of 600 to 800 ft. Here, generally on marked eleva- tions overlooking the low ground to the north and westwards towards York, are numerous clusters of barrows each con- taining in the centre one primary burial in the inhumed or cremated form and also very commonly in other parts of the mound later or secondary interments. These are very often almost contemporary with the original burials, or at any rate, so far as can be judged, of the same people who furnished the 1 Oxford, 1877. 2 Edited by Mr. T. Sheppard, Curator of the Hull Museum, whither the Mortimer collections from the Driffield Museum are now being transferred. YORKSHIRE WOLD BURIALS 135 primary body, 1 but Anglian interments of a much later date are also fairly numerous. These, it must be remarked, are in the majority of cases inhumed interments, cremation being comparatively rare. For example on one of the highest parts of these uplands, on Garrowby Wold near Kirby Underdale in the so-called ' Beacon Barrow,' 2 there was found a circular hole excavated in the chalk below the barrow and filled with the calcined human bones of an adult. This was probably a British cremated burial, while near it were some inhumed bones accompanied by iron weapons of an unmistakably Anglian type. Not far from this on Painsthorpe Wold Canon Greenwell opened a large barrow at Uncleby 3 which contained evidences of cremated primary interments, some pottery of the British type, a small polished greenstone axe and other early objects, and which * had, at a time long subsequent to its original construction, been made use of for burial purposes by a community of Angles, . . . who had placed in it the bodies of above seventy men, women and children. . . . Quite a small museum of warlike, domestic and personal relics was furnished by the results of a fortnight's digging.' 4 In another district, in Airedale, near Ferrybridge, Canon Greenwell ex- plored a barrow that had been opened before, wherein were interments of almost every possible kind, including a case of an unburnt and a cremated body evidently interred at the same time. The latest burials were those of some half dozen inhumed bodies laid at full length with feet to the east and very scanty tomb furniture probably Angles of VII. 5 1 ' Many of the secondary interments must have taken place either at no great interval after the erection of the mound, or, at all events, before any change had taken place in burial customs or in the manufacture of pottery, implements, and ornaments,' etc. Greenwell, British Barrows, p. 17. 2 Mortimer, Forty Tears' 1 Researches, etc., p. 144. 3 British Barrows, p. 135. 4 These Uncleby finds, the record of which had never seen the light, form the subject of a recent communication by Mr. Reginald Smith to Proc. Soc. Ant., xxiv. 5 British Barrows, 371 f. 136 THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY Apart from these instances where the previous use of the burying ground is made evident by recognizable earlier inter- ments, there have been noticed again and again in Anglo- Saxon cemeteries curious pits and trenches the date and the purpose of which are obscure. The questions whether these are part of the arrangement of the cemetery by the Anglo- Saxons, or are of older date than the Anglo-Saxon use ; and what purpose they had originally served, or were made to serve by the Teutonic immigrants who took over the sites, have never been systematically examined. The appearances are of the following kind. At Barrington, Cambs, Mr. W. K. Foster reported x ' numerous pits of various dimensions, whose posi- tions appeared to bear no relation to those of the graves . . . they were filled with a black greasy earth interspersed with occasional shards of pottery, bones, and teeth of animals . . . that they are not of Saxon origin is clear.' Running from several of the pits were ditches or drains. Exactly the same combination of pit and ditch was observed quite recently in the Alfriston cemetery, Sussex, and similar phenomena were reported at Standlake, Oxfordshire. At Stapenhill, Stafford- shire, 2 there was ' a large circular hole, some three feet in depth, containing fragments of pottery and bones, and at the bottom of it a dark, unctuous-looking kind of clay.' Near this was a ditch containing * several hundreds of animals' bones, such as those of the ox, horse, pig, goat, hare, and dog, also numerous fragments of pottery of Saxon, Romano-British, and Roman origin, and a few probably even of Celtic' It is clear accordingly that intrusive interments in burying places of the earlier population were not uncommon in the various parts of Teutonized England, and it may be noted that not only was the practice of secondary interment in vogue already among the earlier population whose were the original 1 Cambridge Antiquarian Society's Communications, vol. v, Nov. 5, 1880. 2 Transactions of Burton-on-Trent Archaeological Society, 1., Lond., 1889, p. 160 f. BURIALS IN ROMAN CEMETERIES 137 barrows, but it lasted beyond the era of Anglo-Saxon paganism, for it is observed that in the later Viking age the intrusive burial of a sea-rover in a Bronze Age barrow is not uncommon. 1 This use by the Teutonic immigrants of earlier cemeteries is chiefly observable in connection with the barrows with cremated interments that are often of the Bronze Age and may date from a millennium before the migration, and not with the burying grounds in use by the Romano-British population at the actual period of the conquest. In the case of these the continuity in sepulchral usage is only to a very slight extent in evidence. If we take the known Roman or Romano-British cemeteries attached to Roman towns we have to note the following. The Roman cities in the south-west and west of England do not come into question because these regions did not pass into the hands of the invaders till the pagan period was over, but of those towns in the midland and eastern districts where the old Roman cemeteries have been explored only York seems to offer unmistakable evidence of a continuity in use. There, upon the * Mount,' a raised bank of gravel of glacial origin across which the Roman road from Tadcaster enters the city, cremation urns of Anglian type have been found and with them Roman urns and coffins of stone, proving the common use of a burying ground. At Lincoln though Roman remains frequently come to light no Saxon ones have been found with them, and the same is the case with London and with Canterbury, in both of which places such Saxon finds as have been noted are either accidental and non- sepulchral or else belong to the Danish period. At Colchester opinions seem to differ as to whether there was continuity in the use of cemeteries, but Mr. Arthur Wright, Curator of the Museum, does not believe that the collections there afford any evidence of it. It stands to reason that casual finds may come to light almost anywhere, but these must not be charged with 1 Sophus Miiller, Nordiiche Jltertumskunde, 11, 254. 138 THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY more significance than they can reasonably bear. Thus at Corbridge in Northumberland early Anglian fibulae and beads were found together with fragments of an urn hinting at the interment of a Germanic lady within the limits of Roman Corstopitum, but this is quite an isolated phenomenon, and the burial, if it were one, was not in the cemetery of the place but in the ruins of the inhabited town. The neighbourhood of the Roman cemetery at Strood, Kent, across the river Medway from Rochester, furnished we have seen at least one early Anglo-Saxon burial, but probably that of a wandering rover rather than of a regular settler, and in any case the interment, or interments for another warrior's grave had pre- viously been found, was only contiguous with and not in the Roman cemetery. At Flixborough in North Lincolnshire, Mr. Arthur Smith of the Lincoln Museum identified a Roman site and found with the remains of Roman pottery a couple of Saxon brooches. Saxon urns and weapons were found with Roman burials at Hassocks, Sussex. At Frilford, Berks, there was distinct evidence of continuity from Roman to pagan, and apparently to Christian, Saxon times, 1 but Frilford and Flix- borough are country sites not in the vicinity of a walled Romano-British town. Leicester was such a walled town and it is interesting to note that in the main Roman cemetery south-west of the city no Saxon remains have come to light, though in other parts outside the walls a certain mixture of Roman and Anglo-Saxon funereal relics has been observed. 2 At Roman Ancaster a Saxon cinerary urn was discovered. On the whole the evidence seems clearly to show that the use of the Roman cemeteries by the immigrant Teutons was like their employment for residence of the Roman towns, occurring perhaps here and there, but quite casual and sporadic. At Canterbury, where if anywhere continuity of residence as well as burial might have been looked for, the mediaeval and modern streets do not correspond to the Roman ones, and all 1 Archaeologia, xlii, 419. 2 Victoria History, Leicestershire, 1, 199 f. INTERMENTS IN ROMAN ROADS 139 the evidence goes to show that after the Jutish conquest it was abandoned, ' and for a long time its ruins remained uninhabited and desolate.' * It is certain that the Saxons did not fix upon these walled towns as their places of abode, but, like their kinsfolk on the Continent whom Ammianus Marcellinus de- scribes as averse from the life of towns, settled in the country districts, avoiding even as was noticed before 2 the proximity of the Roman roads. In regard to these there is to be noted the curious fact that there are well-attested instances where Anglo-Saxon interments have been effected beneath the actual surface of a Roman road. This undoubtedly was the case on the Watling Street not far from High Cross where the Fosse Way crosses the great north-western thoroughfare, 3 and on the Fosse Way itself at Cotgrave in Nottinghamshire.* A burial of the Viking age is recorded in the centre of the great northern thoroughfare that passes Catterick in Yorkshire in its way to Corbridge and Scotland. 5 On the other hand near Daventry in Northants Anglo-Saxon burials were found in a long narrow mound that ran for 40 or 50 yards parallel to the Watling Street and just outside its original embank- ment. 6 This last arrangement is quite intelligible and would imply a recognition of the Roman tradition of burial alongside 1 Sir Henry Hovvarth, Saint Augustine of Canterbury , Lond., 191 3, p. 53. 2 Vol. 1, p. 58 f. 8 The well-known antiquary, M. H. Bloxam, is the authority for this somewhat surprising fact, and he was a resident in the neighbourhood so that there is every reason to trust what he says. His account is contained in a small book published in London in 1834 and entitled A Glimpse at the Monumental Architecture and Sculpture of Great Britain, p. 44, and begins 'In the summer of 1824, some labourers employed to repair the Watling- street road, near Bensford Bridge . . . disturbed a number of human skeletons, which lay buried in the centre and on the sides of the road,' etc. This site is referred to later on (p. 774) under the name ' Cestersover.' 4 Ass., in, 297. The bodies were ' interred in the line of road, at full length, in graves cut through the gravel and rubble of which it is composed, down to the rock, which is met with about two feet from the surface.' 5 Arch. Journ., v, 220. 6 Vict. Hist., Notts, 1, p. 197. 140 THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY a highway. Actually to break up the surface of a road for the purposes of interment is a very different matter, and hard to understand. Mr. Reginald Smith considers the Watling Street and Fosse Way burials early ones of V or VI, but such a use or rather misuse of the thoroughfare can hardly be reconciled with the view which he and others have favoured, that the Teutonic immigrants employed the Roman roads for their own movements and traffic. 1 The burials would show that the purpose of the roads was at the time forgotten or at any rate ignored. The fact that the Saxons did not employ the Roman cemeteries agrees entirely with their avoidance of the Roman towns, but conversely it invites us to ask whether their penchant for interment in the British barrows does not imply a similar appropriation of British country dwelling places. In the rural districts there existed Romano-British villages such as those described by General Pitt Rivers on the borders of Wilts and Dorset, or even in some parts Celtic ones of the type of Meere by Glastonbury. How far did the invaders take these over for their habitations ? Professor Maitland in his Doomsday Book and Beyond? while emphasizing the Teutonic character of the Anglo-Saxon settlements, adds that there can be little doubt that ' very often in the west and south-west of Britain German kings and eorls took to themselves integral estates the boundaries and agrarian arrangements whereof had been drawn by Romans or rather by Celts.' The special conditions of settlement in the West cannot here be discussed, but taking the country as a whole continuity of habitation must be denied. Two chapters of a recent work on our national antiquities 3 are devoted to the evidences all over the land of such continuity, but the instances 1 Vict. Hist., Warwick, i, 251. 2 Cambridge, 1897, p. 351. 8 Byways in British Archaeology, by Walter Johnson, F.G.S., Cambridge, 1912. SITES OF THE SETTLEMENTS 141 of this where they occur strike one as accidents or coincidences inevitable in a small and well-peopled country rather than as illustrations of a general rule. On the whole the impression left on the mind of any one who with antiquarian predilections passes up and down through rural England is that the first founders of the { ings ' and * hams ' and * tons ' had settled Fig. 4. Site of Cemetery on Down above Folkestone, Kent. down, as Tacitus phrases it, 1 in detached bodies apart from each other, just as spring or field or grove offered attractions, and that it was only by some chance contingency that they pitched on the site either of a Roman villa or a British hamlet. This independence would not of course preclude the appropriation of older burying grounds where the site of these was convenient. The barrows were themselves generally at some distance from the habitations of the living, and they also 1 T>e Mor. Germ., xvi. 142 THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY frequently possessed the characteristic of being on compara- tively elevated ground. This is the case with Bronze Age barrows on the Sussex Downs by Lewes, with the Wiltshire mounds, the Bronze Age barrows on the Yorkshire Wolds, and the Early Iron Age tumuli at Arras near Market Weighton, Yorks. Now a predilection for an elevated site for the cemetery has been ascribed not only to the Anglo- Saxons of our own country but, as by Lindenschmit, 1 Fig. 5. Site of High Down Cemetery, Sussex, from the South. Barriere-Flavy 2 and others, to the Teutons in general. So far as English cemeteries are concerned this principle does apply in certain regions, and there are conspicuous instances in which a site of commanding elevation has been selected for the inter- ment, though the bodies must have been carried up by a long way and a steep one from the settlements. The illustrations, Figs. 4 to 6, exhibit one instance in Kent, another in Sussex. Fig. 4 is a view up from Folkestone towards the chalk down which is climbed by the road to Dover. Here at a height of 1 Handbuch, p. 128. 2 Les Arts Industries, etc., 1, 3. ELEVATED SITES FOR CEMETERIES H3 about 500 ft. above the sea, just below the white patch that marks a chalk quarry, there existed a cemetery that must, one would think, have served for the Teutonic settlers on the lower ground towards the sea, for there is no trace of an early Teutonic population any nearer, and the very conspicuous and lofty situation is a striking fact in support of the principle under examination. The other illustrations, Figs. 5, 6, show a site for a cemetery more remarkable perhaps than that of any other of our Teutonic graveyards. The site called High Down is on an isolated projecting point of the South Downs that rises to the height of some 270 ft. and dominates the Fig. 6. Site of High Down Cemetery, Sussex, from the East. alluvial plain about two to three miles in width on which are grouped the Saxon settlements Angmering, Ferring, Goring, Tarring, Worthing, and others. The highest point of the hill has been taken advantage of and the cemetery occupies part of the enclosure of an ancient British camp, the site of which is marked in the sketches by a plantation of bushy trees. If Fig. 5 give the aspect of the height from the south, Fig. 6, taken at right angles to the other view from the east, shows how it towers also above the undulating down country at its back. The view is taken from the top of the hill out of Worthing on the road to Arundel just where the thoroughfare makes a sharp bend to the west, and exhibits the site of the cemetery as the culminating point of the whole district. As far as situation i 4 4 THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY goes it would have served well as a federal cemetery for several associated communities, but its extent is only about ioo graves. A second conspicuous Kentish example may be found at Chatham, where in XVIII Douglas opened many graves upon the commanding heights facing the town of Rochester. At Farthingdown near Colsdon in Surrey there is a cemetery on a breezy ridge of the chalk down 400 ft. above the sea. Taking the Anglo-Saxon cemeteries over the country generally, it is certainly the rule that wherever, as in the chalk-down country in different parts of England, high ground is accessible there the cemeteries are elevated, but to this rule there are plenty of exceptions. The important Faversham cemetery on the site known as the ' King's Field ' is near the town and borders the Roman road, though higher ground could easily have been reached. In Sussex the burial ground sometimes called ' Saxonbury ' at Kingston by Lewes is by no means elevated, though in the immediate vicinity the downs rise sharply to 400 or 500 ft. Some of the cemeteries in Wilts are up on the downs, but in contrast to the elevation of these the important site of Harnham Hill opposite Salisbury is at the foot of their escarpment. The Harnham site is an example worth noting. The wayfarer who stands on Harnham Bridge just out of Salisbury to the south and looks in a south-westerly direction towards the spire of Harnham church will have his eyes turned in the direction of the Anglo- Saxon cemetery about half a mile away. This lies at the top of a gentle slope upwards from the Avon, but at the same time just at the foot of a very steep scarp of the chalk down which rises abruptly from the summit of the gentle slope, and above which again the hill ascends to a considerable height. Hence it is clear that in this case at any rate the makers of the cemetery did not seek for any special elevation, but buried distinctly under the hill and not on the top of it, though on a site well above the marshy river meadows. In Yorkshire the wold burials of the East Riding are at considerable RIPARIAN CEMETERIES 145 elevations, but nearer York the urn cemetery at Heworth a mile or so from the centre of the city is in the flat country, though itself on a slight rise similar to the * Mount ' (p. 137) on the other side of the city. At Saltburn-on-Sea in the north of the county a commanding site was chosen, but over the border in Durham for the cemetery at Darlington no special elevation was sought. At Sleaford, Lincolnshire, in the extreme south of the same Northumbrian region, it was noted that there was ' but little elevation in the ground occupied by the cemetery.' 1 The cemetery at Little Wil- braham, Cambs, is on a hill of about 100 ft. in height, but the low-lying site of Cambridge itself has furnished a considerable number of burials, some of which are on gravel spits, though one cemetery, that in St. John's College cricket field, is in the alluvial clay of the river. Marston St. Lawrence, Northants, is on an elevated ridge overlooking the valley of the Cherwell, and North Luffenham, Rutland, is on high ground, 350 ft. above the sea. There are on the other hand a whole class of cemeteries, represented especially in the Thames Valley and in those of the Trent, the Warwickshire Avon, the Nene, the Bedford- shire Ouse, that may be called riparian, in that they keep to the neighbourhood of the waterways and are satisfied with sites only high enough to be clear of marshy land or that subject to floods. The course of the Thames and those of its tributaries are lined with cemeteries such as these. Sitting- bourne, Northfleet by Gravesend, Greenwich, Mitcham, Shepperton, Reading, Long Wittenham, Frilford, Bright- hampton and Standlake, Fairford, are examples, to the general situation of which parallels could be found in the other river valleys named above. The Trent Valley cemetery at Stapenhill near Burton is however quite on high ground, 120 ft. above the stream, while those at Holme Pierrepont, King's Newton, and Newark are more on the flat. The 1 Archueologia, l, 385. Ill K 146 THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY cemetery at Longbridge near Warwick is down by the Avon on a slightly sloping bank of river gravel ; Kempston is in a somewhat similar position in relation to the Ouse near Bedford. A reason explaining a penchant for an elevated situation for a cemetery may be found in the traditions of a marsh- land people, who in their original low-lying home had been forced to this precaution in order to secure a safe resting place for their dead. The lands from which the Teutonic invaders of Britain originally came are not by any means all marshy or even flat, but the reason suggested may in some cases have validity. 1 IV. The treatment of the body before burial, and the disposal of it or its ashes in the receptacle prepared for it. This topic introduces the question of the two methods in use for the disposal of the body in Teutonic cemeteries, cremation and inhumation, and this is a subject that could only be fully discussed in connection with historical and ethnic considerations that cannot here be introduced. The theme is dealt with in a later chapter (Ch. x). Here it is only necessary to notice that both customs are in evidence in English cemeteries, but that during all the time of the settlement and the pagan period generally the custom of burning the body was gradually giving way before that of committing it entire to the ground. There are cemeteries such as Heworth near York ; Kingston-on-Soar and Newark, Notts ; Pitsford, Northants, and one of the cemeteries at Sancton, Yorks, where only cremation has been observed, but more common is the mixed cemetery in which urns containing ashes and extended bodies are found in juxta- position, and this may be regarded as a transition to the inhumation cemetery proper, which is the rule south of 1 The article ' Bestattungswesen ' in the new Real-Lexicon der Germa- niscben Altertumskunde may on this point be consulted. TREATMENT OF CREMATED REMAINS 147 the Thames. Such a cemetery is at first equipped with tomb furniture but gives place after a time to the burial place in which the institution of the ' Beigaben ' is dying out, and the way is thus being prepared for the normal churchyard burial of the advanced Christian period. The remarkable fact must at the same time be emphasized that in spite of the general change that was going on there are curious cases that seem to furnish exceptions to its operation. Cremation urns have been found to contain late objects betokening VII, while in the case of two contiguous and closely allied Cambridgeshire cemeteries, at Linton Heath and Little Wilbraham, the earlier of the two is a purely inhumation cemetery, while at the later one, that last mentioned, cremation was in full employment. When the body was burned fragments of the calcined bones were collected, to all appearance with considerable care, and when broken up, as was the rule, into small pieces they were placed either in a little heap in a hollow made in the ground, or else in a receptacle which in Anglo-Saxon cemeteries was almost invariably of burnt clay. 1 When the bones were laid on the ground an urn was sometimes reversed over them, and occasionally as at King's Newton, Derbyshire, the calcined remains were placed on a flat stone over which the urn was turned mouth downwards. A flat stone is exceptionally used to cover the mouth of a cinerary urn when placed in its normal position, and an urn might stand with a flat stone under it. There are examples at King's Newton and elsewhere. PI. xi, 4 shows a small urn of 3^ in. diameter, that was not however a cinerary urn, at Colchester, from Kelvedon, Essex, with the stone that was found covering it. The urns and the bones are of course always committed 1 At Combe, near Sandwich, Kent, an exceptional discovery was made of burnt bones within a bronze bowl standing on short legs, that from the accompanying objects seemed to be of Anglo-Saxon date and provenance, but some of these objects were decidedly late (p. 2*2). 148 THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY to the*ground. In the case of the inhumed burial there were various ways of treating the body before interment. In this connection a word must be said on the subject of partial cremation, or a ceremonial, some would say sacramental, use of fire in the preparation of a body for burial or in the act of burial itself. Some writers, for example K. Koenen, 1 have held that the practice of cremation gradually grew up out of a partial use of fire for the purpose of separating the flesh from the bones so that the latter alone might be preserved, and others have believed that fire was often or always applied as a kind of symbolic puri- fication even when no attempt was made to consume the corpse. No discussion of the general subject is possible here, and the reader is referred to the brief but admirable treatment of it in Dr. Sophus Muller's Nordische Altertums- kunde, i, 360 f. See also Canon Greenwell's British Barrows, p. 28 and note. It must however be recorded that accounts of discoveries in Anglo-Saxon cemeteries give some colour to the idea that partial burning was in use. Thus Faussett, in reporting on his discoveries in the Kentish cemeteries in his Inventorium Sepulchrale noticed what he regarded as marks of burning on about half of the whole number of nearly 400 coffins of which he signalizes the presence. He does not however fully explain what he means, and his ' marks of burning ' may be only the result of decay. A better attested case is that of the important isolated burial at Broomfield, Essex, where distinct marks of combustion appeared coexistent with the remains of a wooden coffin. The use of a wooden coffin and the practice of consuming the body on a funeral pyre are mutually exclusive. With ourselves to-day a coffin is always de rigueur, but when cremation is contemplated this is only a light shell of deal. In Anglo-Saxon days the use of a coffin was neither universal 1 Gefdsskunde der vorr'6miscben y romischen und frankiscben Zeit in den Rbeinldndern, Bonn, 1895, p. 36. SARCOPHAGI 149 nor even general, and it certainly would be omitted in any case of cremation. Hence marks of burning in con- junction with remains of a coffin are something abnormal. A case of cremation within a grave, necessarily only partial cremation, is thus described in the contemporary account of the exploration of the cemetery at Kempston, Beds, in 1863. 1 'Nov. 16. . . . We found that we had come upon a pit, which exceeded seven feet in length. ... It proved to be a place where an entire body, stretched at full length, had been consumed by fire. As far as I could judge, the pit must have been occupied with live embers up to a certain height, the body placed carefully thereon, and then more material for burning heaped upon it. Large branches of thoroughly charred wood, retaining their form, and exhibiting their concentric layers, were discovered in connection with this cremation, above the human remains. The head and upper part of the frame were more completely burnt than the lower extremities.' It may be noticed that partial cremation was observed by Lipp in ten instances in the very large inhumation cemetery at Keszthely in Hungary, 2 and once at Reichenhall, where inhumation was almost universal, the same thing was noted. The sarcophagus of stone, such as M. Pilloy found in a sepulchre of about 400 a.d. at Homblieres near St. Quentin, and in one of about VI at Jardin Dieu de Cugny, Aisne, 3 or of plaster like the later Merovingian sarcophagi of the Musee Carnavalet at Paris, 4 is not a feature of our Anglo-Saxon cemeteries, though in VII such things as the first were well known. The body of St. Cuthbert and the body of Sebbi, king of the East Saxons, were placed in stone coffins, and that of the famous iEthelthryth, abbess of Ely, after being first 1 Associated Societies' Reports, 1864, p. 288. 2 Hampe], Altertbumer in Ungarn, 1, 76. 3 Etudes, 1, 150, 51. 4 Arts and Crafts of our Teutonic Forefathers, p. 108. 150 THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY buried in a wooden coffin was reinterred in an ancient Roman one of white marble found at Grantchester near Cambridge. 1 One instance of a stone coffin found in a pagan Anglo-Saxon cemetery is recorded at West Stow Heath, Suffolk, a place not very far from Ely. 2 The use of a wooden coffin was however in some districts quite frequent, though in others unknown. 3 Out of about 700 Kentish interments Faussett believed that he detected the presence of coffins in nearly 400 graves, while in 280 cases he definitely asserts their absence. On the other hand no coffins are mentioned in the inventories of the cemeteries of Sussex, though they occur again in Wilts. Planks, perhaps not put together in coffin form, were reported from North LufFenham, Rutland. For proof of the presence of coffins we are not left to often doubtful indications in the traces of decayed wood, for iron bolts and corner pieces that must have belonged to coffins at times make their appearance. At Sibertswold, Kent, such iron fittings were found and indicated that the wood had been some 3 in. thick. A group of iron coffin bolts and mounts from Bifrons in the Kent Archaeological Society's collection at Maidstone is shown No. 6 on PL xi. A thickness of planking of at least 2^ in. is indicated by the longest of the pieces. PL xviii, 2 (p. 177) gives a partial view of a Wiltshire burial where the iron coffin mounts are seen in situ on each side of the skeleton, which came from the earlier Bronze Age barrow in Ogborne St. Andrew churchyard. They can be dis- tinguished by their darker colour from the bones. The interesting exhibit is in the Museum at Devizes. Owing to the absence of relics it is not absolutely certain that the interment is Saxon. No such artistic smithing has been found attached to Anglo-Saxon coffins as came to light in the grave 1 Bede, Hist. Eccl., iv, 11. 2 Victoria History, Suffolk, 1, 339, 3 ' Coffins are not common at this period except in Kent.' Mr. Reginald Smith in Vict. Hist., Yorks, 11, 95. SKELETON OF ANGLO-SAXON LADY AT FOLKESTONE Foreshortened view COFFINS AND CISTS 151 of a Lombard chieftain at Civezzano in North Italy and is in evidence in the Museum at Innsbruck. 1 The custom some- times observed abroad 2 of forming receptacles for the body by hollowing out the two halves of split tree trunks, a practice of the Bronze Age 3 surviving in England to a much later period, may have been used in Saxon burials in Yorkshire, 4 but is very uncommon. In York Museum are some recept- acles of the kind from Selby that are possibly Anglian. The example shown on PI. xix (p. 1 80) is more regularly shaped. As a substitute for a coffin or a sarcophagus slabs or nodules of stone are sometimes used. At Ozengell in Thanet and in the neighbouring cemetery at Goldston by Richborough, Kent, the bodies had been covered with slabs of laminated sandstone, from a bed of the stone on the shore of Pegwell Bay, and Professor Rolleston noticed that certain of the Anglo-Saxon graves at Frilford were lined with upright stones, suggesting in both cases some attempt at a cist. The same thing is reported from Chessell Down in the Isle of Wight. 5 Faussett, and also Hillier, I.e., speak of large flint stones ranged on each side of bodies as if to protect them from the superincumbent earth. In the important and well- described cemetery at Sleaford in Lincolnshire a large number of the bodies were enclosed in stone cists of rude construction. At Kempston, Beds, 'in certain graves were rough, unhewn pieces of limestone which had apparently been placed with care over the body.' 6 It is the belief of the writer that these more elaborate arrangements, the coffin, the partial cist, the ceremonial 1 Arts and Crafts, etc., pi. iv, fig. 15, pi. xxiv, fig. 95. 2 Especially in Alamannic regions, as at Oberflacht, cf. Lindenschmit, Handbucb, p. 121 f. 3 Sophus Muller, Nordiscbe Alter tumskunde, i, 341. 4 Greenwell, British Barrows, p. 376 note. 5 Hillier, Isle of Wight, p. 29. 6 C. Roach Smith in Coll. Ant., vi, 2 1 8. 152 THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY cremation if such existed, were all quite exceptional and that in the vast majority of cases all over the country the inhumation of the body was a simple affair. The corpse was certainly dressed in the clothes worn in life, for the occurrence of buckles, girdle ornaments, brooches, pins, clasps, to which at times fragments of clothing still adhere, leave no doubt of this. The use of a shroud with the vesture, such as was found when the coffin of St. Cuthbert was opened at Durham in 1827, 1 is attested by occasional remains. For example, in the collection of Mr. Samuel Fenton in London there is some decayed cloth in which three fibulae are embedded. These were found at the side of a skull in Warren Hill cemetery, in north-west Suffolk, and to the explorers they had evidently served to fasten the cloth where it was wrapped round the head as a winding sheet. Bronze pins have been found in situations which made the explorer think they had been used to join together the edges of a cerecloth, 2 and the former presence of an outer wrapping is made evident in cases where the remains of some fabric are found on arms buried with the body or on the upper surface of a fibula. Traces on the under surface would be those of the vestment fastened by the brooch, but only an overwrap would leave its impression on the usually exposed face of the brooch. An example from Kempston cemetery, Beds, is shown, PI. xiii, 3. The words of Ophelia 1 They bore him barefac'd on the bier,' may possibly indicate what was the custom among our Teutonic forefathers, and the winding sheet like the coffin may have been the exception, but there is not enough evidence on which to base a decided opinion. On the whole the probabilities are that the winding sheet was in pretty general use. There are very clear traces of it on a spear head at Lewes, which must either have been enclosed in the same sheet with the body, or 1 Raine, Saint Cutbbert, etc., Durham, 1829, p. 33. 2 e.g. at Harnham Hill, Wilts, Arch., xxxv, 477. XIII facing p. 153 CROUCHING SKELETON, ETC. POSITION OF BODIES IN THE GRAVE 153 placed in a separate wrapping, which presupposes a similar treatment for the corpse. The weapon was found in 1 9 1 2 at Alfriston in Sussex. As a result of his long experience in excavating cemeteries, M. Pilloy believed that as a rule the body was borne to the grave side on an open bier, 1 perhaps covered with a shroud, and that this display of the corpse made a special reason for furnishing it forth with all its habiliments and jewels. The usual position of a body on the bier, on its back in an extended position, as shown for example in Egyptian and Greek funereal pictures, was as a general rule retained in the final interment, and the vast majority of skeletons that have come to light in our Anglo-Saxon cemeteries are lying in this position with the arms down by the sides. PI. xn gives a view, necessarily foreshortened and so somewhat untrue in proportion, of one of the very few Anglo-Saxon skeletons which can be seen in English Museums. It is a female skeleton from the recently discovered cemetery on the down above Folkestone and is in the Museum of that town. The age of the lady is pronounced to have been about forty years. The teeth are wonderfully perfect and the skull, better seen PI. xv, 2, is well formed and very dolichocephalic. There were amber beads round the neck and an iron knife is by the side, while under the left hand lies a key of which there will be question on a later page (p. 396). To this supine and extended position there are however noteworthy exceptions. The most frequent of these is the so-called crouching position, PI. xiii, 1, in which the body lies on its side with the knees drawn up and the arms bent so that the cheek would be pillowed on the hands. In times earlier than the Anglo-Saxon this was a very common method for the disposal of the inhumed corpse, and to account for it all sorts of ingenious suggestions have been put forward. In connec- tion with such burials among the so-called ' pre-dynastic ' race 1 Etudes, 1, 52. 154 THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY in Egypt the question has recently been discussed anew, and the very reasonable and simple explanation has been offered that the position is really the familiar oriental one of squatting on the ground or sitting on the heels, a pose exhibited by many of the smaller figures of retainers and domestics found in the Egyptian tombs of the Old Empire. If a figure sitting up in this position were pushed over on to its side the body would assume the attitude of the f crouching ' skeletons. This expla- nation of the pose applies well enough to oriental regions, but the practice of * sitting on the heels ' is not one characteristic of the West, where the ground is as a rule too damp and cold. There remains the view which sees in it a copy of the attitude of a sleeper, and this is certainly preferable to the very far- fetched one that it reproduces the disposition of the human embryo in the womb. As a general rule the crouching position when it occurs in a cemetery is quite exceptional among the interments, but it is most remarkable to find that at Sleaford, Lincolnshire, among about 240 burials reported on, with only about a dozen excep- tions of which most were burials of children, the bodies were in the doubled up position. 1 There are exceptional cases also in which the body has been found in the normally extended position but prone on its face and not as is almost always the case on its back. Dismembered skulls have been found several times either detached from the vertebral column of skeletons to which they appear to belong and placed between the thigh bones, as in some graves at White Horse Hill, Berks, or else placed in a grave as an adjunct to a complete skeleton, of which the head is in the normal position. Plural interments, where two or more bodies are laid in the same receptacle, are not uncommon, but the systematic disposal of corpses in a cemetery in two or more layers one above the other is perhaps more frequent abroad than in our own country, though instances of it occur in the Anglo-Saxon region. This * super- 1 Archaeologia, l, 385. XIV facing p. 155 X w CO GO w z" w G fa < z o fa fa fa < CO h pi w h fa S w u z o < 00 6 fa o z < fa o z o h fa o fa ARRANGEMENT OF THE GRAVES 155 inhumation,' as it is called, is inevitable in the case of secondary- interments in earlier barrows, but it is noticed also when both layers are Teutonic of the migration period. The possible significance from the social point of view of all these phe- nomena will be noticed in the sequel (p. 188 f.) but these are fascinating by-paths into which it is not advisable to wander far. V. The arrangement and the forms of the graves. In cremation cemeteries the urns are generally found regu- larly placed in rows, as was the case at Sancton and Heworth, Yorks ; Newark and Kingston-on-Soar, Notts ; Saltburn-on- Sea, Yorks, where they were arranged in parallel lines that ran north and south and were about 6 yards apart ; and Ipswich, where five urns were in a single line about 1 ft. from each other. This was not however always the case, for at Kettering * no order had apparently been maintained,' l though the urns were sometimes in groups ; and at Brighthampton, Oxford- shire, Akerman found the cremation urns scattered promiscu- ously among the graves. 2 The urns as we have seen were sometimes covered with flat stones. The arrangement of the typical Anglo-Saxon inhumation cemetery is curiously like that of a modern graveyard without its tombstones. As a rule the denizens of it were interred singly and the receptacle for the body was cut so as to take it at full length, some arrangement being often made for giving a slight elevation to the head as if on a couch, a small pro- tuberance of the material of the bed of the grave being left, or a pillow-like stone introduced. Two illustrations are given on Plates xiv and xv exhibiting the aspect of skeletons when the superincumbent earth has been removed. As a rule, though not always, the graves are arranged in parallel rows, as is indi- cated by the German term ' Reihengraber,' but there are always 1 Journal of Northamptonshire Natural History Society, xu, 123. 2 Archaeologia, xxxvm, 85. 156 THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY irregularities, and in most cemeteries there are parts in which the disposition of the bodies is less formal than in others. At Sleaford, Lincolnshire, the explorer noted the arrangement of the graves in rows parallel to the southern limit of the ceme- tery, the graves being about 10 ft. apart. This held good for about two-thirds of the whole space, beyond which the interments were very irregular. When the rows are regular the distances between them may range from about 18 in. to 4 or 5 ft. In cases where each grave is under a tumulus, the intervals must necessarily be of some substantial width. The graves vary in depth, as a rule from about ij ft. to 3 ft., and it is most usual to find that the supersoil has been removed and the body laid either on the upper surface of the underlying stratum or in a slight excavation made in this. The plan of the single grave is generally rectangular and the rhomboidal shape in which greater width is given where the shoulders come has been but little noticed by explorers in this country. One example occurred in grave 4 at Sarre, Kent. PL xiv shows the aspect of the central and most regular portion of the cemetery at Saffron Walden, Essex. It is thus described in the Report by Mr. H. Ecroyd Smith. 1 'Over the area named the graves are distributed most diversely. To the N.E.' (the portion shown on the plate) l there has been an evident inten- tion of interment in line, but the rows, four in number, are neither straight nor of equal length ; their direction is pretty nearly N.W. and S.E. Each of the graves here being fairly and distinctly cut for a single body, one may regard this portion as the cemetery proper.' The view, PI. xiv, makes this plain. 2 Mr. Ecroyd Smith goes on, * To the southward the skeletons mostly were found in isolated spots, with or without a grave. At the extreme southern corner, still greater 1 An Ancient Cemetery at Saffron Walden, by H. Ecroyd Smith, Col- chester, W. Wiles, n.d. 2 For permission to reproduce this view thanks are due to the authorities of the Saffron Walden Museum, through Mr. Guy Maynard, Curator. XV facing p. 157 PORTION OF ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY, DOVER HILL, FOLKESTONE 'PILLOW UNDER HEAD OF THE FOLKESTONE SKELETON SHAPES AND SIZES OF GRAVES 157 want of order, in fact extreme confusion, was apparent. One large rectangular pit or cist contained the remains of several bodies which seemed to have been hastily or carelessly de- posited ; smaller ones contained one or more skeletons in similar condition.' PI. xv, 1, shows a portion of the recently excavated cemetery on Dover Hill, Folkestone. 1 Whereas at Saffron Walden, PL xiv, the bodies are laid in distinct excavations in the chalk subsoil, here at Folkestone the supersoil has been removed and the bodies merely laid on the surface of the chalk. In this case a small projection of the chalk has been left to serve as a pillow for the skull, and PI. xv, 2 shows this in the case of the skeleton in the Folkestone Museum of which a view was given on PI. xn. The regular rock-cut tomb holding the corpse as in a sarcophagus, as in the example at Wittislingen in Suabia (p. 541), can hardly be said to occur, but there was one instance at Barlaston in Staffordshire, where a grave 7 ft. long by 2 ft. wide ' was cut in the solid red sandstone rock.' 2 The objects in the grave proved it to be Anglo-Saxon. Large sepulchral cavities have sometimes been found excavated in the chalk. Grave No. 4 at Sarre, very richly furnished, measured 10 ft. by about 4 and was 4 ft. 6 in. deep. At Bourne Park, Kent, were large excavations. The cavities (p. 720) mentioned may be taken as examples of graves far too large for a single skeleton, for they measured about 14 ft. in length by a width of 6 or 7 and a depth of 3. They do not seem to have been actually used as might be expected for multiform burials but for single interments, and this agrees with what has been noticed about the burials in the earlier British barrows where a huge 1 This photograph was very kindly furnished by Mr. A. E. Nichols, Borough Engineer of Folkestone, who carefully supervised the excavations of the cemetery accidentally laid bare in connection with operations for the widening of the Dover road. 2 Jewitt, Grave-mounds and their Contents, Lond., 1870, p. 258. 158 THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY mound may contain a single interment. 1 As a rule however such large graves have contained several bodies. The ' large rectangular pit ' with remains of several bodies, at Saffron Walden, has just been mentioned. The most remarkable case that has been recorded of plural entombments occurred at Stowting in Kent, where in a sort of vault or pot of circular form, nearly 9 ft. in diameter and 4 ft. 7 in. in depth, six female skeletons were found that had been apparently all deposited at the same time. At Shoeburyness in Essex, at Newport Pagnell, Bucks, at Cuddesdon, Oxfordshire, skeletons, in the last two cases with Anglo-Saxon tomb furniture, have been found arranged in a circle with the heads pointing out- wards. This disposition of bodies in a ring reminds us of the arrangement of the Bronze Age burials at Broadstairs, previously noticed (p. 132). VI. Orientation and tomb furniture. It is convenient to take these together as they both involve the question of Pagan and Christian. Tomb furniture has already been noticed as an essentially pagan institution, based on traditional ideas about the living and the dead or the life beyond the grave that have no place in the scheme of the Christian who brought nothing into the world and will carry nothing out. Its appearance in Christian sepulchres is abnormal and only to be explained on the ground of survival or overlap. The case of orientation may appear quite different as the custom is ingrained in Christian societies, but in principle there is little to choose between the two institutions. If in practice orientation be of established Christian use, it is none the less distinctly opposed to the spirit of a religion that refuses to apply the categories of time and space to the divine. 4 Neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem,' but c in spirit 1 Canon Greenwell remarks {British Barrows^ p. 118) 'in the largest barrow I have opened on the Wolds, the primary burial, over which the whole mound had been raised, was that of an infant.' THE ORIGIN OF ORIENTATION 159 and truth,' ' the true worshippers shall worship.' To turn churches or graves in one direction rather than in another was never an obligation upon Christians, and was merely taken over by them as part of the traditional apparatus of the older religions, both Jewish and pagan. This taking over was cer- tainly not very early, for in the Roman catacombs the bodies are disposed in accordance with the direction of the ambula- crum in the walls of which are cut the niches that hold them, or depend for their position on the accident of their location in the side or end walls of a cubiculum. The direction of the ambulacrum depends for the most part on its alignment by the course of some Roman 'road, which may run in any direction, and the ambulacrum fixes the place of the cubiculum that opens out of it. Orientation undoubtedly had its first origin in the respect paid to the sun in ancient cults. The Greek temple and the Egyptian tomb have as a rule their disposition determined by the rising and setting of the great celestial luminary. The Jews of the Dispersion gave a more rational turn to the traditional custom and it was considered orthodox to set the synagogues with their long axis not towards the rising sun but towards Jerusalem, so that a synagogue in northern Palestine would be turned to the south, one in Mesopotamia towards the west, an Alexandrian house of prayer to the east. Daniel prayed with his windows open towards the holy city. What principle determines or should determine the orientation of Christian churches is not an easy question to answer. In our own country it makes no practical difference whether Jerusalem or the sunrise be supposed to prescribe the axial line, but early in XIX in the case of a church in India it was disputed whether it should affect in its direction Palestine or the east. 1 In the matter of burials, so far as graves in churchyards are 1 Notes and Queries, 5th Ser., 11, p. 352. This reference is taken from an interesting chapter on ' The Orientation of Churches ' in Mr. Walter Johnson's Byways in British Archaeology, Camb., 191 2. 160 THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY concerned, their alignment is in practice governed by that of the walls of the church, but if the question were asked why in principle should the axis of the grave take one direction rather than another, the answer would be as uncertain as when the same query has been suggested about the church. In the ancient solar religions the east is the home of life because the sun rises there, and Durandus of Mende in XIII ' pre- scribes orientation in Christian burials on this same traditional ground. So ought a man to be buried,' he writes, ' that his head may be to the west and that he direct his feet to the east, wherewith even in his very position he may be as one that prayeth, and may give sign that he is in readiness to hasten from the setting to the rising, from the world to eternity.' Some ecclesiastical authorities strove to disguise the paganism of this idea by the explanation that at His second coming Christ would appear in the east, and that the dead should be so placed that they would rise with their faces towards Him, but it is obvious that this is the same old idea under another form. Christ is to appear in the east only because that is the home of life or more prosaically the place of sunrise. It is clear therefore that, play with the notion as we may, orienta- tion is just as pagan an institution as tomb furniture, and only differs from it in that the Christians took it to themselves and made it a piece of ritual orthodoxy. So effectively has this been accomplished that it is really looked upon as something specially Christian, and writers on our early Teutonic ceme- teries commonly so regard it. If the east be the sacred quarter to Christians at any rate in western Europe, there is some ground for the belief that the north was similarly holy in the eyes of the Teutonic invaders of the Empire. The classical passage in mediaeval literature relied on as evidence for this occurs in Reineke Fuchs, and is appealed to by Jacob Grimm in support of his assertion that in prayer and penitence Christians turned to the east, while in 1 Rationale Divinorum Officiorum, vn, xxxv, 38. ORIENTATION AT HARTLEPOOL 161 prayer and sacrifice pagans looked towards the north. 1 In the romance in question the fox is represented as turning in the Christian direction while the wolf is content with the heathen orientation towards the north. It would be an interesting trait in the early Teutonic character if we could be assured that the people sought instinctively their sacred region in the North whence came their spirit of adventure, their romance, and all that marked them off from the clear-sighted self- centred classicists of the South, but this item in the creed of Teutonic paganism is certainly not a very prominent one or it would have left a more decided mark in literature. It may be said here once for all that we must not expect consistency in beliefs of the kind or in the practices dependent on them. This applies both to orientation and to tomb furniture. In each case there is some reason of a religious kind for the observance, and this reason, if strong enough to determine a general practice, might be expected to operate universally, so that superstitious dread of the consequences of breaking a sacred tradition would keep performance uniform. This is not however the case with either institution. In the matter of the Christian graveyard it is a curious fact that in this country its history begins with a flagrant example of the breach of the supposed inviolable rule. We saw previously that the earliest regular Christian cemeteries of the Saxon period were monastic. Such an early conventual cemetery of VII or the first half of VIII was laid bare in 1833 and subsequent years at Hartlepool, the first monastic seat of the famous Hild of Whitby. About a dozen bodies were found accompanied with memorial slabs on which crosses and Christian inscriptions were carefully incised. 2 These bodies were however laid in the direction north and south instead of in the orthodox fashion with their feet to the east. This 1 Deuticbe Mythologie, Gottingen, 1854, 1, 30. 2 The discoveries have been often described, e.g., by C. C. Hodges in The Reliquary, Jan. 1894, and again in the Victoria History, Durham, 1. Ill L 162 THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY curious anomaly is a reminder that the caution given above should always be borne in mind. In determining heathen interments ideas connected with the sun as well as those haunting the sacred North played their part, and it must be remembered that though sun-worship is not so much in evidence in northern religions as it is for example in that of Egypt, yet there exists at Copenhagen a striking monument of the Early Bronze Age in Denmark evincing a cultus of the sun, in the form of a gold-plated disc representing that luminary upon a car drawn by a horse, PI. xvi, i (p. 171). It need not surprise us therefore to find pre-Christian graves disposed like the orthodox Christian ones with the axis running east and west. In the Later Stone Age the long barrows were constantly placed with their major axis approximately in this direction. 1 Early Bronze Age inhuma- tion burials in round barrows in which the body is laid in a crouching position afford evidence that it was disposed with reference to the sun, for Canon Greenwell has noticed that ' the habit was generally to place the body in the grave facing the sun,' 2 and with this end, as the crouching body was always laid on its side, it was placed on the right side when the head pointed west, on the left side when it pointed east, so that in each case the face would be turned to the sunny southern quarter. Burials of the Later Bronze Age were as we have already seen as a rule cremated burials in connection with which the question of orientation does not arise. In the Early Iron Age again the numerous inhumation burials in the Marne district of Gaul, where the body is laid at full length, are very commonly oriented so that the feet are to the east. 3 In the Later Iron Age, that of the Teutonic migra- 1 Guide to the Antiquities of the Bronze Age, British Museum, 1904, p. 16 ; Greenwell, British Barrows, Oxford, 1877, p. 480. 2 ibid., p. 26. 3 Guide to the Antiquities of the Early Iron Age, British Museum, 1905, p. 58 f. ORIENTATION ON THE CONTINENT 163 tions, the burials found to the north and east of the Rhine that are certainly of pagan date are to a' great extent by crema- tion and furnish no evidence as to the practice of orientation. A number of Teutonic inhumation cemeteries however have been explored within the limits of the Empire, about which it is antecedently probable that they were at any rate at first laid out by people uninfluenced by Christianity, and it is interesting to examine from this point of view the disposition within them of the bodies. It is not safe to go for illustrative cases to the well-described cemeteries of Hungary, for the Goths in the ancient Moesia received Christianity at a very early date, and Christian influence may everywhere have been at work. 1 Alamannic cemeteries offer more promising material, for in this region Christianity was established comparatively late, and early in VII St. Gall found the people round the Lake of Constance still heathen. In these cemeteries the east and west direction is almost universal, and certain of them are regarded as of pagan date. Some of the 260 graves explored at Gammertingen north of the Boden See about 1900 2 had Christian objects in them and the cemetery is comparatively late, but the explorers in 1 845 of Oberflacht in Wiirtemberg 3 argued from the carved serpents on the tree-trunk coffins that the cemetery was a heathen one, and the eastward orientation was there generally observed. Another example is the cemetery explored near Ulm in the middle of XIX, 4 where the skeletons to the number of more than 1 50 all had their feet to the east, while as proof of the pagan character of the interments the explorer pointed to the fact that there was positive evidence in the case of a good proportion, one eighth, of the interments 1 ' As well in monuments as in historical traditions the traces of Christianity can be followed in Hungary during this whole period,' Hampel, Alterthiimer in Ungarn, 1, 68. 2 Groebels, Der Reihengr'dberfund von Gammertingen. 3 Menzel, Die Heidengrdber am Lupfen bei Oberjlacbt, Stuttgart, 1 847. 4 Hassler, Das Alemann'ucbe Todtenfeld bei Ulm, Ulm, 1 860. 164 THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY that the body had been burned. Cremation is so rare in the south German cemeteries that its appearance is very significant of an early period ; it must be admitted however in the case of Ulm, that one object found, an enriched spear head now at Berlin, 1 was ornamented in a late fashion and was marked with the device of a cross in a distinctively Christian form, so that the date must be considered doubtful. Among Frankish cemeteries the famous Ripuarian grave- yard at Selzen in Rhine-Hesse is of little avail for in two of the graves coins of Justinian of the middle third of VI made their appearance, and we can have more confidence in the early date of a group of cemeteries of the Salian Franks in Belgium and north-eastern France, of which Samson, Furfooz, and in part Pry and Eprave in the former country, Vermand and Abbeville (Homblieres) in the latter, may be taken as typical. These date before the incursion in force of the Franks into Gaul under Clovis, and may be regarded as entirely pagan in their laying out. It is true that in the two last-named burying grounds reliefs illustrating Christian subjects and glass vessels with similar devices came to light, but there is good reason to ascribe these to the Christianized Gallo-Roman population, and to date the burials not later than about the year 400 when the Franks were still pagan. Now at Abbeville and Vermand M. Pilloy states 2 that the usual direction of the bodies was north and south. At Pry in the province of Namur in Belgium M. Becquet reported 3 that in the older part, of V, called ' Tombois,' where there was no sign of Christianity, though there was no regular rule of orientation yet the direction north and south was most usual. In the early part at Eprave where cremated burials were mixed with inhumed ones the same authority reports 4 that in V and VI no very fixed rule was followed, but the later graves lay all from east 1 Figured by Lindenschmit, Handbuch, p. 167. 2 Etudes, 1, 279. 3 Annates de la Societe Arch'eologique de Namur, xix, 311. 4 ibid., p. 447. SUMMARY ON ORIENTATION 165 to west. Later graves at Pry of VI or the beginning of VII lay east and west, but it was believed that they were pagan. 1 At Spontin, another early Belgic cemetery, where 162 graves were examined in i860 and earlier, they were nearly all in the direction just indicated, but it is also noted that many bodies lay with the feet not to the east but to the west, 2 which looks like a misunderstanding on the part of new converts of the Christian scheme. Later continental cemeteries of Christian date have the regular east and west orientation. Such are the Lombard cemetery of Castel Trosino near Ascoli of about 600 a.d., and those of Charnay (Burgundian), and Herpes on the Charente of Frankish origin. M. Boulanger claims the east and west position as universal among the Franks and believes that it obtained long before their conversion, 3 while on the other hand W. M. Wylie, the explorer of Fairford ceme- tery, was of the opinion that feet to the north ' would seem to have been the prevailing pagan practice of Teutons in general,' 4 and this it will be noted is the view of the present writer. On the basis of these facts and other evidence which it would be tedious to cite the following conclusions may be formulated. Among pagan Teutons who practised inhumation the traditional solar orientation of the body in the grave was in some cases still maintained, while at the same time the idea of facing the north was among some communities a deter- mining factor. Among converted Teutons the eastward orientation may be regarded as almost universal though there are some curious instances of a breach of the general rule. The caution already given against assuming too great a consistency in these burial practices may be again emphasized by reference to the important Bavarian cemetery at Reichenhall with its 525 investigated graves dating from the beginning of VI to about the beginning of VIII, and exhibiting Christian 1 Annales de la Societe Archeologique de Namur, xvn, 482. 2 ibid., viii, 327 f. 3 Le Mobilier Funeraire, Introduction, p. xxxii. 4 Arcbaeologia, xxxiv, 224. 1 66 THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY influence only in the later interments. Here Herr von Chlingensperg-Berg's elaborate plan of the graves bears out his statement that ' the dead were disposed in all sorts of different directions.' * There are not only north-south and east-west interments but the whole compass is boxed in the various alignments. Corresponding facts meet us in Anglo-Saxon England, and it may be noted that just as the phenomena under review agree generally over the whole Teutonic area of the Continent, so in our own country they are Anglo-Saxon phenomena in the most general sense, and there is little difference in principle in what we find in inhumation cemeteries in Jutish Kent, in Saxon Berkshire, in East Anglia, the Midlands, or the North. To correspond with Reichenhall we have the very important cemetery at Kempston, Beds, in which there was * no direct attempt at orientation ' but bodies were ' deposited at all angles with one another, directed to almost every point of the compass.' 8 In Britain the easterly orientation is particularly common, especially in the south, and it is impossible to ascribe this always to the influence of Christianity. Take the example of the extensive cemetery at Sarre, in Thanet, Kent. In all but a few cases out of the 272 interments described the feet pointed to the east, but in a considerable number of the graves very early objects made their appearance and these graves must have been laid out in pre-Christian times. It is curious that in one of the earliest, No. 148, though it ranged east and west, the body was placed with the feet pointing westward and not to the orthodox quarter. In Sussex the east and west orienta- tion with feet to the east is almost universal but, especially in view of the late conversion of this region, we must regard the cemeteries in general as pagan. The northward position is nowhere carried out so consistently as it is for example at Abbeville (Homblieres), but over our whole area it is at times 1 Das Gr'dberfeld von Reichenhall, p. 43. 2 Associated Societies* Reports, 1864, p. 271. THE NORTHWARD POSITION 167 strikingly in evidence, and seems to bear out the explanation offered of it in what has gone before. In Sussex, and also in Surrey where the majority of the burials appear to be pre- Christian, the feet are generally to the east, but where this is not the case they almost invariably point to the north. At Brighton half a dozen skeletons that from the abundance of the arms buried with them must have been early were found on the hill above the railway station, and these old warriors all faced the north. An isolated interment at Long Wittenham, Berks, found ten years before the systematic exploration of the cemetery, revealed a warrior equipped with sword, spear, and shield, and of him as of Macaulay's Roman it might be said ' North looked he long and hard.' At Stowting, Kent, though the majority of the bodies lay approximately east and west, some pointed to the north, and these, we learn, were from their abundant tomb furniture the most interesting, but lest we attach too much importance to this it may be added that at Gilton, where the prevailing orientation was east and west and exceptional graves ran north and south, these last were as a rule very poorly and not richly furnished. To return to Stowting, that wonderful group of six female skeletons in a single grave were there found lying north and south, and with them there was rich and copious tomb furniture of a pronounced early type. At Glen Parva south of Leicester a woman's skeleton accompanied by rich tomb furniture lay with feet to the north. Here the long brooches with detached knobs betoken the first half of VI. Feet to the north was the almost universal rule in the Gloucestershire cemetery at Fairford about which Mr. Wylie who explored it uses the words ' these Fairford graves . . . would seem to bear a very early date.' 1 Equally remarkable are the phenomena of orientation at the great Lincolnshire cemetery at Sleaford. Here as was noticed above (p. 154) 1 Fairford Graves, by William Michael Wylie, B.A., Oxford, 1852, p. 22. 168 THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY the bodies were laid in the crouching position and on their sides. It was noted by the careful explorer, Mr. G. W. Thomas, 1 that they rested on the left side with heads to the west so that the face would be turned towards the north, but there was one exception in which the head was turned east- wards and in this case the body rested on the right side and accordingly still faced the supposed sacred quarter. A phenomenon observed at Bifrons, Kent, casts a light on the orientation question. The cemetery is on the whole an early one and it differs markedly from the many somewhat later Kentish graveyards of its class in that the rule for orienta- tion is not east and west but north and south. There is how- ever a topographical reason for this in the fact that the graves are dug on an incline the slope of which is from east to west, so that excavation was easier in a direction at right angles to the fall of the ground where each grave would lie level in the direction of its length. If this were the determining cause it shows that the obligation to turn graves in any particular direction was not rigidly observed, and prepares us to meet with many cases where neither of the orthodox orientations prevails. Thus at Marston St. Lawrence in Northants the feet were to the north-east and the same was the case at Long Wittenham, Berks, at Barrington, Cambs, and also at Ipswich, and at Chessell Down in the Isle of Wight, while at Duston, Northants, they pointed south-east. The question has been raised whether these partial deviations on either side from the true east are due to the taking of observations at one season of the year or at one hour of the day more than at another, but upon questions of this kind there is no space to enter. The casual occurrence of feet to the south in a north and south grave, or feet to the west in one with Christian orientation, may be merely accidental. The grave diggers were no doubt responsible people, probably in charge of the whole cemetery, and would dig to rule, but 1 Archaeologia, l, 385. TOMB FURNITURE 169 the circumstances of the actual interment may have been such as to explain an accidental error. There is at any rate evidence enough that the north and south orientation was pagan, the east and west distinctly though not exclusively Christian, and Mr. Reginald Smith does well to emphasize the crucial case at Garton Slack among the Wold cemeteries of the East Riding of Yorkshire, 1 where there are two parts to the cemetery, one in which bodies were oriented north-west and south-east and irregularly disposed but with plenty of tomb furniture, and another in which the feet of the bodies are with one exception towards the east and tomb furniture is of the most meagre description. At Bifrons there were certain exceptional graves which ignored the lie of the ground and were set east and west. With one exception these were unfurnished and the case bears out the inference that can be drawn from the Yorkshire site, i.e., that east and west burials with little or no tomb furniture are most probably late and Christian. In the matter of tomb furniture there rules the same inconsistency as in orientation, and this is more remarkable because, while the latter is a mere matter of sentiment, with the former were connected possibilities of a very practical kind. If the possessions of the dead were really wanted by him in his new state of existence, or if they were through some obscure connection of ideas dangerous to his surviving relatives, the practice of placing them in the tomb or consum- ing them on the funeral pyre would, one might think, have been universally observed, for offended ghosts are a peril, and so is a violated taboo. It is a fact however that the remarks of Canon Greenwell about the capricious or grudging observance of the custom of thus furnishing the tomb among the Britons of the Bronze Age 2 would apply, though in a lesser degree, to the pagan Teutons. On the whole abundance of tomb furniture has come to light but it is by no means evenly distributed among the interments examined. The 1 Vict. Hist., Yorkshire, 11, 80. 2 British Barrows, pp. 57 f., 287. 1 7 o THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY influence of Christianity in limiting and finally almost abolish- ing tomb furniture must of course be taken for granted, but apart from this the custom wanes or waxes in an apparently capricious manner. The ' Kingston ' brooch figured on the Frontispiece, that is perhaps the finest of all Germanic jewels in north-western Europe, was found in Kent on a day in 1 77 1 on which twenty-seven neighbouring tumuli were also opened. Of these, twelve contained no tomb furniture at all, and only six furnished any article of the least importance. Tombs destitute of all furniture, or containing only the most common of all items a knife, occur in practically all ceme- teries and sometimes make up a fair proportion of the total number of graves. It was reported at the time of the recent discovery of the cemetery at Alfriston, Sussex, that out of 115 graves more than forty contained nothing beside the bones. It does not always follow therefore that the poorly equipped grave is a late one, though at any rate in our own country this may be a general rule. It has been noticed already (p. 115 f.) that the custom of burying these objects with the dead lasts on into Christian times, and in some districts of England a fairly rich grave may be of Christian date. If the archaeologists of northern France be right in their chronology this was more markedly the case abroad than in this country. Messrs. Eck, 1 Pilloy, Boulanger, and others ascribe part of the tomb furniture of the cemeteries they describe to the Carolingian epoch, that is to the latter part of VIII. In his Etudes, Vol. 1, p. 123 f., M. Pilloy gives actual dates for the three periods among which he apportions the tomb furniture of the cemeteries of the Aisne. The first period embraces V and VI, the second VII and VIII, the third part of VIII with an extension into IX and even perhaps into X. M. Boulanger adopts the same system in his Mobilier Funeraire and his book on Marchelepot. 1 e.g. ' Le Cimetiere Franc de Lucy-Ribemont/ in Bulletin Arch'eo- logique, 1893. XVI facing p. 171 SUN DISC AND LATE TOMB FURNITURE 2 is 3 natural size ; 3, about half-size !> 3> 4> are Continental pieces RARITY OF LATE FINDS 171 M. Pilloy compares buckles like that at Rouen shown PI. xvi, 3, with the grotesque carved capitals of early Romanesque churches. 1 A definite justification for this late dating is furnished by the Burgundian cemetery of Bel-Air near Lausanne in Switzerland where in one of the later graves M. Troyon found ten coins of Charles the Great. 2 In our own country the case is somewhat different. Movable objects of late date make their appearance, though not in any abundance, and are often found in tombs, but with the rarest exceptions these are not graves in the regular cemeteries which supply the tomb furniture of the pagan period, but isolated interments of the Viking epoch, such as that discovered near Bedale in Yorkshire in the centre of the great Roman road to the north. 3 It is almost without precedent to find objects in the regular cemeteries that exhibit any sign either of the Carolingian renaissance or of the characteristic linear and zoomorphic ornament of the Scandinavian Viking age. The object figured PI. ix, 6 (p. 103) is one of the ftw that might fall under the first category but we have seen reason to believe that its date would fall within VII (p. 106 f.). Almost unique again as occurring in a cemetery of some extent, embracing 200 interments, and containing early tomb furniture, 4 is a find in a woman's grave at Saffron Walden, Essex, shown PI. xvi, 2. In the midst of a short string of cornelian, rock crystal, and other beads there hangs a round disc with a cruciform pattern, above which are two silver beads one with a pattern of spirals and the other encircled with rows of pearls. On each side of the centre are two discs of bronze enriched with ornament to which Anglo-Saxon tomb furniture 1 Etudes, 1, 47. 2 Description des Tombeaux de Bel- Air, Lausanne, 1841, note added in 1856. 3 Arch. Journ, v. 220 ; Vict. Hist., Yorks, 11, 97. 4 Notably a fine collection of bronze bangles of a pronounced Roman type, found on a different body from that which wore the necklet described in the text, see PI. cix, 3 (p. 457). 172 THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY offers no parallel. It has been described as ' foliated,' but there is really no imitation of vegetable forms. A kind of framework seems to be represented as made with cords knotted, doubled, and perhaps fastened in places by pins. Round this is then twisted a band formed of three parallel strands, and spaces are filled up with ornamental ends attached rather awkwardly as tangents to the loops. A close parallel to this design will be found on two beautiful golden brooches in the Museum at Copenhagen from Hornelund near Varde in Jutland, dating from the Viking period VIII to X. One of them is illustrated PI. xvi, 4. Again, the silver bead with the spirals is closely paralleled by a hollow sphere of bronze, PI. xvi, 5, ornamented in the same fashion and used for the head of a pin, that was found in 191 2 at Talnotrie near Newton Stewart in Scotland, together with coins of Burghtred of Mercia that date the find to the middle of IX. The other bead is like some figured as of VII or VIII in M. Boulanger's Marchekpot, pi. xxiii. Hence there is no doubt at all about the late date of the Saffron Walden pendants, and the point of interest is that finds of the class are in our regular Anglo-Saxon cemeteries of such exceptional rarity that no parallel to the case just signalized is known. The conclusion indicated would be that our country cemeteries went out of use at an earlier date than those across the Channel, and that the custom of burying on the old pagan sites was maintained among our neighbours longer than among ourselves. This would to some extent explain the facts noted above (p. 130) that in the number of interments our British cemeteries are so limited as compared with the foreign graveyards, where additional accommodation has often been secured by superinhumation. 1 We may bring this comparatively prompt abandonment of the original ceme- teries in English country districts into connection with the 1 At Bel-Air near Lausanne M. Troyon distinguished three separate ' couches ' or layers of interments. DATE OF ENGLISH CEMETERIES 173 early establishment of the village churches. In the first volume of this work an attempt was made to exhibit the life of the mediaeval village as centering in the church and to carry the evidence for this position of the church as far back into Saxon times as was possible. The number of existing Saxon churches, and the extraordinary abundance in parts of Britain of carved memorial and sepulchral stones attesting the early existence of such village churches, produce the impression that the church bulked pretty largely in the general life of the people of Anglo-Saxon Britain, and it may very well be that the villagers were not so much driven from their original cemeteries by ecclesiastical proscriptions as attracted from them to the parish graveyard because the church around which it lay had grown to them familiar and dear. The winning character of the Celtic missioners who accomplished the conversion of the greater part of England may have had something to do with the early popularity of the churches. It would be dangerous to urge too strongly that English mediaeval village life was a pleasanter thing on the whole than rural existence abroad, but the history and the archaeology of the English country church may justify some suggestion of the kind, and it is all in favour of this to find that, as noted in connection with cemeteries in Kent, the people of wealth and standing seem to have lived on their country manors and were laid in death in the midst of their rustic neighbours. However this may be, it seems pretty clear that our ceme- teries do not as a rule come down to so late a date as those across the Channel, while on the other side they are not so early as the German cemeteries on the Lower Elbe, or as some Frankish ones that belong to the time prior to the invasion of Gaul in force under Clovis. Hence the bulk of the objects contained in Anglo-Saxon graves belong to VI and the early part of VII. A fair proportion may be dated in the latter part of V, the tendency of the moment being rather to exaggerate the 174 THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY number of these, and comparatively few can be assigned to a later time than about the middle of VII. It would be rash to set any definite limit to the use of the pagan cemeteries, but so far as tomb furniture is concerned the evidence for it can hardly be carried further than VII. The comparatively early cessation among the Anglo-Saxons of the practice of furnishing the tomb may in some degree account for the fact that certain classes of objects, characteristic abroad of the later Merovingian period, make no appearance in our insular tomb inventories. Our repertory of grave goods is of course as we have seen quite independent, but at the same time any class of objects and any technical process largely represented across the Channel would certainly be expected to make at any rate an appearance in Anglo-Saxon surroundings. Now later Frankish and Burgundian graves both of men and women contain, perhaps as their most characteristic item, handsome but very ponderous buckles of iron with complementary parts to complete the parure. A specimen from Fetigny in the Museum at Fribourg, Switzer- land, is shown PI. xvn, i. The whole length is 15 in. and the plate is 3^ in. wide. The wearing of such enormous ornaments, especially by women, is a matter only to be explained by the constraint of fashion, and as fashions spread we should expect the Saxon lords and ladies to have at any rate coquetted with the vagary. They may quite well have done so, but the evidence may not have been preserved owing to the disuse among them of the practice of tomb furniture. Only one or two large iron buckles, and these very poor specimens, have come to light in our cemeteries, one at Harnham Hill, Wilts, another at Folkestone, while a third, the largest of all but quite unadorned, is at Maidstone and measures 6 in. in length. It is figured PI. lxxiii, 2 (p. 355). The continental buckles in question are ornamented with silver plating in different techniques, and when these processes came into vogue abroad it is almost inconceivable that the XVII acingp. 175 CONTINENTAL OBJECTS AND PROCESSES 1, about natural size; 2, much enlarged ; 4, 5, about natural size All but 3 are Continental RARITY OF SILVER PLATING 175 Anglo-Saxon craftsman would not try his hand at them. Evidence that he did so is however almost non-existent. The Fetigny buckle is plated with a sheet of silver of appreciable thickness on which a design has been produced by punched or incised lines. The fish and cross show that the piece is Christian and late. More original, and specially characteristic of the class of work under review, is another process in which the silver is laid on to the iron in a very thin sheet, and the pattern is made by cutting it away in parts so that the metal beneath is brought into view. PI. xvu, 2, illustrates this ; it is an enlargement of a small piece of this work at Namur. Sometimes, but much more rarely, the process is one of inlay- ing, and sinkings are cut in the iron into which the silver, or silver alternating with brass, is hammered, see PI. xvu, 4. This technique is Roman, as the inlaid sword sheath at Mainz will show, PI. xvu, 3. It is a notable fact that no single piece of true silver inlaid work on iron, and no specimen of the thin plating cut out into patterns, has been identified in Anglo-Saxon tomb furniture, while examples in other plating techniques are very few indeed. 1 One piece of iron plated like the Fetigny buckle was found in the King's Field, Faversham, and is now in the British Museum, PI. xvn, 5. The design on the plating is embossed by the repousse process. There are some much corroded fragments in the same style at Bifrons House, but otherwise the specimen is unique and may very likely be an importation. There should be noticed here a ' unicum ' in the shape of an iron fibula partly plated with silver that was probably found at Hoxne, Suffolk, and is now in the British Museum. It is shown later on in connection with some other curious iron objects PI. ex, 3 (p. 459). The large size of this piece, it was 8 in. long, and its technique bring it into a certain connection with the huge iron silver- plated buckles of the Franks and Burgundians. If our 1 The Abbe Cochet, Tombeau de Cbilderic, p. 271, notices the absence of these objects from Anglo-Saxon graves. 176 THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY cemeteries had continued for a longer time in use there might have been more of the kind to show. Seeing that the tomb furniture of Anglo-Saxon cemeteries is the mai.n subject of this volume it will be unnecessary here to elaborate any general statements as to its character. As is natural, certain groups of objects, such as arms, are found only in the graves of men ; other groups, consisting partly in orna- ments such as strings of variegated glass beads and partly in feminine implements, occur only in women's graves ; while objects of a third class, such as the brooch, the buckle, and the knife, may be found accompanying the bones of either sex indifferently. Many of the objects of course are of a kind not specially Teutonic, but like the mounted wooden buckets, the bronze bowls, the beads, the vessels of glass, are found in Celtic or in Roman cemeteries, though as a rule in each genus there is a distinctively Teutonic species so that the products have really a Germanic impress. Other classes of objects are more exclusively Germanic, in kind as well as in style. The positions in relation to the body in which these various objects are found are of the same importance as the relative locations of the bodies themselves in the cemetery, and scien- tific explorers should be careful in both cases to give the requisite information. These indications of position will be noticed in what follows in connection with the separate items of tomb furniture presently to be discussed, but it should be borne in mind that the actual position in the grave of an object at the moment of discovery is not always a secure indication of its original place. Accidental shiftings due to various causes have not seldom taken place. For example at Barrington, Cambs, it was reported that the following objects were found i all together under the head of a skeleton ' : a cruciform fibula normally found at the shoulder or on the body, two pairs of clasps used generally for wrist fastenings, and a necklet of beads. 1 Here it will be sufficient to illustrate 1 Cambridge Antiquarian Society's Communications, x, 437. EXTERNAL MARKS OF GRAVES 177 the relation of tomb furniture to the skeleton by the photo- graphs reproduced on PI. xvin, of which No. 3 shows a body of a female equipped with abundant belongings that was found at Stapenhill near Burton-on-Trent. Many of the objects are clearly visible as they occupy their original positions among the bones to which the corpse has been reduced. No. 1 is the reproduction of a drawing of a skeleton found at Shepperton in Middlesex. The shield boss here lies over the face, the sword is held in both hands over the front of the body and the spear lies by the side. No. 2 has been noticed above (p. 150). With regard to the condition of preservation of the bones and relics there are great differences the reasons for which have never been made the subject of scientific inquiry. The skeleton often remains pretty well entire, but there are cases in which we are told that every trace of it had disappeared except the enamel crowns of the teeth ! In the case of objects of wood and iron the state of preservation greatly varies, and there is a good deal of difference in the condition of the glass. Bronze objects are generally well preserved and silver fairly so, while the golden ornament issues from the grave quite uninjured by time, a testimony to the purity of the metal. VII. The mark or monument, if any, that indicated at the time and to posterity the place of interment. In the case of an extensive cemetery like that at Sarre, Kent, where some 280 graves were found neatly cut and regularly arranged, or at High Down, Sussex, where the graves were often close together yet never impinged one on the other, it is difficult to believe that there were no external marks to locate the several interments. The only kind of mark that has remained at all in evidence on these cemeteries are the tumuli, and though these seem to have been common in some parts in XVIII there are not now many original Anglo-Saxon ones to be seen. Bronze Age barrows that have received secondary Anglo-Saxon interments are in certain in M 178 THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY parts abundant enough, but the question here is of monuments specially raised to mark Teutonic graves. It has been noticed that, at any rate on the Sussex Downs, the Saxon tumuli are nearer to the settlements than the Bronze Age barrows and are therefore more in danger of disturbance. Owing to the operations of the plough tumuli tend to disappear wherever agricultural activity extends, and this cause accounts for the levelling of many that Faussett and others noticed in XVIII. At Sleaford, Lincolnshire, the explorer remarked 'my impres- sion is that in this part of the ground there was originally a series of tumuli . . . and that such tumuli have been ploughed down.' 1 Sometimes a local appellation preserves the memory of the earlier aspect of a cemetery of the kind. This was the case at Harnham Hill near Salisbury, where the site bore the name of the { Low field' which suggested to Akerman the previous existence of ' the hlawes or tumuli which once covered the ground' 2 but had long been levelled. In Essex a field near Kelvedon south of Colchester in which many interments were discovered about 1888 bore no external marks of their presence but had been known in the middle of XVIII as 'Barrow field.' 3 J. Y. Akerman 4 suggested in connection with the cemetery at Filkins, Oxon, that where burials are very shallow, in this case only about 6 in., we may infer the previous existence of tumuli. Tumuli appear to have been most common in Kent especially in the eastern part where, it has been noticed, Celtic tumuli are particularly rare, 5 so that the surviving mounds in that region represented primary Jutish interments not secondary ones in earlier barrows. One of the best still existing groups of such tumuli are some on a commanding site on the edge of Breach Down about half a mile south-east of Barham Station, Kent. Their present appearance is not a little impressive and in the drawing, 1 Archaeologia, l, 385. 2 ibid., xxxv, 259. 3 Essex Naturalist, 11, 124. 4 Archaeologia, xxxvn, 140. 5 ibid., xlv, 53. TUMULI 179 Fig. 7, the artist, Mr. Robert T. Rose, has rendered justice to it. Tumuli of this kind can never be less than about 7 or 8 ft. in diameter and it is only in rare cases that there is more than one grave under a single mound. Hence it is obvious that where graves are found placed fairly close together tumuli cannot have been used to mark them. 1 It is possible that in this case each grave was surmounted by a small heap of ground formed by the earth excavated for the sepulchre beneath, ' 'ft Ufa Fig. 7. Anglo-Saxon Tumuli on Breach Down, Kent. exactly after the pattern of the grave mounds of our modern churchyards. That small barrows of this modern kind were in use in the earliest Christian cemeteries can be inferred from the mention in VIII of burials under the floors of churches that by reason of the * tumuli ' made the surface too uneven to walk over. 2 These must of course have been small hum- mocks not tumuli in the larger sense, and the fashion of them was most likely taken over from the earlier heathen ceme- teries. Such little mounds would disappear in the course of centuries wherever the site of a cemetery had been cultivated, 1 This was noticed at Barrington, Cambs, Coll. dnt., vi, 162. 2 Wilkins, Concilia, 1, 270. 180 THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY though they might be expected to remain on the open downs. This was the case at Marston St. Lawrence, Northants, where in his first report 1 Sir Henry Dryden writes of the bodies as ' placed in graves under small hillocks, as ours are now,' and at Farthingdown near Coulsdon in Surrey, where Anglo-Saxon graves were marked by ' slight hillocks seldom rising two feet from the ground and resembling those to be seen in village churchyards.' 2 On the whole, if the arrangement of the graves in Anglo-Saxon cemeteries seem to make the hypo- thesis of some external mark a necessary one, the churchyard mound appears the most simple and hence the most likely device for the end in view, though it must still be surprising that on an apparently untouched surface like that of the ceme- tery at High Down, or again on the down above Folkestone, no sign of such an arrangement should now be visible. The hypothesis that there was some memorial placed over each grave in a perishable material such as wood is a plausible one. In the Museum at York there are sundry coffins hewn out of solid tree trunks some of which at any rate are supposed to be of Anglian origin and date, though the period to which they should be ascribed is doubtful. In the one of which the head end is shown PI. xix, i, were found the bones of a woman accompanied by some beads that have unfortunately not been preserved. There were also in the coffins fragments of hazel rods, some portions of which are seen at the foot of the post in the photograph. This post is 2 ft. 8 in. high and 9 in. square at the base and is placed in the Museum in the position it occupied at the head of the coffin, as if to serve as a mark or memorial. In the dearth of such memorials in Anglo- Saxon cemeteries it is an exhibit of importance. There is a difference here between England and the Continent that is of some significance. Lindenschmit in his Handbuch figures a number of tombstones in the Rhineland with German names upon them apparently of Merovingian 1 Arcbaeologia, xlviii, 327. 2 Surrey Archaeological Collections, vi, 108. XIX facing p. 181 WOODEN COFFIN AND HEADPOST, AND TOMBSTONE INSCRIBED TOMBSTONES 181 date, that bear Christian symbols but were found marking graves supplied in pagan fashion with tomb furniture. The inscriptions on these are in Latin. Many of these Rhineland cemeteries are in the neighbourhood of Worms, where the continuity of Latin and Teutonic civilization is evidenced by the free use on the part of the conquerors of the older Roman graveyards. In England early inscribed Germanic tombstones do occur, as at Hartlepool and Monkwearmouth, but they are in monastic cemeteries not in those of Roman or of pagan origin and associations. In general the use of the Latin language in Anglo-Saxon England is due to the direct agency of the Church, whereas in the Rhineland and Gaul Latin is more freely used in secular connections and must have been more commonly understood. In connection with the early Anglo-Saxon coins attention has been called to the fact that while the art upon them is fresher and more full of life than on contemporary Gallic pieces, yet the Latin of the inscriptions is far more correct abroad than on this side of the Channel. The Latin inscription on the famous Alamannic inlaid brooch from Wittislingen will be noticed later on (p. 542) as some- thing to which this country offers no parallel. It goes with this to find that what appear to be the only specimens of stone monuments connected with Anglo-Saxon graves of a non- ecclesiastical kind bear inscriptions in runic characters. The subject of Anglo-Saxon runes connects itself chiefly with the inscribed stones of Christian origin, such as the Bewcastle Cross, which are reserved for subsequent treatment, and the runic inscriptions on the gravestones in question need not here be discussed. The stones in question are two in number ; they were found near Sandwich and are now in the Museum at Canter- bury. Their dimensions are in the one case about 17 in. by 5 in. by 5 in., in the other 16 in. in height by 6 in. square above and 4 in. square below, and while on the first the char- acters are too worn to be legible, on the second or smaller one l82 THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY has been read the single word RiEHiEBUL. They appear to have been set up, perhaps as headstones, and certainly to mark the site of interments, and the fact that they are practically unique is one that must be signalized. PI. xix, 2 shows the smaller stone. The characters run from the top of the stone downwards and some of them are to be made out in the illus- tration, but even on the stone they are very faint. Stephens' reading, very kindly verified and where necessary corrected from the original by Mr. Henry Meade of the Beaney Institute and Museum, Canterbury, is given in Fig. 8. The only character of importance chronologically is the H (N). This has only a single cross-stroke, whereas all the early K Fig. 8. Runic Tombstone from Sandwich. datable Anglo-Frisian inscriptions in which the character occurs give it two parallel cross-strokes, as Fig. 8, a. On the other hand the single cross-stroke is normal in Scandinavia, and this would favour a Viking origin for the stones. They cannot at any rate be safely employed as evidence for the use of tombstones in the cemeteries in the earlier period. In the later Scandinavian runes the second and fourth characters would be *C not i JE. y Whereas wooden headposts may all have perished by decay this cannot apply to the case of stone ones, and the fact that these have not survived is conclusive evidence that their use can only have been very occasional. How the Anglo-Saxon graves were marked or distinguished is still an unsolved problem. ABNORMAL APPEARANCES 183 VIII. Indications in the cemeteries of social customs, and of racial or other distinctions among the persons therein interred. In the case of most of the cemeteries some one or one or two of the graves has been signalled out from the rest by some rare or puzzling appearance that at once invites inquiry. We have seen that as a rule, tomb furniture apart, the funeral arrangements of the pagan Saxons were singularly like our own, but every now and then something comes to light which suggests practices of a quite abnormal kind. Some have even discerned traces of the immolation of captives, retainers, or relatives, or the self-devotion to death of a survivor intimately associated with the deceased, in phenomena which the spade of the explorer has revealed. For example in one grave opened at Mitcham, Surrey, there was found the body of ' a small woman who had been carelessly thrown in on her face between two warriors,' * giving rise to the suggestion of human sacrifice or ' suttee.' What does it imply when we find, as at White Horse Hill, Berks, decapitated skeletons with the skulls placed between the thigh bones, or, as at Mitcham, the complete skeleton of a warrior with another skull between his hands or beside his feet ? To inquirers of an anthropological turn of mind it would be an interesting task to follow out the suggestions offered by these abnormal appearances, but the very fact that they are exceptional puts them out of the range of the present treat- ment, and in order to keep this book within reasonable limits of size no exploration of these bypaths can be indulged in. The normal phenomena of the cemeteries however enable us to draw inferences of a general kind which possess racial and social significance, and to these some attention must be paid. 1. The evidence of the cemeteries seems to show an essential unity of race among the denizens of them in all the Teutonized regions of the land, though this need not preclude 1 Arcbaeologia, lx, 58. 184 THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY such tribal distinctions as history would suggest among Jutes, Saxons, and Angles, nor differences among smaller bodies, septs, clans, or whatever we choose to call them, which may- have survived within the larger aggregates. 2. The communities using the several cemeteries were on the whole socially homogeneous though varieties in wealth and station may be inferred from a comparative study of tomb furniture. 3. Family and personal relations of a somewhat close kind can occasionally be inferred from appearances in the graves. 1 . Under this heading we have to inquire (a) whether the racial distinction of Teuton and Celt is to be observed in the cemeteries, and (b) what differences, if any, in funeral customs or bodily characteristics appear to separate Jute, Saxon, and Angle. (a) There is an almost unbroken consensus of opinion among explorers of these cemeteries, and experts who have reported on the outcome of them, that the skeletons found are of the Teutonic race and that this applies to male and female alike. At the same time suggestions have been made that traces of the older British population are to be looked for, especially among the skeletons of females, the inference being that the Teutonic warriors took to themselves wives from the older inhabitants of the land. In connection with one of the most recent explora- tions of a cemetery, that at East Shefford, Berks, it was urged that there was cranial evidence that the older females were for the most part at any rate of British race. This meant re- opening a question that anthropologists considered practically settled in favour of community of race between the sexes. In connection with another of the more recent discoveries, that of the cemetery on Dover Hill above Folkestone, Kent, Professor F. G. Parsons reported in 1 9 1 1 1 that ' the female skulls and bones showed no points of difference from those of the males except in the normal sexual signs,' and this agrees with the tenor of most previous reports of the kind by craniologists. 1 Journal of Royal Anthropological Institute, xli, 128. ANGLO-SAXON SKULLS CRANIOLOGICAL EVIDENCE 185 Writing in the Wilts Magazine about 1890 General Pitt Rivers drew a comparison from the anthropometric point of view among three classes of skeletons found in prehistoric tombs in England. The biggest and strongest men were those of the Early Bronze Age, the smallest and most delicate belonged to our Early Iron Age and the Romano-British period, while the Anglo-Saxon skeletons male and female came in between, and were notably those of larger people than the Romano-Britons. Craniologically the Anglo-Saxons are dolicho- cephalic, that is their skulls are long from front to back in proportion to their width ' long and fairly high but distinctly deficient in width ' Professor Parsons describes them 1 whereas the Celts were round-headed or brachycephalic, with a width of head from side to side more nearly approaching its length. The dolichocephalic character of Anglo-Saxon skulls generally has been almost universally recognized though some female skulls from East Shefford have been claimed as approaching the Celtic form. The present writer lacks the scientific know- ledge without which these anthropometrical questions cannot be usefully discussed, and it must suffice here to note that the possibility of British female skeletons being associated with those of Anglo-Saxon males has recently been at any rate adduced. The evidence other than craniological bearing on this question of a possible mixture of races in the early Teutonic settlements has been already referred to in the Introductory Chapter (p. 50 f.) and the net result so far as our present know- ledge extends is that the distinction between Celt and Saxon has left no appreciable mark in the cemeteries. The other question (b) is whether the population of the cemeteries, exhibiting everywhere a distinct Germanic character, shows at the same time local differences that may distinguish the three main groups of the invaders, and within these groups may indicate smaller aggregates of a tribal or gentile order. 1 ibid., p. 1 10. 186 THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY Such expressions as 'an Anglian skull,' 'the Jutish type' are sufficiently familiar, and when used by acknowledged authorities on craniology they are not to be neglected, but they are at best obiter dicta, and a much more serious and systematic study is required before we can be satisfied that there were specific differences in bony structure among Saxons, Jutes, and Angles. This part of the subject may at any rate be left in the meantime with the words recently penned by Dr. W. L. H. Duckworth, 1 ' it is very desirable that an ex- tensive investigation should be made of the skulls from all the Saxon cemeteries of which descriptions exist.' On PI. xx there are reproduced one or two skulls as specimens of the material available for study. They are mostly from photographs which the authorities of the Cambridge Anatomical Museum kindly allowed the writer to take. No. I is an Anglian skull from Londesborough in the East Riding of Yorkshire in the York Museum. No. 2, at Cambridge, is from Hauxton, Cambs. No. 3 is in the Art Museum at Rugby and was found at Street Ash ton, near the Fosse Way, Warwickshire, with the open-socketed spear head figured beside it which shows it to be Anglo-Saxon. No. 4 is a West Saxon skull from Harnham Hill, Wilts, and No. 5 a Jutish skull, minus the lower jaw, from Ozengell cemetery, Thanet, Kent. Differences of the kind suggested may be discerned in funeral customs and in the character of tomb furniture as well as in the physical peculiarities of skeletons. There are obvious differences between cemetery and cemetery in the manner of treating the body and arranging the grave but there seems no evidence that these differences are really racial ones. The most striking of these differences is that between cremation and inhumation, but it is the view taken in this book and developed later on (Ch. x) that this difference depends on time and locality rather than race. Then there is the common use made of coffins in Kentish interments while coffins else- 1 Cambridge Antiquarian Society's Communications, vol. xvi, 191 2, p. 128. CONTRASTS AMONG CEMETERIES 187 where are rare, and there is the difference between the custom of laying the body flat on the surface of the subsoil or the stratum below the alluvial deposit, or excavating in this a distinct grave. It is clear that differences of this kind are not sufficiently far-reaching or consistent to serve as indications of race, but on the other hand they are often sufficiently marked to dis- tinguish smaller social aggregates. Let us take for example the cemetery at Sleaford in Lincolnshire, where we find in general use the custom of burial in a crouching position which elsewhere is only sporadic. Does not this seem to indicate the existence of a community with its own customs and traditions differing from other Anglo-Saxon communities, just as one Roman gens differed in its sacra gentilicia from another ? In the neighbouring cemeteries, about 8 miles apart, of Linton Heath and Little Wilbraham, Cambs, where the tomb furni- ture is of just the same kind and the only difference seems to be that the first named is rather the earlier, there was in the first case no sign of cremation and in the second abundant cremation. Why this contrast? Many cemeteries in East Anglia and the northern Midlands present evidence of the co- existence, certainly in place and in all probability also in time, of the rites of cremation and inhumation. Did the people who practised the latter form a social aggregate differing from those who held to the earlier tradition, or was the change merely due to an influence that was affecting the whole com- munity but which happened to become effective in some families or groups earlier than in others ? It must be confessed that about these assumed smaller aggregates within the larger political divisions we know practically nothing, and even their existence is problematical. In the older days of Kemble and Isaac Taylor place-names ending in or containing the syllable ing ' were held to indicate the existence at each township of a community united by ties of relationship, that might be credited with different beliefs and customs from those of 188 THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY neighbouring communities, but the ' ing ' theory in its earlier form is now quite given up, see Vol. i, p. 68 f. In our present state of knowledge, if it were not for these exceptional appearances in some of the graveyards we should certainly take for granted the homogeneity of the population over tolerably wide areas, and should expect one South Saxon or Kentish village to be very like another. It is doubtful whether these archaeological discrepancies, interesting as they are, are marked enough or well enough understood to shake us out of our present prepossessions. When we deal with the single cemeteries each for itself this impression of homogeneity is confirmed. Save in the one matter of cremation and inhumation, which as we have just seen may not really involve any marked social differences, this homogeneity is almost absolute, and nowhere has the levelling power of death made itself more apparent than in the Teutonic graveyard of pagan times. There are of course marked con- trasts between the richly equipped graves and those almost or entirely bare of furniture, and these may be an index to com- parative wealth or social station, but it has been expressly noticed by explorers that in the latter cases the graves have been prepared and the bodies have been laid in them with the same care that has been shown in the most sumptuously supplied interment. No special part of the cemetery seems to have been regarded as an aristocratic preserve, and, as in the case of the Kingston cemetery already referred to (p. 170), rich and poor seem to have slept their long sleep side by side. In the case of some foreign cemeteries, such as that of Reichen- hall in Bavaria, an endeavour has been made to identify groups of graves as belonging to sections of the community connected by ties of relationship. It has been already noticed that the weak point of cemetery exploration in this country has been the neglect of a survey of the graves as a whole in their dis- tribution and local arrangements so that there are no recorded observations bearing on this question. Family burials however ASSOCIATED BURIALS 189 to all appearance occur, and they are among those interments, represented in every larger cemetery, where more than one body has been laid in a single tomb. Such burials are not always family ones, and in many, perhaps in the majority of instances, the bodies are disposed in a rather careless fashion as if the desire only was to get rid of them somehow. Explorers have noticed that in the case of these plural burials tomb furniture is for the most part wanting. On the other hand there are instances in which the plural interment was both careful and richly supplied, and there are appearances about some of these which set the imagination at work. Of two warriors found in a single grave at Long VVittenham, Berks, one had his left arm within the right arm of the other, suggesting to the explorer, J. Y. Akerman, the relation of father and son. 1 Two warriors of advanced age at Sarre, Kent, were found buried together, and the abundance of the tomb furniture seemed to show that a sort of heroic honour had been done to the deceased who may have battled side by side and in their deaths were not divided. The plural burial at Stowting, Kent, already referred to (pp. 158, 167) was a most striking one. It occurs not infrequently in the accounts of cemeteries that the bodies of children appear to have been disposed of in an exceptional manner, and one that is more archaic than the prevailing fashion of the particular burying ground. General Pitt Rivers noticed that at Winklebury Hill, Wilts, while twenty-six skeletons had their feet to the east two had theirs to the west and these were both children, ' which,' he says, ' seems perhaps to mark a distinction in the mode of burial for young people.' 2 At Filkins, Oxon, and Long Wittenham, Berks, children had their feet to the north while the other bodies had theirs to the east. At Fairford, Gloucestershire, and Hassocks, Sussex, exceptional cases of cremation were those of children. Whether these little ones were regarded by semi-Christianized parents as * unregenerate ' may be left uncertain. 1 Archaeologia, xxxix, 141. 2 Excavations in Cranborne Chase, 11, 259. 190 THE ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY When two bodies in a plural interment are of opposite sexes, and especially when that of a child accompanies them, a family relationship is suggested, though to the critical mind the question will present itself how it came about that the two or the three deaths were to all appearance simultaneous. The appearance of the male and the female skeletons together suggesting a tender association cannot fail to remind us of an incident referred to in a previous volume of this work,Vol. i, 1 1 5, when St. Boniface expressed the wish that his bones might be laid in the same grave with those of his beloved kinswoman and fellow-worker, the saintly Saxon lady Lioba. This idea of the joining of bones in death has about it more than a touch of northern romance, and a thousand years "after the day of Boniface the poignant utterance of this same desire is the climax of the tragedy of ' Wuthering Heights.' Here are some reflections which offered themselves to the antiquary Charles Roach Smith on the opening of a grave at Ozengell in the Isle of Thanet, Kent. ' In another grave, of unusual width, were three skeletons ; two were of adults, a male and a female, the third a child. The former lay close together ; their faces had been inclined towards each other ; and time, which in other instances had almost consumed the last vestiges of the human fabric, had dealt more leniently with the inmates of this family tomb, and had brought the skulls of husband and wife (for such we may consider their relationship to have been) into close contact, face to face, separated only by the spear head of the man. Beads of amber surrounded the necks of the female and child, and the dress of the former appeared to have been fastened in front by a long metal pin. By the side of the skeleton of the child was also a small knife.' Two adults and a child were found to- gether in a single grave at the recent opening of a Jutish burying place at Broadstairs in Kent, and many similar instances might be quoted. 1 There are not a few cases where 1 A case at Chessell Down, Isle of Wight, was noticed (p. 747). THE FUNERAL FEAST 191 an infant seems to have been buried with its mother. This was the case for example in grave 205 at Kingston, Kent, which produced the famous Kingston brooch represented on the Frontispiece to this volume. The tomb measured 10 ft. by 8 ft. and was 6 ft. deep. The funeral feast is a social custom attested by numerous discoveries in cemeteries in all parts of Teutonized England. The bones of animals commonly utilized for food frequently occur and are sometimes found heaped together in those pits and ditches already referred to (p. 136) as somewhat enigma- tical features in the cemeteries. Collections of these bones may be seen in the Museum of the Burton-on-Trent Archaeological Society, in the Reading Museum, and elsewhere. The sacri- ficial feasts of the Anglo-Saxons with which such funeral feasts would have much in common are referred to in a well-known passage of Bede's Ecclesiastical History, 1 and also in the writings of St. Boniface. In his sixth discourse the latter says ' omnia autem sacrificia et auguria paganorum sacrilegia sunt, quemadmodum sunt sacrificia mortuorum super defuncta corpora, vel super sepulchra illorum,' and a letter from Pope Zacharias quotes him as saying ' tauros et hircos diis paganorum immolabant, manducantes sacrificia mortuorum.' 2 1 1, 3- 2 Migne, Patrolog. Curs. Compl. Ser. Lat., lxxxix, pp. 855, 944. CHAPTER IV TOMB FURNITURE : (I) ARMS The reader who has access to the Associated Societies' Reports would do well to peruse the account given of the exploration in 1863 of the Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Kempston on the Ouse a mile or two above Bedford. 1 The Rev. S. Edward Fitch, M.D., describes how in the spring of that year workers in the Kempston gravel pit laid bare, only two feet below the surface and resting on the upper stratum of gravel, a human skeleton, and how from that time through the summer he superintended the opening of grave after grave wherein the bodies of Anglo-Saxons, or the burnt bones of these, had been laid to rest with their funeral furniture about them. It is a model report, because the writer, observing and recording in a scientific spirit, was not so severely archaeological as to repress those reflections which occurred to him as a man of thought and feeling when in contact with these buried relics of the first Teutonic inhabitants of the place. This Kempston Report will accordingly assist the reader to form an idea of the impression produced on those to whom for the first time the earth of their own fields has revealed these long-kept secrets of the oldest local history. The interest here is of a human and historical kind. We will now go on to interrogate the cemeteries with a purpose more dis- tinctly antiquarian. One cemetery may be selected as typical. The one chosen is that of Bifrons near Canterbury, specially remarkable for the number of different types of fibulae found 1 Associated Societies'' Reports, 1864, p. 269 f. 192 BIFRONS CEMETERY 193 in it as well as for the variety of its yieldings as a whole. It is one of a class of cemeteries well represented in that region, and lies on a slope above a Kentish stream, in absolutely rural surroundings where gentle and simple seem to have lived together generation after generation in those pleasant relations which we are fond of regarding as characteristically English. Necessary details about the site will be given in the following Volume, and notes on the orientation of the graves and on the evidence for the use of coffins in the burials have been brought before the reader (pp. 168, 150), so that we proceed at once to the inventory, taking as explained above first the arms of the warrior ; next the ornaments which are mostly though of course not exclusively feminine ; then the miscel- laneous finds ; and lastly the vessels. It will be understood that the objects actually found at Bifrons are not only described in themselves but in most cases made the starting point of a more extended survey, embracing other specimens of the same class not represented in this particular locality, so that by following this system something like a complete inventory of the impedimenta of Anglo-Saxon life will it is hoped be secured. In the matter of arms for example Bifrons is not particularly rich, and these will be largely illustrated from other sources. On this one site however there were found six or seven swords, fourteen shield bosses, and forty- six spear heads, together with one or two abnormal pieces. THE COAT OF MAIL AND THE HELMET No Anglo-Saxon warrior has yet been found equipped with so complete a panoply as that of the Alamannic champion whose grave was disinterred at Gammertingen in southern Germany on December 15, 1902, 1 nor so rich a one as was found in 1886 at Vermand in northern France in the grave 1 Grobbels, Der Reibengraberfund von Gammertingen, Miinchen, 1905. Ill N 194 THE COAT OF MAIL of a Germanic chieftain in the service of Rome. 1 The former possessed a shirt of mail and a noble helmet as well as the almost universal shield, and for weapons of offence a broad- sword, a cutlass, a battleaxe, a spear, and a quiver full of arrows. The weapons of the latter, so far as they had been spared by earlier riflers of the tomb, were sumptuously adorned with gilding and niello work. The coat of mail is of the most extreme rarity in Germanic cemeteries of this period and in our own country there is hardly a trace of it except in the Derbyshire tumulus at Benty Grange, where some iron chainwork was found which the explorer suggested might have been * sewn up within or upon a doublet of strong cloth ' so as to form a sort of quilted cuirass. 2 In view of the part which the coat of mail or * byrnie ' plays in the heroic literature of the period, as in Beowulf^ the absence of it from the tomb inventories is remarkable, but it must be remarked that among the armed figures in the representations on the * Franks Casket ' in the British Museum (p. 205 note 1) some are shown with coats of mail, PL lxxxi, 7 (p. 377). It must be remembered also that the heroic poems as we have them are later than the finds, and the Germanic warrior of the early migration period pre- ferred to have his limbs free, caring more for weapons of offence than for protective ones. The Benty Grange inter- ment is late (p. 772). Coats of mail were worn by the Roman soldiers who may have borrowed the equipment from the East, but Dr. Grobbels thinks the Gammertingen mail German work. 3 Much the same may be said about the helmet. It is extremely rare in Germanic finds, less than a dozen examples 1 Now in the Pierpont Morgan Collection, New York. Seymour de Ricci, Catalogue of a Collection of Merovingian Antiquities belonging to J. Tierpont Morgan, Paris, 19 10. Plates x and xi. 2 Bateman, Ten Tears' Diggings, 1861, p. 32. 3 Grobbels, p. 35. HELMET AND SHIELDS 2, J, are Continental pieces THE HELMET 195 being known, 1 and is generally of a conical shape perhaps adopted from oriental sources ; it is constructed in a system of framework and filling that we shall see illustrated in a remark- able shield boss found at Farthingdown, Surrey, PI. xxni, 3. The one helmet found in England is of this character but is in some respects unique. It was found in the Benty Grange tumulus just referred to and is now in the Museum at Sheffield, PI. xxi, 1. It is composed of a framework of iron bands, which is all that is seen in the photograph, and Mr. Bateman says ' from the impression on the metal it is evident that the outside was covered with plates of horn disposed diagonally so as to produce a herring-bone pattern,' 2 whence we can gather that it looked like a Roman * Schuppenpanzer ' or ' lorica squamata ' that was coated with protective scales. Now Ammianus Marcellinus 3 tells his readers that the Quadi wore breastplates made of horn scraped and polished affixed to doublets of linen, so that the scales of horn were like a bird's feathers, and Sarmatian horsemen appear to be equipped in this fashion on the Trajan Column. The Benty Grange helmet is an Anglo-Saxon example of this technique. It has another very interesting peculiarity that the figure of an animal, evidently a boar, wrought in iron and standing on a plate of bronze is affixed to the summit in the form of a crest. Charles Roach Smith in a notice of the Benty Grange find 4 quotes some apposite passages from northern heroic literature in which the boar figures as a charm upon a helmet. For example, when Beowulf arms for the raid upon the mother of Grendel he dons a casque which a weapon smith had ' set round with boar figures so that never might brand nor war-blades make any impression upon it.' 5 1 Grobbels, pp. 7-33. The most recent find was made in Belgium and is described by Baron de Loe, D'ecouverte (Tun Casque dans une tombe franque a Trivieres, Trovince de Hainault, Brussels, 19 10. 2 Ten Years' Diggings, p. 30. 3 Hist Rom., xvn, xii. 2. 4 Coll Ant., 11, 238 f. 6 The Deeds of Beowulj, by John Earle, Oxford, 1892, p. 47, line 1453. 196 THE SHIELD But the Benty Grange helmet bears another device. On the front of it over the forehead, on the extreme left in the photograph, is a silver cross, and the form of this is given in the inset drawing above. Now on one of the few Germanic helmets preserved on the Continent, that in the Library at Grenoble found at Vezeronce near Vienne on the Rhone and supposed to have been lost at the battle there between the Franks and Burgundians in 524, there occurs in the same position and also elsewhere in the ornamentation a cross that is recognized as being a charm or apotropaion. 1 Hence it is clear that the wearer of the Benty Grange helmet, which may be dated to VII, was making the best of the two religions available at the time and uniting a pagan with the Christian prophylactic. On a leathern drinking cup found in the same tumulus there were also two silver crosses. On Leckhampton Hill, near Cheltenham, there were found on the skull of a skeleton the remains of what may have been the framework of a similar headpiece. 2 These two discoveries seem to exhaust the subject of the Anglo-Saxon helmet. THE SHIELD The only weapon of defence represented at Bifrons, and as a rule in Anglo-Saxon cemeteries as a whole, is the shield. The shield was apparently very commonly borne by the Germanic man-at-arms. The Franks who descended into Italy in 539 a.d., 100,000 strong, had each a shield, 3 and so had their Alamannic allies who fought with them against Narses at Capua. 4 That these might be of a rough and ready order is shown by the fact that, when Theodoric was leading his Ostrogoths on the eventful march into Italy in 488, his soldiers could only oppose shields of wicker work to the lance thrusts of enemies who met them on the way. 5 Hence it is 1 Grobbels, p. 15. 2 Coll. Ant., 11, 238. 3 Dr. Thomas Hodgkin, Italy andber Invaders, Oxford, 1 895, etc., iv, 309. 4 ibid., v. 40. 5 ibid., m, 187. fct. c W - Q Z < as p z < go PQ FORM AND SIZE OF SHIELDS 197 possible that the rank and file of the Anglo-Saxons were always supplied with shields, but when these were wholly of perishable materials they may have decayed away. In the cemeteries with which we are concerned the presence of the shield is only attested by the metal mounts, which have sur- vived while the wooden orb of the buckler has passed out of existence. These mounts may have belonged only to the shields of the well-to-do, but in any case they are fairly numerous and occur at Bifrons as in every other large cemetery. These surviving parts of the shield present practically the same shapes all over the Anglo-Saxon area, but there are some significant differences of detail in the forms that are of chrono- logical import. The Anglo-Saxon shield appears to have been an orb of light wood, generally circular, though in the cemetery at Bifrons and also at Long Wittenham, Berks, 1 traces showed that there it was oblong or oval, 2 varying in diameter from about 18 3 to 30 4 in., by a thickness of as little as J- in. 6 to f in. 6 The shield was held not by passing the arm through loops but in one hand, and for this purpose a round hole, about 2^ or 4 in. across, is cut in the centre of the orb and crossed by a bar that was grasped by the fingers of the left hand. In two cases, at Brighton Museum and in an umbo found at Brighthampton, Oxon, 7 a portion of the skeleton of the hand still adhered to the rusted iron of the handle. For the protection of the hand the aperture in the shield orb is covered with a hollow boss of iron projecting some 3^- in. to 6 in. and called generally by its Latin name ' umbo.' This umbo 1 Archaeologia, xxxvin, 136. 2 As also at Reichenhall in Bavaria, Rekbenball, p. 81. 3 At Chessell Down, Isle of Wight, Hants, and Sarre, Kent. 4 At Ringmer above Lewes, Sussex, and Folkestone, Kent. 5 Marston St. Lawrence, Arcbaeologia, xlviii, 334; Kempston, Coll. Ant., vi, 205. 6 Inventorium Sepulchrale, pp. 5, 10, 116, also Brighton Museum. 7 Arcbaeologia, xxxvn, 391. 198 THE UMBO was attached to the woodwork by means of rivets run through holes in a horizontal rim like the brim of a hat at its base, and similar rivets fastened the handle bar, which was extended sometimes on each side so as to obtain a firm grip of the wood. An extended handle of the kind is shown PJ. xxu, i, and one at Colchester that crossed the hollow of the umbo and branched out on to the wood beyond its rim on the same Plate, No. 3. Other rivets were occasionally disposed round the outer margin of the orb, as at Folkestone, Kent. These rivets are often preserved and may, as in the case just mentioned, give the size of the orb, while by measuring the length of their shank an estimate can be made of the thickness of the wood of the shield. This is often curiously thin, but not so thin in this country as in the case of the numerous shields from the finds of about IV in the moors of Schleswig, preserved now in the Museum at Kiel. The boards of these Thorsberg and Nydam shields vary in thickness from about \ in. to ^ in., 1 and they are not in any effective way braced or strengthened by metal. They have evidently seen service as may be judged by the dints in the umbos and the holes in the woodwork, but what protection they can have afforded against a severe blow or thrust it is difficult to see. A restored example of a Thorsberg shield in the Museum at Copenhagen is given PI. xxi, 2, and conveys an idea of the general aspect of an Anglo-Saxon piece of the kind. The umbo is here of a plain hemispherical form that Dr. Salin rightly notes is derived from the usual Roman type, but the Germanic umbos proper are of more elaborate and vary- ing shapes. The most common shape, found in all parts of the country, is called c mammiform ' from a certain resemblance to the female breast. 2 From the inner edge of the horizontal rim there rises an erect cylindrical piece that is sometimes worked 1 Engelhardt, Denmark in the Early Iron Age, Lond., 1866, p. 48, and Thorsberg, pi. 8. 2 Fourteen examples were found at Bifrons. XXIII tacing p. 199 UMBOS 5, 6, are Continental ; y, British FORMS OF THE UMBO 199 into a concave profile. This carries a hemispherical cover, varying in section but most often rather depressed, that commonly rises in the centre to a narrow stem surmounted by a flat button of the shape of the rivet heads already mentioned. This flat button and the rivet heads are sometimes plated with silver, as at Folkestone and other places in Kent, and there are two instances, from Cottesmore, Rutland, and Barton Seagrave, Northants, where the button is worked with ornament in relief and gilded. This sort of ornamentation is most common abroad on the shield bosses of the Lombards. An example from the Rhineland at Mainz is given No. 3 on PI. xxi. The specimens from Stowting and from Buttsole, Kent, PI. xxii, 4 and 2 (c) show two varieties of the type. No. 4 has been pierced by two formidable lance thrusts. The other examples in PI. xxii, No. 2 show different forms of which the centre one, (b), introduces us to a distinct variety. Here the form is conical and ends above with a point. Umbos of this kind are not very common and appear less often on the Continent than in this country. They have been found here in Kent (Sibertswold, now at Liverpool), Surrey (Farthing- down, in Ashmolean), Essex (Colchester, in Museum), Beds (Kempston, in British Museum), Wilts (Rodmead Down, at Devizes), Derbyshire (Tissington, in British Museum) and other places. One of the best examples was found at Sitting- bourne, Kent, and is now in the Museum at Dover. It is *l\ in. high by an external diameter of 4J in., PI. xxin, 1. The horizontal rim, as is the case with other examples, is com- paratively narrow. These pointed terminations suggest the inquiry whether the umbo of such a shield can have been used at close quarters as a weapon of offence. That this is possible can be inferred from a passage in Tacitus, Agricola, xxxvi, where the expression i ferire umbonibus ' is used of Batavian auxiliaries in hand-to-hand battle against the Britons or rather Caledonians. It is a curious fact that umbos with long spikes inserted into their summits have been found on the Late- Celtic 200 , THE UMBO site of Hunsbury and are now in the Northampton Museum. These evidently have a warlike purpose, see PL xxin, 7, but with regard to the Saxon examples, if it had been found that use could be made of them for fighting one cannot understand why the overwhelming majority of Anglo-Saxon shield bosses should have been furnished with a button that made any such employment impossible. The chronological point connected with the umbos is the following. Nearly all the mammiform umbos found in this country are dome-shaped with a convex outline, but on the Continent there is represented an earlier form of which the upward curve of the dome is a concave one. It is a Late- Celtic form that Professor Bela Posta notes x was diffused later on over northern and western Europe, and typical examples are the gilded umbo found in the chieftain's tomb at Vermand and dating from before 400 a.d., 2 and that from Herpaly at Budapest, figured later on, PI. lii'i, 10 (p. 305). This same form is constantly represented in the cemeteries in the region of the Lower Elbe that are an archaeological generation earlier than those in our own country. Two at Liineburg, from the cemeteries of Nienbiittel and Boltersen, are shown PI. xxin, 5, 6. The derivation from that region of some of the forms met with in English cemeteries of the first period of the Teutonic occupation is a fundamental fact in Anglo-Saxon archaeology to which reference will often have to be made. It so happens that in one particular British region, the valley of the Thames in its upper part, umbos of this abnormal form are met with, see for example the specimen PI. xxin, 4, from Fairford, Gloucestershire. This agrees with other indications of a very early Teutonic colonization of this region which will be dealt with in a later chapter. The technique of the umbos must not be passed over 1 Arckeologische Studien auf Russiscbem Bodert, Budapest, 1905, 1, 29. 2 de Ricci, Catalogue, I.e. ANGLO-SAXON SMITHING 201 without a word. They are very good examples of the Anglo-Saxon weapon smith's craft. He was a personage of some consequence for his weregild was a high one, and he knew how to secure good material and to manipulate it in effective fashion. It must be remembered that he did not dispose of the rolled iron or mild steel plates prepared in modern times by machinery, but had to hammer everything out or up from the lump. The process was all to the advantage of the work for it rendered the metal far more compact and tough, and explains what J. Y. Akerman observed at Frilford, Berks, when a workman's pick was driven right through an umbo without breaking it up. 1 Save in one remarkable case presently to be considered these umbos are all in one piece and the forging of them was an affair of judgement and skill. A broken umbo in the Grange Wood Museum near Croydon, PI. xxm, 2, will illustrate the technique. The thickness of the metal varies in the Croydon piece from ^ in. at the top to -j^ in. below, and this shows that it was beaten from the centre downwards. The blows of the hammer drive the metal before them and thicken it, while it is thinned where the strokes actually fall. The craftsman starting with a flat lump of iron of roughly circular shape and of the thickness his ex- perience had shown necessary would beat it over the rounded head of a slender stake till he had forced the central part up into a knob. Heating this up again and again he would strike into the knob from the side with the rounded edge of a suit- able hammer till he had worked it into a narrow stem with a lump at the top that would form the terminal stud or button. Transferring the piece then to a rounded block of broader mass he would commence to beat the iron out from the centre towards the circumference thinning and shaping it in obedience to his will, and securing the exact profile desired, with a suit- able horizontal rim the outer circumference of which would be trimmed with the chisel. The result would be a hollow dome 1 Proc. Soc. Ant. y 2nd Ser., m, 136. 202 THE UMBO carrying at the apex a solid stem crowned by the button, no welding or other join being required. The exceptional umbo referred to above is constructed in quite a different fashion. It was found with a similar piece at Farthingdown, Surrey, and is now in the Ashmolean at Oxford, PI. xxiii, 3. Here the form is the conical one already illustrated but the piece is put together with a framework and filling after the pattern of the conical helmets. There are six ribs fashioned with the section of T iron, and the plates are carefully fitted in between these with strengthening pieces cunningly adapted. 1 On the question of the external finish of the shield we have practically no information. From the fact that in the Laws of iEthelstan the shieldwright who used inferior leather was to be fined we may infer that a covering of hide was usual, but this covering if it existed seems to have left no trace in the graves. Whether colour or painted devices diversified the surface, as was common in classical and also in mediaeval times, we can only conjecture. Certain small flat appliques have been found from time to time in the graves which are supposed to have been attached to the face of the shield, and these must not be passed over. The most in- teresting are some sketchy representations of the form of a fish of which examples have been found at Kempston, Beds ; Warren Hill, Suffolk, and other places ; and these there is little doubt were Christian symbols applied to the shield like the cross on the Benty Grange helmet with prophylactic intent. PL xxiv, 1, shows the Suffolk example in the collection of Mr. Samuel Fenton in London. No. 4 on the same Plate is an interesting object in the Museum at Canter- bury, 2 consisting in an applique in gilded bronze with three rivets at the back not pierced with holes, by means of which 1 Surrey Archaeological Collections, vi, 108. 2 J. Brent, Antiquities in the Museum, Canterbury, Canterbury, 1875, p. 46, no. 355. fa o fa & fa fa < APPLIQUES 203 it can have been fixed on to some surface, the rivets being beaten out at the back when the piece was in position. This surface need not of course have been that of a shield. The form and ornamentation of the applique are worth a moment's attention. The former is derived from the fibulae in the shape of birds with curved beak which originally Gothic were much in favour with the Franks in V and VI. Here the curved beak though much conventionalized is clearly in evidence curling round the hole in the top of the piece. Below the beak and between it and the body, which is separated from the head by a band like a ruff round the neck, there is introduced a very characteristic bit of conventionalized animal ornament, which from the beginning of VI becomes extremely common in Teutonic tomb furniture. It is best seen when turned flat with the beak to the spectator's right. Nearest the beak appears the eye of the creature with the brow curving round it, and the rest of the dismembered animal consists only in two legs, a larger one the joint of which forms the sharp projection below to the left while the claws of the foot terminate the limb underneath in the direction of the beak. A smaller leg and claw find room above, under and to the left of the eye. This subject of conventionalized animal ornament will of course be fully treated in the sequel, see Chapter vi (p. 325 f.). In connection with appliques a notice may be introduced here of a unique set of objects of the kind preserved in the Maidstone Museum. They were found at Buttsole a little inland from Eastry in Kent, on the Roman road from Rich- borough to Dover. An inlet of the sea ran in old time nearly to Eastry, and the place was a very natural one for a settlement. The character of this find is so uncommon that the suggestion has been made that a small body of people of a different stock from the general population of the region had fixed their habitation on the spot, and that this would account for the peculiar character of these objects and of others afterwards 204 THE SWORD to be noticed from the same find. They are discussed by- Mr. George Payne in the Proceedings of the Society of Anti- quaries, Vol. xv, p. 178 f., though he indicates erroneously their provenance as Dover. 1 He considers the appliques, which are without a parallel in Kentish graves, as ornaments of a belt or of horse trappings. They have at the back tangs for fixing them that are in some cases pierced, while in others they are evidently meant to be beaten out rivet-fashion when in place. PI. xxiv, 5 shows, enlaj^ged twice linear, the back of one of the pieces with the rivets and their ' washers.' The surface to which they were fixed must have been | in. thick. The fish form it will be seen is represented, see No. 3, slightly enlarged, also the equal armed cross, No. 5, and the bird with hooked beak. An ornament made up of two such birds with bodies joined, in the corner close to the number ' 3,' has parallels abroad and also occasionally at home, PI. xlviii, 7. The objects are beautifully made in cast bronze, chased, and parcel gilt. The largest piece in the centre and that above it to the left have a zoomorphic aspect. No. 6 is an enlarged view of a stud with a perforated tongue at the back, after the fashion of some of the Buttsole appliques. It will be noticed later on in connection with the subject of the buckle (p. 359). THE SWORD Of arms of offence the most important though by no means the most common was the sword, and the weapon possesses a dignity as well as an archaeological interest that justifies an extended treatment. On the position of the sword in early times Kemble remarks 2 that it is the alter ego of the man, his most trusty and constant companion. ' His arrow he shoots 1 Mr. Hubert Elgar, of the Kent Archaeological Society's Museum at Maidstone, has recently discovered documents which show that Buttsole was as a fact the locality of the find. See postea (p. 708). 2 Horae Ferales, Lond. 1863, 47. AN ARISTOCRATIC WEAPON 205 away ; spears and javelins are only useful at a distance, but on his sword he can rely in hand to hand conflict, face to face with his enemy : his sword is with him always ; in life and in death it is the sacred emblem of his freedom and his dignity, and therefore as the sword is so are the people and the age.' The last phrase may convey the false impression that the sword is the common arm of the fighting men of a nation. This is however not the case. It is as a rule an aristocratic weapon the appanage of the few, 1 and this partly explains the romantic associations that have gathered round it. The democratic weapon is the spear, and the old phrase, that occurs in King Alfred's Will, 'the spear half and the spindle half,' may be quoted in illustration. In the modern army the sword dis- tinguishes the officer, and the bayonet, the representative of the older spear, is the weapon of close fighting for the rank and file. So apparently it has been among most military peoples, the Romans forming an exception. In the German Heldenbuch it is noted that * as old writings say, the sword should no man bear save he be noble or noble's child,' and the name of the chief for whom the blade is forged may be inscribed upon it, as on the hilt of the sword that Beowulf 1 In the interesting series of representations on the so-called ' Franks Casket' in the British Museum, almost certainly a Northumbrian work of VII, an attacking force, that of the Romans upon Jerusalem, embraces five men whose arms are shown, and of these the two foremost carry swords the other three only spears. Among the assailants of the House of Egil who it may be remarked is defending himself with a bow and arrows of five men with arms of offence four carry swords and only one a spear alone. Three hold round shields of the pattern already discussed, and two (with one in the Jerusalem scene) wear coats of mail. In the Romulus and Remus scene there are four armed figures and they all carry spears only. This important object though falling within the present limits of date is, with its figures, runic inscriptions, and animal and other ornament, so much more significant in connection with the carved stones than with the tomb furniture that, like the Ormside Bowl, it can be treated more suitably in a future volume. Some of the figures in question are however shown later on, PI. lxxxi (p. 371). 206 THE SWORD finds in the abode of Grendel beneath the mere. 1 The sword itself is individualized and bears its name like the war horse. Siegfrid's ' Balmung,' Beowulf's c Nasgling,' Arthur's ' Ex- calibur,' are as well known as Gran or Bucephalus. It claims a sort of personal distinction, and for the making of it the finest craftsmanship, for the adornment of it the most elaborate enrichment, have been demanded. One knows how in northern fable the swordsmith becomes a personage of superhuman gifts, and in civilized days Professor Hampel has remarked 2 c to produce really good sword-blades there is needed not only excellent material, but also a traditional practice of established repute bound to the locality and carried on through many generations/ Hence the manufacture of swords has connected itself with special localities and families, and ( it is an interesting fact that the peculiar skill of the swordsmith is in England so far hereditary that it can be traced back in the same families for several generations.' 3 The hilt of the sword Beowulf finds is banded and inlaid with purest gold and wrought with lacertine ornament. Of Excalibur ' the pommel and haft were all of precious stones.' Literature has in every age exalted the sword and flung round it the halo of romance. Othello's words thrill with emotion when he holds up to view his sheathed blade, 1 1 have a weapon . . . It is a sword of Spain, the ice-brook's temper . . . A better never did itself sustain Upon a soldier's thigh.' In these considerations an explanation has been sought for 1 Earle's Beowulf, p. 55, line 1695. 'On the mounting of sheer gold there was with rune-staves rightly inscribed, set down and said, for whom that sword had erst been wrought.' It is worthy of remark that on a sword pommel from Gilton in the Museum of Liverpool there is an inscription in (illegible) runes that may conceivably give the name of the possessor. See Akerman's Pagan Saxondom, pi. xxiv. 2 A It ert biimer in Vngarn, 1, 210. 3 Enc. Brit, nth Ed., xxvi, 272, art. ' Sword.' STATISTICS OF SWORDS 207 the fact that while some splendid sword hilts and scabbard mounts like those found in the tomb of Childeric, 1 at Pouan, 2 or at Flonheim, 8 have come to light in Teutonic graves, the total number of swords excavated in proportion to other weapons is very small. When Lindenschmit wrote his Handbuch in the '8o's of the last century he could say that at any rate in Germany nearly every man's grave contained a spear head, whereas, except along the middle Rhine, where swords are more numerous, the aristocratic weapon was rarely met with. 4 It has been calculated that in the graveyards of the Ripuarian Franks on the middle Rhine, dating from the middle of VI, from 8 to 10 per cent, of the tombs have furnished swords, but only two long swords are mentioned by the explorer of the large Bavarian cemetery at Reichenhall further to the east, and Hampel only reckons three as belonging to the Germanic section of the graves he has explored in Hungary. 5 In Italy the recently excavated Lombard cemetery at Castel Trosino near the Adriatic coast furnished eight sword blades from about 358 tombs. Many hundreds of Burgundian graves at Charnay produced only 14 swords, while there were none at all in the graves of the same people at Bel-Air by Lausanne. In Normandy more than 1000 tombs opened by the Abbe Cochet yielded up half a dozen blades, and M. Pilloy writing quite recently 6 about Frankish cemeteries uses the expression ' les rares tombes ou Ton recueille une epee a deux tranchants.' At Oyer in the Marne district 2000 tombs only furnished three swords. 7 In England Faussett found only two in the 308 tumuli he opened on Kingston Down, though he secured five in the 106 graves at Gilton and six in the 181 at Sibertswold. Later 1 Now in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. 2 Now at Troyes. 3 In the Museum at Worms. 4 Altertbumer der Merovingischen Zeit, pp. 163, 220. 5 Altertbumer in Ungarn, i, 187. 6 Etudes, m, 13. 7 de Baye, Industrie Longobarde, Paris, 1 888, p. 12. 208 THE SWORD excavations at Sarre in Thanet showed that one grave in ten out of the 272 reported contained a sword, and at Bifrons six or seven were the outcome of the exploration of some 150 graves. At Long Wittenham, Berks, and Little Wilbraham in Cambridgeshire, in each case in from 180 to 190 graves, two and four swords were found ; there were two at Kempston, Beds, and three in the 77 graves opened at Mitcham, Surrey. On the other hand no swords at all were found in the important cemeteries of Harnham Hill, Wilts ; Frilford, Berks ; Sleaford, Lincolnshire ; and Marston St. L., Northants. The proportion of swords to interments is gener- ally held to be greatest at Sarre, one in ten, and Brighthampton, Oxon, with four swords in less than 60 graves, has come second, but the recent excavation of a presumably Jutish cemetery at Droxford, Hants, produced six swords from graves which though pronounced ' numerous ' cannot have made up a very large graveyard. It is remarkable that this cemetery was a poor one in its tomb furniture generally, and this is contrary to the view which makes the wearer of the sword always a man of substance, and which is supported by the case of Derbyshire, where though three swords only have been found they were all associated with objects denoting an owner of rank. 1 In the recently excavated cemetery at Alfriston, Sussex, swords were comparatively numerous, six having come from the 115 graves first excavated. This cemetery was a decidedly rich one, as the chapter on fibulae will show. If the sword were the weapon of the eorl this would account for its comparative rarity, but it has been also suggested 2 that these arms were excluded from grave deposits because they were heirlooms handed down from father to son. In Beowulf 1 Victoria County History, Derbyshire, 1, 268. 2 By Charles Roach Smith in Inventorium Sepulchrale, p. xxxvi, and more recently by Professor Hampel, Alterthi'imer in Ungarn, 1, 186. XXV facing p. 209 ANGLO-SAXON AND OTHER SWORDS xxy 6, 7> o-fe Continental specimens 5 8 is Roman j 10, Piking PRESTIGE OF THE SWORD 209 the chiefs 1 ancestral swords are mentioned, 1 and his own sword he describes as l the ancient heirloom,' 2 while the weapon with the wondrous hilt that he finds in Grendel's lair was an antique trophy. 3 We may remember also the numerous bequests of swords in the wills of later Anglo-Saxon times printed by Thorpe in his Diplomatorium, and the place that the sword holds in the lists of Heriots in early Teutonic legis- lation. It must not at the same time be forgotten that such documents are of much later date than the pagan sepulchres, though the parts of Beowulf cited may seem to carry us back to the older heroic age. The principle of reserving the heir- loom if it were really an old-established one might be expected to result in the almost total exclusion of swords from grave inventories, whereas as a matter of fact their rarity is by no means so great. Again if the sword of the chief were reserved as something too precious to be surrendered to the tomb, 4 a feeling of a like kind might well have operated to save the costly jewels of his lady, which were however, like the Kingston brooch, duly consigned to the darkness. Another way of accounting for the scarcity of the sword is to suppose it the weapon exclusively of the mounted warrior, 5 and it has been said that it was too heavy to be used by a man on foot. But the Gauls who fought the Romans with still longer and heavier arms were infantry soldiers. The discovery in a number of instances of spear heads in the same grave with swords pre- cludes the supposition just noticed, for the spear which was not a long lance, see below, is pre-eminently the footman's weapon. The weapon under consideration, as found in Anglo-Saxon 1 ' There did many an eorl of Beowulf's unsheath his old heirloom,' Earle's Beotvulf, p. 26, line 800. 2 ibid., p. 48, line 1490. 3 ibid., p. 51, line 1558. * Professor Ham pel says, I.e., 'wenn es besonders werthvoll war, legte man es nicht ins Grab.' 5 See Lorange, Den Yngre Jernaldcrs $v p. 10 1. THE BRIGHTHAMPTON SWORD 223 then bronze ones cast pretty solid and plain and employed purely as things of use ; and later on ornamental objects made in the same similitude but used only for show and in connec- tion with elaborate arrangements of which there is no hint in the simpler specimens. It is quite clear that we have here a progress in time from the simpler to the more complicated and not the reverse. The most advanced specimens we have been considering both in our own country and in Scandinavia must be of VII, the simplest ones, like the specimen from the Thames-side grave at Shepperton PI. xxvi, 2, and the Lewes and Bowcombe Down bronze pommels, might belong to the end of V or beginning of VI. A VI date would suit an im- portant example of intermediate form, the famous sword from Brighthampton, Oxon, in the Ashmolean Museum, PL xxvn, 5 to 8. It has always passed for very early on the ground of its ornamentation, but there was found with it, apparently as part of the fittings of the scabbard, 1 a small cross of silver of distinctively Christian form. We have already seen the cross used with a prophylactic purpose on implements of war (p. 196), and it is quite possible that this sword may have been borne by a pagan Saxon chief who had obtained it in the Rhineland or Gaul where there were Christianized workmen (p. 1 16). This suggestion is made more plausible by the technique employed in some of the ornament which is practically unknown else- where in this country. On the other hand the sword may be of pagan Saxon fabrication and the cross may have been added from motives of superstition on account of its prophylactic qualities which had been reported from the Continent. This hypothesis is favoured by the fact that in its form the sword hilt falls into line with other Anglo-Saxon examples in our morphological series. This sword has a cocked hat pommel, PL xxvii, 6, hollow, with a hole in the top like the pommel 1 J. Y. Akerman in Archaeologia, xxxvm, 87. Akerman had no doubt that it belonged to the sword. His drawing of it is reproduced in the corner of 7, on PI. xxvii. 224 THE SWORD from Bowcombe Down PL xxvi, 8, 9, and with a rivet that is undoubtedly original passing through one of the holes at the ends of the base of it. It is very noteworthy however that the rivet has not been clinched as it would have been had it passed through a metal plate and been fixed in position by being beaten out at the end. On the contrary the point is preserved, and it is such a point as might be used to drive into wood. Hence we should probably be right in supposing that in the Brighthampton hilt the wooden grip ended above in a rounded cushion of the same material that was inserted into the hollow of the bronze cap and kept firm and prevented from twisting by the two nails. The iron strig no doubt originally passed up through the hole in the top of the bronze cap and was there clinched. It is true that there are no marks of it in the aperture nor traces of the rust which one would expect to find where it had once been, but such a conjecture seems forced upon one by the existence of the hole and the fact that in other examples such as PI. xxvi, 6, 7, the strig is actually seen in the position indicated, as well as by the apparent absence of any plate where the strig could have been fixed by clinching. How the remainder of the hilt was treated we cannot exactly tell, but there is no indication of plates or anything to form a guard at the lower part of the grip. This is shown No. 7 on PL xxvii, and we have to note that the ornamental transverse plate which is here seen has nothing to do with the sword itself but only with the scabbard, round the mouth of which it forms a band. No. 8 on PL xxvii shows the bottom of the scabbard which is bound with silver forming what is technically known as the * chape.' On the silver will be seen representations of animals apparently plated in gold within incised outlines, though this cannot be very clearly distinguished. The animal forms are well made out and with the S-shaped scrolls on the mouthpiece suggest a very early date, even in V, but the pommel, not to speak of the cross, can hardly be so early. Finally, PL xxvii, 5, shows a large bead that was found with SCRAMASAX, KNIFE, AND DAGGER 225 the hilt, and is supposed to have served as a sort of button to fasten the thong when looped round the wrist in order to prevent the loss of the weapon if the fingers for any reason relaxed their grip upon the hilt. To other beads or studs, some in the form of dainty jewels, that appear in the cemeteries a similar function has been assigned. THE SCRAMASAX, KNIFE, AND DAGGER It is now known that in the grave of Childeric there was contained not only the royal spatha but likewise a second and shorter sword that was also supplied with garnet inlaid mountings in the finest style of the craft. The shape of the mountings that enclosed the scabbard shows that this sword was a single-edged weapon thick at the back and about i|- inches in width. In the Pouan find at Troyes besides the large double-edged spatha there was also a similar single-edged blade 22 in. in length by a width of 1^ in. 1 These are early specimens of an arm that at a considerably later date became the most common and indeed almost the only weapon carried by the Franks or at any rate placed in their tombs. It was a specially Germanic product quite unlike anything Roman, and when at its best and largest it was a very heavy single-edged straight-bladed cutlass, broad, and thick at the back which curved forward at the top to meet the cutting edge at a point. Along the blade near the back there almost always ran two or three longitudinal grooves that are sometimes filled in with some differently coloured metal, and were perhaps always intended to be so treated. The old notion, founded on a passage in Gregory of Tours, that they were intended to hold poison is now quite given up. The name * scramasax ' is commonly applied to the arm on the strength of this passage in the Frankish historian, 2 part of which runs ' . . . pueri cum 1 Peign^-Delacourt, I.e., p. 4 and pi. 11. 2 Historia Francorum, iv, 52. Ill P 226 THE SCRAMASAX, ETC. cultris validis, quos vulgo scramasaxos vocant.' The fact that the term * culter,' ' knife,' is thus used as equivalent to scra- masax may give a key to its history. It began as a knife and later on was enlarged into a sword. The knife is found early and is the most common of all implements in Germanic graves both of men and women, being found also with children, and the knife is nearly always in form a small scramasax. The one indeed runs into the other through a series of intermediate sizes about some of which it is difficult to say whether they are knives or cutlasses. In his account of the exploration of the cemetery at Herpes in western France M. Delamain l says that the abundant knives were of all sizes, some were utensils, others poniard-like, while a third class were veritable scrama- saxes. The connection of knife and scramasax is also indicated by terminology. The meaning of the first part of the compound word is uncertain, but the last part is the familiar Anglo-Saxon 4 seax,' supposed to be associated in some way with the ethnic name ' Saxon.' This word occurs in Beowulf in connections which have suggested to Professor Earle the translation 1 knife ' and ' dirk,' to Benjamin Thorpe ' knife ' and * poniard.' It was worn by her side by Grendel's mother, line 1 545, and by Beowulf himself attached to his coat of mail, line 2703, but it was at the same time an effective weapon of war, strong and deadly though of manageable size. This might be regarded as a knife-scramasax, and the mediaeval dirk or dagger em- ployed at meals as well as in fight would give a good idea of its use though not of its form, for the dagger is essentially a two-edged pointed weapon meant for the thrust. The matter has been somewhat complicated by the endeavour of some writers to give a special name to a class of weapons very like the scramasax but a little more slender. This is called ' Langsax ' by the Germans, and ' coutelas ' by M. Pilloy, who insists that Childeric's weapon cannot be called a scramasax 1 Socite Archeologique et Historiquc de la Charente, Bulletin, 1890-91, p. 186. XXVIII facing p. 227 SCRAMAS^ 2, 6, 7, 19, 20, are about J natural size , KNIVES. ETC. ^^^^^^^^^* ^^^ IP^ar*- ^^^^^^331 aL _ < .^ ^JLT3^L^L B^r 4Br ^ XXVIII | 111 V " " I13I IB 3il Jl" jm3p^^ pi SreSggP -' ^^^^^^*^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^"^ rest about ^ natural size ; 20 is 31 in. long THE KNIFE 227 because this particular arm ' only makes its appearance towards the end of the 6th century.' * We have therefore to distin- guish four different species of the same genus. 1. The knife pure and simple which was perhaps called 1 seax ' by our forefathers and of which innumerable examples have come to light in graves apparently of all periods. The form of this is pretty constant. Its special characteristic is its straightness, in which it differs from the curved knives of the Bronze Age and of Romano-British times, specimens of which are shown PI. xxvin, 5 and 9. A tang is always present, and the length of blade and tang together ranges from some 3 in. upwards, while the blade varies considerably in width in rela- tion to the length. The handle was no doubt generally of wood 2 but some plates of bone have been found, as at Glen Parva, Leicestershire, which may have formed knife hilts. PI. xxvin gives a number of these knives from different cemeteries, and the lady of PL xn (p. 151) has a broad-bladed one by her side. It should be noted that in Kent several instances have been found in which a knife was contained in a small sheath attached to the scabbard of a sword. Thus at Sarre a scramasax 12 in. long was carried in the same sheath with a knife, and in two graves at Bifrons the same thing was observed. PL xxvin, 11 to 18 gives a selection of these knives from different localities. They vary in length from 3^- in. to 6 in. and as reproduced on the plate are approximately to \ scale. Nos. 16, 18 are from the cemetery at Bifrons and are about 5 in. long ; 14 and 17 are from Saffron Walden ; 13 and 15 from Saxby, Leicestershire, now at Derby; 12 a couple from Uncleby, Yorks ; 8 and 1 1 from a barrow near Welton, Staffordshire. The longest, No. 13, measures 6 in. 1 Etudes, in, 63. 2 Ornamented knife hilts on which in open work are figures of a dog pursuing a hare have more than once been found in our own country and abroad. They are in their origin Roman but seem to have been copied by the barbaric craftsman, see examples figured later on, PI. clv (p. 563). These are in bronre, but there is an example in bone in the Museum at Pe'ronne. 228 THE SCRAMASAX, ETC. 2. The knife which suggests service as a weapon. Some good examples are in the British Museum. The one shown PI. xxvin, 10 is 13 in. long, and has the broad scramasax blade with the characteristic grooves near the back that in this case are filled in with bronze, as is another in the Museum at Mainz. No. 10 was found in the City of London together with coins of JEthelred 11, 979-1016 a.d. The late date of the object is significant and agrees with the chronology of the fully developed weapon on the Continent. Another important point about the piece is its outline. It will be noticed that the back slopes off towards the point in a straight line, and this form is very common in our own country though exceedingly rare abroad, where a curved line is almost universal. This is one of many minor details in which the independence of the Saxon craftsman is proclaimed. The Kentish example at Maidstone, PL xxvm, 4, may be regarded as a small scra- masax for though it is only about 9 in. long the form and proportions are those of the latter and the blade is 1^ in. wide, while there are traces of the wooden sheath. The sheath of continental scramasaxes is very often more or less well preserved and is adorned along the back with a series of large studs. 3, 4. We have thirdly the complete scramasax, and in the fourth place the so-called ' Langsax,' or slender version of the scramasax, which is however so closely connected with it that the two must be taken together. The scramasax in its fully developed form as we find it in Frankish, Burgundian, and Alamannic graves is of very rare occurrence in England, though perhaps this may be due in part to the earlier cessation among ourselves of the practice of tomb furniture. In the form referred to it may attain the length of 2 ft. 6 in. by a breadth of blade of i\ in. and a thickness at the back of nearly J in. A weapon of the kind stoutly wielded would deliver a blow as weighty as that of an axe, with the advantage that it was convenient for parry and could THE SCRAMASAX 229 be used for a thrust, though as a matter of fact it has been noticed that the uncivilized swordsman seldom avails himself of the point. Scramasaxes of these dimensions, and others also where the size is much less, have often hilts of such a length that they must have been wielded with both hands. At a later date in the middle ages, at the famous battle of Bouvines in 12 14 a.d., a weapon of the kind was tremen- dously effective in the hands of the Emperor Otho, who we are told 1 brandished with both hands a sword with a single edge like a knife, and was striking down man and horse with a single blow. In our own country scramasaxes when they occur are as a rule comparatively small. One very fine scra- masax however of the continental size and shape was found at Kidlington, Oxfordshire, in 1892 with human remains, and is now in the Museum at Bristol. Its length is no less than 31 in., and the tang which, is 6^ in. long may be incomplete. The width where it is broadest is 2^ in., and the thickness at the back was at least -^ in. if not ^ in., and the weight of it is now just three pounds. This, which is shown PI. xxvni, 20, would be an exceptionally fine piece anywhere. Lindenschmit in his Handbuch gives the length of the full-sized scramasax at from 44 to 76 cm., equivalent roughly to 17^ in. to 30 in. At Reichenhall in Bavaria, where the arm was well represented, the dimensions varied between 18 in. and 30^- in., and M. Baudot reported of the Burgundian cemetery at Charnay that he found scramasaxes up to 70 cm. (28 in.) in length. The Bristol scra- masax is accordingly a possession of which we may be proud. Some long but very slender scramasaxes found in the Thames are in the national collection. These will be noticed sub- sequently in connection with the Danish period. The weapons have come to light sporadically in the south as at Ozengell, Gilton, Sarre, Sibertswold (20 in. long), Kent ; Chessell Down, Isle of Wight, Hants ; Long Wittenham and East ShefTord, Berks ; in East Anglia at Offton, Hoxne, and Little Bealings, 1 Roger of Wendover, ad ann. 1214, Rolls Series, No. 84/1. 230 THE SCRAMASAX, ETC. Suffolk x ; in London 2 ; in Wilts, from Purton, at Devizes, PI. xxvni, 19 ; etc., etc., but they are especially in evidence in Yorkshire where several have been found, as in barrows at Driffield, 3 and Uncleby, in York Museum, PI. xxvni, 7. The barrow burials in Yorkshire are of a late date though still within the period with which we are dealing. The London finds on the other hand belong for the most part to the Viking or Danish period subsequent to the practical refoundation of the City by Alfred the Great. The most important London scramasax is a long and slender one that was found in the Thames and bears incised upon it a document of the highest interest in the form of a runic alphabet. This piece with its inscription will be dealt with subsequently. The tangs of these English examples are for the most part comparatively short, but a notable example of the two-handed hilt was found near Snodland in Kent and is now in the Museum at Rochester, PI. xxvni, 2. The total length here is nearly 20 in., of which 8 in. go to the handle. It is curious however that the blade is of no great weight being only about 1 in. broad, and the arm could easily have been wielded with one hand. It may be regarded as a fancy piece forged by a Saxon smith in imitation of the effective two-handed swords known on the Continent. In its slenderness it may illustrate the variety already referred to under the German name ' Langsax.' This is represented by a somewhat exceptional find in the cemetery above Folkestone, PI. xxvni, 6. It is 15 in. long with a handle 4^- in. in length and a well-preserved simple pommel in the same piece with the tang. It is single-edged and the blade is about 1^ in. broad. A still more abnormal piece is shown PI. xxvni, 1. It is 10J in. long, and was found at Saffron Walden, Essex, where it is preserved. The scimitar- like shape is very remarkable, and as the cemetery contained 1 Victoria History, York, n, 92. 2 Catalogue of Guildhall Museum, 1908, p. 123, and Collectanea Antiqua, 11, 243. 3 Akerman, Pag. Sax., pi. ix. AXE HEADS, ANGLO-SAXON AND CONTINENTAL The scale applies approximately to all but 3, the length of which is 17 in. /, 2, g, 11, are Continental THE AXE 231 relics earlier than the Anglo-Saxon times it may not be Germanic, but it was included by the explorers in the Anglo- Saxon series. Another long-handled example comes from Purton, Wilts, and is shown PI. xxviii, 19. A possibly unique piece was found at Cookham by the Thames and is preserved at Reading, PI. xxviii, 3. It is a genuine two-edged dagger with central rib and a tang for a [hilt. The blade is 9 in. long, and as it was found with other undoubtedly Anglo-Saxon arms it belongs to our period though it would be hard to find its fellow. All other so-called daggers ' in our collections appear to be single-edged weapons of the scramasax type. THE AXE In the use of the scramasax we seem to obtain a differentia between the Frankish and the Saxon warrior and the same is true of the axe. A particular kind of axe suitable for employ- ment as a missile was as characteristic of the Frank at the early period of his invasion of Gaul as the scramasax became during his later history, and specimens of the former arm occur sporadically like examples of the latter in our island cemeteries. The Frankish axe was known by the name ' Francisca ' and a specimen occurred in the tomb of Childeric, PL xxix, n. 1 This is 7^ in. long from butt to edge and the cutting edge itself is 4 in. broad. The peculiarity of the head of the francisca is that when hafted the axial line along the middle of the blade from butt to edge is not at right angles to the haft, but runs down towards it at an angle, so that the head is tilted upwards. This setting of the head seems designed to facilitate the flight of the object when used as a missile, and it is evident that the Frankish weapon smith exercised considerable taste in working out the free and swinging curves he gave to the outline. PL xxix, 2, in the Museum at Rouen, 1 The reproductions on this plate are approximately to scale. 232 THE AXE is a good example and No. i shows one in the same collection with the wooden haft still partly preserved. No. 2 has a pronounced upward tilt. Axe heads of this type occur as has been said in this country, and are pretty evenly distributed through our different provinces though they are most common in Kent. This would seem to imply that they were imported, but on the other hand our examples present simpler forms than we find abroad and are quite possibly reproductions by our native smiths of the known continental type. PI. xxix, 4, 5, 6, 7, are English examples, from Saltburn-on-Sea, Yorks ; Col- chester, Essex ; Croydon, Surrey ; and Kent, in Maidstone Museum, respectively. No. 8 is an example of a type that occurs abroad and is well represented in the Museum at St. Germain ; it is on a minute scale, only 3 in. long, and is evidently a toy axe suitable for a boy. It is in the Museum at Aylesbury and is of local provenance. There is a similar toy axe head at Colchester. Nos. 3, and 12, are almost unica. The first is an axe with a long iron handle, 17 in. in length over all, and a split socket after the Anglo-Saxon fashion. It was found with two iron spear heads in a Roman villa at Alresford, and was presented by Dr. Laver to the Museum at Colchester. The Abbe Cochet mentions two examples of such iron handles attached to Frankish axes. 1 The other, No. 12, is a product of the cemetery at Bifrons, and is an iron axe head meant to be hafted after the fashion of a prehistoric socketed axe of the Bronze Age ; that is to say the handle is inserted in a socket that runs in the direction of the axis of the head. There is no doubt of the Anglo- Saxon origin of this curious piece, and a parallel to it is among the Layard finds at Ipswich. Nos. 9 and 10 introduce us to an altogether different shape of axe head and one that used to be called specially Anglo-Saxon, but, as No. 9 from the Museum at Rouen shows, it is also a continental form, and 1 Le Tombeau de Cbilderic, p. 1 27. XXX facing p. 233 AXE HEADS, AND PIN HEADS IN AXE FORM I, 4, 5, are Continental EXCEPTIONAL AXE HEADS 233 there are numerous examples at St. Germain, and in other Frankish collections. Here the cutting edge is very long, measuring in the specimen No. 10, from Aldworth, Berks, in the Reading Museum, more than 9 in. A specimen of similar form in the Hurbuck hoard from County Durham, in the British Museum, has the edge not less than 10 in. in length, but these arms belong to the later, or Danish, period. It is interesting to note that the form is also represented in those North German collections the importance of which in connection with our own archaeology is now fully recognized (Ch. x). One example of several in the Museum at Olden- burg is given PI. xxx, 1. A modification of this form with an extension at the back in the form of a sort of hammer, of which a beginning is seen in No. 9 on PI. xxix, is shown PI. xxx, 2 in a piece from the North Kent site of Horton Kirby. One or two axe heads of curious forms have been dredged out of the Thames and Kennet and are in the Museum at Reading, but the date of them is not fixed by any accom- panying finds. One of these, PI. xxx, 3, is worth illustrating because it agrees somewhat closely with one of the types noticed and figured by M. Delamain 1 from the cemetery at Herpes in western France and with specimens in the plates of M. Barriere-Flavy's work. 2 The form occurs also in Hungary. 3 The presumption is accordingly in favour of an Anglo-Saxon date. It is not of a Viking type, but might conceivably of course be mediaeval, though such a close accordance with a recognized continental type of the period is practically sufficient to settle the question, and we should thus have three distinct types of axe head to include in an Anglo-Saxon inventory, the francisca, or tilted-blade form, 1 Societe Archeologique, etc., dc la Charente, Bulletin, 1890-91, p. 185 and planche 1. 2 Les Arts Industriels, etc., pll. xvi, 1 ; xvn, 1 ; xix, 5. 3 e.g. Hampel, m, Taf. no. 234 THE SPEAR PI. xxix, 4, etc., the broad-bladed type PI. xxix, 10, and the drop-bladed type, if the name may be used, PI. xxx, 3. It is important to distinguish the earlier forms of the axe head, which have here been illustrated, from the axe head of the Danish or Viking period. No better example of this could be found than the fine iron axe head with inlaid silver and gilt ornaments found at Mammen near Viborg in Denmark and preserved in the Museum at Copenhagen. It is 7 in. long and has the projecting spurs on both sides of the opening for the handle characteristic of the Viking type, PI. xxx, 4. As a last illustration attention may be called to a group of pins for the hair, of the Frankish period, in the Museum at Namur, PI. xxx, 5, where (a) shows the pure * francisca ' form and (b) the form erroneously called ' Anglo-Saxon,' (d) unites the two forms in one, while in (c) we have an example of the Cross in a distinctively Chris- tian shape, with which may be compared the cross-headed pin from Breach Down, Kent, figured PL x, 5 (p. 11 5). (a) (b) (d) are ascribed to V and VI, (c) to VII. THE SPEAR The Spatha, the Scramasax, and the Axe we have seen to be comparatively rare weapons among the Anglo-Saxon warriors, but these seem to have been universally armed with the Spear. Spear heads are by far the commonest of all the weapons found in Germanic cemeteries and appear in all parts in varied forms and sizes, the differences in which seem to be without any distinct racial or local significance. The Abbe Cochet remarks * ' avec cette physionomie com- mune que presentent partout les armes de la grande famille teutonique, qu'on l'appelle franque, saxonne, burgonde, etc., il y a aussi partout tant de nuances dans les types et une telle variete dans les individus, qu'il serait vrai de dire, qu'a la rigueur, aucune arme ne ressemble parfaitement a l'autre.' 1 Le Tombeau de Cbi/deric, p. 140. SPEAR HEADS d The scales apply approximately 5 is Continental OPEN AND CLOSED SOCKETS 235 With very few exceptions the writer has only come across two of these the Anglo-Saxon spear heads, which are all of hammered iron, have the sockets open all the way up along one side. It is easy to see that when the weapon smith had fashioned the effective part of the head of solid iron he would beat out thin the portion destined for the socket and bring it round into a tube-like form. The two edges could then be made to overlap and be welded together so that a complete funnel-shaped cylinder was formed, or they might be merely brought together and made nearly to meet but not to overlap so that a narrow slit was still left open. The method of welding up the join so that a complete cylinder was formed was Roman, and it is universal also in the very numerous spear heads found in the Nydam moss in Schleswig. 1 Exact statistics as to the use of the two methods by all the peoples of the migration period are wanting, and vague state- ments are of no service in such a matter. Frankish spear heads however have split ferules 2 like ours, and Baron de Baye finds this also the case in Germany, though at Reichenhall in Bavaria most of the sockets were closed. 3 De Baye, who examined the finds from the Lombard cemetery at Testona near Turin reports closed sockets, 4 and the sockets shown by Hampel in the plates of his Alterthumer are closed. The writer's own continental notes on the subject are not suffici- ently full to be of much value. PI. xxxn, 2, 3, illustrate the two methods in lance heads found at Saxby, Leicestershire. No. 4, found at Brighton and in the Museum there, is the only other English closed socket the writer knows from an undoubted Anglo-Saxon grave. Agreeing in this technical peculiarity of the split socket, the Anglo-Saxon spear heads show the most remarkable differences in size and shape, and 1 Engelhardt, 'Denmark in the Early Iron Age, pll. x, xi. 2 Pilloy, Etudes, 1, 232; Boulanger, Marchelepot, p. 45. 3 Gr'dberfeld von Reichenhall, p. 8 1 . * The Industrial Arts of the Anglo-Saxons, p. 20. 236 THE SPEAR it is evident that the weapon smith delighted to exercise his fancy in the form and structure of the arms. It should be noticed however that for pure beauty of outline and justness of proportions these forged iron spear heads of the Germans cannot compare with the beautiful cast bronze specimens of the Celtic era. In dimensions the lance heads vary from a few inches to a couple of feet, which would have been about the length of No. 2a on PI. xxxi had the socket been complete. It measures now 1 ft. 6 in., and comes from Sarre. PI. xxxi exhibits several groups from different regions. No. 1 is a South Saxon group from High Down cemetery, Sussex, preserved at Ferring Grange, where Mr. Edwin Benty has kindly allowed the writer to photograph it ; No. 2 gives a few from Kent, from Sarre and Kingston ; No. 3 are Anglian from Little Wilbraham, Cambs, etc., at Audley End, where they have been photographed by the kind permission of Lord Braybroke, and No. 4 is a group from the cemetery at Darlington, Durham, in the collection of Mr. Edward Wooler, representing Northumbrian examples. Lastly, No. 5 is the spear head from the tomb of Childeric, the earliest datable example from the regions with which we are chiefly concerned. This is long and narrow and possesses no median rib. In its present condition it measures about 9 in. by 1^ in., and may be taken as typical of a simple type that is perpetuated through the succeeding periods. Other forms, as is seen on PI. xxxi, are broader and more leaf-shaped, while the elongated lozenge appears as a variant of this. The most distinctive form is that of the lance head at Maidstone found at Sarre, 2a. This de Baye claims as specially Anglo-Saxon, but it does occur some- times abroad, see Lindenschmit, Handbuch^ p. 173. It may however be regarded provisionally as a south of England fashion though the cemetery at Little Wilbraham, Cambs, produced it, PL xxxi, 3. The Darlington spear heads are of the more primitive elongated shape. The representations on PL xxxi are approximately to scale. XXXII facing p. 237 THE ANGON, ARROW HEADS, ETC. 12 is Continental DETAILS OF SPEAR HEADS 237 The development of the median rib, a pronounced feature in the earlier cast-bronze spear heads, represents an additional effort on the part of the weapon smith. Some of the specimens on PI. xxxi exhibit it, but when it is more accen- tuated it passes through a singular phase illustrated by an example from Fairford, Gloucestershire, 16 in. long, in the Ashmolean Museum, PI. xxxn, 10. Here one wing of the blade is depressed below the other and the process on the other side is reversed so that the section is approximately a zigzag. This is characteristically Anglo-Saxon, although it is occasionally found abroad, as at Bessungen by Darmstadt, 1 and in an example figured by M. Pilloy, 2 who gives the probably correct explanation that it is due to a desire on the part of the hammerer to give the impression of a pronounced central rib. The older notion was that the arrangement gave a rotary motion to the spear in its flight, but this would not be the effect of it, for the depressions are not set obliquely but in straight lines from point to butt and there is nothing to give a twist. Furthermore, the rotation of a blade of appreciable width would be resisted by the air and the course of the flight proportionately checked, while the entry of the point into the body would be sensibly hindered, as in the case of the spinning cricket ball which does not glide sweetly into the fielder's hands but has a provoking tendency to resist entry. That the explanation given above is the correct one may be seen from a curious example from Suffolk in the Pitt Rivers Museum at Farnham, Dorset, shown PI. xxxn, 9. Here the finished blade has been deeply scored on one side of the centre, though only by a groove running part of the way along its length, and there is a corresponding groove on the other side of the blade. It is curious to find this crude attempt to simulate the central rib, generally so marked a feature on the noble British bronze spear heads of the earlier epoch, for in forging a spear head 1 Lindcnschmit, Hanabucb, p. 174. - Etudes, i, 232. 238 THE SPEAR it is comparatively easy to make the median rib, and a weapon smith who could fashion an umbo would have thought little of the task. Possibly the spear head, an object in very common use, was made at times by an unskilled village craftsman, while the umbos were the work of the more practised weapon smith. THE ANGON No self-respecting writer on Teutonic antiquities can help referring to the description by Agathias of the weapon known as the ' angon,' a barbed spear of peculiar construction and use. Agathias, a Byzantine historian of VI, wrote in Greek an account of the wars waged by the generals of Justinian against the Teutonic invaders of Italy. In Chapter 5 of the second book of his History he describes the manner of fighting of the Franks and Alamanni whom Butilinus had led across the Alps and who were now opposed by Narses. Their chief weapon he says was the ' angon.' ' These angons,' he goes on, * are spears, not very small but at the same time of no considerable size, suitable for use as javelins, if need arise, and also serving for a charge against opponents fighting hand to hand.' He also tells us that the javelin was barbed, and when it had pierced a shield or entered a body it could not be withdrawn, while the shaft of it was for the most part plated with iron. From this last it followed that the head could not be cut off so as to free the stricken man from the encumbrance. It is natural to think here of the Roman pilum, which Vegetius 1 describes as a missile weapon that ' could not be cut away when fixed in a shield,' and which has come down to us in actual examples as well as in represen- tations on Roman military tombstones. 2 The pilum was a 1 De Re Militari, i, xx. 2 Lindenschmit, Tracbt und Bewaffnung des Romiscben Heeres, p. 12 and Taf. iv, xi. ANGON AND PILUM 239 very heavy javelin, with point and iron shaft about 2 ft. 6 in. long, that was fixed at the butt end to a shaft of wood so as to make the whole length, as may be judged from tombstones, between six and seven feet. That the ' angon ' of the Germans was derived from the pilum Lindenschmit considered ' unstreitbar,' and the give- and-take between the Roman and barbarian equipments for war that went on during the early centuries of the Empire * would render this not unlikely, but other archaeologists have expressed a doubtful opinion. 2 Whether the pilum was barbed is uncertain, for existing pilum heads are not so treated, and there is no doubt that it was a missile and not suitable, as Agathias says was the case with the angon, for hand-to-hand combat. Barbed javelins of a lighter make than the pilum seem to have been used by the Roman legionaries or auxiliaries and an interesting specimen was found in 1833 at the station Magna (Carvoran) on the Roman Wall between Tyne and Solway, in a well 36 ft. deep. It is now preserved in the Black Gate Museum at Newcastle and is figured by permission of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle, PI. xxxn, 11. It is 1 ft. 9 in. in length. A piece exactly similar is preserved in the Musee d'Artillerie at Paris, under the number 690, and long slender barbed spear heads of a form almost the same occurred in the Nydam find of IV in Schleswig and are figured on pi. xi of the work of Engelhardt. These it may be urged are not properly speaking angons but barbed spears of a lighter make, and we may associate with them the Bifrons piece figured PI. xxxn, 8, the uppermost of the three indicated by that number. This is a barbed spear head 9^ in. long with open socket, and is 1 Arts and Crafts of our Teutonic Forefathers, ch. hi. 2 e.g. W. M. Wylie in Archaeologia, xxxvi, p. 82, 'historic evidence seems rather opposed to the opinion that the angon was merely an imitation of the pilum.' De Baye, in Industrie Longobarde, Paris, 1888, p. 31, ' le role, l'usage de l'angon n'e"tait pas celui du pilum.' 240 THE SPEAR a rare and interesting object. Another of much the same size but in poor condition was found at Beddington, Surrey, and is preserved in the Public Library at Croydon. The angon proper Lindenschmit has shown to possess as its special characteristic a solid point square in section with barbs that, at any rate in the present condition of the weapons, lie close to the shaft. 1 Typical pieces of the kind are preserved in the Museums at Mainz and Wiesbaden, but perhaps the most perfect specimen is that from the Belgian cemetery of Harmignies now displayed in the Musee du Cinquantenaire at Brussels and figured here PI. xxxn, 12. The photograph in the middle shows the whole weapon the length of which is 3 ft. 6 in., and those above and below give on a larger scale the butt end where a wooden shaft was inserted, and the point, the length of which with the barbs is 3 in. Nothing has been found in our own country so well preserved as this, but the specimen from Croydon, PI. xxxn, 15, 3 ft. 2|- in. long, has an unmistakable square head, though the barbs in the present condition of the piece make no show. Angons, as a rule in a somewhat mutilated condition, have been found several times in Kent, and may be seen in the Museum of the Kent Archaeo- logical Society at Maidstone, at the Gravesend Free Library, in the British Museum, and at Ferring Grange, Sussex. A barbed spear head 26 in. long was found in the barrow at Taplow. SPEAR SHAFTS The subject of the spear cannot be left without a word as to the wooden shaft. Fragments of the wood remain in many cases adhering to the socket, and the rivet or rivets that held the head to the shaft often remains as in the example figured PI. xxxi 1, 2. Analysis has shown in many cases that this wood was ash. The length of the shaft can be judged from the fact 1 Handbucb, 178 f. THE BOW AND ARROW 41 that the weapon was often furnished at the butt end with a ferule or conical point by which it could be fixed firmly in the ground. This, being of iron, has like the point been preserved, and as the two lie in a freshly opened grave the distance be- tween them gives the length of the shaft. This seems to have been a little longer than the warrior's own height and the weapon could accordingly be laid by his side in the grave, as was the case in the Shepperton burial figured PI. xviii, 1. Faussett gave the lengths of 6 ft. and 7 ft. for two Gilton specimens. The diameter of the shaft can also be estimated from the data furnished by the head and the ferule. Faussett found that a spear in grave 12 at Gilton tapered from a diameter of 1 in. at the head to in. at the ferule. The closed spear socket at Derby, PL xxxn, 3, measures |- in. in internal diameter. About f in. to 1 in. may be assumed as the average diameter of the Anglo-Saxon spear shaft. Of the two ferules shown, one, PI. xxxn, 13, of conical form, is in the Guildhall Museum at London and another such is seen in the middle of the group of spear heads at Audley End, PI. xxxi, 3. PI. xxxii, 14, is a ferule of a more elaborate kind in the Rochester Museum, and here the bottom of the shaft was bound with an iron band below which projected a point that was embedded at its other end in the wood. Similar ferules exist in other collections. THE BOW AND ARROW The last of the implements of war to be dealt with here is the bow and arrow. The Anglo-Saxons like the rest of the Teutonic peoples understood archery and we have bowmen represented on the Franks Casket of about 700 a.d. (p. 205) and on a stone at Hexham that Commendatore Rivoira admits may be of the time of Wilfrid. Nothing is rarer however in tomb furniture than the arrow head or than traces of the bow III Q 242 THE BOW AND ARROW and its appertainances. In one grave at Chessell Down in the Isle of Wight and in one at Bifrons traces have been found that seemed to indicate the presence of a bow. Arrow heads were found at Chessell Down, and a few have come to light in different finds. PI. xxxn, 5, shows a good specimen in the Douglas collection in the Ashmolean, 6 and 7 are in Warwick Museum, and No. 7, which was found in the churchyard at Radford Semele near Warwick, may be mediaeval. The set figured under No. 1 on PI. xxxn are part of the interesting finds at Buttsole, near Eastry, Kent, already referred to (p. 203). They are in the Museum at Maidstone and vary in length from 4^- in. to i\ in. It is open to any one to argue that these are the points of small javelins rather than of arrows. Faussett believed that light missiles of the kind were often placed in the Kentish graves (p. 706). XXXIII facing p. 243 FIBULAE AS WORN All Continental CHAPTER V TOMB FURNITURE : (II) THE MORPHOLOGY OF THE FIBULA For the fastenings of dress the Teutonic peoples of the migration period used the brooch, the buckle, the clasp, the pin, and to each of them they applied all the taste and cunning craftsmanship available. The clasp and the pin are, as objects, comparatively unimportant, though the presence or absence of the former in Anglo-Saxon graves will be seen to possess much archaeological significance. The brooch and the buckle on the other hand are not only archaeologically important in relation to questions of date and ethnology, but in themselves offer specimens of the most elaborate and artistically pleasing work that our Teutonic craftsmen have left to us. Historically speaking there is a marked difference between the buckle and the fibula, the former being much more dis- tinctively Teutonic. c Rien de plus inevitable que la boucle,' wrote the Abbe Cochet, 1 ' dans la sepulture franque, burgonde, saxonne ou allemanique : elle est dans la tombe le caractere inherent de la race teutonique. On ne signale pas de boucles dans la sepulture des Gaulois, si riche de colliers, de bracelets et d'armilles. Je ne Tai jamais rencontree dans l'urne du Romain du Haut-Empire d'ou la fibule est si souvent sortie. Je ne sais meme si Ton en a tire une seule des sarcophages du Bas-Empire, ou pourtant les broches et les fibules abondent. C'est que si l'armille est gauloise, si la fibule est romaine, la boucle a son tour est essentiellement teutonique.' As regards the historical position of the buckle and the relation between 1 Le Tombe au de Childeric, p. 233. 243 244 FORMS OF THE FIBULA it and the brooch as objects of use there are some good remarks in Alois Riegl's much discussed work on the art of the period. 1 Their comparative importance depends upon the styles of dress of which they form the complement. The classical vesture was free and flowing ; the edges of the stuff were brought together in places and fastened by a pin or a brooch, and the robe thus constituted was confined by a slight girdle round the form. In the early centuries of the Christian era costume underwent two changes of importance for the present subject. Among the classical peoples in both the eastern and the western half of the Roman Empire there came in a taste for a profusion of jewels and jewelled appendages of robes, in which we may see oriental fashions breaking in upon the older classical simplicity. A good example of this orientalized dress can be seen in PI. xxxiii, 4, which repro- duces an ivory in the Museum at Vienna representing one of the later Emperors enthroned in his robes of state. This change of fashion prepares us for the sumptuous display of jewels favoured by the Germanic noble and his lady. The other alteration noticed above is the coming into vogue among the new denizens of the lands of the Western Empire of a style of dress less free and flowing than the loose classical tunic and mantle, and needing to be bound more closely about the figure. The girdle, as Riegl points out, now becomes the stiff belt, and for this is required a firm fastening in the form of a buckle. It is a notable feature of this period in the history of western costume that the buckle now makes its appearance as a fastening side by side with the brooch, which it ultimately almost displaces. At the beginning of the migration period the brooch, or, to use its classical name, the fibula, was in full possession of the field ; it had behind it a history in classical lands of more than a thousand years, and had already passed through a whole series of typological changes. The buckle 1 Die Spdtromische Kunstindustrie. XXXIV lacing p. 245 SQUARE HEADED FIBULAE FROM BIFRONS XXXIV XXXV facing p. 245 ROUND HEADED, CRUCIFORM, AND BIRD FIBULAE FROM BIFRONS XXXVi XXXVI facing p. 245 PLATE AND RING FIBULAE FROM BIFRONS 000 x THE FIBULA AND THE BUCKLE 245 on the other hand only seems to have come into use in imperial Roman times. It appears at Pompeii for example in the simplest possible shapes, though an ornate example was found at Herculaneum. The somewhat enigmatical object figured in Faussett's Inventorium Sepulchrale, pi. vin, 1 1, is a buckle of Roman (not barbaric) workmanship, and one of similar shape but in the similitude of the head of a cat or leopard has recently passed with the Trinity College Library Collection to the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology. Some archaeologists have held that the buckle was independently invented in northern Europe at the beginning of the migration period, but whether this was the case or whether the Germans took it over from the Romans, it was used at first in a comparatively undeveloped form. Its history is accordingly traceable in Teutonic tombs from its very beginnings, and we see it assuming increased importance as time goes on till it becomes in point of intrinsic value and artistic elaboration a rival of the old established and popular fibula. There is however always this difference between the buckle and the fibula, that the former preserves to the end its original character of a thing of strength, intended in its primary use to gird the warrior's belt tightly round his frame, and it is accordingly nearly always solidly constructed of bronze or iron, and in form keeps always pretty closely to a normal pattern. The fibula is a slighter piece, more ornate, and admitting of a far greater variety in shape. In the graves of the central Teutonic period, about VI, the buckle and the fibula are found side by side, but later on, especially among the Alamanni, the buckle almost comes to supersede the fibula, and among the Franks, the Alamanni, and the Burgundians the piece develops to new and elaborate forms, which, perhaps for the reasons already given (p. 1 74 f.), are not represented in our own Anglo-Saxon cemeteries. The fibula, it needs hardly to be said, never really goes out of use, as there are few styles of dress in which such an ornamental appendage cannot find ready employment, and there is no real 246 FORMS OF THE FIBULA break of tradition between the ancient and the modern brooch, though special forms of the object, such as the safety pin, may for centuries have passed out of vogue. The subject of the Germanic fibula, a somewhat large and complicated one, may be suitably introduced by a survey of the different types that have been collected from the one repre- sentative cemetery of Bifrons that we have been keeping specially in view. On Plates xxxiv to xxxvi are shown more than thirty-five different fibulae from this one locality, representing at least ten distinct types. On PI. xxxiv all the examples fall under the category ' square headed ' for in every case a rectangular plate broader than it is high, adorned in various fashions, terminates the piece at the top. On PI. xxxv there are three types or rather sub-types. Nos. i to 4, 6 to 8 are called round headed ' because the terminal plate above is of semicircular outline, and Nos. 1 and 4 are often termed radiating ' or ' digitated ' on account of the projecting knobs. Nos. 5, 10 and 12 are c cruciform' because from the rectangular upper plate three knobs, at the top and the two sides, convey the idea of this shape, while Nos. 9 and 13 are probably derived from the cruciform ones. Lastly, No. 1 1 is a so-called * bird ' fibula, the whole piece taking the aspect of a parrot-like creature with a pronounced hooked beak. The fibulae on PI. xxxvi are of quite different types, affecting the shape of a round flat disc that may be ornamented in several different ways ; a saucer-shaped disc with the edges turned up all round ; a circular ring ; and a broad flat ring, or, if we like to call it so, a disc with the centre pierced out. The first kind, Nos. 6, 10, is best called a ' disc ' fibula ; the second, Nos. 1, 5, a saucer fibula, while No. 7 of which only the back is visible is a variation of this type called an * applied ' fibula (p. 275) ; the third kind, Nos. 2, 3, 4, 9, 11, 13, are 'ring' or 'annular* fibulae ; and the best name for the fourth kind, No. 8, is ' quoit ' fibula. These distinctive terms it is well to retain, as the vague words * round ' or * circular,' too often employed in XXXVII facing p. 247 TYPES NOT REPRESENTED AT BIFRONS /, .?, are Continental FIBULAE AT BIFRONS N 2 47 descriptions, are of uncertain significance, and would apply- equally well to all the sub-types on this plate. No. 12 on PI. xxxvi shows two fibulae of the ' saucer ' kind united by a light chain. The brooches would be fixed one on each shoulder and the chain would hang across the breast, possibly with some light pendant attached to it. This is a fashion more in vogue among the Celtic peoples * than among the Germans, though there are several instances in which Teutonic fibulae show traces of attachments of the kind. The specially precious one, the ' Kingston ' fibula, see Frontispiece, has a loop by which a protective chain can be fastened to it, and some c long ' fibulae presently to be discussed have similar loops at the end, while the sumptuous * ibis ' fibula in the treasure of Petrossa, PI. xlviii, i (p. 279), has a golden chain attached. A particular form of brooch found in the Alpine regions north of Italy and probably Lombard has a transverse arm projecting below the bow to which a chain can be fastened, and fibulae are sometimes linked by chains fixed round the bow. See PI. xxxvn, 1,2. There are very few of the recognized fibula types found in Anglo-Saxon Britain that are not represented at Bifrons, but for the sake of completeness these omitted ones may be illus- trated here before any discussion of the different forms and ornaments is begun. PI. xxxvn therefore gives us in Nos. 3 and 4 two * penannular ' brooches, 2 of which No. 3, from Higham, Kent, is in the Museum at Rochester, and No. 4, from Duston, Northants, is at Northampton ; this is a form of brooch not so common in Germanic graves as it is among Celtic finds' and in the later Viking period : in Nos. 5, 6, 7 some ' equal armed ' fibulae, of which No. 5 is a pair recently found at Alfriston, Sussex, and now in the Museum at Lewes, 1 Romilly Allen, Celtic Jrt, p. 103. 2 Later on, PI. cix, 2 (p. 457), will be shown an object from Bifrons which is there taken as a bracelet, though very good judges think that it is really a penannular brooch that has lost its pin. 248 FORMS OF THE FIBULA No. 6 is at Burton-on-Trent, and No. 7, from Kempston, Beds, is in the British Museum ; while Nos. 8, 9, 10 are so-called ' trefoil headed ' fibulae, of which No. 10 is one found in the Roman station of Birdoswald in Cumberland and now at Newcastle, No. 8 is a pair from Stapenhill by Burton-on-Trent where they are preserved, and No. 9 is at Ferring Grange from the South Saxon cemetery at High Down above Worthing, the scattered localities showing the wide distribution of the form. The above may be held to exhaust the chief types of fibula with which we are concerned, though under each main heading there are of course numerous varieties, and single specimens of each variety bear the true impress of individual handwork in that even where the intention has been to turn out a pair no two are exactly alike. 1 So numerous and so diverse are these fibulae, and so much ingenuity did the craftsman exhibit in the enrichment he lavished on them, that there is no class of objects more suitable for furnishing a conspectus of Anglo-Saxon ornament during the period with which we have to deal. The subject falls naturally into two parts, (1) the typo- logical development of the form of the fibula in its different species, and, (2) the character and history of fibula ornamenta- tion. These species may be grouped under three main types, the safety pin type, including the sub-types * square headed,' 'round headed,' 'cruciform,' 'trefoil headed,' and 'equal armed,' all sometimes grouped under the name ' long ' fibulae ; the plate type, embracing 'disc,' 'applied,' 'saucer,' 'button,' and ' bird ' fibulae, with a few abnormal forms ; and the ring type, including ' annular,' ' penannular ' and ' quoit ' fibulae, and of these the first is from the typological point of view by far the most important. A discussion of these types from the point of view of the forms evolved in the course of their development will now follow, a beginning being made with the safety pin type. This owes its name to the fact of its reintroduction quite 1 For an example of this see later on (p. 315). THE SAFETY PIN TYPE 249 in our own time for the sake of securing the young of the human species from its natural enemy the insistent pin-point. The invention is quite three thousand years old, and the evolution of the type can be traced from the very earliest beginnings, while all through its long history we find primitive forms from time to time recurring. If we turn over to-day a heap of the common safety pins of modern commerce we shall soon find one that consists in nothing but a single length of wire that can be straightened out till it becomes again what it was at first, a long pin with a point but with no head. Such pins are represented in finds from the earliest ages of metal and Fig. 10. Below, early fibula of the Pesciera type, natural size ; above, fibula from Kingston, Kent, enlarged. are substitutes for the neolithic pins of bone, or the still more primitive thorn, with which Tacitus, who was possibly theoriz- ing, tells us the Germans of the Hinterland fastened their clothing. 1 To prevent such a pin from slipping out there would at some time or another present itself the device of bending or doubling over the upper part of it and giving it a catch round the point where this projected through the stuff. Such a catch could be undone when the pin was to be with- drawn, and remain as a sort of loop to take the point again when it had been reinserted. A recognition of the elastic 1 De Mor. Germ., xvn, ' Tegumen omnibus sagum fibula aut, si desit, spina consertum.' 250 FORMS OF THE FIBULA properties of hammered metal wire would suggest giving a spiral turn to the shank of the pin where it was doubled over, and this would secure a spring which would keep the catch always pressed against the pin just at the point. The simplest of modern safety pins referred to above illustrates this arrange- ment, but it is interesting to note that one of the very earliest of all fibula types, that named from the place of discovery Pesciera on Lake Garda, is of almost exactly the same form, and the same may be said of a specimen found in an Anglo- Saxon tomb in Kent, in conjunction with one of the most ornate fibulae, of quite another type, ever discovered. 1 The sketches, Fig. 10, illustrate this. What we are concerned with now is the development of this type of fibula from the Pesciera stage, and this may be sketched very briefly up to -the point when the distinctive forms of the period of the Teutonic migrations make their appearance. In the matter of nomenclature it is usual to call the half of the original pin that is doubled over and shows above the stuff, the bow, because, if it be in some degree arched, it gives room for the bunch of stuff beneath it. The part where the bend or spiral turn comes is called the head, and the point and the catch come together at the foot. Alike in its bow, its head, and its foot, the early fibula passes through many modifications, that have been worked out from the typo- logical point of view by writers such as Otto Tischler, Riksan- tikvar Hildebrand, Professor Montelius, and O. Almgren. All we are concerned with here are those modifications which, occurring before the migration period, brought into existence the forms with which the Teutonic craftsman had to deal. From the present point of view the changes effected in the head are of the chief importance and will be dealt with first. An epoch-making innovation had been introduced in the La Tene period before the Christian era, according to which the turns in the spiral were multiplied, and instead of 1 See Frontispiece. XXXVIII facing p. 251 EARLY FIBULAE AND FIBULAE FROM SACKRAU 3, considerably reduced ; 4, 5, somewhat enlarged All Continental EVOLUTION OF THE LONG FIBULA 251 being coiled on one side only of the bow, as in the modern safety pin, were repeated with the same number of turns on the other side. The coils were started on one side and when they had been carried out sufficiently far the wire was taken back across to a corresponding distance on the other side of the axis of the bow and other turns made from without inwards, till, when the wire was brought back to the middle, it was sent straight down towards the foot to form the pin. An example of this type in bronze in the Museum at Innsbruck is shown PI. xxxviii, 1. This arrangement induces lateral breadth in the fibula head which becomes an important element in the subsequent developments. The coils were sometimes carried out on either side to a considerable distance and they then needed a support in the form of a central axis round which they were twisted, while to finish this central axis and to prevent the coils slipping off" it, it was terminated at both ends by projecting knobs. Another important change was now made, when the fibula was no longer fashioned in one piece, like the Innsbruck example, but the pin with the spiral coils on their axis was separated from the bow and fastened to it afterwards by attachments. There now arises the necessity for fixing the spiral coil so that it shall not rotate bodily when the pin is moved but merely yield so far as the elasticity of the spring allows. The fixing is secured by means of that part of the wire which crosses from one end of the coil to the other, and this is sometimes caught by a sort of hook that projects from the top part of the bow where the coil is attached to it. Fig. 11, which is a view end-on of a fibula thus constituted, will explain what is meant. Fig. 11. Head of a Fibula. Here the wire is coiled round an axis which ends in two small knobs and this axis is passed through an aperture in a tongue, which projects from the under side of 252 FORMS OF THE FIBULA the head of the bow, and revolves in this as in a hinge. 1 The coil starts from the centre at a point somewhere about A and is coiled round the axis till it reaches the point B from which it is returned across the centre to a point C, from which it is coiled inwards till it reaches the centre again whence it projects downwards to form the pin. D is a sort of hook at the termination of the bow and this is caught round the wire as it crosses laterally along the upper surface of the coil, so that when the pin is pressed downwards the whole coil is prevented from revolving and the spring is through this resistance brought into action. It can easily be understood that the hook D, so conspicuously placed, may be treated decoratively and become a sort of third knob. In the hands of the Roman provincial craftsmen of the pre-migration period this construction was simplified and the spiral spring was omitted, the pin being simply hinged below the head of the bow like the pin of a modern brooch. The influence of the development of the coil just noticed still how- ever remains in the form of a cross bar giving a T shape to the whole piece, and also in that of a projection at the end of the bow that owes its origin to the hook the use of which has just been explained. In this way was produced the familiar late-Roman ' cross-bow ' fibula, that comes to light at times in Germanic as well as in Roman graves. One was found at Crundale, Kent, that is Roman but was associated with Jutish burials, and PI. xxxviii, 2, a characteristic specimen, is from Trieste. Fine examples in gold have been discovered in Germanic graves abroad, the most notable one, now lost, making its appearance in the tomb of Childeric, but our Anglo- Saxon tombs have not yielded anything of the kind. This plan of dispensing with the spiral did not however commend itself to the Teutonic craftsman, who now in IV a.d. appears upon the scene. It must be understood that by this time the primitive technique in which the whole piece was 1 The arrangement is shown in No. 5 on PI. xxxvm. LONG FIBULAE IN SHEET METAL 253 hammered out of a single length of wire had been given up, and the fibula was generally made by the process of casting, though the old tradition still affects the form, and both the Innsbruck fibula, PL xxxvin, 1, and the Roman cross-bow one, No. 2, still retain a bar-like form which is reminiscent of the shape produced by the earlier method. The characteristic early Germanic fibula however is no longer bar-shaped but treats the head, the bow, and the foot in a fashion quite inde- pendent of their traditional origin. There is indeed a type belonging to the early period of the migrations and common in southern Russia, but not represented in Anglo-Saxon graves, in which the whole piece, in one or in several parts, is cut out in sheet silver, the bow being suitably strengthened or added in another piece, and the mechanism of pin, hinge, catch, etc.,. being attached to the under side. Silver fibulae of this kind or imitations in bronze have been found so near our own shores as Marchelepot (Somme) and Envermeu in Normandy, and a specimen from the latter place in Rouen Museum is added for purposes of comparison, PI. xxxix, 5. We note that for the sake of strength the foot is sloped on each side of a median line. Two groups of early Germanic fibulae of the safety pin type but quite freely treated are (1) those found at Sackrau near Breslau and preserved at the Museum of the latter place, that may date from the early part of IV a.d., and (2) the fibulae from the second find at Szilagy Somlyo in Hungary, in the Museum at Budapest. The latter, which are of special importance as representing inlaid gold jewellery, are discussed in that connection on a later page and are figured on PI. cxliv (p. 529). They date from the latter part of IV or, as Pro- fessor Hampel thought, from early in V. The beautiful gilded silver fibulae from Sackrau are shown on PI. xxxvin, 3 to 5. Here we see the Teutonic craftsman, perhaps of the Vandal stock, not only retaining the spirals but making two and even three rows of them. As these, or at any rate the two of them, 1 1 The third rows in PI. xxxvin, 3, are purely decorative. 4 254 FORMS OF THE FIBULA are genuine spirals connected together and both coiled out of the same length of wire, they naturally needed a sort of frame- work for their support, the projecting bars of which were furnished at their ends with knobs. At Sackrau this com- plicated arrangement is allowed to be pretty well in evidence from the front view, but contemporary Germanic craftsmen seem to have preferred it hidden, and this led to the device so well represented on Pll. xxxiv and cxliv of covering plates, behind which the spiral coils were concealed, though the pro- jecting knobs might be allowed to peep out beyond the edges of the plate. Normally this plate took either a rectangular form or a semicircular one, though the pair in the middle of the uppermost row on PL cxliv exhibit a compromise in the form of a step-like outline. As regards the forms of the head plate, if this were devised merely for the covering of the coils a rectangular shape would be the natural one, and the semicircular outline would seem to demand some special explanation. This has been provided in the suggestion that previous provincial-Roman forms may here have exercised an influence. Dr. Salin 1 has noted the appearance of a round head of modest development on some fibulae of this kind, of III, and it is noteworthy that there was found at Basset Down, Wilts, together with some Anglo-Saxon objects of fairly early date and a spoon of Roman style, a small bronze gilt fibula with a round head of a type earlier than the characteristic Teutonic forms. This is an example of what Dr. Salin refers to, and the reader will find it figured later on PI. clv, 12, 14 (p. 563). Pieces of this kind may be ulti- mately responsible for the round head of the Germanic fibula. This difference in the shape of the heads assumes consider- able importance when it is observed that as a rule the square head belongs to the north of Europe, 2 whereas the semi- 1 Tbierornamentik, p. 10. 2 'Bci den nordgermanischen Volkern . . . entstanden die spater allgemein beliebten Fibeln mit rechteckiger Kopfplatte.' Salin, Tbierornamentik, p. 77. XXXIX MISCELLANEOUS ROUND AND SQUARE HEADED FIBULAE Approximately the natural sizes j, 6, y, are Continental THE RADIATING FIBULA 255 circular one is rather Gothic, South German and Frankish in its affinities. We have now at any rate come to understand the origin and original significance of the knobs which project beyond the outline of the semicircular and rectangular plates that form the heads of so many of our Anglo-Saxon fibulae. On the Bifrons plates the semicircular head is represented by PI. xxxv, Nos. 1 to 4 and 6 to 8. There are three knobs in Nos. 3, 6, 7 and 8, five in Nos. 1 and 4, while there were only two in No. 2, and these are no longer mere knobs but have been turned into the heads of birds with hooked beaks. Reasons will be given (p. 526) for regarding this bird-beak motive as of Gothic origin, and examples will be given showing the decorative use of the projecting head on various objects especially of South German and Gothic provenance. The remarkable piece PI. xxxix, 1, found in 1906 at Market Overton, Rutland, is of a pronounced South German type l and its appearance in the English Midlands is a phenomenon. Here the eye and the beak are quite unmistakable and serve to explain the Bifrons fibula PI. xxxv, 2, where the degradation of the motive has gone so far that the eye is out of its proper place. This piece, PI. xxxv, 2, is accordingly a degenerate example of a Gothic and South German type, and it is a stranger in Kent, though not so strange there as in the Midlands. The Bifrons fibulae, PI. xxxv, 3, 6, 7, 8, are of the three- knobbed type which as Dr. Salin remarks 2 is on the whole comparatively rare but is represented sporadically by examples all over the Teutonic region. No. 7 is of importance because of its resemblance to a similar fibula found at Chessell Down in the Isle of Wight, 3 which is one link of connection between the Jutes of Kent and the supposed Jutish population of the 1 For South German parallels see Hampel, Alterth'utner in Ungarn, in, Taf. 56, 58. He ascribes Taf. 56, 8 with a head like the Market Overton piece to VI ; Taf. 58, 1, where the foot wears the likeness, to VII or VIII. 2 Tbierornamentik, p. 24. 3 Hillier, Isle of Wight, p. 26. 256 FORMS OF THE FIBULA Isle, while a third was found at Harnham Hill, Wilts. 1 The f radiating ' or digitated fibulae with five knobs and a straight foot, Nos. i, 4, belong to a class very numerously represented among the Franks and in southern Germany, sparingly in Italy, Austria-Hungary and southern Russia, and very slighdy in northern Germany and Scandinavia. 2 In England about thirty examples are known, four at Bifrons and about ten others in different parts of Kent, one in Essex, a head at Chessell Down in the Isle of Wight and a foot end near Droxford, Hants, two or three in Warwickshire, one in Cambridgeshire, one in Suffolk, one at Searby in Lincolnshire, 3 two at Sleaford, Lincolnshire, 4 three at Woodstone, Hunts, 5 and one furthest north of all at Kilham in East Yorkshire. The probability is that these are all importations from the Continent, as they are very common in France, where they occur in the same forms as with ourselves, especially with the characteristic square end which is there almost though not altogether universal. 6 They represent an early type dating about V. Some of ours, like PI. xxxv, 1 , 4, are neat and sharply cut and may be V work. Others are coarser and more florid, such as the Kentish specimen in Lord Grantley's collection, PL xxxix, 3, where the clumsy knobs have been increased in number to seven, and these are probably later. It will be convenient to take next the square headed fibula, the Bifrons examples of which are on PI. xxxiv, and for the moment only the ornate kind Nos. 1 to 5 and 7 need be noticed. The square head-plate as we have seen already was de- veloped, probably directly, for the purpose of hiding the apparatus of the coiled spirals, and as a fact the knobs or 1 Archaeologia, xxxv, pi. xn, 5. The three are shown Fig. 21 (p. 620). 2 There is one in the Museum at Leeuwarden in Friesland, PI. xxxix, 7, and a portion of one in the Museum at Kiel is shown PI. xxxix, 6. Dr. Salin figures some in his Ch. 11. 8 Coll. Ant., v, 137. 4 Archaeologia, l, 400. 5 Ass., N.S., v, 1899, p. 346. 6 Boulanger, Marchelepot, 57. THE SQUARE HEADED FIBULA 257 degenerate offsprings of them often make their appearance as projections from the plate. PI. xxxix, 2, a coarsely wrought piece from Kent in Lord Grantley's collection, is a good example. More commonly the original knobs have coalesced into a sort of border, either formed of separate units that are reminiscent of the knobs, as in the example from Barrington, Cambs, in the Evans collection at Oxford PI. xxxix, 4, or of continuous patterns like that round the head of the fine Bifrons example PI. xxxiv, 7. In many examples, as in some on PI. xxxiv, the plate has no ornamental border. PI. xxxiv, 5, 7, exhibit a peculiarity observable in many Scandinavian examples in the adornment of the bow by an ornamental plaque, in these cases representing a human full-face. Dr. Salin considers this a kind of freak of fancy without typological significance. See his Thierornamenlik, p. 44. With regard to the form of the feet, in the case of PI. xxxiv, 1, 2, 4, a sort of cross in relief is the prominent feature, occurring in England, especially in Kent, and also in France whence came specimens to the Pierpont Morgan collection. 1 This cross is certainly devoid of Christian sig- nificance, for PI. xxxiv, 1, is quite an early piece, that from associated finds may be dated about 500 a.d. No. 2 will be rather later as it has garnet inlays which become more common on still later specimens, such as No. 4, that may belong to the middle of VI, for it was found with No. 7 to which this date is assigned (p. 325 f). Another form of foot, Nos. 5, 7, exhibits a diamond-shaped motive, and the lowest and two lateral corners of the diamond are marked with plaques, which in some examples to be shown on subsequent plates are very considerably developed. A noteworthy feature occurs where the diamond-shaped foot joins the bow. Here we observe animals' heads projecting from the base of the bow and directed downwards to join the bow to the foot by the ad- ditional material required by the construction in this place. 1 Gallo-Roman Antiquities, plate iv. Ill R 258 FORMS OF THE FIBULA The small round-headed fibula, PL xxxv, 3, shows these heads very clearly. The morphology of the square headed fibula is however not so interesting as is its ornamentation, and any further discussion of it must be deferred till the next chapter. These small but ornate and well-executed pieces, like PL xxxiv, 1, 2, 5, belong specially to Kent and the Isle of Wight. Attention must be given now to another class of the Bifrons fibulae, those called ' cruciform,' PL xxxv, 5, 10, 12, and Pll. xl to xlv. This class is one of great importance both in relation to chronology and through the fact that it establishes a close link of connection between our own country and parts of those northern regions that were the cradle of the Anglo- Saxon race. The genesis of this form of fibula has been a good deal discussed, some writers affiliating it to the Roman ' cross-bow ' fibula of IV, see PL xxxvin, 2, and others giving it a derivation of its own from a kind of fibula represented in southern Russia about 11 a.d. In discussing a few pages back the history of the safety pin type in pre-Teutonic days attention was only given to the head. The formation of the catch for the pin at the foot of the fibula offers a study in typological development similar to that presented by the head. In fibulae of which PL xxxvin, 1, is an example, the end of the foot beyond where the actual catch was formed is carried further forward and ends in a kind of decorative flourish that carries it up to the bow to which it is attached. This is an arrangement common in the La Tene period prior to the Christian era. At a later time, about 1 1 a.d., it became the fashion to turn this loose end of the foot beyond the catch not forward but towards the back and to bring it up underneath the bow to which it was then as in the former arrangement attached. This constitutes the type of fibula with ' returned foot ' or as the German writers say f mit umgeschlagenem Fuss.' A simple example of the type, from S. Russia in the Antiquarium, Berlin, is shown PL xl, i. In later fibulae traces of this primitive arrangement are often XL facing p. 259 EARLY CRUCIFORM FIBULAE /, 2, J, 7, are Continental THE CRUCIFORM FIBULA 259 visible in the form of an ornamental collar round the bottom of the bow where it runs off into the foot, reminiscent of the coil which attaches the returned end of the foot to the bow. This is seen for instance in the fibulae from Sackrau, PL xxxviii, 3 to 5. In the primitive examples, like PI. xl, i, there is an open space between the upper line of the foot and the lower part of it where it has been turned back, and traces of this opening remain in later fibulae where most of it has been closed up. This construction of the foot might of course co-exist with any kind of formation of the head, but as a matter of fact in IV and early V a kind of fibula was in use over part of the Fig. 12. Fibula from Borgstedt, Schleswig. v Germanic area that combined this arrangement with a slender body and narrow head, and this kind of brooch was well in evidence in Schleswig-Holstein and on the Lower Elbe in the period before the migrations from those regions to England. It is the prevailing theory that it was from fibulae of this kind, which seem to have been carried up to this region from southern Russia, rather than from the Roman cross-bow type, that the cruciform fibula was evolved. The fact that early cruciform fibulae are narrow at the head while the Roman ones run pronouncedly to width is in favour of the prevailing view. Fig. 12 is a sketch of a fibula of this kind from Borgstedt in Schleswig, 1 where will be seen the ' returned foot,' and a narrow bow of full curve ending at the top with a knob, below which 1 Mestorf, Vorgeschichtliche Alterthiimer aus Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, 1885, No. 584. 260 FORMS OF THE FIBULA originally worked the pin hinged with the usual spiral coil that terminated at each end with a lateral knob. The construction of the returned foot still in evidence here becomes less apparent when the whole piece comes to be cast, and a catch is merely adjusted under the foot now cast solid. The result is a fibula like that on PI. xl, 2, from a Holstein cemetery of about 400 a.d. in the Museum at Kiel, showing the three knobs forming the termination above of a long slender piece, quite different in aspect from the sturdy Roman cross-bow fibula though possessing elements in common with this. The next stage in the development of this form of fibula is seen in the piece beside it, No. 3, also at Kiel. The most important change is in the foot which now ends in an animal's head, but this will be noticed later. In the matter of the head the change is in the direction of the evolution of a distinct head plate covering the middle part of the coil and intervening between the top of the bow and the knob which terminates the whole piece. By being marked with a St. Andrew's Cross the plate already proclaims itself a constituent portion of the whole. The further history of the type is concerned chiefly with the enlargement and treatment of this square head-plate and the relations between it and the coil with its knobs below. This history has been worked out in an elaborate little treatise by Dr. Haakon Schetelig of the Bergen Museum in Norway, 1 which has established for our present state of knowledge the chronology of the various forms involved. The origin of the special type is claimed for the Lower Elbe region and Schleswig, but the development is worked out in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and England, and the relations among the forms found in the three countries are set forth with great lucidity and convincingness in the treatise. To put the matter briefly, when the head-plate has assumed a certain size the knobs at the ends of the coil become in different ways attached to it, and at a later stage, having become in this way intimately 1 The Cruciform Brooches of Norway, Bergens Museums Aarbog, 1906. XLI facing p. 261 CONSTRUCTION OF ENGLISH CRUCIFORM FIBULAE 1, 2, 4, 6, a little reduced ; 5, considerably reduced EARLY CRUCIFORM FIBULAE 261 associated with the plate, they end by losing their connection with the coil altogether and are cast in one piece with the plate to which they become merely ornamental appendages. The type originated in IV for specimens like Fig. 12 were found in the Nydam moss in Schleswig. It was carried through its main typological changes in the course of V and lasted on in use at any rate in England to the latter part of VI and even into VII. It is noteworthy that all through V in Denmark and in England it was usual for the side knobs still to belong essentially to the coil and only to be attached as separate pieces to the head plate as is the case with all the fibulae on PI. xli, while in Norway and Sweden they were already cast in the same piece with the head plate. In VI this casting in one piece was universal and an example is seen on PL xliv. It follows that cruciform fibulae found in England with detached side knobs may as a rule be put down to a date somewhere about 500 a.d., while those with side knobs cast on to the plate, and, a fortiori, later developments that proceed with decorative manipulations of the side knobs, must be of VI or even later. PH. xl, xli give some specimens from England and the Continent, the former being designed to show the distribution of specimens throughout the country as well as to give a chronological series of examples. For Scandinavian parallels the illustrations in Dr. Schetelig's treatise may be referred to. There has been found in our country, at Dorchester in Oxfordshire, PI. xl, 6, one isolated example of the prototype of the cruciform fibulae of the pattern of Fig. 12 though representing a stage in advance. The length of it is 2-| in. and on the Plate it is somewhat enlarged. The terminal knob is well preserved but the part between the knob and the bow is not very clear. There was certainly however no appreciable width in the head plate. The bow has the ample sweep of the early examples like Fig. 12. There is no collar round the bow at the foot end of it according to the ' returned foot ' tradition, but the catch for the pin runs as in early examples 262 * FORMS OF THE FIBULA the whole length of the foot. A detail on which there may- be some difference of opinion is seen in PI. xl, 6. There is a slit-like opening in the metal which suggests the space left when the foot is actually turned back as in PI. xl, i, but it might be argued that this is only due to corrosion. The end of the slit nearest the foot seems however so neatly finished off that the writer is convinced that the slit is part of the design, and would of course indicate an early date. The piece could not be put later than about 400 a.d. Among the true cruciform fibulae in this country one of the earliest must be the small specimen found in Suffolk and now in the Norwich Museum, Fitch Collection No. 624, PI. xl, 4. It is marked by the slenderness and elongation of the foot observable in the early example from Kiel PL xl, 2, but in this case there is a distinct indication of what becomes later on the well-known c horse's head.' A similar example No. 5 comes from early burials near Holme Pierrepont or Cotgrave, Notts. Though the piece is broader in the upper part, the horse's head is still small and uncertain. It is 3^ in. long. As an ornamental motive this head will have presently to be discussed ; here we are only concerned with its typological changes. In PL xl, 7, at Hanover, from Midlum, Kreis Lehe, a Lower Elbe piece, the horse's head is modelled in very definite fashion while the catch occupies the whole length of the extended foot, and the head is very narrow. The earliest specimen Dr. Schetelig figured among English finds is the ex- ample in Rugby Museum, 3^ in. long, shown in front and back view PI. xli, 1. This is not yet of that broader and stouter build which becomes characteristic of English examples but attention is already being paid to the horse's nostrils, which our craftsmen mishandled later on in somewhat weird fashion. In this particular detail there is a difference between English and Scandinavian examples. With us the nostrils are, in these early specimens with the detached knobs, represented by depressed hemispheres attached like wings on each side of LATER CRUCIFORM FIBULAE 263 the animal's muzzle, as in No. 6 on PI. xli. In Norway on the other hand they are as a rule fashioned like distinct pro- jecting buttons. The beautiful brooch, PL xli, 2, nearly 4 in. long and finely chased, from Malton Farm, Cambs, in the Ashmolean Museum, is regarded by Mr. Thurlow Leeds who published it in Archaeologia, Vol. lxiii, as probably an importation from Denmark. It has the peculiarity that the knob at the top which is generally cast on one piece with the head is here split and the head is inserted into it. The grooves across the split tang are by some considered reminis- cent of the worm of a screw that occurs on the knobs of some Roman brooches which are fixed by this method in their places. The method by which the side knobs are attached to the plate can be seen in No. 3 from Sancton, Yorks, where the groove in the knob into which the edge of the plate enters is visible in the front view, and the arrangement at the back where the rusted remains of the coil are commonly apparent is given in No. 4, which shows the back and front view of a fibula 3 in. long found recently at Corbridge, Northumber- land. In almost all these examples it will be noticed that the edges of the sides of the plate are sharpened so as to enter into the notches in the lateral knobs. There is thus a thicker middle part to the plate and thinner sides, and this is apparent in the front view of most of the examples on the Plate. We note that in the example from East ShefFord, Berks, PL xli, 6, 3^ in. long, the side knobs have no grooves and merely abut on the edges of the plate. This is quite exceptional. Furthermore, in order to give room behind for the coil, the whole plate is bent into a curve from side to side so that a concavity is formed at the back. The Corbridge example, No. 4, shows this. Plates xliii, xliv and xlv are arranged to show the later development in England of this form of brooch, in the course of which it will be seen to blend in some of its details with the square headed type, and to blossom out into some very characteristic pieces of a florid kind that are practically without 264 FORMS OF THE FIBULA parallel in continental collections. The head is in all these later examples cast with the side knobs as well as the top one in the same piece, and in other respects it exhibits modi- fications which have begun in the earlier examples. Already in some of these early examples, dating from not later than about 500 a.d., such as those from Corbridge, PI. xli, 4, the head plate is getting very broad and the further develop- ment proceeds in this direction, so that the later and more florid specimens have a flat spread-out look which Haakon Schetelig notes as characteristically English, and as offering a contrast with the Norwegian brooches in which a plastic feeling for relief and boldly accented forms are specially to be remarked. Before following however the main line of this later development, it will be well to introduce a notice of some minor modifications of the head which will explain the genesis of sundry small brooches with ' trefoil ' heads, heads curiously indented, and heads which are perfectly square and plain, some of which are illustrated on the Bifrons Plates xxxiv and xxxv and on PI. xxxvn, Nos. 8, 9, 10. It will be noticed that in these the horse's head no longer appears, and in many cases the foot is spread out at the end into a fan-like form, which is specially characteristic of fibulae found in East Prussia but which Dr. Schetelig thinks 1 may be simply 'a Teutonic transformation of the rather broad foot seen on Roman brooches ' of the cross-bow type, as PI. xxxviii, 2. In this connection it may be noted that in some French examples of the ' radiating ' brooch the square- ended shank of Roman derivation broadens out, though only slightly, as it descends. These pieces are instructive as showing that besides development in a main line through a long series of comparatively slight typological changes there might exist as it were short cuts by which a great extent of ground was covered at a single leap. The class of small brooches now under consideration, for which the 1 Cruciform Brooches of Norway, p. 91. XLII facing p. 265 FORMS DERIVED FROM CRUCIFORM FIBULAE 4 is slightly below natural size 2, 3, are Continental SMALL LONG BROOCHES 265 name ' small long brooches ' may be found suitable, is specially characteristic of England, but the origin of them seems to be sought in Schleswig, where they occur in the cemetery of Borgstedt the date of which is rather earlier than that of the Teutonic settlement in England. PI. xlii, 2, 3, are two Schleswig specimens, and references have just been given to the illustrations of some English ones. The trefoil headed fibula, a specially English form represented as we have seen in all parts of our country, is considered by Dr. Salin * to be de- rived from a three-knobbed cruciform brooch by the summary process of flattening out the knobs, and in like manner the Schleswig specimens, PI. xlii, 2, 3, may have come from a cruciform fibula with what occurs very exceptionally square knobs. On the other hand, an example like that from near Blaby, Leicestershire, in the Museum at Leicester, PI. xli, 5, would suggest that the simple omission of the knobs, and a fanciful manipulation of the side plates which seems to be here in progress, might lead to the same result. Dr. Schetelig is disposed to develop these types in comparative independence of the cruciform brooches, though he admits that the histories of the two are parallel. 2 How closely con- nected however they are we can see from the case of Kempston, Beds, where a large number of small brooches of the kind were found, and are shown, as exhibited in the British Museum, PI. xlii, i. One of these, in the middle of the lowest row, is of the normal cruciform type with a debased horse's head foot, a second, above it to the left, has a three- knobbed head but a triangular foot. Two trefoil headed examples come in the first row and at the end of the second row from the top, while at the left hand of the lowest row are two brooches with square head-plates curiously indented in a way that reminds us of the Kiel examples PL xlii, 2, 3, and the third from the left in the top row of the Kempston series would come into line with these but has preserved a degenerate 1 Tbierornamentik, p. 74. 2 Cruciform Brooches, I.e. 266 FORMS OF THE FIBULA form of the horse's head foot. On the Bifrons Plate xxxv, Nos. 9 and 13 are similar. These Salin derives from the Schleswig example PI. xlii, 3, through a gradual closing up of the spaces between the three flattened-out heads. Lastly, the examples with plain square head-plates, so largely repre- sented at Kempston, and also at Bifrons, PI. xxxiv, 12, he considers to show the final extinction of the openings. One might be more inclined to derive the plain square head directly from the cruciform one by the simple omission of the knobs, and this is rendered likely by the fact that some of these plain square heads, e.g., the first from the left in the top and second rows of the Kempston group, and the one to the right of the three-knobbed specimen in the lowest row, shown on a larger scale PI. xlii, 4, have the plate divided into three, with the wings a little set back from the centre, and this detail is hardly likely to have survived through the longer process of derivation favoured by Dr. Salin. The specimen at the right-hand end of the bottom row is a very remarkable piece, and this with the one to the left of the three- knobbed one in the bottom row possesses special features to which attention will presently be directed. It is clear at any rate that the insignificant-looking little brooches of this class need not be dismissed as of trivial importance. From their occurrence in Schleswig and also, as is the case, in Hanover, they may be claimed as early forms brought over to this country and developed here to numerous varieties, all of which however are affiliated to the cruciform type. It is a noteworthy fact that in the case of the two plain square-headed brooches, Nos. 10 and 11 on PI. xxxiv, we have distinct evidence of early date, for they came to light in a grave at Bifrons the other objects in which must be placed about the year 500. 1 The form of these head plates may easily have been arrived at by the summary process suggested in the text. No one however 1 Arcb. Cant., x, 303, cf. Victoria History, Leicester, 1, 228. XLIII facing p. 267 FEET OF CRUCIFORM FIBULAE All but 6 are about natural size ; 6 is f natural size WINGS AND HORSE'S-HEAD FEET 267 has yet made a complete analysis of the forms of these smaller and simpler fibulae of the ' long ' type, and whether specimens like PI. xxxiv, 10, 11, belong to the sub-type 1 cruciform ' or ' square headed ' might be a matter of controversy. In what follows they will be called ' small long brooches,' by the name suggested above. The derail in the two Kempston brooches in the lowest row above referred to is the appearance on each side just below the bow of projecting wings, and this brings us back to the rather extensive subject of the later development of the cruciform brooch into varied and on the whole florid forms that are specially characteristic of England. The outcome of this development is a set of large brooches handsome in a superficial aspect but ornamented in a somewhat debased fashion, that at first sight resemble the more ornate square- headed pieces, such as some on PI. xxxiv and PH. lxiv to lxvii, but generally preserve enough of the traditional structure to make their genesis unmistakable. The wing appears at first quite plain, as in the fibula from Suffolk in the Norwich Museum, PI. xliii, 2, where only one side is preserved, but we soon see the wing taking the form of an animal's head as in the example at Hull from Hornsea, PI. xliii, i, where the sides of the head plate show marks where they were inserted in the grooves in the knobs, and its after development is a matter of ornament rather than of morphology. Changes in the horse's head proceed in conjunction with this development of the wings. The early examples such as PI. xli, i, 4, 6, dating from V or early VI, show the nostrils treated simply in the conventional fashion already indicated, and the heads on the feet of later brooches, PI. xliii, 4, 5, show that this com- paratively severe treatment remains sometimes in use even in fibulae of the more advanced kind with the fixed knobs, such as is No. 5, from Saxby, Leicestershire. In the Hornsea brooch at Hull, 4! in. long, PL xliii, 3, there are additions to the hemispheres above and a prolongation between them in the 268 FORMS OF THE FIBULA form of a little tongue which in some examples is pierced with a hole for the attachment of a chain or other fastening. The example No. 7 on PI. xli, a Suffolk brooch in Mr. Fenton's collection in London, has such a perforated prolongation. It is to be noted also that like some other East Anglian speci- mens it is ornamented with enamel. In the last-named Hornsea brooch, PI. xliii, 3, the forehead of the beast above the eyes is divided in the centre by a median line that is an English peculiarity. Later brooches exhibit an enormous outgrowth from the lower part of the muzzle which is treated in a purely decorative fashion and becomes of greater import- ance than the head itself. No. 6 on PI. xliii, at Audley End, from Little Wilbraham, Cambs, is remarkable because the extensions below the nostrils take the form of the birds' heads we have come to know in connection with PH. xxxv, 2 and xxxix, 1. A fibula found at Londesborough, in the Hull Museum, is an excellent specimen of the advanced form of the piece in our own country. It is figured on PL xliv to its full size, 5 T 5 F in. in length, and is remarkable for its look of newness and extraordinary preservation, as well as for its just proportions and tactful distribution of details. It is almost as perfect as when the cast left the hands of the chaser. The knobs, of a chaste and severe form that occurs on early examples as on the Malton Farm piece PI. xli, 2, have an additional feature, which becomes developed later on, of a sort of extra growth out of the head of them. The head plate with the three divisions is no longer strictly rectangular but its outline expands towards the sides. It has a pattern of diamonds stamped on the edges of the centre division. The wings below the bow show the animal's head, and all this region is sharply faceted and finished in a most workmanlike style. The forehead of the ' horse ' has the median groove and the lower part of the muzzle is treated in the later convention. The flatness which Schetelig notices as distinguishing English from Scandinavian examples is very apparent, and we have XLIV facing p. 268 CRUCIFORM FIBULA FROM LONDESBOROUGH, YORKS Natural size XLV facing p. 269 FLORID CRUCIFORM BROOCHES 269 before us a fine and very characteristic piece of Anglian bronze work of about the middle of VI. It would be tedious to describe any of the more florid examples that exhibit the further elaboration of the motives treated with some severity and reserve in the Londesborough piece. The specimens on PI. xlv speak for themselves, for in each case there is represented a growth outwards of features which in their origin and simpler forms we have already come to know. With the ornamental motives employed we are not at the moment concerned, and these will be returned to and examined in connection with the more ornate forms of the square headed fibula, which we shall see developing on similar lines. It may be briefly noted that Nos. 1 and 4, the first at Bury St. Edmunds from West Stow Heath, Suffolk, 6 in. long, and the second at Worcester from Upton Snodsbury, Worcestershire, 4J in. long, are specimens of the later kind of cruciform brooch found in this country, and Dr. Schetelig, who figures two other similar examples under his nos. 131 and 132, reckons them to belong to the latter half of VI. A good deal of time one would imagine must have elapsed between the making of the severe and noble Londesborough brooch and that of a florid amorphous piece like No. 4, and this more probably belongs to VII. No. 2 at Audley End from Little Wilbraham, Cambs, 5 in. long, Schetelig figures as his no. 130 and gives it approximately the same date in VI, while No. 3, in Hull Museum from the recent find at Hornsea, 4^- in. long, is a contemporary piece in which the three knobs, still quite distinct in Nos. 1 and 4, have almost coalesced into a continuous border. The two eyes of the three human faces of 1 and 4 are still however to be made out. The horse's head, still recognizable in 4 and in 2, has become a human head in 1 and 3. No. 6 is the foot of a very late fibula of debased type similar to No. 3 though still more degenerate, in the Black Gate Museum at Newcastle-on-Tyne from White- hill, Tynemouth, 5f in. long. Lastly Nos. 5 and 7 are two 270 FORMS OF THE FIBULA very similar pieces of which 5, in the Evans Collection at Oxford, comes from Barrington, Cambs, and 7, in the Mayer- Faussett Collection at Liverpool, was found at Chesterford in Essex. The stiff square forms are noteworthy, and the square pieces projecting beyond the knobs are to be signalized x as a further development of what we see beginning in the Londes- borough brooch of PI. xliv. The occurrence of such closely related pieces, one in Essex and one in Cambridgeshire, will be noticed later on in its historical significance (p. 597). A word must be said about the manner of wearing these so-called ' long ' brooches, whether of the square headed or the cruciform type. It was a very common though not a universal practice to wear them with what has been called the * foot ' uppermost, so that the pin must have been inserted in the garment from below upwards. It is a curious fact that on Greek vases, where the tunics of female figures are fastened on the shoulders with long pins, these are often, though not always, shown with their points sticking up in somewhat aggressive fashion. This tradition may conceivably have exercised an influence that lasted till the evolution of the long fibula. On a late Roman ivory at Vienna PI. xxxm, 3 (p. 243), a figure of ' Roma ' is shown wearing a square headed fibula foot upwards, and male figures on the famous ivory diptych at Halberstadt (p. 375 f.) fasten their cloaks in the same fashion. At Bifrons cemetery the explorers reported that the position of the long brooches showed that they had been worn in this way. The bird brooch, PI. xxxv, n, has the pin hinged at the foot so that when worn with the head of the creature in its natural position the pin would point upwards. It stands to reason of course that this cannot always have been the case, for the design would not admit of it in instances where the human face, for example, was exhibited. PI. xxxiv, 7, must, one would think, have been meant to be worn head upwards. The fact here noticed as to the placing of the brooches has 1 H. Schetelig, Cruciform Brooches, p. 107. XLVI facing p. 271 PLATE AND EQUAL ARMED FIBULAE /, 2, 7, 8, Q, 10, are Continental EQUAL ARMED FIBULAE 271 been taken account of in arranging the plates, which show the objects in both the possible positions. This problem of the relations in position of the * head ' and the ' foot ' of the fibulae, when worn on the figure, leads us by an easy transition to the so-called equal armed fibula, about which no such question can arise. Some examples of this were shown PL xxxvn, 5, 6, 7, while two or three continental ones have been added to PL xlvi as Nos. 7, 8, 9, and of a group from Stockholm a perspective view is given PL xlvi, 10. These are called by the French c fibules ansees ' because they resemble box handles that could be screwed down through the two plates on each side of the central bow. In the example PI. xxxvn, 7 (p. 247), the two plates are set at right angles to the bow instead of in a line with it. This actual piece, from Kempston, Bedfordshire, is a comparatively degenerate example of a limited class of fibulae practically confined to one or two localities in our own country and in the region about the Elbe Mouth in Germany, one home of our Teutonic fore- fathers. The type is in this way an important historical link of connection between earlier and later seats of the English, and was evidently brought over to this country fully evolved in the form in which we find it in the Hanoverian province. Earlier specimens to be noticed later on (p. 561 f.) probably belong to V, and the archaeological evidence of their ornamenta- tion corresponds, for this is of a kind that belongs to IV and V, when classical forms were dominant in much of the art of the time. Few objects indeed among those with which we are now dealing rejoice in a date so well attested and so early. The significance of this fact will be seen when we examine the general form of the object, taking for the moment the example No. 7 on PL xxxvn. Other examples of the type are far more interesting and will occupy attention on a subsequent page from the point of view of their enrichment. The first thing to notice is that this kind of equal armed fibula, in which the head and foot are set at right angles to the 272 FORMS OF THE FIBULA bow, differs markedly from those in which all three are in a line in the fact that while this as we have just seen is very early the others are correspondingly late. The ' fibule ansee ' is so reckoned by the French archaeologists, and M. Boulanger goes so far as to say that ' les fibules ansees sont les dernieres qui figurent dans les tombes a la fin du VIII e siecle et au commencement du IX e .' 1 This is from the point of view of morphology quite regular. The safety pin type of fibula we have seen passing through a long series of modifications affecting both the head and the foot, and it is in accordance with the laws which govern these changes that after a long period of time invention should grow cold, and both head and foot losing their special significance should ultimately settle down into characterless shapes each of which is a copy of the other. In this way the late ' fibule ansee ', 7, 8, 9, may easily be explained, but the puzzle is that the same sort of phenomenon should occur at a date that is comparatively very early, when invention was in full swing and head and foot were being treated in a fresh and living fashion. The explanation seems to be that the wide equal-armed fibula does not find its place in the normal scheme of development, but is a copy of a special though rare form of provincial- Roman fibula that bears to it a superficial resemblance. This point is illustrated later on (p. 552 f.) in connection with the important early examples of the class that have just been mentioned. It should at the same time be borne in mind that out-of- the-way forms of the brooch are possible at any time, for they may come under the category i plate fibula ' to which attention will presently be directed. This heading ' plate fibula,' it will be seen, covers an extremely wide range, for it was in accord- ance with the rules of the game to make almost anything of suitable size and shape into a fibula. No morphological laws seem here to have been in force. At a very early date in the Teutonic period we see this evidenced in the fibulae from the 1 Marcbe/epot, p. 170. FIBULAE OF THE PLATE TYPE 273 Treasure of Petrossa, of IV, at Bucharest, where fanciful forms such as those that will be found on PI. xlviii, 1, 2 (p. 279), make their appearance. No. 1 on that plate is supposed to represent an ibis, and may be regarded as the prototype of the ' bird ' fibulae in general. It is of outrageous size, nearly 10 in. in height, but the pin at the back shows clearly that it was a brooch. Another piece, No. 2, has no specific form but presents a fanciful composition freely invented. It is imprac- ticable however to regard the equal armed fibulae with which we are dealing as an invention of the kind, for the distinctive bow in the middle links them unmistakably to the fibulae of the safety pin type. Dr. Salin notes that these equal armed brooches have as yet received but little attention on the part of archaeologists, and he claims them as rather a northern speciality. The next group of fibulae to be noticed embraces all those of the 'plate' type, subdivided into 'disc,' 'applied,' 'saucer,' ' button,' and * bird ' brooches, with one or two miscellaneous forms that may come under this heading. The most im- portant class of disc fibulae is that known as ' Kentish ' in which ornamentation by means of garnet inlays is the chief feature. This inlaid work is a subject of the first importance and a discussion of it would carry us at once beyond the field of the fibula. It is therefore omitted in this place and a full treatment of it in its larger aspects will be given in Chapter x. It will be sufficient here to establish the character of the sub- type independently of the special ornamentation connected with it. It so happens that it is a fibula type that is very sparingly represented at Bifrons so that a summary treatment of it in this place is only natural. There are one or two Bifrons examples that are of special value as representing an early form of the inlaid jewel, and these will be found figured on PL cxlv, 5 to 8 (p. S33)- ^- xxxvr > IO > gives an example of a later and more common form, consisting in a round plate of bronze with pin attachment at the back, the ornamentation III s 274 FORMS OF THE FIBULA being partly composed of inlaid garnets. This is a very modest specimen of a class sometimes represented by magnificent examples of the craft of the goldsmith and jewel setter. The genesis of the round disc form is easy to trace. It is a familiar classical product in use among the Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans, and it is from this source that it was introduced into the Teutonic world, where the Franks and the Jutes of Kent made it specially their own. The Etruscan ladies used these round brooches to fasten their raiment, and specimens have been found in their tombs. Greek ladies no doubt followed the same fashion, though it is a curious fact that Greek tombs have yielded up the scantiest possible supply of objects of the kind. Greek sculpture shows representations of brooches fastening on the shoulder the military cloak or chlamys of the youths, as on the Parthenon frieze, but the tombs disappoint us when we search them for the originals. The Romans also made great use for similar purposes of fastenings of the kind, and the famous mosaic pictures of Justinian and his consort Theodora in S. Vitale at Ravenna, PI. xxxiii, i, 2 (p. 243), exhibit the Emperor with his cloak fastened on the right shoulder by a jewelled disc of the sort under review, from which, it will be seen, hang down three pendants. Theodora as will be noticed wears a pair of such brooches, one on each side, and this corresponds with the habit of the German ladies as evidenced in the cemeteries. Upon this fashion in connec- tion with the general question of the Germanic costume of the times something will be said on a later page (p. 374 f.). Among disc fibulae of Teutonic make though of classical pattern the first place is taken by a pair of golden ones in the second treasure of Szilagy Somlyo at Budapest shown on the lowest line on PL cxliv (p. 529). They measure nearly 4 in. in diameter and rise in the form of truncated cones to a height of about 1% in. The ornament is in repousse work in gold and inlays. The loops to which pendants were attached are seen at their edge. XLVII facing p. 275 SAUCER AND APPLIED BRIOCHES 1, considerably reduced ; 2, about natural size DISC AND SAUCER FIBULAE 275 A much more modest form of the disc fibula consists in simple bronze plates, ij- in. or 2 in. in diameter, furnished underneath with pins, and ornamented on the front with stamped or incised patterns of an unpretentious linear kind. The form is very widely distributed, and occurs from a very early period. A very good example is the early Bifrons piece PI. xxxvi, 6. There is no question in these of typology or evolution, and they remain throughout strong serviceable adjuncts to the toilette, whose only interest from the aesthetic side is their ornament, with which we are not for the moment concerned. It happens not infrequently that bronze circular plates are found with no trace of ornament on the face, but provided with pins at the back or perhaps without pins but with indications that these had once been attached. There is always a chance here that an ornamented plate in thin gilded bronze or even in gilded silver or gold had once been cemented to the front of the brooch forming its artistic finish. Brooches with thin plates of the kind still in position are fairly numerous and constitute the important class known as 'applied' brooches. The Bifrons specimen PI. xxxvi, 7, of which the back with broken pin attachment is shown in the photograph, was almost certainly a piece of this kind. To complete such a brooch there was required not only the embossed plate but also a narrow upright rim that was soldered on round the edge and served to protect the applied plate, which was always very thin, from damage. This rim is often broken away even when the plate or part of it is preserved, and this is not to be wondered at as the construction is far from strong. It was experience of this weakness which in all probability led to the invention of the * saucer ' brooch represented at Bifrons by some quite unimportant specimens PI. xxxvi, 5, 12. In dimensions and general character the two agree but the saucer brooch is a thoroughly sound piece of work. It is made in one piece of cast bronze, the ornament on the face being afterwards sharpened up with the chasing tool and 276 FORMS OF THE FIBULA gilded, and the rim, of a piece with the rest, is set at an obtuse angle to the plate, the surface of which it effectually protects. A large number of brooches of both kinds came to light at Kempston and are shown PL xlvii, I. Both the saucer and applied kinds are represented here, the former above, the latter in the lower rows. It will be seen that two embossed plates of applied brooches are wholly detached from their base, and in other instances the protective ring originally soldered on round the edge has come away, whereas the saucer specimens are as sound as the day on which they were turned out, and this sustains Mr. Thurlow Leeds's contention that the latter represent a technical improvement on a type that had grown up in somewhat uncertain fashion. A curious intermediate form seems to be represented by the lowest piece on the plate, No. 2, which gives the front and back views of a saucer brooch, 2 in. in diameter, from Duston, Northants, in the Northampton Museum. Here the fibula is cast with the rim in one piece, but the embossed gilded front plate is separate, as the photograph shows in the lower part. In the centre of the Kempston group is a saucer brooch of minute dimensions, of a type represented at Bifrons, PL xxxvi, 1. Specimens of this type measure about |- in. in diameter, and are called commonly ' button ' brooches. This variety is interest- ing both from its distribution and from the kind of ornament applied to it, and will be further discussed on a subsequent page (p. 321 f.). The typological interest of these applied and saucer brooches resides mainly in the character of their ornamenta- tion, for the form is constant and the difference in this respect between brooch and brooch, apart from size, depends chiefly on the presence in some examples, especially common in the Cambridgeshire district, of a central boss or stud that sometimes carries an inlay of garnet. PI. lx, 6 (p. 319), is an example. The diameter of saucer brooches varies from about 1^ to cl- inches. With the ornament we are not at the moment con- FOREIGN APPLIED BROOCHES 277 cerned but on the origin and pre-history of the sub-type a word or two must be said. These were discussed in a valuable paper in a recent volume of Archaeologia^ vol. lxiii, by Mr. Thurlow Leeds of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. Like some other char- acteristic English products they may be traced back to earlier forms which occur in Romanized lands and also in the regions of northern Europe from which our Teutonic forefathers drew their origin, but they are only seen there, so to say, in embryo, and their case is like that of the small long fibulae just discussed in connection with the Kempston finds, in that while they may originate abroad their development is a specially English affair. The saucer brooch cast in one piece seems only to be represented abroad by two small specimens in the Museum at Hamburg, and one stray piece, found in the cemetery of Harmignies in Belgium and now in the Museum at Brussels. These are figured later on, PI. cxlix, 8, 4 (p. 553). The Harmignies specimen, No. 4, is i-| in. across and the two Hamburg ones, No. 8, from a cremation cemetery in the Hanoverian province at Alten Buls, are less than 1 in. The Belgian piece seems late and may very likely be an import from England, but the Alten Buls burial contained early objects associated with these saucer fibulae and this find seems to prove that the saucer brooch was actually being made by the con- tinental kinsmen of our English settlers about the time that the migration took place. The complete applied brooch is also abroad of great rarity though more examples are known than of the saucer brooch. One from Maroeuil, Pas de Calais, in the Museum at Brussels, is shown later, PL cxlix, i (p. $53). It is 1 j- in. in diameter and has the pin at the back in working order. Another from Sigy, Seine Inferieure, at Rouen, PI. cxlix, 2, 2 in. across, is specially interesting because the ornament on the applied plate closely resembles that on an applied brooch found at East Sheffbrd, Berks, PI. cxlix, 5. A curious trident shape is 278 FORMS OF THE FIBULA common to both. Detached plates are more common abroad than the complete brooches. There is one in the Ashmolean from Waben, Pas de Calais, and some other Franco-Roman ones of earlier date are shown on PL cxlviii. Such plates also occur in the Elbe Mouth region, and one of the most interesting in the Museum at Hanover will be found figured PI. cxlix, 3. There are two appliques probably for brooches in the Museum at Stade, PI. cxlix, 7. In this Hanoverian region the bronze plate which carries the pin makes its appearance not infrequently, devoid of any applied disc, and of any protecting rim. Specimens from the Museums at Hanover and Geestemiinde are shown PL xlvi, i to 3. It may be noticed that No. 3, at Hanover, shows the peculiarity that a flat rim has been soldered round the outer circumference of the face of the brooch, which has a hole in the centre of it. A precisely similar piece was found at Little Wilbraham, Cambridgeshire, and is figured under no. 22 on pi. 3 of Neville's Saxon Obsequies. Some of these continental specimens, e.g. that from Hanover shown PL xlvi, i, possess the significant character- istic that the face shows traces of enamel, and it is evident that the enrichment was in these cases in the form of coloured vitreous pastes and not in that of a thin ' applied ' plate with embossed ornaments. This use of enamel which is not uncommon in these continental plate brooches found in the North gives a clue to their origin. They are probably Ger- manic imitations of the provincial-Roman enamelled bronze brooches which were in very common use at the beginning of the migration period. These brooches were turned out in great numbers and exported to all parts of the Roman Empire so that they come to light almost everywhere, from the north- western frontier posts of the Empire in the Scottish lowlands to the south-eastern limit by the Euphrates. There is evidence that they were manufactured in considerable abundance II and III a.d. in the neighbourhood of Namur, from which locality XLVIII facing p. 279 PLATE FIBULAE OF SPECIAL FORMS /, 2, are Continental USE OF ENAMELLING 279 comes the example shown in its natural colours PI. E, 1 (p. 519), but there must have been many active centres of fabrication. There is great variety in their shapes, animal forms being much in evidence, but the round disc bulks very largely in every collection of examples, and not uncommonly carries in the centre a projecting stud. The enamel on these is of the champleve kind and the bronze out of which the cells are hollowed is of substantial thickness. The plate brooches or 1 Scheibenfibeln,' to give them their German name, with which we are at the moment concerned, are as a rule enamelled in the encrusting technique by means of thin films of the vitreous pastes floated on the surface, though there is one very fine, and as yet unpublished, piece in a northern Museum where the enamel is fused into cloisons of bronze. The art of enamelling was known among the Germans of the migration period and was practised even by the Anglo-Saxons (p. 519 f.) but it was never a craft that any of the Teutonic peoples favoured, and was only, so to say, kept alive ready to be revived in the Carolingian and later periods. It was quite natural that the process should soon be dropped in the orna- mentation of the ' Scheibenfibeln,' and that its place should be taken by the thin embossed plates of gilded bronze which had been in use from late Roman times (PL cxlviii), while the projecting central stud may conceivably be a Roman reminiscence. The above is a possible and even a plausible theory of the origin of the applied and saucer brooches. The probable history of the brooches in this country, which has practically a monopoly of them, can only be surmised on the basis of a comparative study of their ornamentation, and this will pre- sently be undertaken. A disc form of the plate fibula that must not be passed over is that shown PL xlvi, 5, 6. No. 6 is a silver brooch at York from the Croft collection, enclosing in a series of con- centric circles formed of beading a copy of a silver coin of the 280 FORMS OF THE FIBULA Emperor Valentinian. This would suggest rather an early date for the piece, and this is borne out to some extent by the occurrence of a very similar fibula with a copy of a Byzantine coin set in concentric rings of granulated work in gold in the Museum at Leeuwarden, where it is ascribed to VI or VII. At the same time also it resembles closely in its style a class of disc brooches made of pewter, of which No. 5, from the Guildhall Museum, London, is a specimen. These appear all to be late, in the Danish period, and if this be the case the type must have been fairly persistent though the material degenerated from gold and silver to pewter. The form of the plate fibula reserved to the last is seen in PI. xxxv, 11. It is a summary representation of a bird with a pronounced hooked beak, and is generally small and compara- tively rude in execution. It is probably Gothic in its ultimate origin, and we may recognize a monumental form of it in the immense ' ibis ' fibula in the Treasure of Petrossa, PL xlviii, i. The f bird ' fibulae with which we are now dealing are very ignoble satellites of such a lordly ancestor, but the descent is none the less probable. Such bird fibulae occur in finds in Hungary but are especially common in the Merovingian cemeteries of France. On the question of the significance of the bird form something will be said later on (p. 526 f.) in connection with Gothic art generally. Another bird form which sometimes makes its appearance is that of the duck, of which an example from Chessell Down in the Isle of Wight is shown PI. xlvi, 4. There is a kind of brooch formed of the bodies of two birds arranged back to back in such a way as to suggest the letter ' S,' whence the name ' S '-shaped fibulae sometimes given to examples. The type is represented, though not exactly, in one of the remarkable appliques from Buttsole, Eastry, Kent, at Maidstone, PL xxiv, 2 (p. 203), bottom line to the right. One or two specimens have been found in this country but they are of extreme rarity. The national collection embraces DECORATED QUOIT FIBULAE i, 2, 3, enlarged by about one-half ABNORMAL < PLATE' FIBULAE 281 two, one from Chessell Down, and the other from Iffley, Oxon. This example is figured PL xlviii, 7. One was found in the cemetery at Sleaford, Lincolnshire. 1 Under the heading ' plate fibulae ' may be grouped one or two abnormal pieces, for this name as we have seen is used with a very extensive denotation. The example of which a view is given in No. 3 on PL xlviii was found near Milden- hall in Suffolk and belongs to Mr. S. G. Fenton of London. It consists in four birds' heads arranged in a swastika ' pattern. In the centre there is a square sinking filled with red enamel of the transparent kind, the ' Blut-Email ' of Otto Tischler, and the eyes of the creatures were also enamelled. The material is bronze and the size of each side of the square is a little under 2 in. Mr. Reginald Smith signalizes this as one of the earliest pieces of Teutonic work in the country but like the bird fibulae generally it comes from the Gothic east by way of Hungary, where prototypes of it occur. The one which most nearly resembles it was found at Fenek, and Professor Hampel dates it in the second half of VI, 2 so that the Mildenhall piece need not be placed at a very remote epoch. The recent discovery of a very richly furnished South Saxon burial place at Alfriston in Sussex supplies us with a specimen pair of so-called ' swastika ' brooches, a form occa- sionally found before in this country especially in the Midlands. The piece, PL xlviii, 5, measures 1 in. across and has the pin attachment behind. Another * swastika ' brooch with the device in open-work is shown PL xlviii, 6. It is from Market Overton, Rutland, and is now at Tickencote Hall. The triangular plate brooch, No. 4, is at Cambridge and was found at Lakenheath Warren, Suffolk. It would not be difficult to find other abnormal forms of the fibula to place by the side of those here shown, but in the interests of space it will be best to proceed to the next heading. 1 Archaeologia, l, 388. 2 Alttrtk'umer in Ungarn, 1, 780, and in, Taf. 177, I. 2 82 FORMS OF THE FIBULA Under the c ring ' type the ' quoit ' fibula may be first con- sidered, as in appearance it bears a considerable resemblance to the simple form of the disc fibula already noticed (p. 275), though its manner of use in relation to the fabric it fastens is quite different, while it is often ornamented in the same simple fashion with incised or, rather, stamped linear patterns. Examples are however met with of far greater aesthetic pre- tensions than the modest specimen in bronze on the Bifrons Plate xxxvi, No. 8. The finest of these was found at Sarre, Kent, and is shown on an enlarged scale PL xlix, i. The original measures 3^ in. in diameter and is of silver parcel gilt, with cast ornaments added in the form of birds. The plaque is ornamented in a technique that may be partly punched and partly incised work, but is more probably only the former. An examination of the back shows that the plate has been laid on some unyielding surface and operated upon from the front with punches and tracing tools driven by the hammer. There are indications of the design at the back but the process is not repousse work proper, for the metal is not forced out at the back where it is indented on the front, as would be the case were the plate laid on a yielding ground such as the pitch and plaster composition now in use. A touch of human interest is added to the piece when we note that an error has been made in setting out the design and a naive device adopted for con- cealing it from the eye. The two bands of ornament are filled with figures of animals in pairs, on which a word will be said later on (p. 562 f.). On the outer band there are nine pairs and it was evidently intended to have the same on the inner band where the animals are so disposed as to take less space. By some miscalculation however there are only eight pairs and a half, so that there is one odd animal. To conceal this error one of the cast silver doves, that which points its head towards the centre, is riveted over the place and prevents the casual glance apprehending that anything is wrong. There are few more interesting or beautiful pieces of early Anglo-Saxon art THE QUOIT BROOCH 283 in existence. It will be noted that a third dove is perched upon the hinge end of the pin. Another interesting but smaller specimen, i-| in. in dia- meter, also of silver, has quite recently come to light at Alfriston in Sussex, PI. xlix, 2, and is of especial value owing to the occurrence in its traced enrichment of a floral pattern that is in Teutonic work of extreme rarity. We are only concerned here with the question of form, and from this point of view it must be noted that there are three makes of the ' quoit ' brooches two of which answer to the two kinds of f ring ' brooches, those completely annular and the penannular ones. The Bifrons quoit brooch, PI. xxxvi, 8, has an unbroken circumference within and without, and the pin, which is hinged by means of a small hole near the margin of the inner circle, rests on the top of the flat ring on the opposite side of this inner circle. When it was used, the fabric, or the two portions of it which had to be joined together, was forced up in a little bunch through the central aperture and the pin was passed through it or the two adjacent portions of it. The drag of the stuff then brought the point of the pin down against the plate and kept it there. On the other hand, in the Sarre brooch, in an example from Alfriston, Sussex, PL xlix, 3 (not the one referred to above) and other specimens, the outer circuit of the band is complete but its inner circumference is broken by a deep notch which allows the point of the hinged pin to pass through. When the brooch was in use the pin would be dropped through this opening and passed through the two pieces of fabric it was desired to hold together. The point, project- ing out of the fabric, would now be passed up again through the notch and to prevent it slipping back it was moved a little to one side where it would be caught against one of two studs that stand out from the band and serve as guards to the opening. In Nos. 1 and 2 on PI. xlix the pin is hinged round, and allowed to move laterally upon, a separate ring attached to the plate. In No. 3 it is hinged in a hole in the 284 FORMS OF THE FIBULA plate and such lateral movement is not possible, except so far as the looseness of the hinge enables the point to be diverted to the outer side of one of the small knobs. Most often, instead of the knobs, there are slightly elevated ridges on the sides of the opening to prevent the pin slipping back. The Bifrons quoit brooch, PI. xxxvi, 8, shows these, though here there is no actual opening, and it is probable that their appear- ance here is a case of survival and serves to indicate the presence in a former state of existence of the brooch of a real slit, such as we see in PI. li, i , a piece from the Bloxam collection in the School Museum, Rugby. This we know to be an early piece as it was found in conjunction with the Watling Street cruciform brooch PI. xli, i (p. 261) and other objects of a date about 500 a.d. In the third kind of quoit brooch the band is completely severed and becomes penannular as in PL xlix, 2. The three pieces on PI. xlix are shown enlarged by one half, such enlargement being really necessary in order to exhibit the design and technique, especially on the Sarre brooch, No. 1. No. 3, it should be noted, is of silvered bronze not like the others of silver. It measures in diameter i-^ in. and is ornamented with simple linear punched designs. Penannular and annular brooches are comprised in the last set of fibulae with which we have to deal. Only the second kind is represented in the Bifrons collection, 1 see PI. xxxvi, 2, 3, 4, 9, 11, 13. The archaeology of them opens up some interesting questions into which it is not possible to enter at any length in this place, and as the pen- annular brooch belongs rather to the Viking age than to that of the pagan tomb furniture there will be a suitable opportunity for discussing it afterwards in this connection. These brooches correspond in their manner of use to the two kinds of quoit brooch, the closed and the open, just passed in review, 1 See however the remark made previously (p. 247 note 2 ) about a possible penannular example, that is figured and discussed later on under the rubric 'bracelet' (p. 445 f.). L facing p. 285 NON-SAXON RING FIBULAE PENANNULAR BROOCHES 285 and the construction of PL xlix, i and 2 seems to show that the ring brooches are prior to those in the quoit form, for we see in both the Sarre and the Alfriston examples a penannular ring brooch added to the quoit-shaped plate in order to secure the easy lateral movement of the pin. In the various species of fibulae we see constantly at work the desire to secure additional space for the display of ornament, and it is probable that the quoit form is merely a ring flattened out with this end in view. Its pin arrangement connects it with the ring rather than with the disc type of fibula, though as we have seen its ornamentation resembles that of some of the discs. Some ring brooches are partly flattened out and seem to re- present a transitional stage. This is the case with PL li, 4, 1 7. Both penannular and annular brooches are prior to the migration period and the Teutons took them over from the Romans and the Celts. A Romano-British example of the former kind from Ham Hill, Somerset, in the Museum at Taunton is shown PL l, i, and beside it, No. 2, is a pen- annular brooch found at High Down, Sussex, which the ex- plorer of the cemetery, Sir Hercules Read, pronounced ' very Celtic in type,' and for which an almost exact parallel can be produced from Leicester. It is figured in the first Leicester volume of the Victoria History. The Celtic brooch PL l, i, has been chosen because in the turned-back ends of the ring it furnishes the prototype for the similar treatment of the terminals of the Alfriston quoit brooch, PL xlix, 2, and this is, of course, evidence favouring an early date for the latter. The development of these two inherited forms in the migration period is a little curious. The pen- annular brooch is so convenient in its arrangements for fastening, which have just been explained in connection with the quoit brooch, that it might have been expected to prevail over the clumsier ring, and we should expect to find the latter opening out in order to let the pin come through. As a fact 1 Hull Scientific and Naturalists' Club Transactions, vol. iv, pt. v, p. 266. 286 FORMS OF THE FIBULA the process is a contrary one, for the penannular brooch closes up and becomes an unbroken ring allowing no passage for the pin. The change is a puzzling one, and Mr. Romilly Allen comments on it as follows. 1 He is dealing with the Celtic examples so common across St. George's Channel. * In the final stage of the development of the penannular brooch in Ireland,' he writes, ' it ceased to be penannular, if we may be permitted to use such an Irish expression. The break in the ring was entirely filled up, although its position can still be traced by the method of arranging the pattern, which survived in its old form long after the split had disappeared. The celebrated Tara brooch in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy affords a striking example of this. The doing away of the break in the ring,' he continues, ' must have entirely defeated the original purpose the brooch was intended to serve, and it would, therefore, appear that these highly decor- ated brooches were made rather for ceremonial use, than to be of any practical value as dress fasteners.' This last sugges- tion would carry more weight if it were not for the existence of the annular brooches which must always have been things of use and which overlap in point of time the penannular ones. The closed penannular brooch is therefore not an aberration but a return to an early and a persistent type that remains in vogue from Roman times till the middle ages. The reason for this absorption of the penannular into the annular form is hard to see. Possibly the great popularity of the buckle in this period may have had something to do with it. As we shall see later on, the simplest form of the buckle is almost the same thing as the annular brooch, and the resemblance of the latter to the former may have contri- buted to its popularity. In many cases these annular fibulae are so simple and unpretentious that it is really impossible to tell by mere inspec- tion whether a particular piece is Roman, pagan Saxon, later 1 Celtic Art, p. 229. ANGLO-SAXON RING FIBULAE i, 2, 4, 7, about natural size; 8, natural size; 3, 5, 6, a little reduced ; 10, 11, somewhat enlarged 12 is Continental ANNULAR BROOCHES 287 Saxon, or mediaeval. PL l, 3 shows a pair found in the garden at Audley End, Essex, and probably mediaeval. PL l, 4, was unearthed on Coquet Island off the coast of Northumberland, and is now in the Museum at Alnwick Castle. In conjunction with it was found an enamelled plaque PL l, 5, that so far as its make goes might be late Saxon but has the vitreous pastes distributed round the outer circle in spaces that are so like the form of the mediaeval heater-shaped shield, that the two must probably be referred to XII, when the island was the seat of a small religious establishment. On the other hand there is no reason to doubt the Anglo-Saxon origin of the plain ring brooches shown on the Bifrons Plate xxxvi (p. 245), nor that of the examples from Stapen- hill, PL li, 2 ; from Hornsea, at Hull, PL li, 4 ; from West Stow Heath, Suffolk, in the Museum at Bury St. Edmunds, PL li, 3, and from Uncleby, Yorkshire, PL li, 6. The Hull Museum contains a remarkable example found at Londes- borough that is shown PL li, 5. It is made of the tine of a stag's horn and is 2^ in. in its widest diameter. It is not absolutely certain that this was a brooch. A similar piece was found at Sleaford. The pin here would be detached and would be run through the bunch of stuff pushed up through the central opening. It has been suggested that sundry bronze rings the purpose of which is not very clear may have been used in the same way with detached pins as brooches. The Hornsea and West Stow Heath pieces, and one or the two from Uncleby, have their rings not plain but orna- mented, and this introduces some fresh considerations. Ornament shows itself on the fibulae of the kinds now under notice in two forms, on the annular kind in a moulding, ribbing, or faceting of the ring ; on the penannular kind in the decorative treatment of the terminals at the opening, sometimes by moulding them into animals' heads. In both kinds the part where the pin turns and the head of the pin 288 FORMS OF THE FIBULA itself may receive some enrichment. In the case of the ring a bossy treatment is generally held to indicate an early date for this is characteristic of the Early Iron Age, where it is found on bracelets of the Hallstatt period, 1 and also on Late- Celtic horse trappings which will be noticed on a subsequent page, PI. c (p. 423). Faceting, such as is seen in the Suffolk specimen PI. li, 3, is commonly held to betoken a Roman connection and hence an early date, for Roman objects of a similar kind in bronze are sharply filed and chased in patterns that correspond. The fibulae in which animals' heads occur as terminals of the ring or of sections of it, might also claim a very early date, for on classical bracelets of Greek and Roman origin it is quite normal to find animals or animals' heads so employed as terminals of the open ring. In early Scandinavian art of about 400 a.d. there are similar though barbaric animals' heads on the ends of golden necklets and armlets of which the Museum at Stockholm has a fine collec- tion. One of the best and earliest, found in Finland, is shown PI. li, 12. It would be a mistake however to argue from these facts in favour of an early date for the pseudo-penannular brooches with heads of animals on them, PI. li, 8 and 10. No. 8 is a Bifrons piece already illustrated on PI. xxxvi, and 10 is a silver brooch found at Faversham, i T ^ in. in diameter, now in the British Museum. The Bifrons example has a knobby ring and two pairs of confronted heads, one where the pin is hinged and the other opposite to this point, and the Faversham one has a banded ring and one pair of heads by the point of the pin. It will be noticed however that in both cases we are deal- ing with a brooch that should be penannular but has become closed up, the ornament however still showing, as Mr. Romilly Allen pointed out, the place where the division should be. This suggests rather an advanced date, and such a date is 1 British Museum, Guide to the Antiquities of the Early Iron Jge, p. 38 and fig. 33. A QUESTION OF DATE 289 rendered a practical certainty by the occurrence at Uncleby in Yorkshire, PL li, ii, of a small silver pseudo-penannular brooch, ijf in. across, with one pair of heads like the Bifrons pair and another pair of heads like those on the Faversham example. Now the Uncleby finds, like those in other Anglo- Saxon burials on the Yorkshire Wolds, are on the whole of a latish date, and at Uncleby Mr. Reginald Smith has pointed out 1 a remarkable resemblance in much of the tomb furniture to that found in Kent. This applies to garnet inlays, and these occur on an interesting annular brooch, with reminiscences of a previous state of penannular existence, from Uncleby in the York Museum, shown PI. li, 7. Here there are two animals' heads with open jaws and aggressive garnet eyes at the hinge side of the brooch which is completely annular and of a flattened quoit-like section. The extension of this Kentish inlaid work to the north probably comes about the year 600, and the type of the heads themselves on Nos. 10, 11 agrees with this. 2 Hence li, 8 and 10, with the kindred Uncleby piece may be of early VII date. PI. li, 9, is a rather clumsy piece that is probably barbaric, from the Bloxam collection in the School Museum at Rugby. It is genuinely penannular, that is to say there is an opening between the knobs, though they have been forced into contact through some accidental pressure that has bent the brooch out of shape. It comes from the Watling Street find of about 500 a.d. (p. 774), as does also the quoit brooch PI. li, i. 1 Proc. Soc. Ant., 2 Ser., xxiv, 146 f, and Victoria History , Yorkshire, 11. 2 They accord with the heads of Salin's ' Style 11,' see Thierornamentik, p. 245 f. and especially p. 326. Compare also the head in the Taplow clasp, PI. lxxvii, 2 (p. 361) that dates early in VII. Ill CHAPTER VI TOMB FURNITURE: (III) ORNAMENTATION ON FIBULAE AND OTHER OBJECTS In the foregoing discussion of the fibula account has been taken of the forms only and not of the enrichment. The object however is one that offers itself especially for ornamental treatment and it is hardly too much to say that the whole subject of Teutonic decorative art can be illustrated from what appears on the fibulae. It is proposed accordingly to deal in this connection with the theme of decoration, and in close association therewith with the theme of the technical processes by which enrichment is produced, so that the subject now before us is Anglo-Saxon ornamentation of the pagan period especially as it is illustrated on the fibulae. The familiar main headings, under which motives are grouped as linear, floral, zoomorphic, and anthropomorphic, will serve the present purpose as a convenient division of the theme, but to * linear ' should be added ' conventional.' Linear ornament proper consists in dots, lines, chevrons, circles, close- coiled spirals, and the like. 1 The ornamental motives called here ' conventional ' differ from these in that they are obviously, or at any rate certainly, derived from representa- 1 In distinguishing linear or geometrical ornament from what is here called 'conventional ' there is no intention of ignoring the fact that it is now recognized that very many patterns used especially among savage races, which seemed to the eye a mere play of lines, are in reality degenerate representa- tions of natural objects. For practical purposes the distinction made above holds good. The word ' linear ' or ' geometrical ' when applied to ornament conveys on the whole a clear idea of a certain class of motives, and this is all that for the present purpose is required of it. 290 TECHNICAL PROCESSES 291 tions of natural or artificial objects, though the forms are often as the Germans say ' stylized ' out of all recognition. Examples are the familiar * guilloche,' originating in a plait or twist ; the ' astragal,' a string of objects ; the maeander, of textile deriva- tion ; the continuous scroll, some forms of which certainly spring from tendrils ; the so-called egg-and-dart, of floral provenance, etc., etc. These are important and much employed motives and should have a separate heading, so that the divisions will be linear, conventional, floral, zoo- morphic, anthropomorphic. The chief technical processes involved are the follow- ing : 1 1, engraving, incising or * tracing ' lines in clay, bone or ivory, wood or metal ; when in a metal plate these lines being sometimes filled in with a black com- position producing what is known as niello work : 2, stamping on metal certain patterns or devices or impressing such on clay : 3, beating up or punching down patterns or designs in a thin plate of metal by the use of moulds or dies or free-hand by the repousse process, or pressing these out in moist clay : 4, casting in metal, with the use of the chasing tool or file as a finish, the process resulting at times in what is known as c faceting ' : 5, inlaying one metal in another, or plating one metal over another : 6, producing devices or patterns by soldering portions of one metal on to another in the form (a) of convo- luted wires (filigree work), or (b) of small globules of metal juxtaposed (granulated work), or (c) of moulded or embossed wires or strips to imitate these : 1 In the Index references will be found to passages in the text in which objects illustrating these technical processes are described. 292 ANGLO-SAXON ORNAMENT 7, overlaying or encrusting metal with coloured vitreous pastes, or fusing these into cloisons or cavities on or in metal (encrusted, cloisonne and champleve enamel work) ; and 8, inserting white or coloured stones or similar sub- stances, or coloured vitreous pastes, in pierced apertures in metal plates or in cavities or compart- ments formed in or on the surface of the metal. It will conduce to clearness if there be introduced here a brief note on the probable sources of some of the chief motives of ornament with which we shall have to deal. The simple linear patterns, dots, chevrons, and the like are too common for it to be worth while to trace them to any particular source. Many conventional motives such as the guilloche or the egg-and-dart wear their origin on their sleeve and are obviously derived from Roman sources. The close-coiled spiral, which is not Greco-Roman, may have a more remote ancestry. This must be distinguished from the well-known Late- Celtic device of the divergent spiral with expanding ends, sometimes called the { trumpet pattern,' or referred to as * flamboyant scrolls,' that has an independent origin and is a highly conventionalized rendering of the foliage ornament of advanced classical times. This appears in Anglo- Saxon surroundings (p. 475 f.) but is of course in origin purely Celtic. A splendid example of the ornament will be seen on the Late-Celtic fibula from Aesica, PI. lii, 3. The close- coiled spiral does not, to the writer's knowledge, occur in its distinctive form in purely Anglo-Saxon art of the Pagan period, but PI. lii, 5, shows it worked in silver and brass on iron on a strap end in the Museum at Worms. It appears in the Early Bronze Age in Denmark, PI. cxli, 1,2 (p. 515), and is found about the same period in Ireland, as on the stone with incised spirals at the mouth of the entrance to the tumulus at Newgrange by the Boyne, PI. lii, i. There is now a very LII facing p. 293 ILLUSTRATIONS OF ORNAMENT AND TECHNIQUE fj 6, 7, p, are Continental ; I is Iris h SPIRAL MOTIVES 293 general consensus of opinion that the spiral motive was first brought into common use in Egypt and in the homes of the early so-called Aegean culture, and that it spread from there to the north-west of Europe either by the land route along the valleys of the Danube, Moldau, and Elbe, or round by the ocean ways past Spain and Britain. 1 It was accordingly domesticated in our own part of the world before the Romans or perhaps even the Celts appeared conspicuously on the scene. It is worth noting here that a very common motive of the migration period, concentric circles, may very likely be a degenerate descendant of a series of spirals. An intermediate stage in the descent is represented by a set of circles with tangential lines joining them, a motive that occurs commonly on the so-called ' geometrical ' or c Dipylon ' vases found in Greece and especially in Attica and representing the next stage in the history of vase decoration after the Mycenaean. In Mycenaean art the true spiral is freely used, but on these geometrical vases lines of circles joined by straight lines tangential to them take the place of the spirals. An example of this design on ivory found in Kent but of Romano-British provenance is shown PI. lii, 2. The next step is to leave out the tangential lines, and we obtain then the mere pattern of circles disposed over the field, sometimes with smaller con- centric circles and sometimes only with dots within them, that is so common in the migration period. The single circle with the dot is represented, PI. lii, 4, in a bone buckle, probably Anglo-Saxon, in the Collection of the Duke of Northumberland at Alnwick Castle, and concentric circles in an interesting little plaque of the same material from Croydon in the Grange Wood Museum, Thornton Heath, PI. lii, 8. 1 There is an excellent resume of the discussions on this subject in Mr. George Coffey's New Grange and other Incised Tumuli in Ireland ; the Influence of Crete and the Aegean in the extreme West of Europe in early times ; Dublin, 1912. 294 ANGLO-SAXON ORNAMENT Interlacing work, which it is natural to connect with the spiral as the two occur together so often on stones and in MS. illuminations, is most probably of Roman origin and finds its source in the interlacing patterns derived from the guilloche that are found on Roman mosaic pavements. 1 This motive however, though employed occasionally at rather a late date on the tomb furniture, 2 becomes of infinitely greater importance in the Christian period, and any discussion of the origin and history of the motive will find a more suitable place in a subsequent volume. A motive which may make a third with the spiral and the entrelac is the so-called chip-carving ' ornament, familiar to the modern world on Scandinavian wood-work and other simply adorned industrial products. In this style of enrichment geometrical forms are produced and combined into patterns, the forms being such as are naturally created by cuts into a flat surface of wood when the knife is sloped at an angle with the plane operated on. The forms, as the German terms ' Keilschnitt ' or ' Kerbschnitt ' imply, are wedge-shaped, or notch-like, for small prisms of wood are in each operation cut out and generally leave triangular sinkings that by their shape and combinations are made to produce a decorative effect. Ornament of this kind occurs on certain important objects of bronze of the late Roman and early migration period, 3 and it is held by many archaeologists that it is merely a transference from wood, and that as the peoples of the North used wood for their buildings as well as for numerous other purposes of life, so they would develop 1 See Mr. George Coffey's Guide to the Celtic Antiquities . . . in the National Museum, Dublin, p. 8 f., and Mr. Romilly Allen's Celtic Art, p. 242 f. 2 e.g. on a series of bronze buckles specially well represented in northern France and Belgium but occurring also in our own country, see Pll. lxxiii, lxxiv (p. 357), and also in animal designs (p. 329 f.). 3 For these objects and their historical position see Chapter x (p. 548 f.). < CHIP CARVING' PATTERNS 295 characteristic forms of wood ornamentation. It is a recognized fact that the Runic characters were expressly shaped to be cut in timber, and this proves the familiar use among the ancient Germans of the knife on wood. We must remember too that the wooden buildings of Attila's headquarters in Hungary, in the middle of V, were partly constructed 4k cravihoiv iyyXv^cov, 1 'of beams ornamented with incised sculpture,' and were probably German work. Hence we may be inclined to claim these patterns as native Teutonic products, which were in due course adopted by the classical peoples and transferred to other material such as the bronze objects just referred to, some of which are certainly of provincial-Roman provenance. On the other hand it may be pointed out that these same * Keilschnitt ' patterns, in the form of triangles, chevrons, sunk stars, and the like, are found on Roman sculp- tured altars of a fairly early imperial date, and specimens of the kind are to be seen in our own country at Chester, New- castle-on-Tyne, etc., and especially in the church porch at Lanchester, County Durham, on a very fine late Roman altar found in the vicinity. This fact has led Riegl and others to deny to the motives any origin in wood-carving or any northern provenance, and to claim them as purely classical. We must remember however that from an early period of the Empire there was an interpenetration of Germanic and classical culture which rendered possible an influence from north to south as well as one in a northerly direction. Germans fought in the Roman army even under Julius Caesar, and it is quite conceivable that these motives as used by the Romans are really of northern origin, for they are certainly alien to the spirit of classical art as a whole. Dr. Bernhard Salin is disposed to hold to an origin for them in wood, while Riegl's judgement was necessarily somewhat warped by his obsession with the idea of a classical origin for all the manifestations of art in the migration epoch. 1 Priscus, De Legatione, 63, in M tiller's Fragmenla Hist. Graec, iv, 89. 296 ANGLO-SAXON ORNAMENT Passing now to the more advanced motives, we may for the moment consider in conjunction floral and zoomorphic ornament. Each is derived from the forms of one of the two great ' kingdoms ' of animate nature, and these two aspects of nature appeal to men in different stages of civiliza- tion. Man in the hunter stage is interested almost exclusively in animals, which he studies minutely with a view to their apprehension or slaughter. Phenomena that have come to light from almost the very earliest periods of human history show that the primitive hunter of the Older Stone Age not only pursued the beasts of the field but also drew and carved them in representations of remarkable spirit and accuracy. In the present connection it does not matter whether he did this for some purpose associated with magic or religion or from a purely artistic impulse the fact remains that zoomorphic art is the natural domain of the hunter. The Esquimaux, the Bushmen, are hunters and also artists, though not so good at animal drawing as the cave dweller of old. In unsophisti- cated Switzerland it was the chamois hunter who wrought in the winter evenings those delicate and spirited carvings which travellers of the last generation used to bring home from the Oberland. The hunter does not care so much for plants, but these are the special province of the agriculturalist. It has been suggested that as animal art begins in the hunter stage so foliage ornament is the invention of the men who had passed from the sphere of venery to that of farming. The fact is however that the regular life of the tiller of the fields with its constant round of recurring occupations is not nearly so favourable to the development of the artistic instincts as the more stirring and varied existence of the hunter, who enjoys moreover when his larder is full unbroken intervals of leisure. Hence the early agriculturalist of the neolithic period of culture does not seem to have invented either floral ornament or any other artistic device of any moment, and it is probable that floral ornament, though ABSENCE OF FOLIAGE MOTIVES 297 there are distinct traces of it in the palaeolithic epoch of hunter life, is really the product of a condition of society when people were able to take their ease in their surroundings, and in indulging the very primitive and ever-present instinct for personal adornment used for the crown or necklet the leaves and flowers of the woods and fields. In their daily life the Teutonic invaders of the Empire had all passed out of the hunter stage and practised agriculture. They may have followed the chase to keep down the numbers of noxious beasts or for the pleasure of the sport which still attracts their remote descendants, but it is obvious from the nature of the Anglo-Saxon settlements that farming was all along the main occupation that conditioned all social arrange- ments. In the matter of art however they were particularly addicted to zoomorphic ornament and showed scarcely a particle of interest in that drawn from the vegetable kingdom. These facts, by themselves or in co-ordination one set with the other, are of some significance. The one last mentioned, that floral ornament claims little or no part in early Teutonic artistic activity in the pagan period, is almost sufficient in itself to vindicate the individuality and independence of Germanic art. Classical decoration both among the Greeks and Romans made abundant use of floral motives and under the early Roman Empire there was a fresh development in this particular, of which the Ara Pacis Augusti and kindred monuments are evidence. Early Christian art, founded on classical, also availed itself freely of these motives, and on the Bewcastle Cross there is exquisite foliage enrichment based on a graceful re-presentation of the vine scrolls on the ' Samian ' pottery and Roman funeral monuments. If the Germanic art of the pagan period had been so thoroughly Roman as some archaeologists would have us believe, it is inconceivable that no place should be found in it for the characteristic classical foliage motives. As a fact there is hardly any trace at all of the classical acanthus leafage on objects of Teutonic 298 ANGLO-SAXON ORNAMENT tomb furniture any more than there is on the Bewcastle and Ruthwell Crosses, the only approaches to it being the one or two pieces figured on PI. ix and discussed in the Chapter on Coins (p. 107), while the acanthus is the most common of all Roman ornamental motives, and any art growing directly out of Roman would infallibly by its use of this motive have betrayed its origin. We can see the truth of this by a glance at the monuments of Carolingian art, where in work inspired by a deliberate return to the antique the acanthus is every- where in evidence. This absence of floral ornament from the enrichment of the objects with which we are. concerned is one very cogent argument in favour of the view of the inde- pendence of Germanic art which is here maintained. The other fact, the Teutonic penchant for zoomorphic ornament, is also in its way significant. As the people were not hunters by profession but farmers, there is no ground for ascribing this predilection to the same natural instinct which turned the* palaeolithic follower of the mammoth and the reindeer into a clever artist. Nor again can we base this penchant on the sort of fellow feeling for animals so common in children, and natural too in people who live an open-air life among the beasts and birds. A feeling of this kind, if it led to artistic expression, would result in na'ive attempts at naturalistic delineation that would gradually improve and grow more lifelike as time went on, as is the case with the efforts of children educated under the Drawing Society. Now this is distinctly what we do not find in the animal work on the normal tomb furniture of the migration period. As a fact, the earliest representations of animals in Teutonic art, at any rate in north-western Europe, exhibit a conventional not a naturalistic treatment, and the conventions had clearly not been established among the Teutons themselves but had been taken over ready made from a more advanced people. The most conspicuous form is that of a crouching or extended quadruped seen in profile on the edge of some surface of which ANIMAL FORMS 299 it forms a sort of cresting, or else on the flat surface itself, and a comparison of examples shows clearly that this was adopted from provincial- Roman art. The form however appears to be that of an elongated lion or a leopard in later heraldry the two do not seem to be distinguished and it can only be Roman in a mediate sense, for it is obvious that creatures of the lion type were not indigenous in classical art but importa- tions from the East. The history of the earliest Greek art shows this clearly. Now this same motive of the crouching lionine creature occurs in Caucasian art that must have been quite independent of Rome, and at the London Congress of Historical Studies in 1 913 a Russian scholar exhibited some new discoveries of the kind that cast a fresh light on this familiar motive. The leopards which, treated in the round, form the handles of the open-work golden basket from the treasure of Petrossa are certainly of oriental and not Roman origin. See PI. cxlii, 5 (p. 523). It is accordingly arguable that as the classical peoples derived motives of this kind from the East, so the East may have sent them up to the North- West by the open route at the back of the Carpathians. So far as can be seen however, the assimilation of this motive by the Germanic craftsmen worked itself out rather along the "line of the Rhine and the Danube than further north, and as stated above it may be accepted as a direct classical derivation. Another early animal motive of a conventional kind is the creature's head seen in profile projecting from some edge or end after the fashion of the TrpoKpocrcros in early works of Greek industrial art. 1 This creature's head is very often though not always that of a bird, and it appears early and is abundantly used in the art of the Goths who inhabited the northern shores of the Black Sea during the first Christian centuries. This is the habitat of the griffin, and it is quite a 1 On the famous Samian bronze bowl of VII b.c. we are told irkpi^ 8e avrov ypvjrwv KeaXal TvpoKpoaa-oi eian, ' there were heads of griffins pro- jecting from it all round.' Herodotus, iv, 152. 300 ANGLO-SAXON ORNAMENT plausible theory that it is the griffin's eagle beak that is the irpoKpoo-cros of the early Gothic fibulae and buckles. This point is connected with the whole question of the place of the culture of southern Russia in the scheme of development of Teutonic art, and like the point last mentioned this will form the subject of separate treatment in the chapter concerned with the history of inlaid gold jewellery (p. 518 f.). A third early animal motive we have already come to know in the so-called ' horse's head ' at the foot of the early cruciform fibulae. This is so markedly at home in the North that many would regard it as a Scandinavian invention. This question Dr. Salin discusses. 1 He points out that in the objects from Nydam Moss in the Museums at Kiel and Flensburg dating from about IV the horse's head often occurs, though not on the ends of fibulae but on other objects from which it was afterwards transferred to the feet of the long brooches. Where it first originated cannot be clearly made out, but its early, and in early times exclusive, appearance in the North makes a northern origin very probable. 2 We have accordingly as early animal forms in Germanic art (1) a complete quadruped seen in profile, (2) a head like that of a horse seen from above, and (3) a bird-like head seen in profile, and of these the first seems to come from the Roman side, the second from the Germanic North, the third from southern Russia. It is not the origin but the after develop- ment of these motives that makes them really Teutonic. In the case of the ' horse's head ' we have followed this after- development in Anglo-Saxon art to some very quaint and extraordinary forms. The bird-like head is fairly constant, 1 Thierornamentik, p. 186 f. 2 'Da wir bisjetzt keine Spur dieses Thierkopfes auf sudgermanischem Gebiet haben entdecken konnen und da derselbe erst um die Mitte des 4 Jahrhunderts und alsdann sofort in voller Entwicklung zuerst auftritt, bleibt wohl keine andere Moglichkeir, als dass er eine Neugestaltung ist, die im Laufe des 4 Jahrhunderts irgendwo auf nordgermanischen Gebiet sich entwickelt hat.' ibid., p. 188. TEUTONIC ANIMAL ORNAMENT 301 but the first motive, the quadruped in profile, lends itself to an extraordinary series of changes in following which we under- stand how writers like Drs. Salin * and Sophus Miiller claim this animal ornament as something of outstanding interest and as specially Teutonic. The reference is not to the more or less completely formed and consistent quadruped which appears on many objects of early Anglo-Saxon art as a deriva- tion from the profile leopard, but to this creature contorted, broken up, summarized into a feature here and a limb there, and then later on complicated into an intricate interlacing pattern. These creatures, as Sophus Miiller remarks, ceasing to have any relation to nature, c become ornaments and are treated as such. They are stretched out and are bent, are elongated and shortened, refashioned, transmogrified, just as was demanded by the space they had to fill. . . . There resulted the grossest disproportion between body and members, and the most impossible shapes and positions of head and limbs. The jaws were drawn out like ribbons, or the front part of the head was dropped altogether ; one or more of the limbs of the animal was bent upwards or downwards, just as the space required. Location and room conditioned the form and details of the beast, for it had no other function than to fill and to decorate these.' 2 This specially Germanic treatment of the animal form does not show itself very early but comes into vogue at any rate in our own country somewhere about the year 500 a.d., and from that epoch until the Carolingian age it passes through various phases of which there is a full treatment in the classic work by Dr. Salin whereto reference is so often made in these chapters. The previous treatment of the whole animal during V had been if not exactly naturalistic yet in a conventional style which preserved the dignity and specific character of the creature as well as a true or at any rate a plausible anatomical 1 Thierornamentik, p. 358. 2 Nordische Altertkumskunde, 11, 209. 3 02 ANGLO-SAXON ORNAMENT structure. The provincial-Roman prototypes from which these representations are descended date from IV. Anthropomorphic ornament, the strongest point of the classical designer, can hardly be said to exist, save in one modified form, among the motives found on the tomb furni- ture ; and this again, as was the case with floral ornament, is a proof of the essential independence of the form of art on which we are engaged. The one form referred to is the full- faced human head, of which the Teutonic artist was rather fond. This is specially in evidence on the small saucer fibulae called commonly ' button brooches,' and the motive will be discussed in connection with these. So far as the human figure is concerned we have of course a reasonably adequate treatment of it on the sceat coins, just as we have a noble rendering of the theme on some of the carved stones of the Christian period. There however in both instances the artist was working from excellent classical models (p. 13), in the one case with Roman coins before him, in the other possibly under the inspiration of imported Greco-Christian ivories. Here in the matter of the tomb furniture models were apparently not to hand, and the motive is almost entirely ignored. Known examples through the whole range of strictly Germanic art might almost be counted on the fingers. In the Anglo-Saxon phase of that art which is our chief concern one or two instances will presently be signalized, but they are of extreme rarity. Returning now from this dissertation on the origin of the ornamental motives in Anglo-Saxon tomb furniture, we will proceed to consider these motives from the artistic and technical rather than from the historical side. The first and simplest form of Teutonic ornamentation has been held to be the impressed chevrons or zigzags such as appear very commonly on the edges of the straight feet of radi- ating fibulae like PI. xxxv, 1, 4 (p. 245). This pattern filled in TECHNIQUE OF LINEAR PATTERNS 303 with ' niello ' composition occurs very often round the borders of inlaid disc fibulae of the ' Kentish ' kind, PL cxlvi (p. 535). The technique of niello is Roman. Another simple linear pattern is the small circle with or without a dot in the centre. Its origin has been already discussed (p. 293), but it has little chronological significance because it was in occasional use from Roman times to the Carolingian age. It is especially in place incised in bone as the decoration of combs, which were treated in this way by the Romans who handed on the practice to their Germanic successors. Quoit fibulae and plain bronze disc fibulae often show it, and so also do the plainer sort of cruciform brooches. The technique of these linear patterns varies with the material. When this is bronze, the patterns that are in intaglio the reverse of relief are generally cast with the piece not incised nor chiselled out afterwards, but in good work the cast is commonly gone over with the chasing tools to sharpen it up and secure a more even surface. The technique of the figured bronze buckle plate, PI. lii, 6, of Burgundian origin, is not a little remarkable. How much was done in the casting is difficult to say. There is certainly no modelling of the forms as would inevitably have been the case had the design been worked out in wax or clay before it was moulded. The edges of the forms are cut down straight to the ground and not rounded off* and the texture of the worked parts is such that one would imagine it all wrought by a powerful hand armed with a heavy graving tool that cut the bronze bodily away. There is a sort of l burr ' that suggests this. It is not silver plated, as Lindenschmit says, 1 but tinned, and M. Tauxe of the Musee Rumine, Lausanne, who kindly examined the piece with the writer, told him that he had tried the tinning process and found it work quite easily. The surface must be absolutely clean and heated. Water is poured over and when this evaporates melted tin is applied 1 Handbucb, p. 364. 304 ANGLO-SAXON ORNAMENT and dabbed where necessary with a piece of rag. Wherever plating keeps bright it is more likely to be tin than silver. When however the material is silver, a softer metal than bronze, the line commonly appears to be not incised but * traced ' after a fashion familiar to the amateur brass worker of the present day, that is, it is impressed on the metal by the impact of a blunt chisel, called a ' tracer,' driven along by the taps of a hammer. The pattern on the silver penannular quoit fibula from Alfriston, PI. xlix, 2, is not incised but traced. The difference between the two techniques is easily seen when we note that the traced line is always, accidents apart, of one even breadth, whereas the incised line varies in width as well as in depth according to the amount of pressure applied to the graver by the hand. The difference is the same as that between the etched line which is lightly drawn and of even thickness, and the line beginning and ending thin but broader in the middle that has been ploughed by main force in the copper by the dry point. The distinction can be easily detected by the eye if we compare the lines on the enlarged portion of the Alfriston brooch PL lii, ii, with those on PL lii, 9, 7, the one a Roman silver plaque at Mainz that bears a pattern engraved in incised lines which in their irregularity and varying widths differ markedly from the broad even lines of the Sussex example ; the other part of the Roman fibula foot, PL xxxviii, 2, also incised with irregular lines. In both cases, and also in the Alfriston piece, the lines are filled in with a black composition, i.e. nielloed, the material used being according to the recipes given by Theophilus 1 and Cellini 2 a mixture of silver, lead, and copper with sulphur. Such lines are not always filled in in this fashion. There is no niello for instance on the Sarre brooch, PL xlix, i. The method by which the circles, dots, and connecting lines were produced in ivory or bone, as on the combs, may 1 Schedula Diversarum Artium, in, xxviii. 2 Trattato delP Oreficeria, cap. 1. LIII facing p. 305 ILLUSTRATIONS OF TECHNIQUE /, J, g, to, are Continental STAMPING AND EMBOSSING 305 have a word. The plaque PI. lii, 2, was found near Rochester, Kent, lying between an urn full of burnt bones and some Roman coins of 1 1 1 a.d., so that its Roman provenance is beyond question. The concentric circles upon it are cut with a truth and sharpness which suggests the employment of a cylindrical saw of the pattern surgeons use for trepanning. The walls of the cuts do not however go straight down, nor are the incisions, carefully measured, exactly cylindrical. They give in any case a good idea of the skill of the provincial- Roman workmen. There is very good work too on PI. liii, 4, a portion of an ivory box in the Museum at Dover, found in the Old Park where undoubted Anglo-Saxon objects have come to light. Here compasses, of which one leg was furnished with a cutting edge must have been used. In other cases, such as the curious bone buckle in the Museum at Alnwick, PI. lii, 4, the circles are not quite so regular. The technique of stamping or punching is greatly employed in the metal work of the migration period, and the late Professor Hampel of Budapest claimed it as a Germanic speciality under the title ' Opus Barbaricum.' We have to deal here with various techniques which have to be dis- tinguished, though the artistic results produced by them may often be the same. The blow of a round headed punch driven down upon soft metal produces a corresponding round hollow and when the metal is a solid mass or sheet of substantial thickness this is all, but when the sheet is thin a round boss answering to the hollow is forced out on the other side ; and if the sheet be very thin and the metal soft, pressure will pro- duce the required effect without the force of a blow. The work is best called ' stamped ' or ' punched ' when the design is shown in depression or ' intaglio ' ; ' embossed ' or * in repousse ' when the relief side of the sheet is made to show. In the simplest form of the stamping or punching technique half circles, dots, triangles, and similar devices are used singly or combined into designs after the fashion in which the modern III u 3 o6 TECHNICAL PROCESSES bookbinder employs his stamps, and ' matting ' tools of iron or wood with triangular or square ends scored across in a sort of lattice-work pattern are used, on metal, to give a diaper-like effect to little discs of gold foil placed at the bottom of the cloisons in which transparent garnets are set in the inlaid gold jewellery (p. 513), and on clay to make the patterns on the funereal vases (p. 503). The most interesting of these simple linear devices is that formed by a triangle with a dot at its summit, and produced by the stamping or embossing process with one or with two punches. It occurs on the base of the Herpaly shield boss, a notable example of early Germanic metal work at Budapest, PL liii, 9, 10, and its diffusion is curiously wide, wider than is admitted by Dr. Salin in the paragraph he has given to the motive. 1 He notes its common use in the North especially on the Scandinavian gold bracteates, and in western Europe as in Lorraine, Belgium, France and England, but he denies it to the Goths and to Hungary. Now it is found not only on the Herpaly boss but on a most notable Gothic piece discovered in Hungary, the gold medallion of the Emperor Gratian from the first treasure of Szilagy Somlyo, PI. G, 111 (p. 527). Here the barbarian goldsmith has stamped this pattern round the Roman medallion though in so doing he has partly defaced the imperial name, where it comes just at the back of the head. The occurrence of this device in the stone carving of the tomb of Theodoric at Ravenna we are inclined to regard as a coin- cidence, as this seems a case of direct derivation by the process of degradation from the classical ornament known as the Lesbian Kymation. The Gratian medal dates more than a century before the tomb. In Anglo-Saxon art the motive, rather carelessly executed, occurs on a gold bracteate-like pendant in the Maclean collection in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, PI. liii, 6, and more carefully wrought on a gold buckle from the King's Field, Faversham, in the British 1 Thierornamentik, p. 158. ANGLO-SAXON REPOUSSE WORK 307 Museum, PI. B, iv (p. 353), middle. There are of course many other simple punched patterns, as for example on the early bronze disc fibula from Bifrons, PI. xxxvi, 6 (p. 245), and on many buckles, brooches, and girdle hangers on the plates. The embossed patterns showing in relief may now receive notice. The relief effect is produced by various means. One set of processes is to employ ready-made moulds, dies, or stamps, over which, or into which, or between which, the thin pliable sheet metal is pressed till it take the shape prescribed, while a different and more artistic process is to carry out the work free hand, laying down the sheet of metal on some ground sufficiently firm and at the same time yielding though not re- silient, and then beating up the design from the back by punches of suitable shapes driven by the mallet or hammer. Under the blows the metal becomes more compact and hard and has from time to time to be ' annealed ' or softened by heat. This process is a very familiar one amongst amateurs and the nature of it with the effects produced are matters of general knowledge. Designs of the most elaborate and highly artistic kind can be carried out in it. It is a noticeable fact that repousse work on sheet metal in its more advanced forms was only practised by the Anglo- Saxons to a very limited extent. The figure subjects executed in repousse on the Long Wittenham stoup (p. 1 1 5), and the mount of the drinking horn found at Strood, Kent, PI. x, 1 (p. 115), we have seen reason to regard as of Gallo-Roman origin. By far the finest example of repousse work of the whole period found in this country is the famous Ormside bowl, the pride of the Museum at York. This is in its way one of the most beautiful examples of the technique in exist- ence, and has been referred with some plausibility to an origin in Alexandria or some other flourishing centre of late antique and early Christian art. The non-classical feature of inlaid stones for the eyes of the birds, and the appearance in the design of jewels set Teutonic fashion, en cabochon, in circular 308 TECHNICAL PROCESSES medallions must on the other hand be taken into account. In any case the bowl, a composite piece, may be passed over in this place. Later mountings have been added to the original silver bowl with its embossed ornament and its lining of gilded copper, while the exquisite animal and floral designs on the silver have much more affinity with the fine work on some of the Anglian crosses of the Christian period than with anything in Anglo-Saxon tomb furniture. Hence considera- tion of this exceptional artistic treasure may suitably be deferred. In the case of not a little of the finer Anglo-Saxon work, where the classical and the more modern workman would probably have employed the repousse process the Anglo-Saxon preferred to cast, and in this craft he showed himself a master, being able to cast quite thin and to avoid flaws in a very creditable manner. This we see in the saucer fibulae, in long brooches, and in the bronze bowls some of which are cast so thin that it is difficult to tell them from the beaten ones. The mounts of the drinking horn from Taplow, Pll. lx, i ; cxi, I (pp. 319, 461), are cast, but on the other hand the portion of the rim of a vessel in the Dover Museum, from the Old Park, Dover, is worked in repousse. This is figured in con- nection with its ornamentation, PL lxviii, i (p. 341), and it seems to be an example of free-hand embossing. The soft forms produced by beating always differ from the sharp ones of metal cast and chased. On the other hand a good deal that passes muster as beaten work is really effected by the medium of stamps or moulds. The Hungarian silver ornaments noticed in the Introductory Chapter (p. 3$) were beaten over previously formed positive moulds of hard metal. The Devizes Museum x contains a pair of terra-cotta moulds positive and negative between which Romano-British workmen pressed thin sheets of soft metal to the required shape. What was 1 Catalogue of the Devizes Museum, Part 11, Devizes, 191 1, plate xxn, no. 8. LIV facing p. 309 P < > O o p o z < > < z p z < w h < w h u < re O z < Z o < G o p o o z < > z 5 z < u GRANULATED WORK 309 the exact process used by the Anglo-Saxons we cannot tell, but the making of moulds must have come easy to them as they turned out coin dies in great profusion. The thin, circular pendants of gold called c bracteates,' which occur in Kent and are distributed very sparingly over a good part of the Anglo-Saxon area, were struck from moulds, for two pieces are sometimes found that have been stamped from the same die. The same is the case with the ornamented plates of gilded bronze used for the face of the * applied ' brooches. An examination of these shows that they were not beaten up free hand but produced by a more mechanical process. Take for example the set from Kempston, PI. xlvii, i (p. 275). The second row from the bottom, the two detached plates at the extremities of the next row above, and the left hand end piece in the lowest row, all show the motive of the cross with a full-faced human head on each arm of it. Five of them are struck from the same mould, and the other two, those on the left of rows one and two from the bottom, though agreeing with the others in the general design, are together struck from a different mould. On the whole it seems clear that the Anglo-Saxon craftsman had no great penchant for the re- pousse process. Round pearls of gold soldered down one beside the other in a line or disposed ornamentally over a surface, in what is known as granulated work, are much employed in his finer operations by the barbarian as by the classical and oriental goldsmith, and the same may be said of gold wire bent into patterns or plaited in three strands and soldered down in the fashion of filigree work, on to a ground. The border of the Gratian medallion PI. G, in, shows examples of both. It was very common however even in productions of a fine quality to simulate pure granulated work either by the repousse process, a narrow strip of gold being beaten from the back into a row of projecting bosses touching each other so as to imitate a row of round globules, or else by moulding a solid wire into a 3 io TECHNICAL PROCESSES continuous beading, as is the case in the small pendant from the Maclean collection in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, PL Liu, 7. It is useless to quote this as if it were specially ' barbarian ' and to employ it to disparage the craftsmanship of the northern peoples in comparison with the finer work of the Greeks and Etruscans, for the cheaper processes occur side by side with the more recherche one in some of the finest wrought gold jewellery from southern Russia in the Hermitage. The beautiful Greek ear pendant PI. liii, i, has a necklet of separate grains each soldered down, but the band at the bottom of the tiara is moulded wire and that which finishes the piece below is in the repousse technique. These and other methods of manipulating gold to decorative purposes were used by the Etruscans and Romans as well as by the Greeks, and it is probable that imported examples from Etruria, which were well enough known on the trade routes through central Europe in the pre-Christian centuries, taught the Celtic and Germanic peoples the technique even before the Roman period. When Roman wares were freely introduced into the far north, as was the case in the first Christian centuries, examples would be multiplied, and PI. liii, 3, shows a piece of Roman gold work found in Sweden in the form of an eagle, where the soldering down of grains is carried out in a somewhat coarse fashion. In V the Scandinavian peoples developed on these models an extraordinary skill in fine gold work, illustrated especially by the splendid neck ornaments of gold in the Museum at Stockholm, of V, shown on PH. liv, lv, in which every con- ceivable process of fine goldsmithing is employed to carry out ornamental motives of the quaintest and most varied kind. 1 Even earlier than this, in IV, the gilded silver fibulae from Sackrau, PI. xxxviii (p. 251), exhibit a technique quite equal to the classical standard. On PI. xxxviii, 4, the separate grains are soldered down with the utmost precision and neatness, and the finish of the pieces is admirable. We shall not be surprised 1 Montelius, Kulturgeschichte Scbwedens, p. 222. LVI facing p. 3 1 1 o< a; w o Q o q z FILIGREE WORK 311 accordingly to find the Anglo-Saxon goldsmith achieving excellent results in these processes of fine metal work and some further demonstration of his skill will be given later on in connection with his work in inlays to which special attention will have to be devoted (p. 512 f.). Here it may be noted that the soldering down of the separate grains does not often occur, but we see it represented in one of the best pieces of Anglo-Saxon gold work known, an ornamented dagger pommel of VII work found near Windsor, one of the gems of the collection of the late Sir John Evans that Sir Arthur Evans has presented to the Ashmolean. It is shown on a greatly enlarged scale on PI. lvi. The design consists in two intertwined serpents, the heads of which it is interesting to compare with similar heads which we find on the sceattas, e.g., PI. viii, 5, (p. 99). Their tails disappear down each other's throats. A thin twisted cable of gold is twined in and out between them and carries bunches of berries, the grains representing these being each soldered down separately into its place. In general the pearl borders which occur so often in Anglo- Saxon gold work are made with moulded wires, not by means of the separate grains. A central strip with larger grains and two side strips with smaller grains that border it is found on the best specimens of the Kentish disc fibulae and else- where, forming conventional animals or scrolls. PI. liii, 2, shows an enlarged piece where the central strip has partly come away, showing the technique. Plaits formed of gold wires twined together and soldered down on a ground often appear, and the effect of them in cheaper work is imitated by casting or the repousse process. The genuine technique is well shown on a pretty pendant in gold found at Twickenham and recently presented by Sir Hercules Read to the British Museum collection, PL liii, 8, and the imitated technique on a late gold ring from Bossington, Stockbridge, Hants, in the Ashmolean, PI. liii, 5. 312 STYLES OF ORNAMENT What we are concerned with in this place is not only the techniques, but also the styles of ornament for which they were used and the chronology of these. Enough has been said of this fine gold work to show that we might expect to find it employed early, but as a matter of fact, like the garnet inlays, it produces its chief monuments in the latter part of VI and in VII, and a somewhat empty and straggling kind of filigree work both here and in France is a sign of a quite late date, in the latter part of VII, if not in VIII. For example the sword handle from Cumberland PI. xxv, 9 (p. 209), is ornamented with loose curls of filigree that are of late character, and such filigree is a constant feature of the later Merovingian incrusted gold work where the stones or pastes are mounted ' en cabochon' and widely spaced over a field covered with convolutions of filigree work. For illustrations of this later filigree work at home and abroad see PH. xxv, 9 ; cxlvii, i, 2 (p. 537). Next to the cast, traced, stamped or embossed linear devices and the granulated and filigree work may be taken the conventional patterns of classical origin. The use of these is a distinctly early symptom and they are of greater chronological value than the motives hitherto discussed. A class of objects on which these motives are specially in evidence is that of the saucer and applied fibulae the origin and mor- phology of which have already been discussed (p. 275 f.). This particular product we have seen to be essentially English (p. 277). Its distribution in England is a matter of much interest. It used to be considered specially West Saxon, but Mr. Leeds in the paper already referred to (ibid.) found no difficulty in widening greatly the limits of its provenance, and in showing that it was as much at home in Anglian surround- ings in Cambridgeshire as in its supposed native haunts in the upper valley of the Thames. It can even be found wider afield than was admitted in his paper of 1912. He notes examples from the West Saxon counties of Berks, Bucks, Oxon, Hants, Wilts, Gloster, Worcester ; from Surrey, Kent, LVII facing p. 3 1 3 APPLIED AND SAUCER BROOCHES i, 2, 6, natural size ; 5, 7, somewhat reduced ; 3, 4, much reduced DISTRIBUTION OF SAUCER BROOCHES 313 and Sussex ; from Bedfordshire, Warwickshire, Cambridgeshire, Leicestershire, Hunts, Northants, Rutland, Lincolnshire ; from Yorkshire and from Suffolk. To these counties may be added Essex, for two good examples of the applied kind were found in Barrow Field, Kelvedon, near Colchester, and are now, with others that have lost their plates, in the Museum of that City. Though not an exclusive West Saxon speciality the saucer and applied brooch is yet in the main confined to the southern Midland districts, with the addition of Sussex the inhabitants of which seem to have had a liking for it. The Yorkshire example, apparently the base of an applied brooch that has lost its plate, 1 is not very certain. Only one occurred in Lincolnshire, and that at the south-western extremity of the county nearest the Midlands, while there are none noted from Notts, Stafford, and Derby. East Anglia only furnishes one, from Icklingham in Suffolk close to the border of Cambridge- shire. The facts in Kent are remarkable. One or two very poor specimens of the saucer form and a couple of bases of applied brooches were found at Bifrons, PI. xxxvi, but the richly endowed cemeteries of eastern Kent, Ozengell, Sarre, Gilton, Kingston, Sibertswold, save in one case, were entirely destitute of this piece of furniture, and except three from Faversham almost all the few specimens from the county came to light in the northern and western parts, where the cemeteries as we shall see reason to believe are Thames valley cemeteries which probably have a different origin and history from the regular Jutish settlements. Hence though we cannot now say, as it used to be said, that the presence or absence of the saucer brooch marks the difference between Saxon and Anglian regions there is some ethnical significance in the dearth of examples in Jutish Kent. It should be added that all this does not apply to the particular form called the 1 button ' brooch, which is pretty widely distributed among the southern counties including Kent. 1 Akerman, Pagan Saxondom, p. 17 and pi. vm, 2, 3. 3H MOTIVES OF ORNAMENT The comparatively wide, though at the same time limited, distribution of the saucer brooch, as well as its character which invited to it enrichment, makes it a very suitable form in which to study the different kinds of Anglo-Saxon ornament that is the subject now before us. Great assistance in this matter has been received from the paper by Mr. Thurlow Leeds already referred to. Conventional ornament, as already observed, is well re- presented here. In almost every case it is a modification of classical forms as these were presented to the eyes of the Teutonic invader in Roman mosaic pavements, the enrichment of Roman altars, and the details of Roman buildings. The guilloche, a very familiar pattern in the mosaics, occurs as the border of an important applied brooch in the British Museum from Fairford, Gloucestershire, PI. lvii, i, the inner ornament of which is certainly quite early. It also occurs wrought in cast and chased bronze on a buckle of early date found at Broadstairs and now preserved there, and on some of the gilded bronze appliques from Buttsole near Eastry, PI. xxiv, 2 (p. 203). Lest however we should assume that the guilloche may be always trusted as a mark of early date we may see it PI. lvii, 2, on a pair of brooches found in 191 2 at Frilford, Berks, where it is combined with the disjointed members of animals that betoken a period late in VI. Mr. Leeds refers in his paper to a ' starlike or catherine- wheel motive with recurved points or arms ' as an example of which he quotes the Upton Snodsbury brooch at Worcester shown here PI. lvii, 3. This is probably a degeneration of the guilloche, and this origin is betrayed by the brooches shown PI. lvii, 4, a pair from Mildenhall, Wilts, in the Museum at Devizes. The ornament round the circle here is obviously a disintegrated guilloche and it might easily lead on to a treatment such as that in the neighbouring piece. The star is a conventional motive common in Roman work as on the carved altars, that occurs often on the saucer brooches, SAUCER AND BUTTON BROOCHES i, natural size j 3, 4, 6, 7, approximately natural size ; 5, slightly reduced ORNAMENT ON SAUCER BROOCHES 315 and when it is treated in sharp decided fashion it is evidence of early date, but this evidence is of course rendered nugatory when on the same piece occur motives that are notoriously of a later epoch. Thus of the two examples on PI. lvii, 6, 7, the first from Mitcham, Surrey, may be quite early, even about 500 a.d. a date which agrees with the general char- acter of the finds on the site, whereas No. 7, from Fairford, Gloucestershire, though more crisply wrought, proclaims itself as at least of the latter part of VI owing to the disjointed animal forms in the outer circle. A conventional motive of common occurrence on the brooches . consists in a series of horizontal lines crossed at intervals by a set of vertical ones and the idea of this has probably been taken from the sacrificial fillet of the Romans which may be seen carved on Roman altars. PI. lvii, 5, shows it associated with early motives on a pair of saucer brooches, 2 in. in diameter, from Horton Kirby in North Kent now in the K. A. S. collection at Maidstone. Still better is it seen, especially in the centre, on a large example 3^ in. in diameter from Ashendon, Bucks, at Audley End, where the introduction of the Kentish fashion of garnet inlays betokens a date somewhere near 600 a.d., PL lviii, i. The alternation of circular or oval forms with groups of vertical lines is probably a reminiscence of the classical egg- and-dart. We shall find it on an early example at Reading, PI. lviii, 5, and it may be recognized also on two of the Kempston applied fibulae in the lowest line of No. 1 on PI. xlvii (p. 275). Moreover it may be surmised that the ornament consisting only in a repetition of the verticals has ultimately the same origin. This occurs on an interesting pair of brooches at Audley End, PI. lviii, 2, from Linton Heath, Cambridgeshire, (?), presenting another delightful illustration of the Anglo-Saxon craftsman's method of work. The two form a pair and are evidently meant to correspond, but the designer cannot repeat himself, and in the circle next within that filled 3 i6 MOTIVES OF ORNAMENT by the vertical lines there are rather unusual scroll patterns, in one of which the free ends of the curls point inwards while in the other they are directed towards the exterior. This pattern introduces us to an important motive specially in evidence on the saucer brooches, the spiral scroll, of which a good example, ringed with the vertical lines, from the recent finds at Alfriston, Sussex, is shown PI. lix, i. The piece is at Lewes. A similar brooch from Mitcham, Surrey, is on PL lix, No. 6, and examples are to be found wherever the brooches occur. What is the explanation of this motive ? We shall probably be right in referring it back to the classical acanthus scroll and in treating it as in its origin a plant motive, though as we see it on the brooches it has been so conventionalized as to lose all floral character. So long as the motive is reminiscent of its source, as it is when used by the classical artist, we always find little twigs or tendrils given off at intervals from the main scrolls. A good example is seen on PI. xxxiii (p. 243) in the ornament above the figure of Roma on No. 3. In the scroll as employed by the Teutonic craftsman these occur very seldom but the fact of their occa- sional appearance is sufficient to indicate the floral origin of the ornament. In Anglo-Saxon art such exceptional treatment of the motive occurs on the highly important equal armed fibulae already noticed (p. 271). The Kempston example PI. xxxvii, 7 (p. 247) does not show it, but a large and hand- some piece now at Audley End, a product of the Little Wilbraham explorations in Cambridgeshire, 1 exhibits it to full advantage. As used on the bow, see PI. cliv, 4 (p. 561), the ornament shows no plant character but on the head and foot, if the parts are so to be termed, the tendrils are freely dis- played in true classical fashion. Till the other day it would have been hard to find parallels to this distinctively floral ornament on any objects of Anglo- 1 Described in Neville's Saxon Obsequies. The piece in question will be found figured PI. cliv, 4 (p. 561). LIX facing p. 317 SAUCER BROOCHES, ETC., WITH SCROLL PATTERNS 1, 7, enlarged about one-half THE SPIRAL SCROLL 317 Saxon tomb furniture, though a curious quoit fibula of square form from High Down, Sussex, gives indication of it, but the finds of 1 91 2 at Alfriston in Sussex included a piece of rare interest and beauty on which delicate tendrils curl about in graceful fashion. It has been figured PI. xlix, 2 (p. 281) and noticed from the points of view of form and technique. It has a pierced and vandycked edge and an ' S ' shaped pattern stamped on the band next the outer border, but the chief ornament is the foliage scroll with the characteristic offshoots. For floral ornament proper with indication of the shape of leaves we have to go to one or two quite exceptional pieces already figured and discussed in connection with similar motives on the coins, Pll. v, 12 ; ix, 4, 6 (p. 103). The writer really knows of very little else of the kind found in any of the presumably pagan cemeteries, and the significance of the absence of these motives from the tomb furniture has been already noticed (p. 297). To return to the spiral scroll, used without indication of its floral character, as is the case on the saucer fibulae, it forms the characteristic adornment of a class of objects of great historical importance represented in this country though far more abundantly abroad. These objects are bronze buckles that appear to have been commonly worn as part of a military equip- ment and are found in the graves of soldiers who, whether Roman or barbarian in origin, served in the imperial armies of IV. The archaeological interest of these objects is very great and they will be dealt with at length in another connection (p. 548 f.). Here we are only concerned with their enrichment, in which spiral scrolls are used to cover a surface. The relation between the single scroll and the scroll employed to cover a surface extending in breadth as well as in length is the same as that between the guilloche proper, as a long narrow plaited band, and the panel of interlacing work where the plaits are multi- plied so as to cover an extended area. In classical art proper, e.g., in Roman mosaics, these panels of interlacing work occur 3 i8 MOTIVES OF ORNAMENT at home as well as abroad, but the use of the spiral scroll for a similar purpose is not classical and belongs to that style compounded of Roman and barbarian elements that is called ' provincial-Roman.' A notable bronze buckle found in Smith- field, London, PI. cli, i (p. 557) exhibits the motive, but for the moment we must content ourselves with the illustration of it on an object already noticed, the scabbard mount of the sword found at Brighthampton, Oxfordshire, PI. xxvn, 7 (p. 221). PI. lix, 7, shows the ornament on a larger scale. The work here, as on the saucer fibulae with the same pattern, is cast work with a certain finish and sharpness added by the chasing tool. The fibulae are strongly gilded and some of those found quite recently at Alfriston, Sussex, are brilliantly fresh and show not a trace of surface corrosion. PI. lix, 1, is an example. Sir Arthur Evans notes that the gilding on Teutonic fibulae is of sterling quality, whereas ' the gilding of the Roman fibulae is generally of the most cheap and perishable nature.' 1 The process is thus described by a first-rate technical authority Professor W. Gowland. It was ' water gilding, a process of great antiquity as shown by dis- coveries in the Japanese dolmens. The object was first care- fully polished and rubbed with mercury ; thin gold was then laid on and pressed down, the mercury being subsequently volati- lized, and the gold fixed by heating to redness.' 2 It may be noticed here that besides gold and silver tin was largely used for the coating of other metals. Gilding is found commonly applied to both bronze and silver and occasionally to iron. 3 Abroad, silver, it is curious to note, is comparatively rarely found plated over bronze,* but, in Germanic work generally, 1 Archaeologia, lv, 190. 2 Troc. Soc. Ant., 2 Ser, xxi, 37. 3 There is an iron spear head found at Durham and preserved in the cathe- dral library that has traces of gilding on it, but it is of the Danish period. 4 f Les Francs incrustaient quelquefois, mais le plus souvent ils pla- quaient l'argent, non sur le cuivre ou le bronze, mais sur le fer, et il n'est pas a ma connaissance qu'on ait jamais trouvd une boucle de bronze incrustee on damasquinee d'argent dans un cimetiere Franc,' Pilloy, Etudes, \, 277. LX facing p. 319 HUMAN FORM AND FACE IN ORNAMENT J, 4, J, 8, g, are Continental ANTHROPOMORPHIC ORNAMENT 319 very frequently over iron. In Anglo-Saxon England we have seen that the large iron buckles on which the Franks and Burgundians displayed their skill in plating are conspicuous by their absence, so that there is not so much silver plating on iron here as on the Continent. On bronze, both at home and abroad, what appears to be silver is as often as not in effect tin, but silver plating on bronze undoubtedly occurs among Anglo-Saxon technical processes, and instances will be noticed later on. The technique by which were produced the figures of animals round the chape of the Brighthampton sword, PL xxvii, 8 (p. 221), is not easy to determine. The animals are apparently in gold, the ground is silver, but the one metal is not inlaid in the other. The process seems to have been one of plating, and there is some indication that the outlines were reinforced by an incised line. The style of work is in this country of the rarest possible kind, but it occurs abroad and is always an early indication. While under the heading floral ornament there is as we have seen little enough to be said, the contrary is the case with the ornament known as zoomorphic. Animal forms play a great part in the styles of enrichment with which the student of Anglo-Saxon antiquities has to deal, and upon this subject there has been much discussion and controversy. The human form and face naturally take precedence. It was pointed out (p. 302) that the human figure hardly makes its appearance at all on the objects found in Anglo- Saxon graves, but that the human head is much in evidence. One or two curious examples of the use of the whole figure, treated of course in the most summary fashion, may here be introduced. The mounting round the rim of the Taplow horn has just been mentioned as an example of cast work where em- bossed sheet metal might have been expected. PI. cxi, 1 (p. 461) gives a view of it and PI. lx, 1, a portion on a larger 320 MOTIVES OF ORNAMENT scale. The human heads in relief dividing the continuous band of ornament are of course obvious. An examination of the work on the continuous band to the right of the head in the detailed photograph will show that we have here to deal with an attempt at the representation of the human bust, and the same motive has been employed to fill the triangular spaces on the projecting points below this band. The clou of the design is the human hand represented four times in these two spaces with unmistakable four fingers and a thumb. The arm is also quite clearly shown. With this as a guide we can recognize, by its very conspicuous eye, close up against the projecting full-faced head, a face in profile, perhaps bearded, surmounted by a helmet which has at the back of it a sort of crest or plume. A similar representation comes at the broad end of the triangular piece, and the pointed end of this is filled with a second bent arm and hand. A hand comes also beside the central rosette on the continuous band, but the rest of the forms here do not lend themselves readily to explanation, and some of them are apparently the same forms that are used elsewhere in animal ornament. Such forms would be specially familiar to the designer, and might easily be used to eke out his slender stock of anthropomorphic motives. An example of a somewhat similar kind on a saucer brooch from Barrington, Cambs, was noticed by Mr. Leeds in Archaeologia, lxiii, p. 176 and pi. xxvn, 2. It was dated by him in the first half of VI, but in view of the established date for the Taplow burial of about 600 a.d., and of the late character of the zoomorphic ornament in the centre of the Barrington brooch it should be placed half a century later. A portion is shown PI. lx, 6. A more ambitious attempt embracing the whole of the form may with a little imagination be discerned on the foot of one of the handsome ornate square-headed fibulae found in 1 91 2 at Alfriston, Sussex, PI. lx, 2. The whole fibula will be found represented, PI. lxvii, 2 (p. 339). Here there is THE HUMAN FULL-FACED HEAD 321 no doubt that the two eyes in the upper part, just above the wire, mean a human face in front view, for such a face clearly made out is a common feature in such a position ; what underlies the representation between this head and the end of the foot of the fibula may be held by many quite uncertain, but to the present writer there is great significance in the vertical division into two corresponding halves which occurs in the lower portion of the space occupied and suggests the two legs, while in the upper portion there are two armlike pendant shapes at the end of one of which there appears a rudimentary hand. Save at the left-hand side at the bottom where there is something like the hind leg of a quadruped, there is nothing in the various forms within the space under consideration that reminds one of the parts of animals so familiar on other objects of the period. We pass on now to the subject of the human head. Pre- sented in front view it is a very characteristic motive, especially on the so-called button brooches, on the saucer brooches, and on the square headed brooches of the more ornate kind. The button brooch claims precedence because the human face is here the constant and indeed practically the sole motive employed. The distribution of these little objects, it is curious to note, does not follow that of the ordinary saucer brooches of which they form a sub-class. If the saucer brooches in general belong to the southern Midlands, with the addition of Sussex, the button brooches are a south country type appearing in the Jutish regions of Kent and Hampshire, in Sussex, and sporadically in Wilts, Beds, Berks, Oxon, Surrey. A few from different regions are illustrated on Plates lviii, lix, lx. A comparison of these examples will show that there is consider- able variety in the degrees of excellence with which the full-faced head is represented, and this may be taken as a proof that the objects are of local manufacture, not exported from any single centre either in this country or abroad (p. 33). If the latter had been the case there would have been far more uniformity III x 322 MOTIVES OF ORNAMENT in design and execution. The best is undoubtedly the Alfris- ton, Sussex, example, PL lix, 5, which may be compared with the head on the round button on the bow of the Bifrons square headed fibula, PI. lxii. The examples on the lower part of PI. lviii are comparatively rude, and No. 3 would by itself be unintelligible. The origin and history of the motive are interesting to trace. There is no question of course that the full face is ultimately derived from classical art, and there is a good deal to be said for the suggestion of Dr. Salin that the well-known type of the Medusa head is the true source. The Alfriston and Bifrons heads, PH. lix, 5, and lxii, with the puffed cheeks are very Medusa-like. There are one or two examples, not in this country, in which the tongue is made to protrude, and this is a most significant indication. On PI. lx, No. 8 shows a small ornamented buckle from Blekinge in Sweden in the Museum at Stockholm, on which is a boldly modelled face with outstretched tongue, 1 that we can hardly avoid connecting with the familiar classical apotropaion. To find this in the North need cause no surprise for, as is well known, during the early centuries of the Empire the importation of Roman works of industrial art into Scandinavia was very abundant and the models thus brought before the native craftsmen of the North were not neglected. PI. lx, 3, shows a classical full face on a Roman cauldron found in Denmark and No. 4 a native reproduction of the type. The full face is in evidence in the ornamentation of the splendid Scandinavian gold necklets of V shown on Plates liv and lv and two of the heads from the three-strand necklet on these plates are shown enlarged about 4 diameters, PI. lx, 5. Other full-faced heads occur on the triangular plate serving as mounting to the bracteate furthest to the left on PI. lv. When we remember that the saucer brooch is probably of northern derivation we may have good reason to surmise that the full face on the English button 1 Salin gives an engraving of it in his fig. 498. LXI facing p. 323 ROMAN AND BARBARIC ORNAMENT 1, 2, are a little reduced /, 2, are Continental HEADS ON BUTTON BROOCHES 323 brooches of saucer type came to us from the north. It is a confirmation of this to find in many examples, such as PI. lx, 7, two button brooches from Bifrons, the moustache emphasized, for in connection with the full face on the sceat coins the northern character of the moustache has been noticed (p. 81). It stands to reason of course that this motive, as a classical one, was known and used in the South, and full-faced heads of this type occur, though not very frequently, in southern German art. A very quaint example in the Museum at Regensburg is shown, PI. lx, 9, where the introduction of the upraised hands on each side of the face is a notable feature. It was found in a Teutonic grave at Alten Elsing with a sword, etc., and is not cast but embossed after the fashion of a bracteate. On the whole it seems most likely that the heads on the button brooches are of Scandinavian provenance, and not direct adaptations of classical models. This does not mean of course that the objects themselves are imported. If they were of northern make they would have come in by the Humber and the Wash rather than by the Kentish ports, or again if they had been conveyed to the ports of the English Channel by the ubiquitous ' mercatores,' who already in Caesar's time were busy in these seas and lands, they would be found on the other side of the Sleeve as well as on ours, but as a fact the French and Belgian collections are almost bare of them, though M. Boulanger has a stray example among his treasures at Peronne, and a couple from Herpes in western France are in the British Museum. Like the larger saucer and applied brooches they were evidently made in this country, and their limited distribution may be a matter in the main of fashion. Their occurrence in both Kent and Sussex, the tomb furniture of which shows differences rather than similarities, may be due to the influence of fashion affecting two contiguous though not connected areas, which might be visited successively by ( mercatores ' bringing round trinkets for sale. The full-face motive is sometimes used repeated so as to 324 MOTIVES OF ORNAMENT form a continuous border. A sceat coin type has been figured, PI. vi, 13 (p. 85), which shows a head of the kind in the centre with a continuous ring of roundels as a border. On a larger scale this arrangement occurs in the tomb furniture and here the roundels are themselves distinctly full-faced heads. The most striking instance is the Roman gold medallion at Vienna, already noticed (p. 306, see p. 529), that has been set by a barbaric goldsmith in a border ornamented with a ring of these heads, PI. G, 1 1 1 (p. 527), and it is highly interesting to find in our own country a parallel to this Gothic piece of IV a.d., in the shape of a curious metal disc in the Museum at Rochester, Kent, where a border seems to be formed of similar flatly treated heads arranged in like manner. It is figured PI. lxi, 3. It should be added that this use of the full-faced head, or mask, in the migration period is discussed by Pro- fessor Bela Posta of Kolozsvar, Hungary, in his Archeologische Studien auf Russischem Boden, 1 1, 55 f. Some remarkable examples of the full-faced human head in the North will furnish an introduction to the subject of animal ornament. The reference is to the well-known circular plaques, probably ornaments for the breast, found in the Thorsberg Moss in Schleswig and now in the Museum at Kiel, PL lxi, 1, 2. The material is bronze, with plating of silver parcel-gilt, on which figures and animals are represented in the repousse technique. The style is provincial-Roman of IV, but there are barbaric additions which make for us the interest of the work, as they are early examples of Teutonic animal ornament. As the plaque is represented on the Plate, the reader will notice near the inner circumference of the outer band of ornament at the top and below and to the left barbaric animals on small separate silver plates that without any intelligible reason have been riveted on over parts of the classical figure design. To the right rivet holes show where similar plates had once been fixed. PI. lxi, 2, shows a portion 1 Budapest, 1905. TEUTONIC ANIMAL ORNAMENT 325 of the fellow plaque where the original silver embossed band has been stripped entirely from the bronze ground and plates with barbaric animal figures have been substituted in their place. The contrast is very marked between the classically treated Hermes-like heads which are beautifully wrought, and the goats on the outer band which betray the hand of the northern craftsman. These barbaric animals on both the Plates, it will be seen, are quite intelligible and reasonably proportioned and articu- lated, though in the profile views the four legs are represented as two. In Anglo-Saxon and in Germanic art generally animals of the kind occur though rarely, and may be found appearing sporadically at almost any period. The relations among the animal motives on the sceat coins, on the Early Christian carved stones, etc., and on objects of tomb furniture, have been briefly noticed in the Introductory (p. 13) and the second chapter (p. 103). Here we are concerned only with tomb furniture, in which the natural or at any rate logically treated animal form makes its appearance at an early date still in V, but rapidly ' degenerates.' It is with the different stages of this ' degeneration' that we are concerned, and for the moment the creatures that are the starting point for the successive changes must be taken for granted. They are* of late Roman origin, and in their Roman connections they will be dealt with on a later page (p. 548 f.). Here it is enough to note their existence in the two forms already noticed (p. 298 f.), those of the couchant leopard-like beast along the edges of an object, and the creature represented as a whole in profile for the filling of a space. We proceed therefore now to trace the later history of these creatures as they are found on the square headed and the saucer and applied fibulae with which we are at present specially concerned. The leopard-like couchant beast occurs very commonly on the feet of square headed fibulae, and the Bifrons piece already shown PI. xxxiv, 7, may be referred to in detail as represented on an enlarged 326 MOTIVES OF ORNAMENT scale on PI. lxii. The piece is a very instructive one in con- nection with the after history of animal ornamentation the characteristic style of which appears here in an intermediate stage of development. It may be noted that the fibula has been cast in three pieces, the head and the foot being riveted on to prolongations of the bow. The full-faced head, in evidence on the round button attached to the bow, is repeated twice on the sides of the foot and once on the head. The central ornament of the lozenge in the middle of the foot is probably conventionalized from the eyes and nose of a human face, while at the top and at the bottom of the foot occur heads which remind us distantly of the horse's head of the cruciform brooches. The crouching leopard occurs four times on the edges of the foot. He has a pronounced head with open jaws, a foreleg, a miserably attenuated body and a hinder leg that stretches out behind like a tail. In contrast with his intelligible forms we find on both the head and the foot other animals that are already broken up and mutilated after the fashion described in the quotation from Sophus Miiller (p. 301). Above, to right and left of the upper plate, are creatures almost all head, and two rather better propor- tioned ones are confronted on the upper line of the head plate. In the case of all these four beasts the jaws are open. On each side of the full face upside down in the middle part of the head plate, is a creature of the same type doubled up into the side space. In the upper corners of these spaces to right and left are the heads with round eyes, two lines for the eye- brow and a beak like that of a parrot. Slanting down from this towards the centre comes the neck and what is evidently meant for the foreleg fills the two bottom corners, though it does not articulate as it should at the bottom of the neck. From what ought to be the articulation of this foreleg below the neck the trunk of the creature ascends perpendicularly and terminates in a well-rendered hind leg with its double claw. Below, on the foot, on each side of the bow can be discerned LXII facing p. 326 SILVER FIBULA FROM BIFRONS i*:ii Enlarged to k more than natural size DR. SALIN'S SCHEME 327 the projecting heads apparently of birds, almost confused with the front paws of the couchant leopard. The clearest is to the left. Finally round the central lozenge runs a band with animals in low relief more confused and inchoate than any of the others, but, as examination shows, of much the same breed. Four human heads accordingly, two of the horse's head type, two birds' heads below the bow, four crouching beasts on the margin of the foot treated more or less in the round, and about a dozen figured in relief make up the ornamental forms distributed over the piece, the date of which may be fixed about the middle of VI. The often quoted work of Dr. Bernhard Salin contains a minute analysis of the different forms assumed by this Germanic animal ornament from the time when in dealing with the crouching animal taken over from provincial-Roman art it begins to modify this in its own spirit, a time he fixes at the close of V, down to the period of the Carolingian renaissance. He makes three stages in this development, distinguishing three styles, 1, 11 and in. In this part of his work he illus- trates at the outset these three styles from the decorative human and animal forms that occur on the three splendid Swedish necklets in gold which have been figured on PH. liv, lv. These forms show a gradual degeneration and empoverish- ment, the best, most varied, and most animated occurring on the necklet with three strands, 1 inferior models on that with five strands, while on the necklet with seven strands they are still more monotonous and lifeless. In the detailed treatment however that follows, this general scheme is not strictly adhered to, but it is shown how the animals of Style 1 are gradually broken up till they are reduced to a few scattered members or to a confused medley of uncertain forms. This goes on through VI but at the beginning of VII there is something like a temporary renaissance, and a respectable consistency of structure is again to be observed in the creatures, 1 Shown best on PI. lv (p. 309). 328 MOTIVES OF ORNAMENT which soon however show a tendency once more to be resolved into something like a mere play of lines. This goes on through VII at the end of which appears in Scandinavia Style in which lasts to IX, and this Style in so far from representing a further decline on Style n produces work that is pronounced to attain the highest pitch of refinement and delicacy, so that the best which the North now produces equals anything of the kind ever done in the world. 1 It only remains however for a brief time and a final decline soon sets in. It is clear accordingly that we have really to deal in northern art not with a pro- gressive empoverishment but with successive epochs of decline and revival, and this is a rather different matter. Dr. Salin's work was epoch-making and has become a classic, so that every worker in this field must acknowledge his deep obligations to it. At the same time it would be a pity to exalt ' Style i ' and * Style n ' into a fetish. As the author himself admits, these styles pass into each other, and even if the expression be allowed pass in and out of each other, in a way that makes any rigid separation inexpedient. The truth is that these demarcations are of the utmost value to a worker when he is sorting out a heterogeneous mass of examples. They cannot be dispensed with at the time, and moreover they always retain considerable worth, that should not however be exaggerated. The styles of Minoan vase decoration are reckoned in Knossian circles as equal in number to the Muses, but some archaeo- logists of repute doubt whether such minute subdivision can really be carried out in practice. So far as our Anglo-Saxon work is concerned, we may read the history of Dr. Salin's Style i writ clearly on our own saucer, applied, and square headed brooches, which show the classical couchant beast and beast in profile gradually deformed and broken up through the lustres of VI, till at the beginning of VII the animal is reduced to the summary presentment illustrated in the panels of the Kingston fibula on the 1 Tbierornamentik, p. 270. LXIII facing p. 329 INTERLACING ANIMAL ORNAMENT i, slightly reduced ; 3, 5, 6, somewhat enlarged ANIMAL FORMS AND INTERLACING 329 Frontispiece to this volume. There is one characteristic however that belongs to all these creatures whether coherent or fragmentary. They are confronted or turned back to back, they follow each other round a circle or are distributed piecemeal over a field, but however crowded the arrangement they do not as a rule impinge on each other or intertwine. It is not meant that the forms never interlace, but it is certainly not their habit so to do, and it will be shown in the sequel (p. 340 f.) that a specious appearance of interlacing is produced by the juxtaposition of forms that appear at first sight to go under and over each other but are really separate and on the same plane. The examples which will be presently shown on Pll. lxv to lxviii broadly viewed will be seen to bear out what is here said, and we may take it that during VI the animal forms corresponding to Dr. Salin's Style 1 do not to any marked extent interlace. Now with us animal ornament continues to flourish through the Christian period represented in art by the carved stones and the manuscripts, and during the whole of this time interlacing is its special characteristic. Indeed so conspicuous is this phenomenon that it has given birth to two erroneous theories, one of the origin of animal ornament another of that of the c entrelacs.' The former, some have thought, began in the addition of heads and tails to interlaced ribbons, the latter in the prolongation and smoothing out of the bodies of convoluted lacertine creatures. Of course neither of these theories is true, for interlacing and animal ornament have totally different origins and early histories, but the existence of the theories is a proof how much in evidence is the combination of animal forms with interlacing patterns. This combination is however a phenomenon of somewhat late appearance. In Teutonic ornamentation ' entrelacs ' do not come into vogue till VII when as before noticed (p. 294) they make their appearance on the handsome buckles that are in fashion at the time. Specimens of such buckles will be found 330 MOTIVES OF ORNAMENT Pll. lxxiii, lxxiv (p. 357). It is significant that the pendant cross of VII from Chartham Down, Kent, PL x, 3 (p. 115) has interlacing ornament upon it. In the early part of that century the already existing animal ornament that had pre- viously been coquetting with the interlacing principle entered with it into an intimate alliance, and in a large number of the forms of zoomorphic enrichment in the subsequent periods of Anglo-Saxon art the two are inseparable. There is of course on the coins and certain carved stones such as the Bewcastle and Ruthwell Crosses animal work in which there is no interlacing, but in the manuscripts and the stones generally the relation indicated holds, and may be illustrated by the creatures that are half-beast half-ribbon on the interest- ing carved stone from Gloucester in the Museum of that town, PI. lxiii, 2. The example chosen by Dr. Salin for the beginning in England of his Style n x is a characteristic illustration of this relation. It is an enriched sword pommel in the British Museum, PI. lxiii, 4, on which are seen two animals which have sorted out their various members from the confused heap into which the later Style 1 had cast them and recon- stituted their anatomy. It is a renaissance, but also the introduction of the new form of creatures biting each other and plaiting together their legs and tails. The jaws of each creature embrace the body of its fellow midway between the articulations of the two limbs, the hinder one of which is doubled up under the body, while the foreleg elongated into a ribbon ascends twining over and under the two bodies and ends at the top in a regulation claw. Below the pommel PL lxiii, 4, is an enriched mount from the same sword hilt which shows an interlacing ribbon with hardly a trace of any zoomorphic character. For our own country therefore it would be perhaps preferable to drop the threefold division and to make two styles of animal ornament, one in which the 1 Tbierornamentik, p. 328. INTERLACING ANIMALS 331 single or confronted or sequent creatures change from con- sistent entities of classical derivation to a collection of dis- jointed fragments sometimes but not often interpenetrating, and a second in which from the beginning of VII onwards to XI interlacing animals, at first properly anatomized and later on reduced almost to elongated bands, fill the spaces of ornamental schemes with their ingeniously devised convolutions. One or two other examples of this VII interlacing zoo- morphic ornament may for the sake of convenience be here introduced. The round bronze gold-plated plaque, 3 in. across, from Alton Hill, Bottisham, Cambs, in the Ashmolean, PI. lxiii, i, intended apparently to be attached to leather or some fabric by a stud at the back so as to serve like the Kiel plaques, PI. lxi, as a breast ornament ; and a silver plaque l in. in diameter, PI. lxiii, 3, found with other objects of interest in a tumulus at Caenby, Lincolnshire, have both of them animal ornament in repousse in which beasts are biting each other's bodies, and in both cases this is accom- panied on the same or on associated objects 1 with almost pure interlacing ribbon work, which makes the VII date unmistakable. A third example, figured by Salin on his p. 327, is a gilded bronze pendant from Gilton, Kent, at Liverpool, PI. lxiii, 6, very neatly wrought, on which are four animals each with eye, brows, jaws, body, and hind leg, considerably interlaced ; while a fourth is to be found on a gilded clasp from the Taplow Barrow, where animals are twined together on the two triangular plates in close inter- lacing. The approximate date of this object is fixed on Dr. Salin's generally accepted chronology a little after 600, for on the ring which forms the eye of the clasp are animals with the characteristic heads of his Style 11 which was coming in at that epoch. The clasps are shown in colour PI. B, iv (p. 353), to the left, and also, PI. lxxvii, 2 (p. 361). 1 See for these, in the case of the Caenby plaque, Akerman's Tagan Saxondom, pi. xv. 332 MOTIVES OF ORNAMENT It has been necessary to establish the general course of the history in this country of animal ornament before dealing with the square headed fibulae, for these objects can only be classified and dated on the basis of their ornamentation. Their morphology, like that of the * saucer ' fibulae, is a comparatively simple matter, but both these types of the brooch are distinguished by the variety and richness of the decorative motives with which they are adorned, and these motives are largely of a zoomorphic character. The discussion which follows must therefore be taken in connection with what has already been said about these two types in the chapter on fibula morphology, where for the reason just given the treatment of them was necessarily imperfect. If the reader will refer back to that chapter (p. 256 f.) he will note the paragraphs about the origin of the square head plate and its history after losing the projecting knobs, and about the chief forms assumed by the foot, with the animals' heads below the bow. The appearance on the bow of that curious adjunct, confined to the North and to England, 1 of a round disc sometimes ornamented with a human face was also noticed. Nothing more was there said about the square headed fibula and the sub-type may accordingly be taken up here afresh. Its distribution in Europe generally and in our own country is pretty wide, though in Europe it may be safely described as on the whole a northern form that flourished specially in Scandinavia but is found also very commonly in S. Germany and occurs often enough in Frankish collections. In Austria-Hungary, southern Russia, and Italy it is hardly represented, and considering its abundance in Scandinavia its absence from the North German cemeteries is a curious fact and is commented on by Mr. Leeds in his recent book. 2 In 1 Pilloy, Etudes, m, 134, writes ' le disque qui recouvre la partie ansee ne se voit nuile part ailleurs que dans le Nord.' 2 Archaeology of the Anglo-Saxon Settlements, p. 98. SQUARE HEADED AND CRUCIFORM FIBULAE 333 England its distribution is so wide that Dr. Salin believes it came in from two distinct sources, the Midlands being supplied from the Scandinavian side, the southern counties from the Rhineland. 1 The square headed fibula should as far as possible be kept distinct from the cruciform which has been already discussed, though the following relations exist between them. (1) In the florid forms which each assumes in the later stages of development there is a superficial resemblance. (2) The ' horse's head ' in its elaborated later shape is sometimes trans- ferred to the foot of a square headed brooch, as PI. xxxix, 2 (p. 255). (3) The development of the wings below the bow in the cruciform fibula gives its foot some resemblance to the rhomboidal termination customary in the square headed kind. (4) In the distribution of the two there is the difference that while both are common in the Midlands the square headed brooch does not extend so far north as the other, and on the other hand it is common south of the Thames where the appearance of the cruciform brooch is very rare and sporadic, while a small but ornate form of it, illustrated PI. xxxiv, 1 to 5, is specially characteristic of Kent. The square headed fibula is common in the Midland counties such as Leicester, Warwick, Rutland, Northants, Cambridgeshire, and occurs in these latitudes to the east in Norfolk and Suffolk and also to the south-west in Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire. It is rare in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire and has not been found north of the Tees. South of the Thames it occurs in Surrey, Berks, the Isle of Wight, and pretty abundantly in Kent and in Sussex where it has recently been well represented in the finds at Alfriston. The examples of the sub-type are very numerous and hard to classify, though it is possible to distinguish certain groups. Our own country has not produced the finest examples of the class which are to be sought in Scandinavia, where there is a noble series of cast and chased silver and bronze brooches of 1 Tbierornamentik, p. 145. 334 MOTIVES OF ORNAMENT V date, figured in the works of Salin and Haakon Schetelig. In these the animal form where it occurs is treated in a more or less naturalistic fashion and the ornamentation is chiefly of a linear kind, a large use being made of spiral scrolls treated like the Brighthampton scabbard mount, PI. lix, 7 (p. 317). The English examples of V are certain small brooches found in Kent of which PI. xxxiv, 1, is a specimen. The ornament here is almost purely linear and the form is simple and severe. Later on the Kentish brooches are distinguished by the use of garnet settings which begin in the sober fashion of PL xxxiv, 2, and grow more profuse in the latter part of VI. A parti- cularly interesting example from this period, shown by its debased zoomorphic ornament to be a late production, is one that will be found figured on a subsequent plate, PI. clv, 5 (p. 563). It is from Sarre, and is celebrated through the fact that a fibula almost its exact counterpart came to light in the Frankish cemetery of Herpes on the Charente in western France and can be compared with it on the plate. Another group of square headed fibulae we may call the Midland group. There are a fair number of cast bronze fibulae found in the Midland counties and in East Anglia that are characterized by simplicity of outline and ornament and by the exclusion of animal forms from the enrichment which consists almost entirely in geometrical or conventional patterns. They are not nearly so handsome as the V Scandinavian pieces just noticed, but they have been claimed as equally early on the ground of their scheme of ornamentation. One of their peculiarities, which occurs also on some of these Scandinavian examples, is the addition, at the three lower angles of the diamond-shaped foot, of flat discs of metal that were originally tinned or silvered. The problem of the date of these English brooches, specimens of which are figured PH. lxiv, 1, 2, 3 ; lxv, i, 4, opens up a rather interesting question. On the strength of the linear character of its ornamentation an example from 'MIDLAND' SQUARE HEADED FIBULAE 335 Holme Pierrepont (or Cotgrave), Notts, is dated in the Victoria History , Notts, 1, 196, in the first half of V, and is compared with a similar piece from Kenninghall, Norfolk, 6^ in. long, in the British Museum. This Norfolk specimen, shown PI. lxiv, 2, might so far as its ornamentation and workmanship are concerned belong to V for these are early and good, but the Kenninghall cemetery is a purely inhumation one which in East Anglia, where cremation is so common, suggests though it does not necessitate a rather advanced date. Furthermore the square or diamond shaped projecting patches at the corners of the head look suspiciously like imitations of the garnets set in these positions in Kentish specimens of VI, such as the piece from Sarre just mentioned that is figured PI. clv. Garnets occur set in these positions on square headed fibulae other than Kentish, as on a fine piece from Cambridge- shire at Audley End, and imitations of garnet settings also occur, a projecting disc of bronze giving the similitude. This phenomenon is by no means confined to square headed brooches, for it occurs also on saucer brooches as succeeding plates will show, and it is not exclusively English, for the same thing was observed in certain Gothic buckles from the Crimea x some of which have real incrustations and others the imitation of these by projecting discs of metal. Now there is a good deal of force in the contention 2 that such garnet inlays outside Kent, and especially the imitations of them, were due to Kentish influence spreading with the extension of the political power of iEthelberht of Kent in the last part of VI. If this criterion be a valid one it would bring the date of the Kenninghall brooch much lower down than 500 a.d. Viewing this group as a whole we should be inclined to see in it a case of the perpetuation of a certain special style of work through a considerable period, while similar work in other styles might be going on at the same time and in the 1 Gotze, Gotiscbe Schnallen, Berlin, n.d., p. 16. 2 Victoria History, Norfolk, 1, 345 ; Jrcbaeologia, lxiii, 192. 336 MOTIVES OF ORNAMENT same regions. Normally throughout VI zoomorphic ornament in its various stages, be they of evolution or degradation, is the predominant ornamental motive, but we need not as was suggested before (p. 13 f.) assume that it was ubiquitous and all powerful. Hence though it is quite possible that some of the group of square headed fibulae now under notice may belong to V others of the same general character might bring us to the end of VI. PI. lxiv, 1, 6 in. long, has a very early appearance, but it comes from Market Overton cemetery that was dated by the reporter of its exploration in the last half of VI. 1 A severely treated example is PI. lxv, 4, from Ipswich, where the cemetery is put down to VI. It has good linear and conventional ornament of classical type, but the ornament on each side just below the bow looks like a conventionalized animal's head of an advanced stage of c Style 1/ The bow moreover is furnished with a round button disc a feature of VI rather than V. The well-known Billesdon brooch at Leicester, PL lxv, i, 6 in. long, resembles the Kenninghall piece very closely, but is dated in the Victoria History 2 to the middle of VI. The example, PI. lxiv, 3, 5^ in. long, from High Dyke, the old Roman road near Welbourn, Lincoln- shire, 3 is in a diffuse style suggesting a date far nearer 600 than 500 a.d., and the enrichment that surrounds the early looking guilloche and quatrefoil panels in the middle of the head and the foot is probably debased zoomorphic ornament of quite a late period. It may be added that on Taf. 148 of Hampel's Alterthumer in Ungarn is a coarsely wrought fibula which he dates in VII but which has nothing on it but classical linear ornament. Another group may be formed of late square headed 1 Mr. V. B. Crowther-Beynon, F.S.A., in Archaeologia, lxii, 489. 2 Leicester, 1, 238. 3 This specimen is in the Alnwick Castle Museum and thanks are due to the Duke of Northumberland for his permission to reproduce it, as well as two pieces on PI. l, and one each on PI. lii and PI. lxxviii. LXV facing p. 336 LXVI facing p. 337 X h S o fa, fa) a u o o PC o W < W K w < w H < o LATE FLORID LONG BROOCHES 337 fibulae of a florid kind that are an English speciality, and that carry us as regards date no small distance through VII. One reason why we have these handsome but overladen pieces practically to ourselves is to be found in the fact that the form survived longer in use in this country than abroad. M. Pilloy notes that in France the handsome long brooches cease about 600 a.d., ' l'epoque ou la grande fibule de manteau disparait a tout jamais,' * to be replaced by the disc fibulae with stones set ' en cabochon,' and H. Schetelig makes his long fibulae disappear in the North after VI. With us these late and debased pieces were flaunted in VII, and we find on them the last wrecks of the characteristic animal ornament of VI. There is no sign here of a renaissance nor of the introduction of the new schemes of interlacing. The fragments of what once were animal forms are planted closely over the field filling up the spaces but suggesting to the eye neither design nor distribution. Contemporary with these are the latest and equally florid cruciform brooches, and the example figured PI. lxix, 3 (p. 343) may be taken to represent the final degenera- tion of ornament alike on the square headed and the cruciform fibulae. Saucer brooches must be joined with the c long ' ones as they are equally good as illustrations of the point in view, and Pll. lxviii, lxix show some characteristic specimens. See especially PL lxix, i. Returning now to the historical development of this Germanic beast ornament in VI, if we look first for some- thing that comes next in order to the Bifrons fibula, PL lxii, we shall find it in a brooch from Rothley Temple, Leicester- shire, PL lxvi, 1, where between the side knobs and the lower terminal of the foot are on both sides crouching beasts nearly as good as the Bifrons ones with the additional peculiarity that the artist has contrived to give the creature two hind legs instead of one. There is also a forepaw with as many toes as 1 ttudes, in, 132, 134. Ill Y 338 MOTIVES OF ORNAMENT the legs of a centipede, and a head that comes close up under the side knob. The full-faced heads at the corners of the foot may be contrasted with the flat discs of the Billesdon and other examples on PI. lxiv, lxv. On the head plate there is the curious contrast of a central panel like the Billesdon one sur- rounded with a border of quite debased animal ornament which justifies though it hardly necessitates the ascription of the piece to a later date than that fibula, though the crouching beast is far too good to be relegated as in the Victoria History x to VII. We must remember that even the Bifrons fibula, PL lxii, of the middle of VI has some very shaky animal design upon it. The large and handsome brooch PI. lxvi, 2, unfortun- ately damaged below, was found on the site of St. Andrew's Hospital, Northampton, and is in the Museum there. It is noteworthy for two reasons. In the first place the beast ornament on the head and on the foot shows a creature still continuous though in the process of dissolution. The border of the head plate is made up of a series of full-faced human heads with moustaches, after the fashion of that in the middle of the upper border of the head plate in the Duston fibula PI. lxvi, 3. The middle part of the plate just above the bow, in No. 2, has a panel of scroll work, and between this and the border there is the characteristic beast ornament. Starting from the left hand bottom corner we see the round dot marking the creature's eye and above it lines indicating the brow. The three vertical strokes above and at right angles to these stand for the neck, and just to the right of these there are other three lines that probably should mark the junction of the foreleg with the body, while the foreleg with its double knee brings the foot up close under the chin. Horizontal lines further up seem to indicate the junction of the hind leg that fills up the corner. The space in the horizontal part of the panel between the forms just indicated and the middle of the head plate shows us, apparently unconnected, an eye with two jaws 1 Leicester, i, 238. LXVII facing p. 339 P P < W <; D 3" ORNATE SQUARE-HEADED FIBULAE 339 pointing towards the middle, an eye alone, and a bent leg and claw. With a little ingenuity the animals on the foot of the brooch can be more or less made out. The second point of interest about the piece is a certain plastic feeling of which it gives evidence. Studs project from the side discs of the foot and from the two upper corners of the head nondescript creatures like couchant lions. This is important in view of the remark, a perfectly true one, by Haakon Schetelig * to the effect that the Anglo-Saxon crafts- man worked for an effect of flatness, whereas his Norwegian contemporary showed a predilection for boldness of relief. Most of the florid square headed and cruciform fibulae are markedly flat, but on the other hand some latish, if not late, pieces are effective in their relief. This is true not only of the Northampton specimen but of the three interesting Alfriston square headed brooches shown PI. lxvii, which may be dated in the latter part of VI. When we analyse the enrichment upon these Alfriston fibulae we see that consistency in the animal forms is nowhere apparent, yet on the other hand the decorative effect is excellent and the pieces would pass everywhere as the work of a vigorous craftsman who had the sense of an ensemble though he was not fastidiously concerned about his details. He is certainly not without plastic feeling, as we see in the boldly projecting ribs and above all in the heads in relief on the feet of the fibulae PI. lxvii, i, 3, to right and left of the plate, that shows the three a little under the natural size. The heads on the right hand specimen stand out \ in. from the ground. There are three heads also, though less effectively treated, on the fine Northamptonshire fibula from Duston, 5f in. in length, PI. lxvi, 3, and it is interesting to note the close resemblance, save for the garnet settings, between this piece and the Kentish brooch before referred to (p. 334) as a pair to one found at Herpes on the Charente, PI. clv, 5, 6 (p. $63). 1 Cruciform Brooches of Norway, p. 106. 340 MOTIVES OF ORNAMENT As illustrating another tendency in the later development of the square headed fibula notice may be taken of a rather famous piece the ' Myton ' or ' St. Nicholas ' brooch in the Warwick Museum, PI. lxviii, 6. The photograph shows it considerably foreshortened. It is a large and handsome fibula 5|- in. long, covered with ornament of a kind hard to describe, but its chief interest for our purpose lies in the shape of the head plate, that is of a curved outline with projecting corners. Several of the brooches already illustrated show this feature which is most pronounced in the case of PI. lxiv, 3, where plated silver discs have been added at all four angles. At the two upper corners of the Warwick brooch and at the bottom of the foot there are settings of elongated form that were filled with violet-coloured vitreous pastes intended to imitate garnets, and there is a similar round incrustation in the middle of the foot. The piece probably dates in the first half of VII. Turning now to some examples of animal ornament on saucer brooches we must bear in mind a remark previously made (p. 329) about the absence of interlacing in this work in VI. No. 8 on PI. lxviii is one of the applied fibulae from Kempston, Beds, and has a band of animal ornament sur- rounding a central medallion marked out into eight spaces by what looks like a Maltese cross but has probably no Christian significance (p. 117 f.). On the band we should say at first sight was a play of interlacing triple ribbons x but the impres- sion would be erroneous. Conspicuous above and slightly to the left is a bent leg with its claws. The three strands below this mark its junction with the body, and they do not as it might appear plunge under the forms next to them. The strands which partly surround the dots that indicate eyes do not go on any further but just represent the brows, and other 1 These 'ribbons' are really degenerate versions of a form bounded on each side by contour lines, upon which Dr. Salin's book, p. 242, may be con- sulted. The middle part of the body between the contour lines has shrunk to a similar line making a third with the other two. LXVIII facing p. 341 LATER ANIMAL ORNAMENT 2, 3, 4, slightly reduced ; 7, 9, somewhat enlarged LATE ANIMAL ORNAMENT 341 ribbons that come between the feet and the eyes stand in each case by themselves for a creature's body. The only two dis- tinctive parts of the animal that can here be identified are the legs and the eyes, and it is curious to find these features surviv- ing when all else has become an unintelligible medley of lines. On this piece in the triangular spaces between the arms of the cross are legs pure and simple, and the leg by itself becomes a familiar motive in the later examples of this style, while the appearance of a round dot standing for an eye in unintelligible surroundings means the survival of this one feature in the shipwreck of a creature's anatomy. These dots occur on the Kingston fibula, see Frontispiece, in the panels which other- wise seem to be filled only with meaningless filigree. Legs by themselves as ornamental motives may be illustrated by PI. lxviii, 3, a saucer brooch from Filkins, Oxfordshire, if in. in diameter, where they are well made out, and by the two smaller brooches which flank it in the photograph, PI. lxviii, 2, 4, from Broughton Poggs in the same county, if in. across, where the motive is hardly intelligible except when interpreted by the better specimens. It is worthy of remark here, as illustrating what was said previously (p. 314 f.), that the orna- ment round the borders of the two brooches last mentioned resembles the classical ' egg and dart,' though the brooches must belong to quite a late period. Four legs set whorl- fashion, after a style which we have seen represented on some of the sceat coins, PI. vin (p. 99), adorn the Alfriston saucer brooch at Lewes, 1^ in. in diameter, PI. lxviii, 7, and as a triquetra the same forms fill the centre of PI. lxviii, 5, from near Droxford, Hants, in the Museum at Winchester. The outer circle here brings the head into evidence as the main motive, several times repeated. Lastly on this plate, No. 9, also an Alfriston piece at Lewes, 1^ in. across, shows boldly designed animal motives, with some of the plastic feeling of the square headed brooches of PL lxvii, motives that are however, so far as one can see, quite disconnected and 342 MOTIVES OF ORNAMENT have more of the appearance of interlacing than the other examples we have been examining. This Alfriston fibula has the peculiarity that its pin catch is singularly long, standing out ^ in. from the plate at the back. This is a characteristic of many early brooches, and is sometimes taken as a criterion of date. We find it here on a specimen that is certainly not an early one. With this can be taken No. i on the same plate, a portion of the metal rim of a wooden bowl found at the Old Park, Dover, and now in the Museum of that town. It has on it in repousse work a collection of heterogeneous forms amongst which a leg or an eye can in most parts be discerned. The forms do not interlace, for when one triple ribbon seems to plunge under its neighbour this is merely delu- sive and the arrangement is the same as that on PI. lxviii, 8, only far looser. In some parts of this instructive piece, PI. lxviii, i, there are distinct indications of a spiral at the end of a leg where it ought to articulate with the body. This is extremely signi- ficant, for as Dr. Salin has shown x the spiral in this part is a feature of animal ornament which only comes into use in his Style in at the end of VII, where we find it on the beast forms so wonderfully designed in the Gospels of Lindisfarne. Now if the reader will refer back to PL lxv, he will find in Nos. 2 and 3 a couple of showy square-headed fibulae in silver, the one, No. 2, found at Richborough in Kent, the other, No. 3, 4 in. long, from a warrior's grave at Gilton, Kent. They are handsome pieces, and are instructive as combining some early motives, such as the quatrefoil in the centre of the foot of No. 3, with very late ones as in the debased animal ornament on the head of No. 2. Of special significance as indicating an advanced period are the * S ' shaped patterns of filigree sur- rounding a set stone on the disc adorning the bow of No. 2, in a late Kentish style of the latter half of VII, and, more especially, the spirals that make their appearance in the animals 1 Thierornamentik, p. 273. 7, x o I I u & U o w o DEGRADED ANIMAL ORNAMENT 343 on each side of the head of No. 3. These spirals are evidently intended to mark the articulation of the leg with the body and for the reasons given above they look towards the end of that century. There are similar spirals also in the lower corners of the central panel of the head plate, the animals in which are analysed by Dr. Salin though from a faulty drawing as belong- ing to the latest period of his Style 1. See his fig. 704. Of these two fibulae No. 3 is the best, and it is interesting to note that the full-faced heads on the side rounds of the foot in No. 3 are degraded in No. 2 to meaningless geometrical forms, while the cross at the bottom of No. 2 has probably Christian significance. It would be dangerous at the same time to relegate No. 3 to a very late date on the strength of the spirals for the piece was found in a grave at Gilton with a complete warrior's equipment of sword, shield, and spear, and in that part of the country such a burial would hardly fall later than the first half or perhaps the middle of VII. There was also found with it part of a silver ornament, shown in the inset at the bottom of the plate, on which, to the left, is a bird fairly well designed. No. 2 may belong to the latter half of VII, as it seems distinctly later than No. 3. To complete this subject there have been brought together on PI. lxix one or two examples illustrating the last stage of degeneration in the motives which have occupied attention for the last score of pages. In the centre, No. 3, is a cruciform brooch from Longbridge, Warwickshire, in the British Museum collection, that is about as flat in effect and debased in design and workmanship as any piece that could be adduced. There are square headed fibulae quite equally degraded, and a large florid example in the Bede House Museum at Melton Mowbray may be referred to as an example, but PI. lxix, 3 is sufficient to show the style. It should not be overlooked that the hammer-head projection at the top is very like what appears in the same place at Kenninghall, PI. lxiv, 2. Flank- ing this on the plate are No. 1, an Ashmolean specimen of 344 MOTIVES OF ORNAMENT the saucer fibula from Wheatley, Oxon, where forms that are or are meant to be the disjecta membra of quadrupeds are simply packed together anyhow in the field around a central garnet, and No. 2, a specimen at Worcester from Bidford, Warwickshire, i\ in. in diameter, where purely linear ornament is so carelessly designed that at the top two of the plain triangles run into each other, while on the other side No. 5 shows relics of animals' heads alternating with triangular spaces in which the setting of stones is indicated by lines, and No. 4, a crisply wrought piece, gives in the centre an intelligible face but round the border forms that seem purely arbitrary and have lost any resemblance they may once have possessed to parts of the animal organization. 1 The foregoing analysis may have appeared in parts tediously minute, but it is needful to examine somewhat narrowly into details as a very small indication sometimes justifies an im- portant deduction. It will have been seen however that an analysis of the kind may result in disappointingly negative conclusions for it often happens that a composite piece, such as the Bifrons fibula, PI. lxii, or the two silver fibulae just analysed, has on one part of it early on another part compara- tively late indications, and our judgement of the date will depend upon which of these is most prominent in our mind. In a sub-class again like that of the square headed fibulae without animal ornament, some members of the class may exhibit nothing inconsistent with an early date while other specimens betray very suspicious symptoms. In such cases decisions as to date must be made with some reserve. With this proviso however we can with some confidence distribute the enriched fibulae which have been passed in review over the 1 No. 4 is from East Shefford, Berks, in the British Museum ; No. 5 was found in a cinerary urn in a tumulus at Marton near Rugby, and is now in the School Museum, Rugby. The find has been already adduced (p. 147) as a proof of the late survival in England of the practice of cremation. DATE OF LATEST EXAMPLES 345 space of time between about 500 and 650 a.d. Some may belong to the last half of V and this would apply to saucer or applied or square headed fibulae with linear classical motives, or to pieces in which the animal form is represented in a consistent anatomical structure. Others in which the effect is very flat, the work careless, and the motives hopelessly blundered and scattered aimlessly over the field, may be later than the middle of VII, but the vast majority of pieces in which animal ornament occurs in the various stages of dis- memberment belong to the latter half of VI and the first part of VII while the appearance of the interlacing motive betokens the first half or middle of the latter century. CHAPTER VII TOMB FURNITURE : (IV) BUCKLES AND OTHER ADJUNCTS OF THE DRESS We now resume the main subject of this part of the present work, the detailed inventory of Anglo-Saxon tomb furniture especially as it is represented in the Kentish cemetery of Bifrons. The next item is the buckle, which we saw possesses a near affinity with the annular form of fibula, the last noticed under that heading prior to the long but necessary digression on ornamentation and technique. No repetition is needed of what was said (p. 244 f.) about the relation between the fibula and the buckle and the question of the latter's origin. It was noted in connection with the last that buckles both in the simplest and in an enriched form have been found at Pompeii and Herculaneum, so the type is Roman though it was not developed amongst the classical peoples. For the history of the buckle in its Teutonic form Bifrons supplies us with an excellent starting point. PI. lxx shows a portion of one of the cards on which half a century ago the gamekeeper's daughter neatly sewed down the smaller objects recovered from the teeming cemetery on the outskirts of the park. There are two enriched buckles here of special interest, Nos. 6, 9, which will be noticed in connection with certain romanizing pieces discussed in Chapter x. There are others of the distinct buckle form, Nos. 1, 5, 7, 8, to which the belt or band was attached after the manner of a modern strap, and a third kind in which the attachment is made by means of a thin metal plate folded over the end of the band and riveted 346 LXX facing p. 347 BUCKLES OF SIMPLE TYPES AT BIFRONS HOUSE LXX BUCKLES OF SIMPLE FORM 347 to it, Nos. 10, 11. This is technically termed the 'chape' but is more often called ' buckle plate.' Differences in size will be noticed, as for example between Nos. 5 and 1 1 , sug- gesting use in connection with more than one article of attire. Furthermore there are also three pieces, Nos. 2, 3, 4, about which a question might be raised whether they are buckles or annular fibulae. The shape of the ring in Nos. 2, 3 suggests the former, in No. 4 it suggests the latter, and nothing could better illustrate the close relation between the two types of fastening. The simple buckles without any plate for attach- ment are generally considered early, but it must be remembered that such pieces would probably remain always in use even at a time when the buckle had developed to very showy forms. In the neolithic period stone axes were elaborately polished, but every polished axe must first have been a chipped one and chipped axes that never succeeded in getting polished may be of neolithic date. So simple buckles may be comparatively late, for it was not every one who could afford them in the fashionable enriched form. The cemetery at King's Field, Faversham, is not a particularly early site, but a large number of simple buckles were found in it. Still the criterion of date in question is not a negligible one. Examples of the simple buckles might easily be multiplied but those on PI. lxx are sufficient. The difference between these and the vast iron buckles of the Burgundians and Franks measuring like the one on PI. xvn, 1 (p. 175), some 15 in. by 3^- in., is no doubt enormous, but though the quantitative change is so great morphological complications are absent. The essential parts of the piece, the ring, the pin, and the hinges which admit of the necessary movements, remain practically the same, and the chief variation is in the methods of securing mobility in tongue or ring and of attaching behind the ring the strap or band. Various adjuncts partly for use but chiefly for show also come to be added before the equip- ment is complete. Lindenschmit in his Handbuch, p. 358 f., 348 THE BUCKLE analyses the methods in question comparing Germanic with Roman, and to his demonstration the reader may be referred. One point should be noticed and this is that the small pro- longation of the tongue at the back, as in PI. lxx, i, is Teutonic rather than classical. For the beginning of the development of the enriched buckle we may go to the northern shores of the Black Sea where have been found a large number of small but massive buckles of silver and gold, set at the back of the pin with inlays of garnet. No. i on PL lxxi shows three examples from the Museum fur Volkerkunde at Berlin, and there are two others from the British Museum on PI. cxliii (p. 525) of which No. 5 is from Hungary. PI. lxxi, 2, shows an example of later date, with garnet inlays, from Crundale, Kent. The earliest of these may go back to about IV. These plates at the back of the pin are primarily for use, as they are double and between the two surfaces the end of the strap or band is introduced and held fast by rivets the heads of which are in evidence. They also become things of art, varying in shape and adorned in every technique and style represented in the period. The back plates at first belong to the pin with which they sometimes form a single piece, as in PI. lxxi, 2, but those in specimens like PL lxx, 10, 11, belong to the ring round which they are bent, and it may be noted here as a matter of construction that the back plate and the ring may be in one piece, in which case the tongue is hinged so as to lift for the admission of the strap ; or the tongue and the back plate may be inseparable, when the ring is hinged so as to drop when the strap is to be inserted ; or else there may be two hinges and all three parts may be mutually accommodat- ing. Buckles are usually of metal but there are bone ones, of which PL lii, 4 (p. 293), and PL lxxiv, 3 are examples, and buckle rings are also found occasionally of rock crystal, ivory and meerschaum. A simple example of ornament applied to a buckle plate is LXXI facing p. 349 EARLY GOTHIC AND OTHER BUCKLES i, 4, 6, about natural size ; 5, considerably enlarged /, 3, are Continental DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHAPE 349 seen PI. lxxi, 5. It is an interesting little buckle found at East Boldon in County Durham and now in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle-on-Tyne, and is figured on an enlarged scale as it is rather a valuable object-lesson in the matter of dating. The back of the plate is, or was for one is lost, adorned with three garnets set ' en cabochon,' or, as they would be popularly termed, three carbuncles, with a little frill round each made of a beading worked in thin metal in repousse. Now it so happens that this particular kind of work used for setting rounded gems occurs in southern Russia at a very early date indeed in the migration period, and Professor Posta in his valuable work on antiquities in that district proves that the piece from the Crimea in the Museum at Odessa, PL lxxi, 3, cannot date later than about 111 a.d. The likeness in technique of the Odessa trinket to the Boldon buckle is unmistakable yet it would be a mistake to ascribe to the latter on this ground an early date. The incrusted garnets are no doubt an importation from Kent just like those which furnish eyes to the animals forming the ring of the annular brooch from Uncleby, Yorkshire, given on PI. li, 7 (p. 287), which we saw reason to date early in VII (p. 289). The beading beaten up in a thin strip of metal may be used very early, but it is also familiar in the borders of the applied fibulae of VI, and is no sound criterion of date. The development of the back plate or chape of the buckle is the first point of importance in its morphology. The chief forms it takes are those of the round or oval, the rectangle, and the triangle, while there is a form of much archaeological importance that has the ring with its pin inserted into the central part of a single large square plate. The variation is described and illustrated later on (p. 557). The round or oval plate is common in western France but so rare among our- selves that the few specimens known pass generally for importations. One was found near Lymne, Kent, and was figured by C. Roach Smith, in his Richborough, Reculver 350 THE BUCKLE and Lymne, p. 264. Of another in the Canterbury Museum the provenance is unfortunately unknown, but there is at Maidstone a portion of one that was found in the cemetery at Sarre. The discoveries at Ipswich in 1 906 produced a good specimen which will be found PL lxxi, 6. The extreme rarity here of a type so common across the Channel is another proof of the independence of the different provinces of this early Teutonic art. Rectangular plates are fairly common all over the Germanic area and are sometimes magnificently adorned with inlays. A specimen in the Maclean collection in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, is a fine piece but is without question of foreign provenance. Rectangular buckles are in no form specially characteristic features in Anglo-Saxon tomb furniture, but we have some interesting examples. One from Alfriston, Sussex, will be found PL cliv, i (p. 561). One of the best is figured PL lxxi, 4. It is a late piece found at Gilton, Kent, and is now at Liverpool. It is of silver gilt richly incrusted with garnets and is 3^ in. long. A small though sumptuously enriched rectangular buckle of gold in the Ashmolean, found near Ixworth, Suffolk, is notable as containing the largest garnet known in this country, more than an inch in length by a breadth of 4 in. It is figured in colours by Akerman on the first plate of his Pagan Saxondom. The bronze specimen PL lxxii, 1, from Barfriston, Kent, at Liverpool, is of similar shape but has lost its jewel. PL lxxii, 2, is at Rochester, Kent, and is of unusual construction. It must have once had a pin though there is no trace of this. The plate is a specimen of open work, on which a word may be said. Open or pierced work in bronze is common in Roman and Late- Celtic productions 1 and its appearance in Teutonic tomb furniture might be regarded as symptomatic of early date. There are however different kinds of open work and some of 1 Professor Bela Posta believes that the Romans adopted this style of work from the Celtic peoples, Arch'dologische Studien, p. 485. LXXII facing p. 351 BUCKLES WITH OPEN-WORK PLATES 4. is Roman ; J, Celtic OPEN WORK BUCKLE PLATES 351 these are significant of a quite advanced period. A beautiful piece of Roman pierced work in bronze at Bonn is shown PI. lxxii, 4, and a Late-Celtic piece from the famous Marne burials in France in the British Museum PL lxxii, 5. The Anglo-Saxon craftsman did not emulate this kind of work, and a piece of it that came to light in the form of a buckle plate in the cemetery at Sarre, PI. clv, 13 (p. 563), is of Romano- British make. Open work of a coarser kind occurs in Teutonic tomb furniture at all periods, and comes specially into vogue at any rate on the Continent in the later epoch called by French antiquaries { Carolingian.' Such a specimen in the form of a belt clasp in the Grantley collection will be seen on PL lxxvii, i (p. 361) and open work 'swastika' fibulae, PL xlviii, 6 (p. 279) and similar pierced ornaments such as some from Winklebury Hill, Dorset, at Farnham (p. 654 f.), occur not infrequently in England. The plates to Faussett's Inventorium Sepulchrale exhibit several open work buckle plates found in the Kentish cemeteries, though his ' Fundberichte ' do not give any distinct indications of date. One of these from Kingston, i\ in. long, is shown PL lxxii, 3, and a similar piece occurred in the rather late cemetery at Uncleby in Yorkshire, illustrating like so many of the finds on that site the likeness to Kentish tomb furniture. It is shown PL lxxii, 6, and the shape of the openings, recalling that of the inlaid garnets on so many Kentish brooches of about 600 a.d., is a striking point of resemblance. It may be remarked in passing that one kind of open work buckle plate that often occurs in Frankish and Burgundian cemeteries of the later epoch has not yet made its appearance in Anglo-Saxon graves ; this is the well-known creature, sometimes like a horse at other times like a griffin, represented as drinking from a vase. It is clear therefore that open work is not in itself a criterion of early date, but only open work of the delicate and refined character of the Roman and Celtic pieces, PL lxxii, 4, 5, or of the Kentish fragment PL clv, i 3 352 THE BUCKLE The characteristic form of the buckle plate in England is the triangular, and it is so specially well represented in Kent that it may be regarded as a Jutish production. Kent shares it however with the country of the Franks across the Channel, where it is also common. In the rest of England it occurs sporadically and its appearance there may be due to Kentish influence. Some specimens may be considered here from the artistic standpoint, as they are often very handsome and ornate pieces though they do not run to the exaggerated size of some of the later buckles across the Channel. Points of morphology may be considered later on. No specimen is more showy than that given PI. lxxiii, i. It was found at Crundale, Kent, and is now in the British Museum. The fish upon it reminds us of a similar feature on the beautiful jewelled fibulae from Jouy le Comte in the Museum of St. Germain and would suggest a Prankish provenance, but any one wishing to vindicate for it a native origin may point to the garnet inlays just at the back of the pin, the stones in which are small and interpenetrate in exactly the same fashion as those on the brooches of the ' Abingdon ' type in the British Museum, the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, and elsewhere, which are without doubt objects of Kentish manufacture. For specimens see PI. cxlv (p. S3 3)- The buckle is of VII date. Other ornate examples from Kent are shown on the coloured plate B, iv (p. 353). The distribution of the buckle in Anglo-Saxon graves has aroused comment. On a priori grounds we should expect buckles to be numerous everywhere. The knife is the most common article of tomb furniture, and though it is only a hypothesis it is a plausible one, that knives were commonly carried in a belt and that belts were as a rule fastened by buckles. As a fact, although buckles are found all over the Anglo-Saxon region they are in many cemeteries curiously rare, while they may occur elsewhere in proportionately large numbers. The Abbe Cochet committed himself to a general PL B facing p. 353 PENDANTS, BEADS, BUCKLES, ETC. II III IV I, iv, about half-size; III, | natural size; II, much reduced 11 is Continental DISTRIBUTION OF BUCKLES 353 statement about Britain at large, 1 according to which the maritime counties and those on the great rivers were much better equipped with buckles than the inland districts, and Baron de Baye 2 quotes the opinion with favour. There would be no possible significance in this unless the buckle were supposed to be an imported article, and this has never been suggested. The generalization is not of real value, and the Abbe mentions Northamptonshire as well supplied though this is quite an inland county, whereas the riparian Berkshire showed in its chief cemeteries Long Wittenham and Frilford a remarkable dearth. A more promising explanation may be found in chronology. Kent, it has been noticed, is in general better supplied than the rest of the kingdom, and in the normal abundance of Kentish tomb furniture this need not surprise us. Now within the county itself, in those cemeteries the contents of which are summarized in Faussett's Inventorium Sepulchrale, buckles were many times more numerous than fibulae, and at Uncleby in Yorkshire, a cemetery the objects in which resembled Kentish tomb furniture, there were in more than 70 graves 26 buckles to 8 brooches. 8 At Bifrons however this proportion seems to have been reversed, for among about 200 small objects from this cemetery sewn upon cards there are about ^ fibulae and 25 buckles, while 47 fibulae to 38 buckles is the proportion in the official inventory of the other Bifrons graves given in Archaeologia Cantiana? At Ozengell again, not one of Faussett's cemeteries, the Abbe Cochet remarks on the very scanty supply of the objects. 5 Is it without significance that while the Faussett cemeteries are as a rule late ones, Bifrons is on the whole comparatively early, and the same is true of Ozengell ? The Bifrons buckles, it may be noted, shown on PI. lxx are of simple and pre- 1 Le Tombeau de Cbilderic, p. 268. 2 The Industrial Arts of the Anglo-Saxons, p. 90. 3 Proc. Soc. Ant., xxiv, 146 f. 4 Vols, x and xm. 5 Le Tombeau de Cbilderic, p. 272. Ill z 354 TH E BUCKLE sumably early types. How far, we may ask, does the evidence from cemeteries in other parts bear out the presumption thus suggested, that buckles are less common in the earlier cemeteries than in later ones because the object was in itself in the migration period of comparatively recent introduction ? The absence of buckles is certainly in several Midland cemeteries not a little surprising. Little Wilbraham, Cambs, with its wealth of fibulae, 125 in number, only furnished to the careful explorer 13 buckles from 188 skeletons. 1 At Barrington, Cambridgeshire, with 114 graves, 31 of which contained no furniture, there were 24 buckles to 55 fibulae, and while Little Wilbraham in general supplied fairly early objects those from the latter cemetery seem decidedly later. Again at Kempston, Beds, where very early things were found, only one buckle or object suggesting the buckle form is included in the inventory, 2 and at Fairford, Gloucestershire, Mr. Wylie 3 only notes one, perhaps two, buckles, whereas the fibulae, mostly of the saucer or applied type which is of early appearance, were numerous. In his two years' exploration of Frilford cemetery, Berks, where he reported on 123 skeletons, Professor Rolleston only found a single buckle, 4 and Frilford, like Long Wittenham a partly cremation cemetery, is an early one. Apart from these chronological considerations there is another reason why buckles in general are less frequently found than we should expect. At Fairford and at Kempston the explorers noticed that there was a knife in nearly every grave, and this would make the absence of the normal belt fastenings somewhat surprising, but it may be partly accounted for on the following grounds. While the fibula was normally of bronze and was in most cases ornamented, the buckle was 1 Neville, Saxon Obsequies, Lond., 1852, graves 26, 28, 35, 46, 73, 151, 160, 168, 169. 2 Associated Societies' Reports, 1864, p. 293. 3 Fairford Graves, Oxford, 1852. 4 Archaeologia, xlii, 483. LXXIII facing p. 355 BRONZE AND IRON BUCKLES LAX IN i, 2, are |- natural size J, 4, are Continental IRON AND BRONZE BUCKLES 355 very commonly of iron, and, as was noticed above (p. 245), was plainer and more utilitarian. Buckles made of iron must very commonly have perished, or, lying, as they would, not conspicuously by the head but about the middle of the body, have escaped notice owing to their reduction by rust to an indistinct mass. On PI. lxxv No. 3 shows a rusted iron buckle of the kind from the early cemetery at Mitcham, Surrey, and one or two in the same sort of condition from Bifrons are in the K. A. S. Museum at Maidstone. A more ornate specimen in the same metal PI. lxxv, 4, comes from Croydon, Surrey. Kent was undoubtedly one of the richest parts of the country, and buckles were more likely to be made of bronze there than in other districts. If iron elsewhere were the normal material for the buckle we should obtain a reason for its very partial survival, and should at the same time find the key to a curious morphological problem connected with it. This problem arises from the presence in bronze buckles of features that have no present significance and wear the appearance of survivals. Iron buckles it must be remembered were forged while the bronze ones were cast. The large iron buckle plates of Burgundian and Frankish type were fastened to the belt by means of studs generally of bronze, the shanks of which passed through apertures in the plate and through the leather or linen of the belt, on the under side of which they were fixed by pins which traversed them, or in some other fashion. The Faversham buckle plate at Maidstone shown PI. lxxiii, 2, that measures 6 in. in length and is one of the few large iron buckles found in this country, shows distinctly the heads of bronze studs of the kind. In the case of the bronze buckle plate which was always cast, it was easy to make in the same piece projecting tangs at the back that were inserted through holes in the belt and fixed with pins through them. PI. lxxiii, 3, shows this arrangement in the case of a cast bronze buckle at Brussels. Notwithstanding this, the buckle was supplied on the front with the projecting round 356 THE BUCKLE heads of studs like those which fix the iron buckle plates, and such rounded projections appear almost universally on the triangular plates of the bronze buckles both at home and abroad. It is true that there are cases in which such studs are used in the cast bronze buckle as effective fastenings, as for example PL lxxiii, 4, a piece dating about VII, from Wan- cennes, in the Museum at Namur, but this is exceptional, and the studs are in the vast majority of cases purely decorative. No. 5 on PL lxxiii, a cast bronze buckle in the Canterbury Museum, exhibits them as cast in one piece with the plate. Of this the provenance is unknown and it may be of con- tinental origin. It is figured here partly for its ornament which consists in the rather rare and always late interlacing work. Arguing according to the recognized canons of typo- logy, we should conclude that iron buckle plates with effective studs had preceded the bronze ones in which the studs have become purely decorative, an order of things we have seen paralleled in the case of the sword pommels. Now this could not apply to the very large plated iron buckles already referred to (p. 174) because these are later in date than the bronze buckles in question, but it is quite possible that smaller and simpler iron buckles, such as PL lxxv, 3, were commonly worn at an earlier period and set the fashion for the bronze ones, while being of a corrosible material they may have perished in large numbers and so may partly explain the curious gaps in the inventories of tomb furniture to which attention has been called. Certain adjuncts of the buckle have been referred to (p. 347). The most important of these is termed sometimes the com- plementary plate. It consists in an addition on the other side of the buckle ring of a second plate corresponding in size and shape to the buckle plate proper. This was fastened to the belt quite independently of the buckle, and fastened too by the same sort of permanent attachments, but in such a position that when the free end of the belt was LXXIV facing p. 357 ADJUNCTS OF THE BUCKLE 357 passed through the buckle ring and drawn up tight, the com- plementary plate would come close up to the latter. Indeed as will be seen by reference to the large buckle at Fribourg PI. xviii, 1 (p. 177), or the Brussels buckle PI. lxxiii, 3, the edge of this plate is indented so as to allow the end of the tongue of the buckle that projects beyond the ring to fit into it. It is rather puzzling to see how this arrangement would work in practice, as it precludes any temporary adjustment of the fastening of the belt with a view to loosening or tightening it. The lady could never have taken in her waistband when she smartened herself up to receive callers, nor could her lord have let his out a hole or two after one of those huge meals, which the more delicately bred Roman provincials like Sidonius Apollinaris could not stomach. This complementary plate might have been made to slide backwards and forwards on the belt to allow for such adjustments, but as we have just seen it was fixed in its place. With the buckle proper and its own plate and the com- plementary one there is sometimes found a square plaque of the same material and pattern. Dr. Lindenschmit * claimed to have proved from the position in which this has been found that it was fastened at the back of the belt. The cemeteries of Gaul have furnished examples of the complete parure consisting of buckle with buckle plate, com- plementary plate and square piece of corresponding design. 2 The writer has met with no example of the kind in this country, and even complementary plates are very rare. A well preserved bronze buckle with such a plate from Barfriston, Kent, measuring together nearly 7 in. in length, is given PI. lxxiv, 1, and one with the square back plate from Sibertswold, Kent, PI. lxxiv, 2. Both suites are in the Mayer-Faussett collection at Liverpool, and Nos. 5 and 4 on the plate show the backs of Nos. 1 and 2 with the original 1 Handbuch, p. 355. 2 See for example Pilloy, Etudes, 1, pi. A, opposite p. 136. 358 THE BUCKLE labels in the writing of the Rev. Bryan Faussett still attached to them. A series of square plates was sometimes attached along the belt to add to its handsome appearance. At Mitcham such a series was found and it is now in the Vestry Hall at that place, PI. lxxv, i. These plates were intended to be riveted on, and the length of the small rivets at the four corners of the plate shows that the belt was of the thickness of about -% in., but there are others in the case of which there is a double thickness of the bronze, and the belt or strap passes between them. That from Stowting, PL lxxv, 6, at Stowting Rectory, Kent, was for riveting on. It is illustrated partly as an example of the somewhat clumsy kind of ornamentation applied at times by the Saxon artificer to bronze, where the marks seem to have been scored by main force in the metal. On the other hand the piece from our Bifrons cemetery in the Maidstone K. A. S. Museum, PL lxxv, 2, are double and the band passed between the two plates, being riveted through at the top and bottom. Only the corner rivets are really effective, the four intermediate ones being imitation rivet heads. The two smaller plates at the ends of the row of five are made to double over the strap and are only riveted along the upper edges. The surfaces are tinned, and the swastika ornament is in evidence on the three larger plates. Another adjunct to the belt or strap used in connection with the buckle is the well-known tag or strap end with which the termination of the band was equipped in order to facilitate the passing of it through the ring of the buckle and at the same time to give it a finished look as it hung down loose in front. In the tomb inventories of some Teutonic districts, as for example Hungary, these strap ends bulk very largely and were the recipients of the special attention of the ornamental- ist. Among ourselves they are neither numerous nor elabor- ately adorned, but it is worth noting that there is a class of LXXV facing p. 358 LXXVI facing p. 359 STRAP ENDS, SPIRAL WIRE CLASPS, ETC. i>:4hi All approximately natural size 'SHOE SHAPED' STUDS 359 them enriched in an interesting fashion that can be dated on sure evidence to about IX. These as specimens of later Anglo-Saxon art will be considered on a subsequent occasion. The strap ends of the pagan period have mostly been found in Kent, where as we have seen buckles are specially numerous, and PI. lxxvi gives a few, No. 1 from Ozengell, Kent, and the rest, No. 2, from the King's Field, Faversham, and from Bifrons. They vary in length from about i\ to \\ in. The butt end is usually split and the end of the strap is secured between the two thicknesses of the metal. Another form of the strap end, of some archaeological importance, will be noticed later on in another connection (p. 558). A final word must be said about an interesting little adjunct to the buckle illustrated PI. lxxv, 7 and also on the previous Plate xxiv, 6 (p. 203). This is the so-called ' shoe shaped ' stud, which is one of the objects that are as common on the Gallic side of the Channel as on ours. They are supposed to have been used to fasten the strap or belt round the back of the buckle ring when this had no chape attached to it, the band being doubled round the bar at the back of the ring, just as is the case with our ordinary leather straps, and the two thicknesses, instead of being sewn together by the cobbler, were pierced by the tang underneath the shoe-shaped surface of the stud through the hole in which a pin was passed to keep all firm. At Barrington, Cambs, a buckle seems to have been found with part of a band adhering to it still pierced by a stud of the kind, 1 which seems to certify the presumed arrangement. An interesting little exhibit in the Cambridge Museum is shown PI. lxxv, 5. It is a bronze buckle from Royston Heath, Cambridgeshire, and still has adhering to it part of the leathern band that was doubled round the bar at the back of the ring, and also part of the free end of the strap 1 Cambridge Antiquarian Society's Communications, vol. v, No. 1 1 , pi. 11, 5. M. Boulanger, Mobilier Funeraire, p. 77, notices two other similar discoveries. 360 THE CLASP passed through the ring and fixed by the penetration of it by the tongue of the buckle. Another view of the same piece has been given PI. v, 12 (p. 81). Due notice should be taken of the great diversities in size among the buckles and their adjuncts that have now been passed in review. The aperture for the band or strap in Ger- manic buckles generally varies in width between the extremes of about 4 in. and less than \ in., and though Anglo-Saxon England furnishes none of the very large ones yet the range of sizes is even here a pretty wide one, and betokens the use of the buckle in connection with more than one part of the clothing. This however raises at once the rather obscure question of the clothing of our forefathers and foremothers of the migration period, and it will be best to defer any discussion of this till all the tomb furniture connected with the wardrobe and toilette has been passed in review. Other appliances for fastening the parts of clothing used in Anglo-Saxon times were hooks and eyes of different kinds, clasps, and pins. A simple form of the hook and eye arrange- ment was made of twisted wire, the part intended to be sewn on to the garment being coiled round in a spiral. PI. lxxvi, 5, shows a pair from Twyford, Leicestershire, in Leicester Museum. Other such objects are recorded from Market Overton, Rutland ; Kenninghall, Norfolk ; Sleaford, Lincoln- shire, and Beeby, Leicestershire, see Archaeologia^ lxii, 484. Spiral wire attachments of the kind occur in the early finds in Nydam Moss in Schleswig, see Engelhardt, Denmark in the Early Iron Age, Nydam, pi. v. A far more elaborate and technically very interesting set is that figured PI. lxxvi, 4. It is one of two clasps found about 19 10 at Market Overton, Rutland, and now at Tickencote Hall in that county. It will easily be seen that what appear on the face as round discs are merely the ends of the spirally coiled wires beaten out flat in a manner that betokens good metal and a knowing hammerer. LXXVII facing p. 361 CLASPS OF THE LARGER KIND 4, natural size; 2, 5, slightly enlarged ; 3, enlarged to double size; 1, half natural size LARGE BELT CLASPS 361 The silver wires themselves are in parts worked into a beading and elsewhere left plain, which is also instructive from the technical standpoint. The craftsman must have had a steel tool with the pattern cut in intaglio in a half cylinder and have worked this round and round the wire as a screw plate is worked to produce the thread of a male screw. The circles that ornament the face of the discs seem to have been worked free-hand for they are not concentric and not always complete. A curious clasp in the Museum at Leicester, PI. lxxvi, 3, was found between Twyford and Borough Hill in the county, and consists in two narrow strips of silver, about 6 in. long, one of which ends in a hook the other in an eye. This leads us on to the subject of the clasp proper on which a word or two must be said. The clasp proper appears in two forms. There are one or two examples of substantial size such as would serve for the fastening of a waistbelt, but the vast majority of the specimens are quite small and evidently, from the position in which they have been found, served to close a wristlet or a sleeve at the wrist. Save in a few cases they are not of great moment as works of art, but are exceedingly important from the point of view of their distribution, and in this aspect they must receive due attention. PL lxxvii, i, shows a large ornate cast bronze clasp, 8 in. long over all and 3 in. in width, and evidently intended for the belt. An animal in open work forms the centre of each square plate, and through some blunder in pre- paring the moulds for the cast one of the creatures is standing on his head. The borders of the square plates are apparently treated for enamel. The object, which is in the possession of Lord Grantley, comes from the Forman collection and its provenance is unknown, but the pierced work belongs to a type well known in the north of France where it is reckoned as Carolingian. 1 It is quite possible that the clasp is an \ imported piece though the blunder in the casting looks more 1 J. Pilloy, Les Tlaques Ajourees Carolingiennes, Paris, 1893, and Les Tlaques Ajourees des Boris de la Somme, Paris, 1888. 362 THE CLASP like one of our native artificers trying his hand at an unfamiliar kind of work. Its late date may be accepted as certain. Of native provenance, though not certainly a clasp, is the beautiful little object from the cemetery at Gilton, Kent, grave 41, already figured PL ix, 6 (p. 103) as an almost unique example of definitely floral ornament in the tomb furniture, and as a piece of comparatively advanced date. It is given here, PL lxxvii, 3 on an enlarged scale as it is an object of rare interest. The actual longest dimension is about 1 in. On the edge of the plate near the quaint little animal's head two pieces of the metal, each about T 3 ^ in. wide, have been broken off leaving between them about -- in. of the original edge. The appear- ance is best explained by supposing that the loop side of a clasp has been broken off, and if this be the case it would be another example, this time of Kentish provenance, of the ' plaque ajouree ' of a somewhat late epoch. Of earlier origin and of great beauty is the gilded bronze clasp found in the extremely rich interment within the Taplow Barrow. This is one of a pair, and from the size and shape of the two and their position in the grave they appear to have fastened the belt. The colour plate, PI. B, iv (p. 353), on the left, gives the object as it appears in the British Museum and PL lxxvii, 2, shows the ornament nearly of the natural size. The heads of the creatures on the loop of the clasp are of a characteristic type which is also represented on the exquisite little golden buckle from Faversham, also in the national collection illustrated in its natural colour, PL B, iv, above in the middle. Dr. Salin signalizes this head as characteristic of his Style 11 and would date it not far from the year 600 which is the official date given for the Taplow find. It will be observed, as according with what was said before (p. 329 f.), that the interlacing motive \ in. long. A very fine jewelled head of a pin, if that be really its character, was found at Forest Gate in Essex and is now in the Ashmolean. It will be noticed later on (p. 538) in con- nection with inlaid jewellery of the Kentish type of which it is a sumptuous example. The conclusion of this review of the different forms of dress fastenings in Anglo-Saxon tomb furniture is a fitting opportunity for a word or two on the dress of the period as worn by the first settlers in Teutonic England, though it must be admitted that in the words of a recent writer on the subject ' what the actual clothes were which the Anglo-Saxons wore during the pagan period is a matter upon which not much reliable evidence is available.' x On this subject of Germanic costume something was said in the writer's previous work 1 George Clinch, English Costume, Lond., 1909, p. 18. SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE OF COSTUME 373 already referred to, and it will be sufficient here to summarize briefly the main points of importance without adding unduly to the already large number of our illustrations. Information may be sought from monumental and from literary sources. The former include (1) tombstones of Roman soldiers represented as victorious over barbarian foe- men ; (2) the columns of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus and of Trajan at Rome and the reliefs at Bucharest from the monu- ment at Adamklissi in the Dobruja, where are shown incidents of the wars between the Romans and their northern neighbours; (3) some consular diptychs, the most important of which is that at Halberstadt, and the great cameos of the early imperial epoch at the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, and at Vienna, in which groups of Germanic captives are shown in the lower compartment and in the exergue ; while (4) for our own country there must be added the figures carved on the so-called ' Franks Casket ' in the British Museum, almost certainly a Northumbrian work of VII. The representations in the illuminated manuscripts are all too late to be of absolute authority for the migration epoch, but are of course of first rate value for their own times and have also retrospective worth. Literary notices begin with Caesar and Tacitus, and later historians of the imperial age such as Ammianus Marcellinus supply incidental information. The Byzantine historians of the later period of the migrations, Procopius, Agathias, etc., are useful, and something is to be gleaned from the annalists of the different Teutonic peoples, Jornandes, Gregory of Tours, Paulus Diaconus, Bede, and of course from the older heroic lays such as Beowulf. The most satisfactory general idea of the dress which we obtain is derived from descriptions we possess of the attire of Charles the Great, who made it a matter of patriotic pride to adhere to the traditional Frankish costume. At Aachen or Ingelheim, as we learn from Einhard, 1 Charles^clothed his 1 Mon. Germ. Hist., Script., 11, 455. 374 COSTUME magnificent frame in linen combinations over which came hose or trews and a woollen jerkin trimmed with silk. The shoes which were buckled over the feet had attached to them bands three ells in length, that were wound round the leg crossing at front and at back as far as the knee, where they were as we know from other evidence fastened with small buckles. To protect the upper part of the body from the cold Charles wore a garment that can be traced back as one of the most primitive articles of vesture. This was a sort of cape or scapular of fur that shielded the front and back of the body as far as the girdle. It is called in Caesar and other writers * rheno,' and one of these tells us that its name was derived from that of an animal obviously the reindeer. Charles's c rheno ' was how- ever of otter or sable. Finally, a sea-green mantle clasped on the shoulder completed the attire, and a sword was always worn in the belt wherewith the tunic was girded. Pictorial representations of a costume of the kind agreeing more or less closely are found in Carolingian MSS., from which PL lxxxii, i, 3, are taken. No. 3 is a figure of Charles the Bald, grand- son of the great Charles, and No. 1 is an officer of his court. They come from the sumptuous Bible, Bibl. Nat., Lat. 1, written for Charles the Bald. No. 2 on the same plate is a representation, made up with due reference to evidence, of a typical Frankish warrior of the actual migration epoch. The photograph is from the statue issued by the Central Germanic Museum at Mainz. The last represents of course war costume the other two the vesture of peace, and in them no weapon is shown, though Charles the Great always carried a sword. The elements of this costume can be traced much further back. Its chief constituents, hosen, tunic, and mantle, are mentioned and represented in the earliest documents but not as all worn together. Tacitus expressly signalizes the cloak, ' sagum,' and speaks of the rich as wearing a close fitting vesture which showed the form of the limbs, by which we may understand the trews or hosen. The women, he says, dressed LXXXII w o Z o o o H w o > *. LXXXIII facing p. 375 TEUTONIC COSTUME IN SCULPTURE Alljrom Continental monuments DRESS ON ANTIQUE MONUMENTS 375 like the men, and he refers in their case to linen tunics trimmed with purple, which had no sleeves and left the arms, shoulders, and upper part of the bosom bare. 1 The early sculptured monuments convey the same impression. On the tombstones the fallen German wears sometimes the cloak and nothing else and sometimes only the trews. 2 A bronze statuette of a kneeling German in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, 3 is clad in trews and a cloak, and on the Antonine column a Roman is fighting a barbarian equipped in the same fashion.* At a much later date in VI Agathias describes the foot-soldiers of the Frankish-Alamannic host that Butelin led into Italy in 553 as dressed only in the trews, covering the loins and lower limbs. On the reliefs of the Antonine column the tunic is also much in evidence both on male and on female figures and is represented often as sleeveless, PI. lxxxiii, 4, and as worn under a mantle quite in classical fashion, No. 3. It also appears on the figures of both sexes with sleeves, Nos. 3, 5, and women draw the cloak over their heads like a veil, also in classical guise, No. 5. One may doubt indeed whether the costumes in these reliefs are not entirely Romanized. There is a more genuine look of barbaric character in the dresses worn by the Germanic captives in the reliefs on the diptych of Halberstadt, figured here PI. lxxxiii, I, 2, though it is not possible to tell which particular sec- tion of the Teutonic peoples is represented. Most unfor- tunately the surface of the ivory reliefs is much worn and invaluable details have in this way been lost. The following description is based on casts from the original. On the upper relief, No. 1 , we have on the left a bearded figure with a short tunic reaching half way down the thigh, and apparently, from 1 De Mot: Germ., xvn. This thoroughly classical attire is illustrated from the Antonine column on PI. lxxxiii, 4.. 2 Lindenschmit, Tracbt und Bewaffnung des Romischen Heeres, Taf. vn, vm. 3 Figured in Arts and Crafts, etc., plate in. 4 Petersen, etc., Die Marcus-Saule, etc., Miinchen, 1896, pi. 86a. 376 COSTUME lines above the ankles of the two legs, with tight fitting hosen (?). The lady next him, with her hair drawn up in a knot on the top of the head, like the second female in the relief below, wears a sleeveless tunic with very elaborate ornamental work bordering it, and with a distinctly visible girdle. The mother nursing her child to the right has a tunic without sleeves and unadorned, a mantle round the lower limbs and hair flowing from under a fillet in ample locks on to both shoulders, while the last figure is the most remarkable of all. He is a bearded man with something like a Phrygian cap on his head, something over his shoulders that suggests a fur cape like Charles's 'rheno,' a short tunic, and on the legs elaborate hosen with ornament down the front of them that looks like rows of buttons. The bearded male figure with short hair in No. 2, the undermost of the two reliefs, to the left with his hands tied behind his back wears only the trews ; the woman next him with the child has a sleeveless tunic with very widely open armholes, hair flowing down over the shoulders and bound round the head by a fillet, and a cloak apparently thrown over the right shoulder towards the back ; her companion beside her wears a similar tunic and has the lower part of the body enveloped in an ample wrap, while the hair seems to be drawn up into a knot at the top of the head ; finally, the male figure towards whom she turns seems to be dressed only in a short tunic reaching half way down the thigh and open in front as far as the waist, the V shaped aperture being bordered with what looks like a band of embroidery. The arms introduced embrace round shields that are Teu- tonic, but also trapezoidal ones which are of Roman fashion. There is a quiver of arrows, and lastly a sword in its sheath that bears a most striking resemblance to the scramasax. It has an abnormally long hilt without any marked pommel and ends square below like the scabbard of Childeric's cutlass as restored by Lindenschmit and Pilloy. 1 1 Etudes, in, pi. i. COSTUME ON THE FRANKS CASKET 377 A passage in Paulus Diaconus cannot be passed over. 1 In describing some early Lombard wall paintings at Monza of about the year 600 he says of the personages therein portrayed that they wore ample robes mostly of linen, as did also the Anglo- Saxons, bordered with broad stripes of other colours. The last figure in PI. lxxxiii, 2, and the first and second in No. 1, illustrate this last remark. The Lombard shoes were open over the instep almost as far down as the great toe and were laced up with leathern thongs. The ' cross gartering ' on the legs with bands three ells long is specially noted by the Monk of St. Gall in his account of the dress of Charles the Great, 2 and is seen on the figure of Charles the Bald PL lxxxii, 3. The king is apparently not wearing shoes for the toes seem to be visible, but the figure PL lxxxii, i, has what resemble moccasins fitting tightly to the foot and drawn up over the ankles half way to the knee. About midway in point of time between the representations on the diptych of Halberstadt and those in the Bible of Charles the Bald may be placed the carvings on the Franks Casket already mentioned (p. 205), a work of native Anglo-Saxon art dated by runologists about 650 to 700 a.d. 3 The monument as a whole will be discussed in a later volume in connection with the carved stones, and here it is enough to say that it is a casket of whalebone, about 9 in. in length by 7^- in breadth with a height of about 5 in., and is covered with carvings of figure subjects drawn from historical, biblical, and legendary sources and elucidated by runic inscriptions. PL lxxxi, 7 to 10, show one or two characteristic figures. No. 7 is a warrior bareheaded armed with sword and round shield and clad in a sleeved tunic girded in at the waist and falling in skirt-like folds to the knee. Under it are seen rather ample leggings reaching to the ankle. Between him and the figure 1 Hist. Gentis Langobardorum, iv, 22. 2 Mon. Germ. Hist., Script., 11, 747. 3 This date is given with all due reservation, and must be discussed in its place. 378 COSTUME in front similarly attired but with close fitting hosen or bare legs is a warrior falling backwards who wears a coat of mail. No. 9, one of the three Magi, has a tunic, the ample leggings, and a cloak, the ' sagum ' of Tacitus. A cloak of voluminous dimensions enwrapping the whole figure is worn by No. 8. The female figure, No. io, from the story of the smith Weland, is also clad in a voluminous mantle drawn up over the head like a hood, and carries in her hand a bag. With regard to the coiffure, for men as well as women to wear the hair long was a common tradition among the Teutonic tribes, and many Roman tombstones show it, but on the Antonine column it is generally represented as short, though wild and tumbled. When the Alamanni charge the troops of Julian in the battle by Strassburg their flowing hair bristles with eagerness. 1 At a later date extreme length of locks on the male head became a speciality of the royal race of the Salian Franks, the Merwings, but the free Teuton in general did not abandon his ample locks in favour of the short-clipped hair of the classical people, and he wore generally also the unclassical moustache. The Anglo-Saxons wore the hair long down to the Conquest as is shown by the fact that some of them thought that the closely cropped heads of the Norman invaders were those of priests. In the case of women the Halberstadt reliefs show two distinct arrangements, (i) flowing locks with a fillet and (2) a top knot, while the Antonine column and the Franks Casket supply examples of the mantle drawn over the head like a veil. Lindenschmit 2 brings forward evidence that the loose hair betokened the virgin while married women had theirs bound up. It is rather against this that the two women engaged with children on the Halberstadt reliefs are exactly those that have the long tresses. Both maidens and matrons however wore the fillet or diadem, and Lindenschmit quotes numerous references to this under the names ' vitta,' ' corona ' or ' dia- 1 Am. Marc, xvi, xii, 36. 2 Handbucb, 383 f. THE TREWS 379 dema.' It was sometimes of gold set with gems and in this case would be of metal, but it might consist also in a band of coloured fabric ; purple is mentioned by Angilbert in his verses on the brave show made by the consort and daughters of Charles the Great, a'nd this might be embroidered with gold. For the present purpose these notices and illustrations of dress are only of importance in connection with tomb furniture. The trews have historical significance. Like sleeves they are distinctly non-classical and barbaric. The outland slave maiden who stands by her mistress on the Athenian tomb reliefs is figured with sleeves, and in Greek sculpture Persians and Scythians are always shown wearing the loose trousers called among the former avafp)pi<;. In Roman sculpture Gauls and Germans are similarly dressed. Now there can be little question that it is the same garment in the west as in the east and that it was adopted by the peoples of central and northern Europe from those of southern Russia and Iranian lands. This is a striking proof of the fact which Mr. Dalton makes clear in his Treasure of the Oxus x that the whole region of Europe north of the Carpathians and the ranges that extend these to the north-west formed a single archaeological province, through which fashions in art as well as in costume, for instance the setting of garnets in gold, might be freely diffused in complete independence of the Mediterranean peoples. For the form of the garment we do not depend merely on the illustrations, for specimens of it actually exist in the Museum at Kiel, and are among the most interesting of the finds in the Thorsberg Moss of about IV a.d. They are figured in Engelhardt's Denmark in the Early Iron Age and in many a book besides. It is to be noted that loops about the waist part, as in our cricketing trousers, show that the garment was kept in place by a girdle, and this bears upon the importance of the belt in Germanic dress as com- 1 London, 1 905. 380 COSTUME pared with the dress of the classical peoples, among whom the zone had no such constructive part to play. It should be added, as one more proof of that reciprocal influence between Roman and Teuton which we see existing in customs as well as in matters of craftsmanship, that the Romans in the migra- tion period came themselves to adopt this barbaric fashion in attire, and Roman soldiers on the Antonine column, as for example PL lxxxiii, 4, are seen so dressed. The more con- servative people however looked askance at the innovation, and in the Theodosian Code there is a provision that the ' bracae ' were not to be worn by citizens within the walls of Roman towns. The question of the material of the Anglo-Saxon dress is not an easy one to solve. No mere guesswork is of any avail,, and microscopical and chemical analysis of the actual fibres are the only means available for arriving at the truth. Linen, wool, and even silk, as also hemp for strings, have all been reported as found in Anglo-Saxon graves, and the statements may be taken for what they are worth. As a matter of fact with all the resources of the modern scientific laboratory it is by no means easy to distinguish one kind of fibre from another, as the portion of fabric must first be very carefully cleansed, and even then to ascertain what is wool or flax or woody fibre is difficult. The various portions of fabric which the writer has submitted to scientific friends who have kindly examined them for him have all turned out to be woollen, but there is no reason why linen or even silk should not declare its presence. The fabric shown PL lxxxiv, 3, adhering to the front and back of a fibula from Suffolk in the Fenton collection, is of wool. With the tunic and the cloak are closely connected the fibula, for it was in the fastening of these that the brooch was almost exclusively employed. The general view is that when fibulae are found in pairs they formed the attachments of the female tunic, and a pair of fibulae is held to betoken a woman's USE OF BROOCHES WITH DRESS 381 grave. The single brooch signifies a male interment and is supposed to have fastened the cloak upon the right shoulder after the classical fashion. Justinian wears it so in the Ravenna mosaic, PL xxxin, 2 (p. 243), and so does Roma in No. 3, while Theodora wears a brooch on each shoulder though we cannot see exactly what they fasten. Whether brooches were required for the male tunic is doubtful and here the Hal- berstadt reliefs are very useful. The figure to the right in the lower relief, PL lxxxiii, 2, wears a short tunic with sleeves, for these are clearly indicated by folds on the arms, and it is evidently a shaped garment like a shirt opening down the front. No brooch would be required for this, except it may be to close it up by the throat. The tunics of the women on the other hand resemble the Dorian chiton of the Greeks in that there is no provision of sleeves, but the stuff is passed under the armpits and the two edges of it brought together on the points of the shoulder. For the attachment here the brooches found so constantly in pairs in Teutonic graves would readily serve. This occurrence of fibulae in pairs in women's graves is noticed in connection with Kingston (Saxonbury) near Lewes, Sussex ; with Kempston, Beds ; with Marston St. Lawrence, Northants, where there were ten pairs and only one single one ; while recently at least eight pairs of saucer brooches have been found at Alfriston, Sussex, with two odd ones. The mantles enveloping parts of the figures of the women are, like the Greek himation, used as drapery rather than as garments of definite cut and fit, and for the temporary fastening of these in any required position the pins of six or seven inches in length already illustrated would come in handily. We have seen that there is no reason to relegate these exclu- sively to the purposes of the coiffure. Where women wore a sleeved tunic the arrangements for fastening would be different. The Halberstadt reliefs give us no help here, but there are women in sleeved tunics on the Antonine column, as for example the child in PL lxxxiii, 5. Here there is no 382 COSTUME sign of an opening at the neck in front, but considering that, as Tacitus tells us about the early Germans and as we know was the case in Greece and to a lesser extent at Rome, the dress of the two sexes was in these times very much the same, we may assume that the sleeved tunic of the women would be often made up like that of the men on the diptych, and in this case there would be arrangements for closing it when necessary at the throat. Brooches on the shoulders would in this case not be needful as the garment would be shaped and sewn. These considerations suggest an explanation for some anomalous appearances in the positions of fibulae in our Anglo-Saxon cemeteries. Only those instances count where the exploration of the graves was carefully supervised and reported on. It is stated for example by Miss Layard about Ipswich that c in the Ipswich cemetery we never find more than one of the larger brooches on one individual, though the smaller ring brooches are found in pairs. That both the square headed brooches and the circular jewelled brooches were worn in the centre beneath the chin we have the evidence of the verdigrized condition of many of the chin and neck bones,' * and Mr. Reginald Smith notes in the Victoria History 2 that ' ring brooches were found one above the other on the breast, not as the typical West Saxon brooches, one on each shoulder.' This certainly suggests the closing up of an opening in front, perhaps by two small brooches below and a single large one at the top, though of course this last may have served to fasten a fichu or cape. At Chessell Down in the Isle of Wight the position in which the brooches, always appearing in pairs, were discovered seemed ' to show that they were used to close the tunic at the neck and breast.' 3 At Sleaford, Lincolnshire, where, it may be remembered, the bodies were nearly all in a crouching position, it often hap- 1 Archaeologia, lx, 333. 2 Suffolk, 1, 331. 8 Victoria History Hants, 1, 388. SLEEVED TUNICS 383 pened that there were a pair of fibulae on the shoulders and a single one at the breast, 1 and the same arrangement is reported from Brighthampton, Oxon. 2 At Sleaford there was a remarkable abundance of clasps found lying by the wrists of skeletons. At least 36 cases were noticed and in all but three there was evidence that the graves were of women, and this is some proof that the tunics of the women were sleeved. It is true that the explorer, Mr. Thomas, appeared to regard them as fastenings of bracelets which do not necessarily involve sleeves, but on the other hand the triangular pieces found in other cemeteries (p. 365) were certainly to cover the openings above the fastenings of sleeves, and the connection of clasp and sleeve may be assumed as normal. See also (p. 364). Mr. Fenton has in his collection in London a pair of clasps from Suffolk to which still adhere considerable portions of the fabric to which they were sewn. This is distinctly dress material and not part of a bracelet. The suite PI. lxxix, i, from Barrington, Cambs, we would regard as typical, for here clasps with the triangular adjuncts betokening sleeves occur in company with a single handsome square-headed fibula which we can imagine closing the opening in the tunic at the throat. It may surprise us therefore at Sleaford to find fibulae used in pairs on the shoulder parts of tunics presum- ably sleeved, but the difficulty is removed by the statement of the explorer about the bead necklets, which he says were not necklets proper but ' simply festoons of beads, in many instances double ones, extending from the one shoulder to the other, supported at either end by a fibula or pin.' 3 Fibulae worn on the shoulders when not needed for fastening the dress may sometimes be explained in this fashion, but they may also have been worn merely as ornaments, the actual fastening being confined to the front. However the distribution of fibulae in relation to the 1 Archaeologia, l, 123. 2 ibid., xxxvm, 90. 3 ibid., l, 387. See postea (p. 435). 384 COSTUME body may be explained, and the subject is a difficult one, it can be asserted with some confidence that women wore sleeved tunics as well as sleeveless ones, and that the existence of clasps in a grave is evidence that the former were in the particular case in use. Clasps we have seen are with com- paratively few exceptions confined to Anglian districts and indeed to the central part of the Anglian area around Cam- bridgeshire. Is it hazardous to conjecture that these people had northern connections and wore a warmer dress than the Saxons and Jutes who had become acclimatized in more southern surroundings ? If this were the case clasps would possess no small archaeological significance, but it must be repeated that we are here very much in the domain of con- jecture. Below the bottom edge of the male tunic which seems to have reached to the knee the legs were commonly covered with the trews or hosen over which by way of an ornamental finish to the costume appeared the ' cross gartering ' noticed in the case of the dress of Charles the Great and figured PL lxxxii, 2, 3. The former presence of long shoe latchets of the kind has been inferred from the existence of numerous small buckles, such as PL lxxxv, 4, which would come in handily to fasten the ends of these. Remains of actual foot-gear of Anglo-Saxon make are hardly known, though Roman shoes are abundantly in evidence in some collections such as that of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland at Edinburgh. They are examples of Roman ornamental leather work, and a similar piece of leather ornamented in like fashion with open work was found by Faussett in a Kentish grave, see Inventorium Sepukkrak, p. 152 ; it does not however seem to have been part of a shoe. The Germanic dress has only been considered in its simpler aspects. People of wealth and position, both in the period of the migrations and in that following on the settlement in new seats, indulged in considerable luxury in costume and varied LXXXIV facing p. 385 GOLD STRIPS, TEXTILES, ETC. 4, natural size ; 3, reduced ; 2, less than half size ; 1, enlarged 2J times GOLD-INWOVEN TISSUES 385 its forms while elaborating it in details. We are told that the Gothic youths who were distributed as hostages in Roman cities when the Visigoths were allowed to cross the Danube in 376 a.d. were admired as much for their rich attire as for their fair presence, while Bishop Aldhelm's tract de Virginitate of which there was question earlier in this work, Vol. 1, p. 233, is proof that dress among the Anglo-Saxon ladies of VII might assume a fantastically gorgeous character. Only in the case of one of these bits of extra finery is there any connec- tion with tomb furniture, and this is the c vitta ' or ornamental band for confining the hair. Such bands we know from literary notices already quoted might be of the precious metals and set with gems. Nothing answering to this description seems to have been found in Anglo-Saxon graves, but a fine golden diadem for the head set with garnets was found in southern Russia and has lately been added to the Volkerkunde Museum at Berlin. What we have to deal with here is not metal but tissue. One Germanic lady on the Antonine column PI. lxxxiii, 4, has her hair confined under a kind of coif. Interesting dis- coveries in some of the Kentish cemeteries including Bifrons, and on some non-Kentish sites, proved the existence as part of the head dress of Saxon ladies of pieces of fabric partly woven with strips of gold. Similar gold-inwoven strips were used as bracelets or at any rate were worn about the wrists where traces remain. The stuff has of course almost wholly disappeared but the gold survives, and quite a boxful of the gleaming strips adorns the collection of the Kent Archaeo- logical Society at Maidstone. The famous Taplow Barrow contained a treasure of the kind, and here both fabric and pattern are to some extent preserved as well as the inde- structible metal. Most of the find is in the British Museum but a little is at Reading. PL lxxxiv, 1 (enlarged) and 2, give an idea of what is pre- served. Strips of metallic gold, not gilded silver, measuring III 2B 386 COSTUME in width j^y in. and in thickness -g-J-^ in., 1 are woven into a fabric composed of fine wool 2 by the process known as ' Gobelins ' technique, in which the strips in question do not go all across the warp but are intertwined with the warp threads only in those parts where the metallic filaments are to show. In consequence of this the gold which is imperishable has come away bodily from those portions of the decaying fabric in which it was used, and it will be seen by reference to PL lxxxiv, 2, that the gold strips were woven into the stuff in patches some of rectangular others of triangular shape. In the case of every strand when the limit of the required patch of gold was reached the strip was doubled back and returned forming a parallel strand, the wavy surface of the strip being caused by the alternate pressures up and down of the woollen threads over and under which it was passed by the shuttle or needle. PI. lxxxiv, i, shows an enlargement of one of the rectangular patches in which it will be seen that a distinct pattern has been formed of triangles or possibly squares separated by zigzag lines in which only the woollen ground appears. This pattern closely resembles certain textile motives which occur on the woven garments found in the Thorsberg Moss in Schleswig, and dating from about IV. These are almost certainly of northern origin as the garments on which some of the patterns appear are c trews,', a form of vesture not favoured by classical peoples. The agreement of these northern patterns with those on the Taplow textiles is an argument to oppose to those who are too ready to affirm that anything peculiarly rich and elaborate, like these gold-inwoven fabrics, must necessarily be ' Roman.' The elaborate gold work of ' barbaric ' origin, in Scandinavia, PH. liv, lv (p. 309), 1 For these dimensions the writer is indebted to the kindness of his colleague Professor Harvey Littlejohn, who has ascertained them in his laboratory by the micrometer. 2 This was also made certain in the Medical Jurisprudence laboratory by Professor Littlejohn. GOLD-INWOVEN TISSUES 387 Ireland, and the various centres of Teutonic craftsmanship, shows that there was nothing in the technique of gold for which the Celtic or German artist needed lessons from the Romans, while the fact of the fabric being of wool, and not, for example, of silk or even of fine linen, is in favour of the textile being of native make. The Taplow fabric may have belonged to a cloak as the burial was a male one, but most of the Kentish gold strands were found by the heads of the corpses and were certainly the remains of the ' vittae.' The filaments with which they were interwoven are not, at any rate at Maidstone, preserved. Pins may of course have been in use to adjust the place of such a diadem or coif as well as to fix the hair itself in the knot or chignon, and we should explain in this way the double pins connected by a chain of which specimens are shown on PI. lxxxi. The shortness of the space allowed by the chain between the pins, in the Roundway Down example at Devizes about 5 in., makes the use of them on the head rather than on the breast practically certain. END OF VOL. Ill S5-BH512.