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Note on an early Anglo-Saxon square-headed brooch from Canterbury

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

Sonia Chadwick
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Extract

In 1942 the generosity of the Trustees of Henry Christy enabled the Department of British and Medieval Antiquities at the British Museum to acquire an Anglo-Saxon square-headed brooch of considerable interest (pl. VII a and fig. 1), said to come from the Martyrs' Field, Canterbury. It is of silver-gilt and 8–5 cm. long, with decoration first cast and then touched up by the chisel.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 38 , Issue 1-2 , April 1958 , pp. 52 - 57
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1958

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References

page 52 note 1 Reg. no. 1942, 10–8, 10a.

page 52 note 2 Before cleaning the brooch was completely covered by copper corrosion originating from impurities in the silver itself, the usual condition of early Anglo-Saxon jewellery when taken from the ground.

page 53 note 1 Leeds, , Corpus of Early Anglo-Saxon Square-headed Brooches (1949), pl. A1, 1Google Scholar; Leeds, , Early Anglo-Saxon Art and Archaeology (1936), pl. XIVGoogle Scholar; Hawkes, , ‘The Jutes of Kent’, pl. XIIIGoogle Scholar, in Dark Age Britain, Studies presented to E. T. Leeds (1956).

page 53 note 2 Leeds, (1949), op. cit., pl. S1.Google ScholarHawkes, , op. cit., pl. XIIGoogle Scholar, c.

page 53 note 3 Leeds, (1949), op. cit., pl. A1, 2–3.Google Scholar

page 53 note 4 Ibid., pl. A1, 4; Faussett, , Inventorium Sepulchrale, p. 17Google Scholar, pl. VIII, 3.

page 53 note 5 Åberg, The Anglo-Saxons in England, fig. 138.

page 53 note 6 Baye, De, The Industrial Arts of the Anglo-Saxons, pl. III, 5.Google Scholar

page 53 note 7 Åberg, op. cit., fig. 139.

page 53 note 8 Leeds, (1949), op. cit., pl. A1, 5.Google Scholar

page 53 note 9 V.C.H. Kent, I, 360, pl. fig. 2; unprovenanced.

page 53 note 10 Leeds, (1949), op. cit., pl. A3, 13.Google Scholar

page 53 note 11 Ibid., pl. S3.

page 54 note 1 Åberg, op. cit., fig. 98.

page 54 note 2 ‘Notes on Jutish Art in Kent’, an unfinished manuscript to be published in The Journal of Medieval Archaeology, I (forthcoming).

page 55 note 1 Leeds, (1949), op. cit., pl. S5–6.Google Scholar

page 55 note 2 They have recently been conveniently summarized by Voss, Olfert, in ‘The Høstentorp Silver Hoard and Its Period’, Acta Archaeol. 1955, pp. 179 ff.Google Scholar

page 55 note 3 Mackeprang, , De Nordiske Guldbrakteater (1952), pl. xxii, 5.Google Scholar

page 55 note 4 Hawkes, , op. cit., pp. 102–3 and 109Google Scholar; Werner, , Münzdatierte Austrasische Grabfunde (1935), pp. 47–48Google Scholar; Kühn, , Die Germanischen Bügelfibeln der Völkerwanderungszeit in der Rheinprovinz (1940), pp. 166–70Google Scholar, 395–6 (group 14, no. 66); Fett, Eva Nissen, Bergen Museums Arbok, 1941, type A, no 2, Engers.Google Scholar

page 55 note 5 See, for example, the brooch from Langlo, Vestfold; Hougen, , The Migration Style in Norway (1936), no. 19.Google Scholar

page 55 note 6 The horse-shoe or crescent stamps on the Martyrs' Field brooch are also paralleled in Scandinavia and north Germany; on bracteates, neck rings and other metalwork of the late fifth or early sixth centuries. (Mackeprang, , op. cit., pl. V, 13Google Scholar; XV, 24; XX, 8; and XXI, 16. Jenny, , Die Kunst der Germanen, pl. LXXXI.Google ScholarJenny, und Volbach, , Germanischer Schmuck, pl. XLIXGoogle Scholar, top. Lindenschmitt, , Handbuch der deutschen Alterthumskünde, pl. XIII, p. 395, &c.)Google Scholar

page 56 note 1 Leeds in ‘Notes on Jutish Art in Kent’; Hawkes, , op. cit., p. 103.Google Scholar

page 56 note 2 On the brooches from Faversham, Kent, and Richborough cited above.

page 56 note 3 See above, p. 53, n. 11.

page 56 note 4 V.C.H. Kent, iii, 77–79, pl. XII, cemetery 4; pl. XIII, 3–5.

page 56 note 5 P.S.A. 2nd ser., xviii, 279 and fig.

page 56 note 6 V.C.H. Kent, i, 384.

page 57 note 1 London and the Saxons (1935), pp. 56–59.

page 57 note 2 Antiquity, vii, 451.

page 57 note 3 Archaeological News Letter 3, 9, p. 151; 4, 9, p. 140; 2, 5, p. 79.

page 57 note 4 Ibid. 2, 5, p. 80; South Eastern Naturalist and Antiquary, liv, 20–21, fig. 2.

page 57 note 5 A.N.L. 3, 11, p. 181.

page 57 note 6 Ibid. 5, 7, p. 134; 2, 8, p. 133.

page 57 note 7 There is some other evidence for pagan Saxon burials well within the ‘five mile radius of Canterbury’. Mr. Frank Jenkins, F.S.A., has very kindly shown me a mid-sixth-century bronze brooch recently found in the cathedral precincts and now in the Chapter Library. This was presumably once included in a burial. While the rich grave found in St. Martin's churchyard (P.S.A. 2nd ser. V, 125) undoubtedly dates from after the conversion, when the church was in use by the court of Aethelbert, there is a reference in the account to a find of spearheads ‘not far off’, and the suggestion of a cemetery in this area which may have originated at an earlier date. Some two miles out of Canterbury to the north, at Shelford farm, a burial was found which contained two bird brooches of late-sixth-century date. These are now in the British Museum (Acc. nos. 1928, 6–6).

page 57 note 8 Discussed in Anglo-Saxon Art to A.D. 900 (1938), pp. 81–83.

page 57 note 9 Leeds, (1936), op. cit., pp. 4–7Google Scholar, pls. 11, a and c, III, a; Antiq. Journ. XXXV, pl. VIII, b.