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The Early Saxon Penetration of the Upper Thames Area

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2012

E. T. Leeds
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Extract

In 1912, when I undertook a survey of the distribution of the Anglo-Saxon saucer-brooches, I endeavoured to bring that survey into line with the historical records of the period, and thus was compelled to use the campaign of A.D. 571 as the pivot round which the results of my examination of the material must be made to revolve. Certain deductions in regard to distribution of types and decorative motives ensued, but the main result attained was the demonstration of a wider diffusion of the saucer-brooch and the ‘applied’ or ‘composite’ form than had been previously appreciated, and, further, the Saxon character of the material from a large group of cemeteries eastwards of the Thames-Ouse watershed.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , July 1933 , pp. 229 - 251
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1933

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References

page 230 note 1 I have to thank the Editors of History for their courtesy in allowing me to reproduce the excellent map which was specially prepared by Sir Emery Walker, F.S.A., to illustrate that paper. It is inserted here (pl. XXXII) without further comment, but serves to explain the theory which the present paper seeks to develop. A few minor modifications would bring the map into line with all the points embodied in the present argument, e.g. a shift northwards of the dividing line between the Angles and Saxons in Mid Anglia, or the addition of a cemetery in Wiltshire (Wilts. Arch. Mag. xliii, 94), in my opinion obviously late.

page 231 note 1 Plummer, following Bordieu, M., Rev. Celt. vi, 1–13, prefers 493, Oman 500–3 or 516Google Scholar.

page 233 note 1 I feel convinced that the identification of Mons Badonicus with Bath or some point in that neighbourhood is the right one. I see no valid argument in history, and certainly archaeology affords no support whatever, for its connexion with Badbury Rings in Dorset.

page 235 note 1 I am indebted to Professor Donald Atkinson for bringing these discoveries to my notice.

page 236 note 1 Camb. Ant. Soc. Quarto Publications, n.s., iii, 35.

page 238 note 1 Recent discoveries at Baginton, near Coventry, have revealed the existence of cremation-graves higher up the Avon. The small Reading group belongs to settlers who either ascended or descended the Thames Valley to that point; on the basis of other evidence from that part of the valley ‘descended’ is certainly more probable.

page 239 note 1 The Anglo-Saxons in England during the early centuries of the Invasion, 28 ff.

page 240 note 1 One unpublished example is added to Kempston, two to Frilford (Leeds, Archaeology, 64), and there should be two, not one, as Åberg, from East Shefford.

page 241 note 1 In a recent article in Antiquity, v, 313, Mr. M. Hughes makes the astounding statement that Åberg notes, in regard to these brooches, that ‘like other antiquities found in England they have no counterparts in the old homes of the Anglo-Saxons on the continent, and that he goes so far as to hazard the suggestion that they may represent a survival of the classical tradition in England as continued by the Celts, and not brought in by the Teutons’. Mr. Hughes concludes that ‘it is quite possible that this type of brooch has no bearing on the date of the invasion at all’. It was on the advice of the Editor of Antiquity that Mr. Hughes read Åberg's work, but it would have been wise if the Editor had acted the role of Philip to the Ethiopian. I hold no brief for Dr. Åberg; he is quite capable of defending himself, but I am sufficiently conversant with his views to say that Mr. Hughes is guilty of what in a court of law would amount to a libel in ascribing to Dr. Åberg statements, which, even if I had never read his book, nevertheless from twenty years' acquaintance with him I could affirm he never could have made. Åberg never says these brooches are not found on the Continent. His words are: ‘The spiral ornament and plastic animal figures of the equal-armed relief brooches are strongly influenced by provincial-Roman art. The same is true of a number of antiquities discovered in England, no counterparts of which have been met with from the old homes of the Anglo-Saxons on the continent, and whose appearance in England is therefore more difficult to account for.’ A perusal of the leading paragraph of the chapter would have told Mr. Hughes Åberg's real view.

page 243 note 1 Archaeologia, lxiii.

page 245 note 1 It scarcely appears at all in Mid Anglia or farther east.

page 245 note 2 Nothing brings out in stronger relief the conservatism of the Anglo-Saxon clans than this adoption of decorative motives from one area on the ornaments beloved of another. If anywhere a whole-hearted acceptance of a new form might have been expected, it is in Essex, where many contacts with Kent have come to light. And yet at Southend-on-Sea, within sight of the Isle of Thanet itself, we find a brooch on which the jeweller has taken over the design of a Jutish type, garnets, shell-boss, and all, and planted it in the middle of a perfectly unmistakable Saxon saucer-brooch (Antiq. Journ. xi, 284, pl. XLGoogle Scholar).

page 246 note 1 This is one reason for my disagreement with a thesis lately advanced by Mr. Kendrick, to the effect that the large Kentish brooches are early. If they are so, why did the West Saxons not copy the arrangement of their design? They took as their model the design of an earlier class and remained satisfied with that, merely following the fashion of ostentatious size in the later Kentish class.

page 247 note 1 This specimen from High Down is taken from notes made by myself on a visit to Ferring while the objects from that cemetery were still in the possession of the late Mr. G. E. Henty. Since then a large part of the collection has been given to the Worthing Museum, but this particular brooch was not included in the gift. I understand from Miss Marian Frost, Curator of the Museum, that part of the collection was retained, and evidently this brooch and one or two other interesting pieces with it.

page 249 note 1 I have since noted others from Castle Martin, Pembrokeshire (Arch. Camb., 1927, p. 194, fig. 4Google Scholar) and Bidford-on-Avon, (Archaeologia, lxxiii, 104, fig. 7)Google Scholar.

page 250 note 1 Here again a light-and-shade border has been transformed into lengths of pearling divided by short bars of vertical strokes.

page 251 note 1 Grundy, G. B., ‘Wiltshire Charters’, Arch. Journ., lxxvi, p. 160Google Scholar.