The discovery in 1709, at Osmondthick, West Riding of Yorkshire, of a hoard of socketed axes, is described from contemporary sources. The contents of the hoard, its site of discovery, and ultimate fate are considered, as well as its archaeological significance. Contemporary views on prehistoric socketed axes, most particularly those of Thomas Hearne and Richard Richardson, are contrasted, and it is concluded that Richardson's observations mark him as an important but neglected contributor to contemporary antiquarian thought.

The development of the earliest Germanic applied disc brooches is followed from their beginning in the Elbe valley to the fifth century in England. Third-century types constructed with rivets on a flat background were produced in the Elbe valley, giving way in the fourth century to a type soldered on to a concave base, and they spread to the middle and lower Elbe valley, to Holland, the Rhineland, Belgium, and northern France, increasing in numbers at the end of the fourth century, but not surviving the fifth century. The main designs were concentric circles, star, floriate cross, scrolls, and animal ornament.

The series goes on in England without any break in continuity of form or decoration, and the earliest types belong to the fifth century, mainly the first half. With the densest concentration in the Upper Thames area, they are otherwise mostly distributed south of the Thames with some along the Icknield Way. As they are associated with a post-Roman stage of metalwork, the Quoit Brooch Style, they must indicate Germanic settlements, no doubt mercenary in the earliest stages.

Two Migration period finds of gold ‘payment rings’ from south-western Norway are identified as sets of balance weights, carefully adjusted to the old system of aurar and ertogar (pl. of ON eyrir m. and ertog m.), metrologically taken over from the Roman system, with the eyrir equivalent to the Roman ounce of 27·29 gm. The sets can be used for weighing with great accuracy at intervals of eyrir, one being adjusted to an eyrir value of 27·42 gm., the other set ingeniously made to be used for weighing in units of two different eyrir values, one of 27·35 gm. (0·06 more than the Roman standard ounce), and another of 29·13 gm., near the maximum of the accepted standard variation of the eyrir as it can be found in other contemporary gold finds of south-western Norway. A general discussion argues that the Roman weight system and standards were taken over and practised in Northern Europe from the fourth century onwards.

This paper briefly reviews the historical and artefactual evidence for the dating of the Middle Saxon settlement of Hamwih, Saxon Southampton. This is followed by a seriation of twenty selected pit-groups, each with varying quantities of the five classes of Middle Saxon pottery. The analysis suggests three clusters of pits, some of which can be dated using coins or ceramics found in them. The span of dates, however, is substantially shorter than has previously been proposed, and some possible explanations for this are briefly discussed.

The article describes the seals employed by the Lord Edward in the administration of his appanage during the period 1254–72. The number and condition of surviving impressions is considered and the use and import of the different coloured waxes. The sealing arrangements followed in the constituent parts of that appanage, including the lordships of Ireland, Gascony, the Channel Islands, and Chester, are discussed and comparisons made between them.

When the town organ in the parish church of Appleby-in-Westmorland was damaged by flooding and had to be dismantled for repair and restoration, it was found that the pipes and stops of the Great Organ were practically contemporary, and must date from the instrument's existence in Carlisle Cathedral before its transference to Appleby in 1683. Certain unusual features in the flats were found to have a parallel in a Sienese organ of 1510 or thereabouts, and consideration of this latter instrument showed that a series of carved open-work panels, now incorporated in other fittings in the church, had been part of the original organ-case, a certain asymmetry in the topmost panel being designed to correspond with the irregular centring of the appropriate bay in the quire at Carlisle. Certain heraldic evidence in the ornamentation points to a date between 1542 and 1547, and the present form of the organ was influenced by its transfer to Appleby in 1683—quite possibly under the supervision of the famous ‘Father’ Smith—and its eventual erection under distinguished patronage in 1722.

A study of seven collections of clothing accounts reveals that in the period 1660–1700 ten firms held a dominant position in London as suppliers of clothes and materials to the nobility. Below this group there were numerous tradesmen with only one aristocratic patron at a time.