Finds from a Seventh Century Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Milton Regis

FINDS FROM A SEVENTH CENTURY ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY AT MILTON REGIS By SONIA CHADWICK HAWKES and L. R. A. GROVE INTRODUCTION By L. R. A. GROVE IN 1921 Sir Hercules Read presented to the Department of British and Medieval Antiquities of the British Museum a seventh century Anglo- Saxon gold pendant from Milton Regis, next Sittingbourne, Kent. The register entry1 records that it had been found in 1916 by Mr. R. Mills, a gravel digger, in a field about a quarter of a mile from the old parish church at Milton. A few years later the Museum purchased from Mr. E. Ealden several more objects from the same site. These, six Anglo-Saxon silver sceattas and two more gold pendants,2 had apparently been found at the same time as the earlier acquisition. They were pubhshed together in a note by Reginald Smith,3 and were assumed by him to have come from a single grave. But apparently no further inquiries were set on foot and the exact find-place was not ascertained. As a result, our information about this very important Anglo-Saxon find was to remain tantalizingly vague and incomplete until, in 1958, some more of the material came to light and made further researches possible. In November of that year Mr. D. M. Waters of Sittingbourne brought to Maidstone Museum a box containing fourteen silver sceattas which he had received from his great-aunt after the death of her husband. The great-uncle who had found them some forty years ago turned out to be the same Mr. R. Mills from whom Sir Hercules Read had obtained the pendant. The coins were purchased for Maidstone Museum in 1959,4 with the help of a Ministry of Education grant-in-aid through the Victoria and Albert Museum. This grant was acquired mainly through the good offices of Mr. R. H. M. Dolley, of the Department of Coins and Medals, British Museum, to whom the sceattas were sub- 1 1921,10-20,1. 2 1926,4-10,1-2 (pendants) and 3-8 (sceattas). 3 Antiq. Journ., VI (1926), 446-7 and figs. See also J. D. A. Thompson, Inventory of British Coin Hoards (1956), 103, no. 269, sub Milton Regis. 4 Accession no. 26,1959. Arch. Cant., LXXIII (1959), 230. 22 PLATE I A. Pendants in the British Museum. Scale 5/6. (Photo by courtesy of the Britixli Museum.) B. Pendants in Maidstone Museum. Scale 1/1. ANGLO-SAXON GOLD JEWELLERY FROM MILTON REGIS [face p. 22 FINDS FROM A SEVENTH CENTURY ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY mitted for expert opinion. Mr. Dolley at once saw the correspondence between these sceattas and the six from Milton already in his department's possession, and was able to deduce that the twenty coins had originally formed a small hoard. They have now been published as such by Mr. S. E. Rigold.5 But this was not all. In 1962 Mr. Waters again visited Maidstone Museum, this time with the last remaining items from his great-uncle's collection : a pot and the jewellery which prompted this paper. They were purchased in October 1962 with money bequeathed to the Kent Archaeological Society by the late Miss D. E. Johnston, formerly of Hallhouse Farm, Appledore. Meanwhile it had been found that Mr. Mills had worked in 1916 for the firm of Messrs. Wills and Packham, Builders' Merchants and Brick Manufacturers, of Sittingbourne. The Managing Director. John E. Wills, kindly traced the finder's cousin Mr. G. Mills and another workmate, Mr. J. Bunting, who well remembered the occasion when the discovery was made. The find-spot, according to them and to the firm's records, was just to the north of Cook's Lane, Milton Regis, where the first new houses of Sittingbourne Urban District Council's present housing scheme have now been built.6 THE FINDS By SONIA HAWKES NEW MATERIAL IN MAIDSTONE MUSEUM 1. Miniature pottery jar (Fig. 1, 1), 4-6 cm., rim diam. 6-6 cm. Body squat with roughly flattened base and well-made horizontally out-bent rim. Hand-made in brown paste with shell and flint grits ; exterior smoothed and probably once burnished ; burnt red and black in patches. In its paste and finish this is a typical Anglo-Saxon pot, but the size and form are more unusual. Miniature pots do sometimes occur in Anglo-Saxon graves—I know one of comparable size from the late seventh-century cemetery at Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire7—but they are not very common. The Milton pot could have originated as a copy of a seventh-century Kentish glass form, the squat jar,8 which is also small and has a similarly shaped body. If so, there has been an alteration to the rim before firing. I can imagine this abnormal 0 S. E. Rigold, ' The Two Primary Series of Sceattas ', Brit. Numismatic Journ., XXX (1960), 46-7. 0 National Grid Reference TQ 90496477 approx. 7 Shortly to be published by Mrs. Miranda Hyslop. 8 D. B. Harden, ' Glass vessels in Britain and Ireland, A.D. 400-1000 ', Dark Age Britain (ed. Harden, 1956), 132-167 ; Class VIII. 23 FINDS FROM A SEVENTH CENTURY ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY horizontally everted rim being produced by some mischance or experiment in which it was pressed against a flat surface such as a floor or table-top. However, this flattened form is not entirely without parallels,9 and it may have had more significant history than appears at present. 2. Bronze buckle and plate (Fig. 1, 2), length 6 cm., but lower part of plate missing. The loop is oval with a straight bar to which the shield-shaped back of the tongue is attached by a bronze CD \ ^.\ \ i FIG. 1. So. 1, I; 2, £. hook. The thin sheet-metal plate, originally triangular in shape, was secured to the belt by three rivets (one now missing) whose large domed heads were the chief ornamental feature. Subsidiary ornament, in the form of a lightly scratched herringbone pattern, can be seen around the surviving studs. 0 Dr. J. N. L. Myres tells me there is a pot with such a rim from the Howletts cemetery in East Kent, British Museum 1936,10-13,1. 24 FINDS FROM A SEVENTH CENTURY ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY This type of buckle, with its characteristically triangular plate and three domed studs, is very frequently found in seventh-century contexts on the Continent, in Kent and occasionally elsewhere in England. It is best known in its more ornamental versions, in precious metal enriched with cloisonne work and Style II animal interlace, but the cheaper and plainer bronze examples are also fairly numerous. Parallels for our piece can be found amongst the grave-goods from the Kentish barrow cemeteries,10 and, nearer at hand, from a cemetery destroyed by brick-earth digging north-west of Sittingbourne parish church.11 This class of buckle has been found almost exclusively in male graves ; consequently the cheaper versions, if associated at all, have been accompanied only by weapons, and are thus undateable except within broad limits. Nevertheless, they seem to be contemporary with their more ornate brethren, and these occur in richer and more closely dateable grave groups. The best of them are the early seventh-century groups from Taplow, Bucldnghamshire,12 and Wickhambreux13 and Breach Down14 in East Kent. On the continent, according to the latest chronological schemes,15 versions of the same general type came into use already before the end of the sixth century and continued throughout the seventh. The typological and chronological position of the Kentish series has yet to be worked out in detail, but there is little evidence at present to show it had so long a life. Although developed versions of the form appear in the Sutton Hoo ship burial in Suffolk,16 conventionally dated middle seventh century, and although the latest-looking of the Kentish group, the great silver " fish " buckle from Crundale Down,17 may be as late as the third quarter of the seventh century, these are exceptional pieces. The majority seem to fall within the first half of the century, and most of them early within that period. A study of the find-sequences from the Kingston Down cemetery, which was in use from the beginning of 10 B. Faussett, Inventorium Sepulchrale (1856), pi. viii, 9 and ix, 1-2, and text figs.: Kingston Down, graves 127, 134 and 163 ; Sibertswold graves 35 and 142 ; Barfreston, grave 46. 11 C. Roach Smith, Collectanea Antiqua, I (1848), pi. xxxvi, 1. 12 Reginald A. Smith, Guide to Anglo-Saxon Antiquities (British Museum, 1923), 63-5, pi. v, figs. 71-2 ; N. Aberg, The Anglo-Saxons inEngland (1936), figs. 1 and 220 ; R. F. Jessup, Anglo-Saxon Jewellery (1950, pi. xxxviii, 1 ; T. D. Kendrick, ' Polychrome Jewellery in Kent', Antiquity, VII (1933), pi. iii, 5. 13 Arch. Cant., XVII (1887), 6-9 ; Aberg, op. cit., figs. 221 and 270; Kendrick, op. cit., pi. iii, 2. 14 Archaeologia, XXX (1844), 52, pi. i, 20-21. 10 K. Bohner, Die Frdnkischen Alterthwmer des Trierer Landes (Germanische Denkmaler der Volkerwanderungszeit, ser. B, I, 1958), vol. 1, chart fig. lb ; Schmidt, DieSpate Volkerwanderungszeit in Mitteldeutschland (1961), chartfig. 49. 18 R. L. S. Bruce-Mitford, The Sutton Hoo Ship Burial (British Museum, 1947) plates 1 and 19, b ; Jessup, op. cit., pi. xl. 17 Aberg, op. cit., fig. 222. 25 FINDS FROM A SEVENTH CENTURY ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY the seventh into the eighth century,18 suggests that, there, the large buckles of our type were superseded towards the middle of that period by small buckles with simple rectangular and openwork plates, the latter at least being still in vogue around 700.19 All things considered, then, we shall be quite safe in dating the Milton buckle to the first half of the seventh century. 3. Oval gold cloisonne" pendant (Plate 1, 5 ; fig. 2, 1), length with loop 4 cm. It consists of a fine cabochon garnet, 2-7 X 1-9 cm., enclosed in a gold collar, and a cloisonne frame 3-4 mm. in width. The frame is divided into four main sections by rectangular cells, at top, bottom, and sides, two of which still contain insets of millefiori glass, blue in one and olive brown in the other. The intervening panels in the lower half of the frame contain cell-work of honeycomb pattern, set with flat-cut garnets ; in the upper half, the pattern consists of tiny round cells joined together and to the edges of the frame by straight cloisons ; the roundels contain minute discs of lapis lazuli, the flanking cells flat-cut garnets. All the garnets in the frame have been mounted on paste and backed with chequered gold foil, a device used to lend brilliance to the stones and bring up their colour. The large central stone, on the other hand, has been set directly on to the gold backplate, and, being thick, appears dark by contrast. The suspension loop has beaded edges and mid-rib, and between them have been soldered twisted wires (four on one side, three on the other) that make a pseudo-plait pattern. The base of the loop at the back has been neatly finished off by an arc of beaded wire. No rivet is visible, and the loop has evidently been soldered on. Although very effective and showy, this pendant shows signs of clumsy craftsmanship : the width of the frame is variable, and the cloisons are irregularly arranged. I t is also somewhat damaged : two mosaic glass, and several garnet and lapis lazuli settings are missing, and the suspension loop is almost cut through at the top, presumably through long friction against the thread of the necklace. Some of this damage may be the result of modern use of the pendant since 1916. Pendants consisting of cabochon garnets in simple gold or silver settings are not uncommon in the richer seventh-century English women's graves, but their stones are rarely so large and they do not 18 One of the graves contained a Frisian runic sceatta dateable to the early eighth century : S. E. Rigold, op. cit., 18 and 62. 19 An openwork bronze buckle like those from Kingston was found with a hoard of primary sceattas, dateable to c. 700, in a grave at Broadstairs. Rigold, op. cit., 46. 26 FINDS FROM A SEVENTH CENTURY ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY normally have cloisonne frames. And when frames do occur, as on the latticed glass pendant from Riseley, Horton Kirby,20 or the millefiori pendant from Sibertswold (see below), they are simpler than this one. The use of two different cell-patterns in this fashion is most unusual. I can find no exact parallel for that on the upper part of the frame, but the honeycomb cell-work in the lower part is at once recognizable. It is one of the chief characteristics of a small group of large composite brooches, from Faversham, Kent, and Milton-by-Abingdon, in Berkshire. 21 These brooches are probably the latest of the series, and are generally dated to the middle years of the seventh century. The use of millefiori, learnt apparently from the makers of the enamelled Celtic Hanging Bowls, is extremely rare on Anglo-Saxon jewellery. Though an attempt to simulate it can be inferred from the treatment of three of the garnets on the Kingston brooch,22 it is not a feature of any of the early seventh-century Kentish jewellery. The Sutton Hoo jeweller may well have been the first English craftsman to employ it, and he was certainly the only one to do so with artistic success.23 The attempt on the Milton pendant is crude by comparison ; nevertheless, it is important since it seems to be the only other piece of Anglo-Saxon jewellery where millefiori is used in cloisonne work. Otherwise it is found only on beads, and on two Kentish pendants, where it is used mosaic-wise to cover the entire surface of a flat disc. These pendants are of chronological importance because they belong to two of the all too rare coin-associated grave groups. One is from the Sarre 1860 grave,24 together with the famous composite brooch, amethyst beads, a Coptic bowl, and looped gold solidi of the emperors Maurice Tiberius (582-602), Heraclius (610-641) and the Frankish king Clotair I I (613-628). The other very similar example, mentioned above, is from Sibertswold grave 172, and was part of a necklace consisting of cabochon garnet, amethyst and latticed glass pendants, a gold pendant, and two looped Merovingian tremisses from the mints of Marsal and Verdun.25 It has recently been suggested that the Sarre coins, three minted at Marseilles and the other at Aries, were brought to England from the south of France, as an already constituted group, in about 620 A.D.26 Since we cannot be sure when the latest of these coins was struck, whether in 20 Brit. Mus. Quarterly, XII (1938), pi. xxiii, 5 ; Arch. Cant., LIU (1940), plate I. 21 E. T. Leeds, Early Anglo-Saxon Art and Archaeology (1936), 120 f.; Kendrick, op. cit., pi. iv, 2-3 ; Aberg, op. cit., figs. 204-5 ; Jessup, op. cit., pi. xxv. 22 This detail shows on none of the published photographs except faintly in Jessup, op. cit., pi. xxvii. 23 Bruce-Mitford, op. cit., plates 18 and 23. 24 Arch. Cant., I l l (1860), pis. II-IV; Reginald Smith, op. cit., fig.80; Jessup, op. cit., pi. xxvii. 20 Faussett, op. cit., pis. iv, 1-2, 7-9,13, xi, 1 and 3. 20 J. Lafaurie, ' Le Tresor d'Escharen', Revue Numismatique, 6e. se>., II (1960), 177. 27 FINDS FROM A SEVENTH CENTURY ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY 613 or some years later, I feel this date may be too early. However, it is the date of burial which concerns us here, and this, to judge from the amount of wear on the coins and their loops, must have been somewhat later, possibly nearer 650 than 620. The coins on the Sibertswold necklace are even more difficult to date, since they are examples of a non-regal Merovingian coinage whose chronology is still disputed.27 For our present purpose it must suffice to say that the majority opinion is that the Sibertswold coins must have been buried after 650. Millefiori may therefore have made its appearance in Kent towards the middle of the seventh century, and its presence on the Milton pendant, in combination with the similarly dated honeycomb cell-work, suggests that this too is a work of the mid seventh century at earhest. 4. Circular pale gold pendant (Plate I, 6 ; fig. 2,2), length with loop 3 • 1 cm. This is basically a sheet metal disc, with beaded wire around the rim and around the hollow metal boss in the centre, from which radiate four groups of four twisted filigree wires in pseudo-plait pattern, making the arms of a cross. The loop, made from a corrugated piece of sheet metal, is rolled under the rim at the front, and allowed to continue vertically down the back. It and the ornamental additions are soldered on. The Sibertswold grave-group mentioned above, and datable to the period after 650, includes an extremely fine gold pendant decorated with a cross in pseudo-plait filigree work.28 Although, with its garnet star and bosses, it is more expensive and elaborate, in its style and in the crispness of its execution it can be compared with our Milton piece. Pendants of the same general type, with some version of the cross pattern, are one of the features of these later seventh-century Kentish women's graves and were evidently worn as Christian symbols. The Riseley grave-group contains one ornamented with a double cross, concentric filigree rings, and httle gold bosses.29 Another from Wye Down30 is decorated with a simple cross and an inner ring around a boss. Yet another, in Dover Museum,31 has a cross and central garnet. One could list many other such pendants with variants of the cross motif, some, like the three others from Milton (see below), very elaborate : this one is a simple example of the type. The fact that it is made of pale gold, or artificial electrum, is interesting and may be of chronological significance. During the second half of the seventh century, 27 See postscript. 28 Faussett, op. cit., pi. iv, 13. 20 Brit. Museum Quarterly, XII (1938), pi. xxiii, 4 ; Arch. Cant., LIII (1940), pi. I. 30 British Museum, reg. no. 1893, 6-1,187. 31 From a grave disturbed in 1956 by the Charlton railway tunnel, near Guston. 28 FINDS FROM A SEVENTH CENTURY ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY the English gold coinage, like that of the western continent, became debased—a process well illustrated by the decline through electrum to silver of the ' Two Emperors ' and the Kentish ' Pada ' thrymsas.32 The electrum phase seems to have lasted through the 70s and may possibly have begun as early as the 60s. Since the making of coins and jewellery were allied arts, sometimes practised by the same man,33 it is very possible that the change from gold to electrum, whether due to a general shortage of gold or to other more complex circumstances, affected the jewellery at the same time as the coins. The Milton pendant is not the only pale gold piece among the Kentish pendants, and it could be that a programme of analyses would throw new hght on the chronological problem. For the moment all that can profitably be said is that this Milton pendant may have been made during the ' debasement' period in the third quarter of the seventh century. 5. Gold pectoral cross (Plate 1,4 ; fig. 2, 3), length with loop 3 • 1 cm. I t has hollow semi-circular-sectioned arms, gently expanded towards the ends and decorated with three groups of four lightly incised transverse lines, and, at the intersection, a circular cell set with a cabochon garnet. The method of construction was, first, to solder the garnet in its cell to the sheet metal cross that forms the backplate ; then to solder on the arched tops of the cross-arms, concealing the joints around the central setting by the addition of a beaded wire frame ; and finally to solder the suspension loop of corrugated sheet metal over the end of the upper, and longer, arm of the cross, and to close the open ends of the remaining arms with flat garnet' stoppers,' only one of which now survives. Pendant crosses have been found in a number of Anglo-Saxon graves, and the Milton cross makes an interesting new addition to the known series : it is not the less interesting because it is unlike any of the others. The most famous of the crosses34 was buried with the body of St. Cuthbert, a bishop of the Northumberland Church, and may well have been his episcopal cross. The others, however, seem to have come from the graves of women, and to have been worn by them primarily as jewels, either alone or a part of a necklace. Nevertheless, the crosses are generally regarded as an explicitly Christian symbol 82 Rigold, op. cit. C. H. Sutherland, Anglo-Saxon gold coinage in the light of the Crondall Hoard (1948). 43 ff. 33 As in the case of the famous seventh-century goldsmith, St. Eligius. 34 R. L. S. Bruce-Mitford, ' The Pectoral Cross ', The Relics of Saint Cuthbert, Durham Cathedral (1956), 308-25, plates XV-XVI. This account of the cross supersedes that by T. D. Kendrick in Ant. Journ., XVLT (1937), 283-93. See also Aberg, op. cit., fig. 260 ; Jessup, op. cit., pi. xxx ; etc. 29 FINDS FROM A SEVENTH CENTURY ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY and we can assume that these ladies were converts to the new faith. None of the crosses can be dated to the early years of the seventh century, and this is not surprismg since in most of England Christianity was not estabhshed before 630, and in some places not till after 650. Even in Kent, nominally Christian by 600, the progress of the Conversion suffered a set-back in 616 upon the death of Ethelberht and it was not till 640 that the kingdom was finally committed to the new religion. The fashion for pectoral crosses appears at present to have begun towards the middle of the century, and to have coincided with the consolidation of the Conversion in eastern England. Probably the earhest of the crosses so far Icnown are the jewels from Wilton in Norfolk and Stanton near Ixworth, in Suffolk.35 The Wilton cross is set with a gold solidus of Heraclius and Constantine (c. 620)36, and its cloisonne work suggests it was made by the Sutton Hoo goldsmith, presumably some time during the second quarter of the seventh century. The similar Ixworth cross may be more or less its contemporary, but it was repaired in antiquity and subsequently buried, together with the mutilated remains of a local copy of a Kentish composite disc brooch,37 probably after 650. St. Cuthbert's cross, another cloisonne piece, was buried, after being twice broken and twice repaired, in 687. Stylistically the Cuthbert cross is unique, and it is therefore very difficult to estimate when it was made. The evidences of rough usage are not a reliable guide in this matter. However, in a general way its cloisonne style appears to be a northern version of the late style current in the south, and the cross may thus belong to the period around 650. The remaining crosses are less elaborate. The seventh-century Kentish cemeteries have produced quite a series, mostly with very simple decoration : from Sibertswold, a gold cross with filigree and garnet ornament ;38 from Chartham grave 9, a silver cross with silver boss and engraved interlace39 ; from Kingston Down grave 142, an ornamented silver-gilt cross ;40 from Wye Down a silver cross with central garnet ;41 from Breach Down42 and Wingham43, small, almost plain crosses. These 35 Kendrick, op. cit., pi. lxxvii. This paper was written before the discovery of the Sutton Hoo Ship Burial, and Kendrick's dating is now corrected in Bruce- Mitford, op. cit., 317 ff., and in ' The Sutton Hoo Ship Burial', Proc. Suffolk Inst. Arch., XXV (1949), 35 ff., pi. iii. Cf. also Aberg, op. cit., figs. 258-9 ; Jessup, op. cit., pis. xxviiiand xxxi. 30 Information from Mr. Philip Grierson, following his article ' Solidi of Phocas and Heraclius : the Chronological Framework ', Numis. Ohron. 6 ser. XIX (1959), 131 ff. 37 Aberg, op. cit., fig. 202 ; C. Roach Smith, Collectanea Antiqua, IV (1857), 163. 38 J. Douglas, Nenia Britannica (1793), p. 67, text fig., no. 1 ; J. Y. Akerman, Archaeological Index (1847), pi. xvii, 19. 30 Faussett, op. cit., pi. xi, 17. 40 J6id.,pl.iv,21. 11 British Museum, reg. no. 1893. 6-1. 200. 42 British Museum, reg. no. 1879. 5-24. 62 and 64. 43 Reginald Smith, op. cit., fig. 64. 30 FINDS FROM A SEVENTH CENTURY ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY crosses occur in Kent in graves of the same period as the cross-decorated pendants and the pendants of cabochon stones. Kingston Down grave 142 produced, in addition to the cross, 12 amethyst and 86 other beads, silver rings, a silver-gilt pin, a toilet set, comb, box-fittings, a cowrie shell, and two kite-shaped pendants, one gold with a cabochon garnet, the other silver set with an amethyst.44 The Wye Down grave contained amethyst beads, silver wire rings, an electrum pin, and a circular gold pendant with a double cross in filigree work.45 The crosses in these graves were therefore worn in association with pendants of the types discussed above, and are thus to be dated to the second half of the seventh century. A similar date can be accepted on historical grounds for the crosses from Winster Moor, Derbyshire48 and Desborough, Northamptonshire,47 since these are parts of England where Christianity was not established till after 650. In the case of the Desborough cross, moreover, we can be sure of this on archseological grounds also. The cross is the centre-piece of a beautiful necklace composed of pendants of cabochon garnets set in gold frames, plain, bossed, gold pendants, and biconical gold wire beads. The garnet pendants are identical with those from Kentish graves, and notably the Sibertswold grave which, as we have already seen, is to be dated by its coins after 650. The plain gold pendants are more uncommon, but cheaper versions of them made from silver are found in Kent and elsewhere. The gold wire beads feature on the very similar necklaces from Brassington Moor, Derbyshire48 and Roundway Down, Wiltshire.49 Identical gold beads, together with silver copies of the gold pendants, have recently been found in a new coin-dated grave at Finglesham, Kent,50 where they were associated with a looped gold solidus of the Merovingian king Sigeberht III (634-56), and an early electrum example of the ' Pada ' coinage. The dating of this grave depends on that of the ' Pada ' coin, which has recently been placed in the 670s.51 According to this interpretation, of the coin evidence, the Finglesham burial cannot have taken place until 675 at earhest, and it is likely to have been even later. This suggests that the Desborough necklace and cross, and the similar 44 Faussett, op. cit., 66 ff., pis. iv, 6, xi, 19, xii, 3, xiii, 2, etc. 45 British Museum, reg. nos. 1893. 6-1. 196-9 and 201-2. 40 Aberg, op. cit., fig. 261 ; E. Howarth, Catalogue of the Bateman Collection (Sheffield Museum, 1899), p. 222. 47 Reginald Smith, op. cit., pi. iv, 4 ; Jessup, op. cit., pi. xxviii. 48 Howarth, op. cit., 222. G. Baldwin Brown, The Arts in Early England, IV (1915),pl.cii,2. 40 J. Y. Akerman, Remains of Pagan Saxondom (1855), pi. I ; M. E. Cunnington and E. H. Goddard, Catalogue of Antiquities in the Museum at Devizes (1934), pi. lxxxii. 00 Excavated by the author in 1959, on behalf of the Ministry of Public Building and Works. 01 Rigold, op. cit. 25 and 51. The dating has been further discussed in correspondence. 31 FINDS FROM A SEVENTH CENTURY ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY assemblages from Brassington and Roundway Down, may also have been buried well on in the second half of the seventh century, and, by analogy, the same may be true of the Sibertswold 172 group. This is important in the present context, because it is the Desborough cross, with its hoUow circular-sectioned arms stoppered with gold, and its central cabochon garnet, which most closely resembles the Milton cross. To conclude, then, we may safely say that the Milton cross belongs to the third quarter of the seventh century. 6. Thirty-two glass beads (Fig. 2, 4). 2 rings, translucent blue ; 1 triple ring, transl. turquoise ; 1 ring, transl. pale olive ; 12 short barrels, opaque red ; 1 truncated bicone, opaque white ; 2 barrels, opaque orange ; 9 short barrels, opaque green ; 1 ring, opaque blue ; 3 melon beads, blue faience. Virtually no research has been done on the subject of Anglo-Saxon beads, and it is therefore very difficult to comment on them in detail.52 In this group, the melon beads are probably survivals from the Roman period, the translucent blue glass rings either Roman or early Saxon, and the rest probably seventh century. The opaque red and green beads are very common in seventh century graves, although they may sometimes occur in later sixth century associations. The opaque orange beads, so far as I know, are never found either in England or on the Continent before the seventh century. The beads may therefore be assumed to be contemporary with the pendants. 7. Fourteen silver sceattas. MATERIAL EST THE BRITISH MUSEUM 8. Six silver sceattas. These twenty coins have been pubhshed together as Hoard II of Rigold's inventory of the primary sceattas.53 They include his Types A2, A3 and Bl, which are dated by him most convincingly, on historical and numismatic grounds, between c. 695 and 705, in the early part of the reign of Wihtred. These coins were not mounted as ornaments and were probably buried in a purse. They are to be regarded as a sample of the coinage current at the time of burial and need not, therefore, have been kept very long after they were struck. Even so, they can scarcely have been buried before the early years of the eighth century. 52 But see the very useful study of beads in Bohner, op. cit., 71-82, plates 8-9. 53 Rigold, op. cit. 46-7, eto. 32 FINDS FROM A SEVENTH CENTURY ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY Q C FIG. 2. 3 33 FINDS FROM A SEVENTH CENTURY ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY 9. Circular gold pendant (Plate I, 1), length with loop 3-8 cm. A sheet metal disc with beaded wire forming the rim, the concentric inner ring, and the outline of the Greek cross. The border is filled with a filigree pattern of Omega-shaped scrolls, and the space between the cross arms with S-shaped scrolls and pseudo-cloison motifs. In the centre is a cabochon garnet in a plain collar encircled by finely beaded wire. The corrugated loop is soldered on. 10. Circular gold pendant (Plate I, 2), length with loop 3-1 cm. A sheet metal disc with beaded and plaited wire around rim and central cell (now empty), and beaded wire outlining the arms of a cross. These are decorated with paired bird-heads, executed in filigree, and the spaces between them are filled with S- and Omega-shaped filigree scrolls. The corrugated loop is soldered on. The edge of the pendant has been torn and patched in antiquity. 11. Circular gold pendant (Plate I, 3), length with loop 3-8 cm. A sheet metal disc with beaded wire rim, inner ring, and edging to central setting. The latter consists of a star-shaped cluster of cloisonne cells, 3 of which still contain sliced garnets, around a central circular cell (now empty). Groups of beaded wires radiate from the star to form the arms of a cross. The entire field is covered with S- and Omega shaped filigree scrolls. The corrugated loop is soldered on. These three pendants are elaborate versions of the common crossdecorated type already discussed (under 4 above). Such dense filigree scroll decoration occurs frequently on seventh-century Kentish jewellery and appears outside Kent from the middle of the century on such pieces as the Winster Moor cross or the pendant from Womersley, Yorks.54 The garnet settings are not unusual, and the star pattern on 11 is very like that on the pendant from Sibertswold grave 172, mentioned above. We shall not be far wrong if we date these three pieces to the third quarter of the seventh century, with the rest of the Milton jewellery. Perhaps the most interesting thing about them is that they are very similar, both in their metal and their ornament, and it is possible that all three were made in the same workshop. General discussion of the finds I t is most unfortunate that no reliable information has come down to us about the discovery of these objects from Milton. There can, 04 Leeds, op. cit., pi. xxx, d. 34 FINDS FROM A SEVENTH CENTURY ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY however, be no doubt at all that they were grave-goods from seventhcentury Anglo-Saxon burials destroyed by the gravel-digging. The number of the graves cannot now be known, nor can we tell for certain which objects came from the same grave group. It is because of this that I have thought it necessary to discuss each object independently and in detail, to ascertain as far as possible how nearly contemporary they are. The results can now be summarized as follows : the buckle probably came from a man's grave of the first half of the seventh century ; the pendants are feminine jewellery of the period c. 650-75, and, with the beads, must have come from one or more women's graves of the second half of the seventh century ; the twenty sceattas formed a small hoard buried, no doubt in a grave, around 700 at earliest ; the small pot cannot be precisely dated, but is presumably seventh century like the rest. From this it should be clear that the material came from more than one grave. And this is perhaps as far as one can legitimately go in the matter, since any further speculation must be regarded as hypothetical. Nevertheless, a little more can perhaps be said. I have suggested above that the three gold pendants in the British Museum are very alike and may have been made in the same workshop. This would further suggest that they had been acquired at the same time and worn and buried on the same necklace, and are thus to be regarded as a grave group. The fact that two of them were bought from Mr. Ealden and the other from Mr. Mills need not affect the issue, since the contents of a single grave can have been split up between the two workmen who found it. The same thing happened with the sceatta hoard, where six coins were taken by one man and fourteen by the other. This interrelationship between the two collections makes it possible that the other pendants owned by Mr. Mills, and now acquired by the Kent Archasological Society, originally formed part of the same group as those now in the British Museum. A necklace consisting of the beads and the six gold pendants would be an unusually, but not impossibly, rich assemblage, and would make a group perfectly acceptable on chronological grounds. But of course there is no stylistic relationship between the Maidstone three, nor between them and the British Museum group, so any original connection cannot now be proven. Reginald Smith's assumption, accepted by Rigold, that the British Museum pendants were from the same grave as the sceatta hoard, is even more problematical. There is nothing in the original record to justify so definite a statement. It is just possible that the pendants were buried as late as 700, but on the whole I think it unlikely. The more or less contemporary sceatta hoards from Broadstairs55 and Breach Down56 50 H. Hurd, Some Notes on Recent Archaeological Discoveries at Broadstairs (1913), 18-27, figs. 11,12 ; Rigold, op. cit., 46. co C. Roach Smith, Collectanea Antiqua, I, 7, pi. v i ; Rigold, op. cit., 47. 35 FINDS FROM A SEVENTH CENTURY ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY came from graves which otherwise contained only a buckle and minor articles perhaps connected with the purse. Nothing at all is recorded as being found with the other related sceatta hoards, and some of these also came from graves. In general, the practice of burying personal possessions with the dead seems to have been abandoned by about 700, probably through the influence of the Church, and Rigold has suggested that the purses of coins which appear in graves about this time represent ' the purchase price paid by someone who had acquired arms or other costly possessions of the deceased d'occasion and were buried so that the ghost should not feel that he had been robbed '.57 This idea of coins as substitutes for grave-goods is perfectly in accordance with the evidence, and if we accept it there can be no further question of the pendants having been buried with the sceattas. Even if one does not accept this view, one must still resist the temptation to add the Milton finds to the list of coin-dated grave groups. There simply is not enough evidence to justify it. Yet despite the uncertainty about associations, the Milton jewellery is very interesting, and it makes an important new addition to the corpus of seventh-century Kentish metalwork. THE SITE Mr. Grove's good work in establishing the site of these new finds has enabled us to add one more spot to the distribution-map of Anglo- Saxon cemeteries in the Milton and Sittingbourne district (Fig. 3). This one (no. 1) is situated on rising ground above the 25 ft. contour, a quarter of a mile north of the end of Milton Creek, and just east of the Old Court House at Milton. A sixth century cemetery (no. 2)58 was found, towards the end of the nineteenth century, less than half a mile to the north-east, and material from fifth century graves, now in Maidstone Museum, may come from this site or from another at the east end of Kemsley Downs. Other seventh-century cemeteries, containing some rich graves, have in the past been found north-west of Sittingbourne parish church (no. 3),59 at the west end of Sittingbourne (no. 4),60 and at Chalkwell (no. 5).61 A single burial was found at Murston (no. 6),62 and possible Anglo-Saxon chance-finds have been recorded from Grovehurst (no. 7) and Fulstone Manor (no. 8).63 Finally, the 07 Rigold, op. cit., 8. 08 George Payne, Collectanea Cantiana (1893), 118-21. Finds in the British Museum. 00 Roach Smith, op. cit., 97-106, pis. xxxvi-xxxviii; Payne, op. cit., 103-8. Finds in Dover Museum. 00 Proc. Soc. Antiq., 2 ser., VIII (1880), 275, 606-8 ; Payne, op. cit., 108-10. Finds in the British Museum. 01 Proc. Soc. Antiq., 2 ser., IX (1892), 162 ; Payne, op. cit., I l l , pi. xxiii. Finds in the British Museum. 02 Rochester Naturalist, no. 131, VI (1928), 106-7. 03 George Payne, Catalogue of the Museum of Local Antiquities, Sittingbourne (1882), 33, nos. 394-5. 36 FINDS FROM A SEVENTH CENTURY ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY name of the nearby village of Bobbing64 is probably a survival from an -ingas folk-name datable to the early years of the Anglo-Saxon settlement, This cluster of sites, each representing an Anglo-Saxon ! Iwade N J .1 \ ; i ( / / / i \ i n V. / lJ).N \ \ (?) s \. \ I > i. ' G> "N / / ^ / \ / t / /• ^ C h , / \ / \ < I SITTINGBOURN / / / / /" / \ X '. •/• / •\ \ \ v >..\ / / \ ^ / ' I /••:••.• /•* ec ./ / Bor den v . y / (•B ' • \ s ^ y t s s I •lr\. \ 1.1 11 ' '8* * I /,/ / \ / •> \ s Fulston Manor I I f > \ •^ ' \ I //# ' I \ / \ / V /'••> \ i i i / \ / i s; •// • / i i i SCALE ? . <2 . ! , x __. J MILES FIG. 3. Anglo-Saxon cemeteries and burials in the Milton and Sittingbourne district. The stippling represents modern built-up areas. settlement, is most striking, and reminds us of the early importance of this locality, adjacent both to the Roman Watling Street and to a good port in a creek of the Thames. Its advantageous situation 04 Domesday Monachorum, Bobinge; 1179, Bobinges, etc. The settlement of Bobba's people '. 37 FINDS FROM A SEVENTH CENTURY ANGLO-SAXON CEMETERY and its fertile soils are no doubt the principal reason why Milton was from early Anglo-Saxon times a royal possession,65 and this in turn explains the density of the settlement and the richness of the gravegoods from the cemeteries. POSTSCRIPT The dating of the grave-groups and individual objects mentioned in this paper has throughout been based on the view of seventh-century chronology generally accepted at the time of writing. But this chronology depends on the absolute dating of the Merovingian and Anglo- Saxon gold coinages, and if, as seems possible in the light of recently expressed numismatic opinion,66 these coinages have hitherto been dated rather too late, then it will be necessary to make adjustments in the dating of the archseological finds dependent on them. Thus Sutton Hoo and Sibertswold grave 172 will be earlier, by anything from fifteen to twenty-five years, than I have suggested above, and they will, in their turn, exert a downward pull on the many other finds stylistically related to them. The only grave-finds not likely to be affected, apart from those with securely dateable Imperial or regal coins, are those containing the true primary sceattas, and these, as we have seen, rarely contain other associated objects. The effect of all this on the dating of our Milton finds is likely to be that whereas the sceatta group will stand firm at c. 700+, the jewellery will move down to c. 650. However, nothing is yet settled, and the dating question must remain open, within these limits, until the numismatists have threshed out the problem of the coinage. 06 Milton was an Anglo-Saxon villa regalis and the administrative centre of its lathe ; of. J. E. A. Jolliffe, Pre-Feudal England : The Jutes (1933). 08 Lafaurie, op. cit. 38

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Rochester Cathedral in 1634