Three Anglo-Saxon Disc Brooches

􀀅antiana THREE .ANGLO-SAXON DISC BROOCHES By S. E. RrGOLD, M.A., F.S.A. a.nd LESLIE E. WEBSTER, B.A. (i) Two BROOORES ll'O􀄠RLY IN DOVER MuSEmi: :By s. E. RIGOLD IN the 'Whitley MS.', a scrapbook of archreological notes and pictures compiled about 1913 by T. W. Whitley and now in the Society's Library, there are enlarged photographs by E.W. G. Amos of two fine, jewelled disc-brooches, then in Dover Museum. The larger, hereinafter called the 'Vallance Brooch', was found in February, 1826, at Milton Regis (next Sittingbourne)1 and presented to the Museum, with other objects from the same cemetery in 1854, by the Rev. William Vallance. The other, hereinafter called the 'Priory Hill Brooch', was found at Priory Hill, Dover, in April, 1883, and bought by the Market and Museum Committee. :Both brooches were stolen in 1967 and have not been recovered. Neither was unpublished: Vallance's detailed record of his discoveries at Milton was edited by C. Roach Smith, with a, schematic engraving of both sides of the brooch,2 and by G. Payne;s Amos's photograph of the Priory Hill Brooch was printed with a brief note by Sir Thomas Kendrick in 1933;4 Baldwin Brown noted both brooches, with another pair of photographs.5 Nevertheless, the quality of Amos's photographs is such that it seems worth reconsidering both brooches 1 The site was in Milton parish and taken into Sittingbourne when two separate U.D.C.s were created. Now they a.re united, it is better treated as Milton. a Oolledanea Antiqua, i (1848), 97-101; pl. xxxvi, :xxxvii. The surviving Milton material a.t Dover comprises: pl. xxxvi, 1 (buckle and plate); 2 (pear. shaped amethyst bead, 28 mm., plus another similar (20 mm.), and smaller amethysts); 4 (buckle); 6 (belt-fitting, probably Roman); pl. xx.xvii, 1 (shieldboss); 9 (silver ornament); 7(?) (marvered bead); also many roughly cylindrical coloured glass beads and some amorphous amber. 3 Oollectanea Oantiana (1893), 103-8. ' Dover Mmeum Bulletin, 3 (January, 1933). 5 The Arts in Early 1!Jngland, iv (1916), 636-7; pl. cxlv, cxlvi. The Valla.nee brooch also appears in E.T. Leeds, Early Angl-0-Saxon Art and ArchceoT,ogy (1937), pl. =iii, 6. 1 THREE ANGLO-SAXON DISO BROOOHES in detail, on the evidence of these photographs alone, the writer never, alas, having examined them minutely while the brooches were available. His drawings of the fronts of the brooches (Figs. 2A, 4) are based entirely on the photographs, of which further copies have been found in the British Museum which are used, by courtesy of the Trustees, for Plate I, A and B. It is hoped that they may serve to identify the brooches, should they ever come to light. The description is as objective as possible without discussing the technique of garnet-work, of which Dr. Arrhenius has given us a new understanding.6 Consideration of the Priory Hill brooch led the writer to invite Mrs. Leslie Webster to add an account of another, and little-known brooch in the British Museum, which is very likely from the same cemetery. I am most grateful to Mrs. Sonia Chadwick Hawkes, F.S.A., to Miss Vera I. Evison, F.S.A., to Mrs. Webster and to Mr. R. F. Jessup, F.S.A., for their full and valuable criticisms of this paper, to Mr. George Speak and Mr. David Brown for introducing me to the brooch from Faversham, at Oxford, cited as a parallel to the Vallance Brooch, and to Mr. F. McQueeney and Mrs. Thomas of Dover Museum for their agreement and encouragement to the whole paper. THE VAL LANOE BR.OOOH (Fig. 2, Pl. I, A) The map of the Anglo-Saxon burial-grounds around Milton and Sittingbourne by Mrs. Hawkes and Mr. L. R. A. Grove7 represents them much more justly than the entries in Mrs. A. Meaney's Gazetteer.s The only reservation is that there n1ay possibly have been sub-cemeteries within those shown-small enough to have each belonged to one capital household, with its immediate dependants. The Vallance brooch came from the first-discovered of these cemeteries and, thanks to Vallance, by far the best recorded, No. 3 on the map (Huggin's Field, or Fair Meadows). Fig. I shows the more central burial-grounds in relation to the pre-industrial topography of the area. The full sources a.re given at the end of this pa.per: the most apposite is Va.llance's own plan of the field.ll Though not a.11 the material found there was .Anglo-Saxon, Vallance is explicit about two groups of burials, 148 yards (135 m.) apart.lo Granting that the groups form one cemetery, the contrast between the one huge cemetery at Faversham and the multiplicity of 6 Dr. Arrhenius, of the laboratory of the National Museum at Stockholm, has recently given an account of this work to the Society for Medieval Archroology; it has revealed a marked development in the method of inlaying. 7 Arch. Oant., lxxviii (1963), 37, fig. 3. 8 A Gazetteetr of early Anglo-Saxon Burial-sites (1964), 128-9. 9 Op. ci,t; in note 2, pl. xxxviii. 10 Ibid., since the intervening area was alao dug in 1826-7, Vallance could har. dly have missed many graves between them. 2 PLATE 1 A. Vallance Brooch from Milton Rogis. B. Priory Hill Bro<><'h from Dover. (face p. 2 PLAT>, J[ 0 - I - Bv courtesy of the Tru#u8 of t/u- British lf11se11m 'l'he Dover Composite Brooch, with Objects probably associated with it. THREE ANGLO-SAXON DISC BROOCHES I + SITTING BOURNE t============11 l\m, /! 1 M. FIG,l. . them at Milton remains.u The broooh oame from the northern group in No. 3 (3B on Fig. 1). The actual positions, regular spacing and precise east-west 9rientation of the graves are recorded, and the contents of some of them are known in detail. Like all the Milton burials except the very ill-recorded 'Cemetery No. 2', these are manifestly of late (mainly seventh-century) date. The most relevant graves, 'A, B and C' in Payne's version of the account, were opened the same day in Vallance's presence: they could well be father, mother and child ofthe samefamily. Ifso, and if'father's' lack of a sword is a criterion, they were, in later terms, of less than 11 It is always instructive to compare the two ancient royal demesnes: the town of Milton was, until smothered by industry, a smalle1· Faversham. 3 THREE ANGLO-SAXON DISC BROOCHES thanely or armigerous status, rather the a.ntecessors of prosperous yeomen. Grave A contained, on the right of the skeleton, standing upright, a 'tall curved' sugar-loaf shield-boss, with grip and studs, of which only the boss itself remains at Dover and was assigned by Miss Evison, in her study of this type,12 to a, date well into the seventh century A.D. Nothing else is recorded from the grave, but a spear-head might have been cut off, with the skull, before Vallance came on the scene. Grave B treated as a separate burial, 3 ft. to the right of A, contained only a 'small dagger' (knife): the skeleton had evidently disintegrated, which may suggest it was a boy. On the other hand, as Mrs. Hawkes points out, preservation can vary much and even adults can vanish entirely. Grave 0, 10 ft. east of B, contained a 'tolerably perfect' female skeleton and the following Beigabe: I. At the head-a, slate-coloured beaker, apparently with a lip, holding about a pint: in any case a 'female' vessel, not a 'J utish. bottle', which is peculiar to men.13 2. On the chest-the Vallance brooch. See below. 3. Underneath 2-nine beads, described as 'earthenware' but doubtless opaque glass, five red, three blue, one white. 4. With 3, small pieces of copper wire and a very thin silver ring, 'twisted together with a substance like hair or silk, about ½ in. long'. 5. 'Below 3 and 4', i.e. as a pendant from the necklace (1), a large (diam. 25 mm., if the drawing is natural size) transparent green glass bead, marvered with a white snaky tra.il.14 6. Near the left arm, a thin copper disc, which soon disintegrated; diam. 40 mm., with a central hole 18 mm. wide, radial scorings on either edge and a dancetty pattern on the flat surface. From the engraving it resembled an early quoit-brooch.lo 7. Staining the left femur, and likewise disintegrated, a bronze bracelet. Nothing of this remains but the beads, strung up with many others, mostly sub-cylindrical, and one marvered greenish and crimson bead, much too small to be a penda.nt. Six more graves, D to I, of which Payne preserves the detailed record, were opened the following month. 12 Antiq. Jowrn., xlili (1963), 38-96, esp. 48 and fig. 80, d-f. 13 Probably a, fairl7- 'civilized', thrown vessel. Except in so far as it is covered by Dr. J. N. L. Myres s great work, 'Jutish' pottery needs a reconsideration. 14 Op. cit. in note 2, pl. xxxvii, 3. 16 Ibid., p. :iaxvi, 5. Mrs. Hawkes reminds roe that broad 'quoit' brooches do occur in late cemeteries (she ha.d one from Finglesha.m, grave 8), and even in the Christian minster at Whitby (Archreologia, bncxix (1943), 59. The subject is discussed a,nent an in.stance from Leighton Buzzard, by M. Hyslop in Arch. J ourn., oxx (1963}, 197 ff. and fig. 12a. 4 THREE ANGLO-SAXON DISC BROOCHES O(}11,8truction of the Brooch The diameter was 65 to 70 Dim. (it was not a perfect circle), not '3½ in.' as Whitley says. It was a true composite brooch, with front, or inner, and rear plates and a plain rim or tyre to bind the whole together. The front plate appears to have been covered by a thick overall layer of white composition, except beneath the bosses, as though only the major cloisons were brazed to it. The photograph shows no hint of minor cloisons between the individual pieces of garnet, as though these had been laid, like tiles in cement, directly in the composition, on pieces of die-stamped foil, of which the impression is seen where the stones have fallen out. Miss Evison observes that this effect could have been produced by total corrosion of bronze cloisons. The segments of sheet-gold, bearing filigree, between the inlaid areas and the bosses, likewise appear as though just set in the composition. Towards one edge, where the brooch was damaged and distorted, only the broken composition was visible and one filigree panel had come away. The back-plate, described as 'copper-gilt', not silver or gold, was quite plain. But the attachments were not, as on most composite brooches, a pin pivoted between two trunnions and a simple catch. They were a rough version (Fig. 2B) of the arrangements seen on the Kingston brooch:16 there was a hook for securing a chain, in the middle of the slightly wider of the two semi-circles divided by the main pin, which was pivoted in a drum-like boss surrounded by a ring of corroded plates, and the catch-plate was heavy and rounded. Neither showed traces of ornament. 'The frontal design included the usual three elements, but each a rather degenerate specimen of its kind: bosses, with a low cabochon garnet at the centre, made of one of the less durable forms of the white calcitic substance,17 since they had almost completely decomposed; inlay, except for four pieces, entirely of tabular garnet of varying thickness but all too thick to show the foil in the photograph, except where the stone was missing, and all cut, not chipped, to not very regular rectangular, rhomboidal or triangular shapes; and loose, slovenly filigree, in single stranfu! on the sheet-gold. Reading from the centre, the design comprised: 1. The central boss, in two parts. The tubular innermost setting had fallen out, showing the hole for securing it to the inner plate, probably by hammering :flanges at its base over the rim of the hole. This setting was surrounded by a, gold collar with a fluted upstand and 16 Of. R. F. Jessup, Anglo-Saxon Jewellery (1950), pl. :xxiv. 17 For this substance of. V. I. Evison in Antiq. Jour-n., xx.'Ci (1951), 197 ff. Recent examination of the bosses on the Sa.rre I and Leighton Buzzard composite brooches indicates that in these oases the substance was e,ragonite and hence probably cuttle-fish bone. 5 THREE ANGLO-SAXON DISC BROOCHES 0 10 25 FIG, 2. 6 so mm. \ THREE ANGLO-SAXON DISC BROOCHES pearled outer ring, quite neat, like all the minute rwming ornament. The outer part was a ring of decomposed white substance within a collar of minute radial flutings and bridged over from collar to collar by four 'crown-arches' (one missing) of corrugated gold strip, as used for the loops of most seventh-century pendants, including coinpendants. 2. The inner zone, a 'four-pointed star' design with isosceles triangles of blue material (glass1), between two rows of garnet. Baldwin Brown's photograph,18 but not Amos's, shows the trapezoidal garnets at the right of the triangles in the inner row and one or two in the outer row as distinctly lighter in colour. That this is not accidental will appear from the surrounds of the outer bosses, but it is not clear whether the effect was obtained by difference in thickness, or in foil, or by mere inclination of the surface. 3. Four more 'star-points' (degenerate cicada-patterns1), all in garnet-triangles with their left base-angles at the apices of the inner triangles, surrounded by smaller pieces. 4. The minor bosses, all disintegrated, one displaced. Three only reached the circumference. The small cabochon garnets were set in plain collars with guilloche wire borders upon narrow rings of white material within fluted collars. Outside these were single circles of garnets, normally 12, of which every third one is distinctly lighter on Brown's photograph, thus making a cruciform pattern. 5. The filigree, very casual and inconsistent, but comprising 'omegas' or 'spectacles', with the occasional S-coil. Each plate has a wire border. 6. The outer border of generally rectangular, but not even-sized, garnets, interrupted by all but one of the bosses. Parallels The 'crown-arches' are an unusual feature: they occur on the Kingston brooch, also, more appositely, on the Sarre I brooch, associated with the famous coin-necklace,19 and on the Fitzwilliam Museum, ex-Kennard, brooch from Faversham.20 On Sarre I they are in 'pseudoplait' and much better done; on the last-named they are not unlike, but the parallel which Baldwin Brown adduces with this and with the pair from Milton near Abingdqn is over-generous to the Vallance 18 Op. cit. in note 5, pl. oxlv, 3. 19 Op. cit. in note 16, pl. xxvii (both brooch and necldace). The coins on the necklace are of great chronological significance: they are solidi of the 'Proven9al light coinage' in the names of the emperors Maurice and Heraolius and the Frankish king Chlotar II, being bis ea.rliest variety after he superseded the imperial name, about A.D. 615, which is the earliest possible date for assembling the coins. See S. E. Rigold in Numismatic Ohronicle, 6th ser., xiv (1954), 93-133. 20 Op. cit. in note 16, pl. xxv, 2. 7 THREE ANGLO-SAXON DISC BROOCHES brooch.2l. The other three have the neat honeycomb cell-work found also on the fine oval pendant from Milton Regis, cemetery No. 1,22 and Mrs. Hawkes writes of them as proba-bly the latest of the composite brooches, tending towards the middle of the seventh century .A..D.zs If it be a, simple devolutionary series rather than a, matter of clumsy imitation, then the Valla.nee brooch will be even later. Its filigree-work is comparable, with its 'omegas' and S-coils, to that on the three circular pendants, also from Milton Regis No. 1,24 assigned by Mrs. Ha.wkes to the same date or a, trifle later, but once again, the Vallance work is wearier and worse set-out. So much for workmanship: in design a large (62 mm.) composite brooch from Faversham, in the Ashmolean Museum,26 perhaps comes nearest to the Vallance brooch. Their respective schemes, each with the usual simple binary relationship between the diameters of the component circles, are shown in Fig. 3. The Ashmolean Museum brooch (Fig. 3, 2) has likewise four star-points extending from the inner zone to the border, but these are proper tripartite 'cicadas', with blue tips. The subsidiary bosses, again decomposed, are tangent to the rim but linked to the inner zone by rectangular slabs of blue glass. The segmental plates bearing casual S-scroll filigree are reminiscent of the V a.llance brooch or the Milton pendants, and the attachment is again a cruder version of the 'Kingston' mechanism. But the inlay has a rough, step-cutting, more like the Sarre I brooch, and the workmanship is more of that order. The Vallance brooch represents the technical nadir of composite work, large, clumsy and old-fashioned; it has a conservative 'peasant' quality, far behind new and austerer tastes of that generation, and confirms that the lady of Milton Regis, with all her tawdry ornaments, was-compare her non-sword-bearing husband 0)-'not quite a lady'. TRJlJ PB.1:0RY HILL BROOOR (Fig. 3, Pl. I, B) The road called Priory Hill26 rises steeply north-westwards from Dover High Street, then turns south-westward, over a fairly level spur of down. .All the houses as far as a, long terrace on the level part are stylistically of about the early 1880s; none carries a date-stone and there is no obvious direction of development. No residents are recorded in 1878, but it was inhabited at least as far as No. 11 (from the bottom) 21 Op. cit. in note 6, 635-6, :et oxlv: closer to the Vallance brooch in technique a.re the fragments with qua.drila.tera.l cells from Leighton Buward, Beds., a.nd Wi􀆤ll, Hants. (op. c􀆥:.in note 16, 196 ff. and fig. 10). Arch. Oant., lxxvm (1963), 26-8; pl. I, B; fig. 2, I. 18 Ibid., 27. 14 Ibid., 34; pl. I, A. 115 No. 1909-204, ex Evans. Found in 1899, it must be about the last; find from the great King's Field Cemetery, after Gibbs, Franks, Kennard and all the others had gathered their harvests. 20 The find was 'at' Priory Hill, not on Priory Hill as a geographical feature. 8 I THREE ANGLO-SAXON DISC BROOCHES FIG.3. THREE ANGLO-SAXON DISC BROOCHES by 1882.27 The Priory Hill brooch was found on 17th April, 1883, in excavating for foundations of houses (that is, presumably, the terrace on the level) ;28 no associations are recorded, but C. Gordon, writing to George Pa.yne on 23rd April, 1889,29 records as having been found in identical circumstances, and not necessarily any later than 1883, 'fragments of swords and spears, limpet shells and "jasper stones" (hardly amethyst; but possibly agate), in Anglo-Saxon graves'. There is no doubt about the plural: it was a cemetery of some extent. The seventh century grave containing a gold pendant, a bronze ring and a bead, found at High Meadows in 1956,so which Mrs. Meaneya1 associates with this cemetery, was at least 450 m. north-west, and surely not pa.rt of it. But another grave-group, described by Mrs. Webster below, may well be from the cemetery. It contains a Kentish composite brooch of absolutely the highest quality, misleadingly called, by R. A. Smith, 'a saucer brooch with a central stud' (which suggests its very antithesis, a 'Brummagem' midland product),82 and was bought by the British Museum for £5 in October, 1879, from Edward Murden, at that time a 'working jeweller', ofl47 Snargate Street, Dover.as Work on the services and the earlier houses of Priory Hill was almost certainly then in progress. The provenience is not definite, however, as work was also in progress on the Dover-Deal railway, opened in 1881. Dr. G. O. Dunning is convinced that the line would not have struck even an outlier of the Buckland (Long Hill) cemetery.34 On the other hand, Miss Evison informs me that some of the graves in it, nearest the railway, had been disturbed at some time. Construction of the Brooch The diameter is recorded as Ii in., i.e. 48 mm., but again Whitley exaggerates it. It was not a composite brooch, but a fine, though not first-class, specimen, in exceptional preservation, of the commoner, and on the whole slightly earlier, type of Kentish jewelled brooch, on a single, cast silver plate. To the best recollection of Mrs. Thomas, assistant curator of Dover Museum, little remained of the ba.ckattachments. The frontal design was composed of the usual elements, plus the high relief of the 'tyre', cast with the back-plate and picked out in gilt 27 Kelly's Directory, 1878 and 1882. The information is usually a year or so old. The numbers have since been altered. zs Dover Museum records and Bulletin, 3 (January, 1933). 20 Op. cit. in note 3, 199. 30 Arch. Gant., lxxxii (1967), 283-4. 31 Op. cit. in note 8, II 7. 32 Guide to the Anglo.Sa:i;on Antiquities ••. (B.M., 1923), 35, 87. 38 Op. cit. in note 27, both years. 34 Full report in preparation: cf. Arch. Gant., !xv (1952) xlii. 10 THREE ANGLO-SAXON DISC BROOCHES and niello. The bosses were very well-rounded, smooth and well preserved, with discs of talndar garnet, on foil, at their centres. These and the larger pieces of inlay appear to have been chipped out, not out to template, and were somewhat irregular, and even the finer pieces of inlay were ill-fitting. But all the oloisons were present and very few stones had fallen out, to show a, thin paste bedding beneath them. The foil is visible in Amos's photograph through the triangular inlays and 0 10 25 40 mm. FIG.4.m through practically every piece in the inner zone, but it is not certain which, if any, of these were of blue glass, not garnet. Both photographs show a certain variation in intensity between the stones, of no significance in the design. The filigree was neat, small and varied, but the lines dividing the zones were straight rather than strictly concentric. In this and in the accuracy of the inlay the Priory Hill brooch fell short of t,he finest of its class, though on Baldwin Brown's plate it stands up quite well beside them (often the same examples that are illustrated by Jessup).86 86 Op. cit. in note 5, pl. xlvi; op. cit. in note 16, pl. xxii, xxili. 11 THREE ANGLO-SAXON DISC BROOCHES Reading from the centre, the design comprised: 1. The central boss: a tabular garnet in a. domed gold collar, with a. :flat outer ring of worn twisted filigree wire between two narrow bands, the inner of which had two pins in it; this gold setting was placed on the :flawless white boss, which had a smooth gold collar fitting round its base, and outside this a beaded ring. 2. The inner zone, a pattern of step-cut stones, with two 'dog-legged' pieces between each upright and reversed T-piece. All, except perhaps the reversed T-pieces, which were small and at least two missing, seem to have been of garnet, though normally the upright T's would be blue. 3. The 'star-points', simple triangles of garnet, based on the upright T's and bearing tribrach-pieces (one missing) on their apices. The tribrachs were the only pieces that were clearly not of garnet on foil, but distinctly opaque and bubbly; the design certainly included some blue glass. 4. The outer bosses, joined to the inner order by oblong slabs, probably of garnet; the tabular garnet discs had upstanding collars with two rows of pearling on the :flat outer band; the outer collars of the white bosses were plain. 5. The filigree: four zones of single-strand ornaments, divided by single strands except for the uppermost division, which was of 'pseudoplait'. The innermost had two rows of annulets, sometimes divided by an extra strand; the second had S-coils, the third two rows of annulets, and the outermost S-coils again. 6. The outer border; another and heavier, beaded ring was, as usual, soldered just within the cast flange, which bore a single, continuous niello zig-zag, in place of the usual severa,l orders which end in an interrupted beading. Parallels The Priory Hill brooch is hard to match exactly. The best of its kind came from the Faversham area, and this may be the work of a local smith copying that of the Honie of the Smiths. But there are signs of devolution and of the influence of composite brooches in the simplification of the outer border, the repetitiousness of the filigree, the slackened discipline of the step-cutting, the prominence of the bosses, and above all in the composition: there are simple triangles where the others have a, just recognizable 'cicada' of three, or at least two, pieces, and the tribrach, which elsewhere is an alternative to a, boss, here occurs with it, balanced on the tip of the 'cicada'. 12 THREE ANGLO-SAXON DISC BROOCHES (ii} TBJll DOVER CoMPOSI'l'E BR.ODOR By LESLIE E. WEBSTER. THouo:e: it has been in the British Museum (reg. no. 79, 10-13, I) since 1879, the composite brooch thought to come from Priory Hill is undeservedly little known. It has been illustrated only very occasionally, and never described or discussed i n detail.36 It therefore seems appropriate to take this opportunity of bringing this important and attractive find to wider notice. The British Museum acquired it along with a small group of beads and other personal ornaments which may have come from the same grave. As Mr. Rigold has shown above, there is a strong probability that these finds came from the Priory Hill cemetery. The other objects (Pl. II; B.M. reg. nos. 79, 10-13, 2-10) are: A small silver wire bangle, damaged; A silver wire ring strung with two small opaque green glass beads; Four amethyst beads; A melon bead; An opaque red glass bead, with horizontal yellow trails, quatrefoil in section; An opaque red glass bead. The brooch itself (Fig. 5 and Pl. II) is 55 mm. in diameter and 5 mm. thick. Like other composite brooches, it is made up of two plates sandwiched with a paste or plaster and bound together by a ribbed gold rim. The back plate is silver, with bronze fittings of the usual type for the pin and catch. The heads of pin and catch are both lightly grooved. The back of the brooch also has slight tra.oes of a coarse textile in a plain tabby weave. Between this base plate and the hidden inner plate lies a thick layer of whitish paste, apparently a variety of lime plaster, which both binds the plates one to another and gives body and weight to the whole structure. The inner plate is of gold. On to this the cloisons of the face have been soldered, and it also serves as a base for a further layer of plaster in which the filigree panels and foil-backed garnets are set. The front of the brooch is divided. into three main zones around a central boss. The two outer zones are subdivided into segments by four subsidiary bosses. The outer zone is a cloisonne band in which ea.<)h segment is composed of step-shaped. garnets set around a T-shaped cloison containing opaque blue glass. The garnets are laid over closely hatched gold foil. The middle zone is over twice the width of the 86 The moat notable publication is Kendriok's brief account in 'Polychrome Jewellery in Kent', Anti,quity, vii (1933), 430, 445, pl. 1, 5. 13 THREE ANGLO-SAXON DISC BROOCHES 14 THREE ANGLO-SAXON DISC BROOCHES outermost zone, and consists of four flat gold plates decorated with minutely-wrought filigree. Each plate is edged on all sides and divided lengthwise by bands of 'pseudo-plait' filigree, set between narrow beaded wires. The remaining fields are densely packed with S-coils of wire. The innermost zone, consists of a, further band of cloisonne: here the four T-shaped cells of opaque blue glass recur, alternating with curving, fan-shaped garnets which are set around the central boss in the form of a cross. The effect is subtly emphasized by the use of differentially-patterned foils beneath the garnets: the fan-shaped garnets overlie simple cross-hatched foils like those used in the outer zone, while the garnets between them and the glass cells are set over a more boldly patterned foil, in which every fourth line is a heavy one, producing a 'tartan' effect. The four minor bosses are each attached to this inner band by a single sub-rectangular slab of garnet. All five bosses originally consisted of a dome of a grainy white substance, in this case probably cuttle-fish bone,37 surmounted by a cabochon garnet over foil and set in a double beaded collar. This sat upon a sturdy tube of gold, which was embedded into the plaster filling and held down by four splayed tabs at its base. Of the original bosses, only one of the minor ones now survives ih anything like its origina.l state: another has gone altogether, and one has been replaced, apparently before burial, by a crude lumpish cabochon garnet, too big for any of the existing subsidiary settings, and bearing no sign of ever having been set properly at all. The broad gold rim is folded firmly over at back and front, and decorated with two horizontal grooves, surmounted by a thick beaded wire between two finer ones. Though one of the smallest, the Dover composite brooch is perhaps the most delicate and intricately beautiful of the whQle series. Its filigree is miraculously tiny, yet perfectly detailed and controlled. The workmanship of the garnet inlay is a marvel of elegance and precision and yet is restrained in tone, subservient to the overall design of zonal colour contrasts, with none of the showy distraction of the busy, cellwork on the Kingston or Sarre Il (Amherst) brooches. Sir Thomas Kendrick, who recognized its importanoe,88 rightly emphasized the brooch's close relationship to the Sa.rre I group, in particular to the damaged Aylesford broochS9 and I would add, the brooch from Gilton, grave 42.40 The overall layout is undeniably close, but the oloisonne and filigree is both subtler and finer than any of these, putting the Dover brooch to some extent in a class of its own. Never- 37 See note 17. 38 By singling it out as a certain product of his 'British craftsmen'; op. cit. in note 86, 445, note 18. 89 Op. cit. in note 16, 118, pl. xxvi, 2; Rochuter Naturalist, v, no. 180 (1924), 68. ,o B. Faussett, ed. C. Roach Smith, Inventoritum Sepvlchrale (1856), 16, pl. ii, 4. 15 THREE ANGLO-SAXON DISC BROOCHES theless, its emphasis on contrasts of colour a.nd texture and its strong, flat zonality bring it close in style to this group and with them it looks forward to the late, debased honeycomb and square-celled brooches of Leeds's Class III(e), to which the Milton (Vallance) brooch above belongs.41 At the same time, this smoothly flowing, banded cloisonne technique, is reminiscent of the elaborate sheets of garnets on the Stanton (Ixworth)42 and Wilton pendant crosses,43 a resemblance underscored by the cruciform design at the centre of the brooch, which, with its bold circular focus and fan-shaped arms, is a precise counterpart to these early pendant crosses. Doubtless, like them, it is one of the earliest visual emblems of the Conversion. All this leaves little doubt as to when the Dover composite brooch should be dated: the coarser and typologically somewhat later Sarre I brooch was found with a, necklace bearing coins which cannot have come together before 61544 and is therefore hardly likely to have been made much before 620. There is little in its associations to date the Gilton, grave 42, brooch, but its resemblance to Sarre I again suggests that it was made around 620 to 625;45 while the Aylesford brooch was found with a pair of lattice-patterned blue glass squat jars, like those from Cuddesdon (Oxon.) and the famous Broomfield (Essex) barrow, and a, handled jug of Frankish type, dating from the early seventh century, and should probably be put around the same date as Gilton, or a little earlier.46 The Dover brooch would then find its place around 615-620. Such a. date would not invalidate the parallels drawn above with the pendant crosses from Ea,st Anglia, which, because of their close link with the Sutton Hoo jewellery, must in all probability be dated earlier than hitherto in the light of the new assessments of the Sutton Hoo coins.47 Now that the likely date for the assembly of the coins appears to be c. 625, anyway not later than 630, it is overwhelmingly probable that these should be taken as the Ia,test dates for the associated jewellery and such rela.ted pieces as the pendant crosses. Thi.a would not conflict with the date (613-638 A.D.) of the light solidus of Heraclius and Heraclius Constantine a,t the centre of the Wilton pendant. Finally, the evidence of the pieces acquired with the Dover brooch 41 Leeds, op. cit. in note 5, appendix, 120-1. 42 Op. cit. in note 16, 124, pl. xxxi, 1. 4& Ibia., 120, pl. :xxvili. « See note 19, also S. C. Hawkes and others, 'X-Ray Fluorescent Analysis of some Dark-age Coins and Jewellery', Archamnetry, ix (1966), 107. 46 Hawkes and others, as in note 44. ,o Op. cit. in note 16, 118. See also D. B. Harden, 'Anglo-Saxon GlllBB', in Dark Age Britain: Studies presented to 1.i. T. Leeds, ed. Harden (1956), 141-2. 41 R. L. S. Bruce-Mitford, The Sutton Hoo Ship-BwriaZ: a Handboolo (1968), 47-51. 16 THREE ANGLO-SAXON DISC BROOCHES ta,llies sufficiently well with this da,ting; that though there is no actual record of their being associated with it, they make a convincing gravegroup. Though beads are difficult to date, because of the dura.bility of many types, the Roman melon bead is the only real 'odd-man out'; such survivals, however, are common enough in seventh-century graves48 to be perfectly acceptable here. The silver 'wire ring with two beads (probably from a necklace) is a type with a, long life, turning up, for instance, in the mid-sixth century barrow II at Chatham Lines,49 and in several gra,ves of the later seventh century at Ba,rfreston, Sibertswold and Chartham Down.50 The silver bangle is also compatible with such a date. In contra,st, the amethyst beads are a typica,lly seventh-century phenomenon, occurring fairly early, as with the Sarre I brooch, and well into the third quarter, for example, in Sibertswold grave 172.51 If these objects are indeed from the same gra,ve as the composite brooch, we cannot tell what may not also have been lost or thrown away. But even so, the silver trinkets and ha,ndsonie amethysts would have provided suitably rich adornments for the owner of one of the very finest Kentish composite broocl\es. NoTE ON FIG. 1 This combines evidence from: I. Vallance's detailed and apparently accurate plan of Fair Meadows (OoU. Ant., i, pl. xxxviil). 2. Pa,yne's early O.S. map in OoU. Cant., with his sitings checked against his statements. 3. Other indications of find-spots, especially Mr. Grove's in Arch. Oant., lxxviii. 4 . .Andrew, Dury and Herbert's map of 1769, for the general state of roads, building and terrain in the pre-industrial period. Brick-making and subsequent industries ha,ve transformed the immedia,te surrounds of Milton since the 1820s, the process being largely completed on the Sittingbourne side before the railway arrived. For this reason the sta,te of the landscape as it was when Sittingbourne, far from being the rich neighbour of Milton, was a, ribbon-township, sta,nding to it in much the same relation as Ospringe does to Faversham would seem more apposite to the distribution of ancient cemeteries than the obscured la,ndscape of today. From the eighteenth-century map it would seem that there had formerly been a second inlet from the Creek, towards the centre of Milton, a,nd perhaps another further 6 48 E.g. Leighton Buzzard, grave 40: M. Hyslop, op. cit. in note 16, 181-8. ,o J. Douglas, Nenia Br-itannica (1793), 7-8, fig. 3, 10, 6° Fa.ussett, op. cit. in note 40, pl. vii. n Hawkes and others, op. cit. in note 44, 112. 17 THREE ANGLO-SAXON DISC BROOCHES north-east, towards the church, and that Bexhill, the site of the richest Romano-British cemetery, was an isolated knoll, perhaps once an island. The Anglo-Saxon burials are numbered as in Arch. Gant., lxxviii. The Roman burials, which in all cases but one, were in the immediate vicinity, are given lower-case Roman numerals, to di1:1tinguish them from the capital Roman numerals used for the Anglo-Saxon in Mrs. Meaney's Gazetteer, where further references will be found. The sites marked are: 1, (wrongly included in Meaney I), comprising IA, Cook's Lane (TQ 905648: Arch. Gant., lxxviii, and IB, fragmentary burials, including a cremation, from market place by Court Hall (TQ 904647: compare, for both, Brit. Numismatic Journ., xxx, 6 ff.). Associated: i, R-B cremations (Coll. Gant., 33). 2, (Meaney III), south of Church Field, sixth-century, as far a.a kn.own (TQ 911653: Goll. Gant., 116-21). Associated: ii, R-B cremations in tile cists (Goll. Gant., 32-3). 3, (Meaney I), Huggin's Field or Fair Meadows (the fairground, accessible from Watling Street), comprising 3A, four or more burials, set a.part, and 3B, the well-spaced and well-oriented cemetery that produced the Vallance brooch (TQ 905642). The position given on the O.S. map (X) is too far east, that given by Payne {Y) even less correct. Associated but not marked: iii, R-B cremations, in same field but 'nearer Milton'. The field also produced a small Bronze-Age hoard and 'trenches full of fragments of urns', which may have been pottery-wasters of some period. 4, (Meaney II), Rondeau Estate (TQ 950649). Nothing Roman. 5, (Meaney, 'Chalkwell'), two burials (TQ 894637). Associated: v, R-B walled ·cemetery (Goll. Ownt., 54-60). vi, Bexhill, R-B cemetery with many lead coffins (Golt. Gant., 23-30); nothing Saxon reported. 18 ELECTION ISSUES AND THE BOROUGH ELECTORATES IN MID-SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY KENT By MADELINE V. JONES, M.A.(OXON.), PH.D.(LOND.) .,. A STUDY of the Kentish boroughs in the civil-war period lends considerable support to Professor PlUnib's recent contention1 that a politicallyconscious electorate exerted real influence on the choice of members of the seventeenth-century House of Commons.2 Despite the difficulty of penetrating the minds of the 'inferior sort' of freemen who in all eight boroughs voted in Parliamentary elections, it is nevertheless possible to provide some evidence both of the e:ristence of concern for general issues in 1640 and of the growth of such concern by 1660-1. The size of the electorate in these Kentish towns varied from New Romney's 16 or so voters to the 200 or more of Dover, Sandwich and Canterbury.a Even of the smaller boroughs, only decaying Queenborough showed virtually no interest in political and religious matters during this period. New Romney was slow to reject the traditional patronage exercised in the Cinque Ports by the Lord Warden but, by April, 1641, appears to have been making an independent choice.4 As Professor Everitt has shown,6 Kent was not dominated by any great family or small group of such families at this period: apart from the Lord Warden, therefore, with his customary if somewhat precarious right to nominate at least one member at Dover, Sandwich, Hythe and New Romney, only the Archbishop in Canterbury could be regarded as 1 J. H. Plumb, 'The Growth of the Electorate in England from 1600 to 1715', Past and Present, no. 45, 90-116. 2 An expansion of some of the arguments put forward in this m-ticle can be found in M. V. Jones, 'The Political History of the Parliamentary Boroughs of Kent, 1642-1662' (London University, Ph.D. thesis, 1967). 3 Kent County Archives, N.R./AC2, p. 265 et passim; for Sandwich and Dover see below; Hythe had 30-35 in 1640, Hythe Assembly Book 209, pp. 238, 240. For the other boroughs, an estimate of the number of freemen in 1662-3 can be made from the records of the proceedings of the Commissioners for Corporations: Canterbury had over 200, Rochester probably just under and Maidstone just over 200, Queenborough 26; see Canterbury Dean and Chapter Library, A/C5 ff. 59b-62a; Rochester City Archives, Ro/AC2 ff. 71 a and b; Recor