280 (48)

252

Dress Accessońes

1317 BWB83 4401 (274) 9 fig 162 d 18.5mm; gunmetal (AML); triangular-section frame, giving two visible surfaces as wom; the inner is decorated with unevenly spaced (?)drilled, blind holes, and the outer and the apex with filed grooves, which make a senes of V shapes; pin missing.

A similarly decorated, but morę elaborate brooch recovered from spoił dumped firom the Billingsgate site (private collection) retains the pin. Neither example provides any evidence that the voids functioned as collets for stones, or that they once held enamel. The decoration seems intended simply to give variety to the surfaces.

Cf also Musty 1969, 147-49 fig 28, 2 for similar decorative blind holes on an annular copper-alloy brooch (dated tentatively to the 13th century), several more-elaborate copper-alloy brooches in the British Museum collection have both blind holes and collets (the latter formerly containing stones, eg acc. no. 67.3-20.24; see Hattatt 1987, 334 & fig 108 no. 1345, for a published example); acc. no. AF 2723, also in the national collection, with both blind holes and grooves, is a closer parallel to no. 1317.

1318    BWB83    4240    (307)    11    fig 162

d 45.5mm; gunmetal frame (AML); spiral decoration on one face - altemate bands are of inlaid tin (MLC), with engraved obliąue zigzags on the other bands; the other face has only engraved obliąue zigzags; tracę of iron pin (possibly tin-coated) survives.

A reversible brooch, as no. 1314, though in the present instance there is a morę readily discemible difference between the decoration on the two faces.

1319    BWB83    2734    (328)    11    fig 162

Fragment; estd d c.35mm; bronze with tracę of gilding (AML); part of frame with one smali, parallel-sided collet containing cement, and a larger, tapering one; a piece of sheeting with foliate decoration applied above the frame rises to surround the top of the tapering collet.

This fragment of an elaborate brooch is the sole multiple-collet example among the present excavated groups (no. 1309 has only two collets). The arrange-ment with a secondary foliate piąte in addition to the frame and collets is closely paralleled on several brooches, including a smali silver-gilt one with amethysts found in dumped spoił removed from the Billingsgate site (MoL acc. no. 84.354). Cf also Bury 1982 (58 & 65, case 12 board B no. 3) - a gold brooch set with rubies and sapphires, for which a French origin and 13th-century datę are suggested; Cherry 1983 (77-78); idem 1987 (485-86 no. 651) - a gold brooch set with gamets and sapphires.

Lead/tin

1320    BIG82 2746 (4178) 6 fig 162

d 21mm; pewter (AML); frame has a series of raised transverse lines; the tin-coated (MLC) copper-alloy wire pin is looped round a very narrow constriction in the frame.

1321    SWA81 2354 (2266) 7 fig 163

d 19.5mm; pewter (AML); series of transverse lines between those along the borders; pin and the outer bar of the hole are missing; there are voids where the metal failed to fili the mould; traces of wear from pin.

1322    BIG82    2328    (2580)    7    fig    163

d 17mm; pewter (AML); series of transverse ridges along the frame; the pin has a ridge and is distorted and bent.

1323    BIG82    3053    (5277)    7    fig    163    & colour

pl 6B

d 19.5mm; pewter (AML); circles with raised central bosses altemate with bifacially bevelled rectangles; beaded border; the missing pin would have rested in a groove in one of the rectangles. The decorative motifs imitate stones.

Cf MoL acc. no. 79.327/3 for a brooch with rather similar decoration.

1324    BIG82    2718    (2939)    8

Distorted; estd d c.20mm+; pewter (AML); cable decoration on front and back of frame, with hatching transversely to the spirals; wom from the pin, which is missing.

1325    BWB83 1517 (222) 9 fig 163

d 16mm; tin (AML); slightly bent; frame has cable decoration with secondary cabling along altemate spirals (cf Maryon 1971, 137 & fig 240 no. 34 - though the design on the present brooch is cast); slight constriction for the copper-alloy pin, which has tin coating (MLC).

1326    SWA81 1876 (2142) 9 fig 163 Slightly oval frame; max 1 17mm; pewter (AML); the sides of the frame have a series of dots in the centre, flanked by fields of cross hatching; four roundels with cross hatching in their sunken centres divide the frame; cross hatching continues onto the edges of the frame, where it is interrupted by an undecorated, reserved field and the constriction for the pin. The finely detailed decoration is unusual in the present corpus (see no. 1344 for the only comparable example here).