273 (38)

245

Combinations ofDiverse Strap Fittings and Possible Ensuite Items

156 Four types of mount on two lengths of a strap - Museum of London collection (d of circular mounts 18mm)

mounts, all of copper alloy (see fig 79 in this volume, cf Mitchiner 1986,133 nos. 359a-c, and 218-19 no. 798), and another strap (in two pieces - fig 156 this volume) has four different kinds of lead/tin mounts - circular with a beaded edge, stemmed trefoil, sexfoil, and shell-shaped (there are traces of red colouring on one of the lengths of leather strap), cf Mitchiner ibid, 132 no. 357. These items were found in spoił removed by contractors from the Billingsgate site - the former is in a private collection, and the latter two pieces are MoL acc. no. 87.51/11. A leather strap (fig 138) with a strap loop flanked by a pair of bar-mounts, each with a pendent ring, and accompanied by bar-mounts of a different form, all of copper alloy, were found in spoił removed from the TEX88 site (MoL acc. no. 88.461/2; an oval buckie with a piąte may be from the same strap).

A spectacular London find of a nearly complete leather waist belt 770x34mm retains most of an original 154 or morę copper-alloy mounts of three different forms (colour pl 5E & F - MoL acc. no. 89.65). A row of composite circular mounts (like the parallels for no. 932, colour pl 4D) down the middle is flanked on each side by a row of mounts with a central dome having traces of silver coating (XRF, B Gilmour), surrounded by four smaller lobes (a form not repre-sented among the assemblages from the main sites included in this volume) and at one end is a rectangular mount like nos. 1052-55. The circular mounts are notable for having pointed shanks that have been bent over for fixture, rather than the usual rivets (those for the other mounts on the strap have roves). The leather retains traces of a textile covering on both the back and front; only the buckie appears to be missing. This highly decorated belt, perhaps for a sword, is probably of the kind depicted on the earlier effigies of knights in St Mary’s Church at the Tempie in London - on these sculptures the sword belts have bar-mounts together with other forms (see fig 132). They are the most local survivals among a large number of upper-class tomb effigies and brasses which depict such combinations (see eg Clayton 1979, passim).

The evidence for ensuite items is far morę conjectural. A limited number of different fittings can be grouped together on the grounds that their decoration is so similar as to suggest that they may have been wom together; the available dating evidence certainly allows them to have been in use at the same period. However, nonę of these items have come down in the suggested combinations - indeed, one of them survives on a