288 (35)

260

Dress Accessories

society of the Norwegian valleys, but this probably has no bearing on medieval English urban fashions in brooches).

Open frame brooches with highly stylised figurative motifs

Lead-tin

1351 BIG82 acc. no. 2475 (context 2909) ceramic phase 8 fig 168

Fragment of a bird brooch; 1 20mm; pewter (AML); wing with areas of linear and cross hatching, and a hole for the missing pin, and part of the circular frame.

A complete brooch with similar decoration, and retain-ing the pin, was found in dumped spoił from the Billingsgate site (private collection, fig 168); the complete crudely executed design consists of two opposed, outward-facing birds’ heads, two wings, and a single taił on the annular frame; these brooches are possibly from the same mould. Cf also Mitchiner 1986 (130 no. 337) for a similar, incomplete brooch from a different mould.

The bird motif seems to have been quite popular for cheap brooches in London. Another two-headed version is known, as is an example with a single head. Further comparably crude lead/tin alloy brooches of the same generał character from London have two men holding a fleur de lis aloft, and two animals apparently attempting to devour a man (all private collections). A stone mould for producing somewhat similar brooches with opposed, facing bird-like creatures has been excavated in a (?)14th-century deposit in Bristol (Dundas Wharf site 21/82 AQB no. 107).

1352 SWA81 1265 (2150) 9 fig 168 Fragment; max 1 37.5mm; pewter (AML); the decoration is linear, on a stippled field: two opposed, outward-facing animals, each with an eye and the mouth de-picted by lines that continue into a key pattem running down the centre of the neck; strips connecting the mouths to the necks may be seen as tongues, though they serve the practical function of strengthening the brooch; a (?)foot with parallel curved lines is raised as in the heraldic rampant position. Although the last elements might at first sight appear to be wings, the complete design (see fig 168) supports the presump-tion that they are forelegs.

A complete brooch of the same design, retaining the pin and measuring c.35xc.35mm, was excavated at Bryggen in Bergen, Norway, from a deposit thought to be associated with the fire of 1332 (Agotnes nd, 8; Bryggen Museum acc. no. 40082); it shows that the design is symmetrical - the key pattem continues along the animals' bodies, and there are curving lines at the base, suggesting that they are squatting on their hind legs. The distinctive style of decoration is quite unlike that on any other item in this corpus of dress accessories, and no obvious parallel has been traced. At present the place of manufacture of these brooches cannot be pinpointed.

BROOCHES WITH INTEGRAL PINS

(all are of lead/tin alloys and from three-part moulds, unless otherwise stated)

Although there are broadly similar disc brooches to nos. 1353 etc from about the time of the Norman Conąuest, eg in the llth-century Cheap-side hoard (Guildhall Museum Catalogue 1908, 119 & pl 54 nos. 1-26; VCH London 1909, 160 fig 17), and from recent excavations (eg TEX88 acc. no. 1039), there seems to be no definite continui-ty through the 12th and 13th centuries. The