309 (33)

281

Lace chapes

Chapes or tags of the type listed below (nos. 1405-1436) were put on the ends of laces of leather or of textiie (principally plaited silk to judge from slightly later survivals - see fig 181). The contemporary name points, which was apparently used by transference of the laces themselves as well as of the metal tags on the ends (cf pourpoint, a man’s laced, or sometimes buttoned, upper garment of the late-medieval period) presumably originated by reference to these tapering tubes. Other contemporary terms are aglets, anlettes and aiguillettes. The chapes protected the ends of laces, and facilitated thread-ing them through corresponding eyelets in a garment (for eyelets excavated at the recent sites, mainly from early 15th-century contexts, but including some of earlier datę, see nos. 1218-28 under Mounts). The chapes that are of mid 14th-century datę or later, can, in view of the traces of leather and other fibres found in some of them, be regarded with some confidence as being for laces. Assuming the two similar items lound in mid 13th-century (ceramic phase 8) deposits are to be positively identified as chapes, they are the earliest examples known (nos. 1405 and 1406). Other complete plain chapes of between 25 and 40mm in length are from contexts attributable to c.1330 or later. These chapes exhibit so little variation that the form can be regarded as stan-dardised (stamped decoration, as for example on a post-medieval chape found in Norwich - Marge-son 1985, 57-58 no. 8 fig 38 - appears to be a refinement of a later period than that covered by the present study).

Ali the excavated chapes are of copper-alloy sheeting, bent into tubes, with a straight seam along the side. Unless stated otherwise they are complete, tapering, and with an edge-to-edge seam. Several ends have been finished - that is, they seem to have been neatly bent inwards,

181 Silk braid with chapes - Museum of London collection (1:1, no acc. no.) centre: detail (2:1)