A member of the public has sent a photograph of a Medieval horse harness pendant that he found whilst metal-detecting recently. The finder found the account of David Harpin’s lecture about Richard of Cornwall last autumn on the Medieval Section blog. Although the cross is of a slightly different design it is very similar to the one that David showed us with the coat-of-arms of the De Montfort family, with its link to the heraldry of the South of France and the suppression of the Albigensian heresy. The enquirer has requested information about his discovery. Over to you David. It all goes to show that the Medieval Section Blog reaches places and people other means of communication find it hard to reach.
De Montfort cross pattee on a horse pendant that David Harpin showed the Medieval Section recently.
I am delighted to be able to share the news that Booths the printers have informed David Asquith, our Acting Honorary Editor, that they are dispatching the new-look section journal Medieval Yorkshiretoday. The box is being sent to Claremont and ought to be available for collection in the next week. Better still, why not come along to the lecture by Tony Abramson of Yorkshire Numismatics Society on Northumbrian sceats at 2pm on Saturday 14th February and you can collect your copy (if you are paid up member) and enjoy the presentation.
Group photo showing objects in the West Yorkshire Hoard (copyright Leeds Museums and Galleries – photographer Norman Taylor)
The Medieval Section is endebted to Kat Baxter, Curator of Archaeology and Numismatics at Leeds Museums and Galleries, for speaking to us in November and for providing photographs of some of the very handsome Medieval treasure objects from the West Yorkshire hoard. Kat began her talk by giving an overview of Leeds Museums and Galleries and by telling us about the development of Treasure legislation. The success of the Treasure law can be seen in the fact that before 1997 26 finds per year were found to be treasure but in 2011 970 cases were reported as treasure – 95% of them found by metal-detectorists.
The West Yorkshire hoard (drawings copyright of Leeds Museums and Galleries and Archaeological Services WYAS – drawings by Jon Prudhoe)
The story of the West Yorkshire hoard began when the Finds Liaison Officer for West Yorkshire sent Kat some photographs in 2008 asking if she might be interested in the objects. At this point five objects had been discovered. A rescue excavation was organised to see if there were any other pieces from the hoard still in the ground. A further two items were recovered by the metal-detectorist on a return visit to the site. The objects included a very fine 10th century gold and garnet ring, a 9th century niello ring, two filigree rings, a fragment of a 7th century cloisonne brooch, a piece of gold ingot or hack gold, and a lead spindle whorl.
Gold and garnet ring (copyright Leeds Museums and Galleries – photographer Norman Taylor)
The 10th century gold and garnet ring is particularly fine and has not suffered any wear. It has an enlarged stepped bezel and is decorated with granulations of gold beads. The garnet looks too small for its dog tooth setting – either this garnet is a replacement or it has sunk as its mount has degraded.The gold content of the ring is very high. The back of the ring has a twisted hoop of gold wire with decorative terminals. It is so fine it may have belonged to a bishop. It certainly belonged to someone of high status.
Drawing of gold and niello ring (drawing copyright Leeds Museums and Galleries and Archaeological Services WYAS drawing by Jon Prudhoe)
The 9th century niello ring is a different kind of ring. It may have been worn over the gloves. It has four large oval panels decorated with leaf or zoomorphic motifs picked out in niello (a black mixture of copper, silver, and lead sulphides used as an inlay). It has suffered a lot of wear.
Smaller gold filigree ring (drawing copyright Leeds Museums and Galleries and Archaeological Services WYAS drawing by Jon Prudhow)
The filigree ring is smaller and thinner and of lower gold content. It is decorated with filigree and granulation. It is not symmetrical and though a beautiful piece of jewellery it is not of the same quality as the piece described earlier.
Gold cloisonne brooch fragment (copyright Leeds Museums and Galleries – photographer Norman Taylor).
The cloisonne brooch or pendant fragment is the earliest item in the hoard and dates from the 7th century. It has cells for inlays such as garnets but these have been hacked on one side and torn or bent out of shape. It would have been a stunning high class object when complete.
Large filigree ring (copyright Leeds Museums and Galleries – photographer Norman Taylor)
The second set of objects from the hoard consist of a another high quality ring with a high gold content with granular decoration. The ring appears to have a hollow bezzle and although it rattles when shaken nothing shows up on x-rays. the ring may have been an ecclesiastical ring owned by someone of high status. Like the earlier ring it shows no wear and appears to be brand new.
The last object is a lead spindle whorl and at present it is not clear why this was included in the hoard of gold objects. Two of the rings are of the highest quality known from Anglo-Saxon England. However, the rings cover a considerable period of time (the brooch has been dated to the 7th century, the rings are later, perhaps between the 9th and 11th centuries). It has been suggested they may have been part of a thief’s stash and that the hoard was consumed little by little, the individual pieces hacked up and semi-precious stones chiselled out. It is interesting that another fine ring was found between Aberford and Sherburn in 1870. It is clear that in the 10th century there were some affluent individuals living in the vicinity of Leeds. It may be that some of the rings have ecclesiastical associations. It is unusual not to find any coins with the hoard. The hoard is important because it is the only Anglo-Saxon hoard found of this quality in the area. As such it is an important addition to local history. Certainly it raises more questions than it answers; why do the rings range so much in date, and why were they buried in a field?
The hoard took three years to go through the Treasure process and after being valued at just under £172,000 four months were allowed to raise the money needed to reimburse the finder, as is usual in cases of Treasure. The National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund made generous grants. The Headley Trust usually only makes a contribution if a Victoria and Albert Museum grant has been made but the latter had already been exhausted and the Headley Trust kindly made a grant award regardless. Further sums of money were given by Leeds Museums and Galleries, Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, the Friends of Leeds Museums and Galleries, and the Goldsmiths’ Company. The remaining money was raised by a public appeal and the hoard was secured for Leeds. The objects went straight on display in the Leeds City Museum, and a brand new display about the hoard, partly funded by the Art Fund, will be going up this Spring.
In many respects it seems to me that the coming year is likely to be a golden year for Medieval studies because of the important anniversaries that fall in 2015. John Walsh in The Independent on 1st January helpfully pointed out that this summer it will be one thousand years since the Viking invasion of England led by Canute, son of Sweyn Forkbeard. Jorvik Viking Festival will take place on 14th-22nd February and will feature battle re-enactments, guided walks and other activities.
On 15th June it will be 800 years since the Magna Carta was agreed at Runnymede in Surrey. The British Library, Lincoln Castle and Salisbury Cathedral have copies of Magna Carta and are putting on exhibitions. Perhaps the Medieval Section could organise a day trip to Lincoln to see the exhibition? If you’d be interested in going to see the exhibition do please get in touch and I’ll try to organize a visit.
New £2 coin to commemorate Magna Carta
There will be a £2 coin commemorating Magna Carta on its obverse this year, and a set of stamps. However, if you look at the £2 coin (above) the designer has made a schoolboy error in depicting King John about to sign Magna Carta using a quill, whereas in fact, it would have been imprinted with the king’s seal. Nor would the king have troubled himself with the act of sealing. That was the job of a particular member of Chancery known as a spigurnel. This and many other fascinating details concerning Magna Carta can be found in the new book by Dan Jones, Magna Carta the Making and Legacy of the Great Charter (Head of Zeus, 2014).
Dan Jones’ new book on Magna Carta
If Lincoln is beyond the pale for a Yorkshire Medieval Section, Yorkshire Medieval Festival takes place in York 1st-31st August with archery, birds of prey, jousting knights and of course the beautiful historic city as a setting. York Early Music festival takes place 3rd-11th July and features a new medieval soundscape for the 1928 silent classic La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc.
A third anniversary is that of the battle of Agincourt which was fought on 25th October 1415: 600 years ago.
These are all compelling reasons to celebrate our Medieval history, archaeology and heritage sites in 2015, and I note that Jeremy Black writing in The Times (3/1/2015) suggests that the celebration of anniversaries is in itself something of a Medieval practice: Henry III celebrated Edward the Confessor and Henry VIII the victories of Edward III and Henry V.
And as if there weren’t enough I read in the DailyTelegraph (2/1/2015) a report about the discovery of a hoard of 5,251 Anglo-Saxon silver coins in a lead container in a field near Aylesbury, Bucks., by metal-detector user Paul Coleman. There are coins of Ethelred the Unready (978-1016) and Canute (1016-1035). I saw some footage of what was described on the evening news as the excavation of the hoard. Actually it looked more like reaching into the bran tub at a children’s party.
No doubt the much-discussed reburial of the remains of Richard III will be attended by a reevaluation of the controversial king’s reputation. Whether his final resting place will be Leicester or York is impossible to say at the present time. As the speaker at our Christmas lecture on this subject just over a year ago, Bob Woosnam-Savage, said the chances of finding the last Plantagenet king’s remains fist attempt must have appeared impossibly low but the archaeology has surprised everyone and Richard now joins the list of famous historical personalities who have been rescued from the oblivion of a forgotten grave, to the extent of having the very flesh put back on their bones though the technique of facial reconstruction, a technique I’m proud to say was pioneered at University of Manchester.
Another reason to be cheerful, if any were needed, is the imminent publication of the Medieval Section’s journal Medieval Yorkshire, which is being compiled and edited by our Hon.Joint Editor, David Asquith, and Sue Alexander. This is the first time for a number of years that the section has been in a position to publish a journal. Seeing this in print will be the realisation of the third leg of a strategy to re-energise the section after it came close to being closed two years ago (the other two being the creation of this blog and the resumption of the section’s monthly lectures).
I’ve received an enquiry from someone who lives near Armitstead and who has read a copy of Medieval Yorkshire vol.34. He is interested in finding out about any research on the area around Settle, Giggleswick, Stainforth and Malham. The enquirer wants to know who to contact if he has questions. The gentleman asks whether Paley Green have been a settlement or a single farmstead. Would all the mentioned have had links with the monasteries? Can one of our members help?
Medieval seal matrix from Alderley Edge in Cheshire.
A conference about Seals and sealing practices will be held at the British Museum from the 4th – 6th December 2015.
This conference is co-organised by John Cherry and Jessica Berenbeim in collaboration with Sigillvm, a network for the study of medieval European seals and sealing practices.
The aim of this conference is to foster discussions about seals and status, concentrating on three principal themes:
I. Seals and social status
II. Seals and institutional status
III. The status of seals as objects
there isn’t a website to visit to obtain more information but on the mailing I recieved it says that proposals are welcomed from a wide range of perspectives, such as: archaeology, history, art history, archival studies, literature and that submissions (in English, French, and German and no more than 300 words in length) should be sent to Lloyd de Beer (ldebeer@thebritishmuseum.ac.uk) by 30th January 2015.
After the December lecture by guest speaker Dr Robert Richards the Medieval Section held its traditional high tea. A number of members kindly brought festive food and drink and this made a suitable end to the section’s calendar year. Of all the events in the year there’s no celebration that recommends itself quite as much to the Medievalists it seems to me as Christmas. It is sobering to think this may have been the last such event for us to be held at Claremont. The Society is likely to be in new premises by next Christmas.
Enjoying the good cheer
Wherever we end up, the section’s programme of lectures will continue. The next lecture in the series on at 2pm at Claremont 10th January will be by Prof. Ian Wood, University of Leeds whose talk has the engaging title: ”’It’s the economy, stupid”. The context for Anglian sculpture’. It looks at the way in which sculpture seems to flourish immediately after the transfer of a large part of Northumbria to the Church.
The speaker kindly sent a photo of the Bewcastle Cross which figures in his presentation.
Anglian Cross at Bewcastle. Photo: Prof Ian Wood.
This is only the first of five lectures to be held during the winter and spring months. In addition there will be the first issue of a new series of Medieval Yorkshire to distribute to members. As a section we are endebted to David Asquith, who kindly took on the role of Acting Honorary Editor, and to Sue Alexander, who solved the digital formatting challenges. It will be great to see the section journal out again as it has always been much appreciated as a tangible benefit of membership of the Medieval Section. With Medieval Yorkshire and the programme of Medieval lectures re-established I think we have something that is attractive to new members, which will help to secure the future of the section.
The speaker at the Medieval Section December lecture, Dr Robert Richards, talked about about recent archaeological work at All Saints Church on North Street in York. The church was altered in the Victorian period when the chancel was knocked down in order to widen it, although it was rebuilt on or close to the Medieval footings. A watercolour from about the turn of the 18th century shows Victorian bricks encasing the original medieval buttresses and plaster coming off the gable tops. Claims that the screen was the work of York based antiquary, artist and architect Edwin Ridsdale Tate (1862–1922) are incorrect.
A pillar in the nave has a statue of what is often said to be St William of York. However, it is not clear it is St William. If the statue does represent an archbishop, he is not wearing an archbishop’s mitre but that would have been made separately. The statue is thought to be an example of 15th century English carving. It stands on a corbel cut from a single block of stone on one of a pair of Romanesque round columns in the nave that experts have described as ‘looking squiffy’. They have nail head decoration but this is thought to be a later decorative addition to the pillar.Though now dwarfed by the huge industrial conurbations of the West Riding, York was the centre of northern England in the Roman and Medieval periods and so some degree of elevated architectural style is to be expected.
Resurrection alabaster in All Saints Church, York (photo: Dr Robert Richards)
Slightly more controversially, the church also has a resurrection alabaster. This is probably from the first half of the 15th century. However, it is badly in need of conservation, having (Victorian?) iron screws holding it in its frame, and much of the remaining colour obscured by what appears to be the grease from hundreds of human fingers touching it, but may only be centuries of dirt!
Church cottages, All Saints Church, York
Adjacent to All Saints are some attractive church cottages.Thought to be of late 15th century date, they are now known on the evidence of tree ring analysis to have been built after 1396. About half of the timbers in the church have been dated to the late 12th century. An exact match was was made with timbers from Lincoln and Ely cathedrals. The wood came from Sherwood Forest. It must have been part of a job lot sold cheaply and sent around the country. It’s puzzling why the timbers are so massive. One of the timbers came from a tree that was 250 years old so it must have started growing about 900. This raises some interesting chronological questions. For instance it is sometimes said that the Green Man had gone out of fashion by the 15th century but there are two in the chancel ceiling where the timbers have been tree-ring dated to 1477. The Green Man designs are resurrection symbols. Representations of Medieval musical instruments in the church have also attracted a lot of interest from specialists.
All Saints is best known for having some of the most photogenic Medieval glass in the country. The right central panel depicting St Anne teaching her daughter the Virgin Mary to read is particularly famous. Sadly the names of the original sponsors were knocked out at a later date. The End of the World and the Prick of Conscience depicting the last 15 days of the world are some of the most prolific of secular manuscripts. They gave the penitent a preview of the approaching end of the world and prompted them to seek the intercession of the Virgin Mary.
This tradition is particularly influential and it is still possible to see Emma Raughton’s cell where anchorites lived. Emma was an anchoress attached to All Saints church in the first half of the fifteenth century. Although little is known about her, she was definitely there in 1421 and she was still there in 1436 because she is mentioned in a will. The reconstructed cell is in roughly the same position as its Medieval counterpart, but Emma’s cell was probably a larger two storey building. Built about 1910, this is one of the first examples of the use of shuttered concrete in a domestic building. One of the anchoresses Adeline Cashmore gave spiritual guidance to Mary Breckinridge (1881-1965) who created the Frontier Nursing Service in America, which did so much to bring down rates of infant mortality in that part of the world.
Given the historical significance of All Saints it is understandable that when there was an opportunity to investigate the archaeology of the church the churchwardens did not hesitate. A tombstone was removed, exposing floor voids and an altar top weighing 2.5 tons. Three oyster shells containing blue, red and yellow pigments, were found, which was the original colour scheme of the chapel. The altar top stone was rebated so that coffins could be slid from the side into the vault space beneath. The brick wall inside the vault was rendered with lime mortar to make it look like stone. Three male burials lay on top of one another. The first coffin had decayed and had been shoved to one end. The legs of the top skeleton were found higher up in the fill of the tomb. The fill of the vault contained lots of clay tobacco pipes.
Clay pipes from the vault at All Saints Church, York
The remains of 76 people were found and initially it was thought University of York Department of Chemistry might be interested to analyse soil samples from the soil to study the trace elements. The skeleton of a woman was found with the skeleton of a foetus, which had been in her abdomen, and was still in situ. Early 13th century grave markers set in the wall had compass inscribed apotropaic symbols to ward off evil. A bronze buckle was found in one of the graves, suggesting this might have been the burial of a wealthy merchant or a cleric.
Bronze buckle from All Saints Church
The archaeologists were limited in the scope of their excavations and much of the work was ‘keyhole archaeology’, providing tantalizing glimpses of earlier periods in York’s history. Some burnt mutton bones may represent an Anglo-Saxon or an Anglo-Scandinavian picnic. A piece of a Hambledon Ware lobed jug, two die, a glass ring, a rim-sherd from a Roman greyware ‘doggy dish’ marked with a cross, a sherd from a Bellarmine jar and a piece of a Medieval chafing dish, which may have been used for burning incense in front of the statue in the chapel.
Piece from a Medieval chafing dish
A tiny fragment of what appears to be plain mosaic tile came from the chapel. Discoveries like this enabled the churchwardens to recreate the original tile floor design. Our speaker commented that this must be the first Medieval style pavement to be laid in an English church in one hundred years.
Mosaic pavement at All Saints Church, North Street, York.
Our speaker ended his talk by saying that they had permission for ‘a single season of excavation lasting no longer than two years’, so it is to be hoped that further work will prove to be just as exciting as the first year’s discoveries. Hopefully this is something we can return to in the future.
N.B. This lecture summary has been released without comment by the speaker. Any faults or omissions are entirely the responsibility of the Hon.Secretary of the Medieval Section.
Medieval Section of the Yorkshire Archaeological and Historical Society 