Medieval Section of the Yorkshire Archaeological and Historical Society

The lecture meeting on 8th March featured the work of the Portable Antiquities Scheme. Rebecca Griffiths came to Claremont to talk about Medieval finds from Yorkshire. After describing the P.A.S., how it came into being and explaining the criteria for what constitutes treasure Rebecca showed us a selection of fascinating Medieval discoveries from the region, many of them found by metal-detectorists.

Over 18,000  objects have been reported from both North Yorkshire and East Yorkshire and 2100 from West Yorkshire and 3000 from South Yorkshire. The difference in the figures reflects the fact that there is more open agricultural land in the north and east of the county on which to metal-detect, whereas the west and south are more built up and there are fewer opportunities. The number of Treasure cases has risen over the years: from 673 in 2006 to over 1000 last year and so far this year there have been 150 cases.

Rebecca showed us some of the 23,400 early Medieval objects from the P.S.A.’s database, including strap-ends, a Visigothic buckle from North Yorkshire, an ansate or ‘caterpillar’ brooch, an enamelled disc brooch, clothing accessories such as hook tags, strap mounts, and pins with biconical and polyhedral pins, to name but a few. These objects offer an insight into the everyday lives of people rich and poor because the objects archaeologists have had to work with in the past have tended to be those buried as grave goods.

Over 130,000 medieval objects have been reported from around the county. Strap ends were still used.Buckles become more common after being a status symbol in the early medieval period. Of special interest was the finger ring converted into a small buckle from the East Riding.

A livery badge of Richard III is now on display in the Yorkshire Museum. There are also religious brooches with inscriptions like JESUS NAZA and AVE MARIA. Rebecca showed us photos of medieval harness mounts, seal matrices, and pilgrim souvenirs such as ampullae that contained holy water from a shrine. One may have come from a shrine at Montpellier.

Rebecca also showed us some of the coins that have been found. There are over 45,000 early medieval coins on the P.S.A.’s national database. A rare tremissis from the Netherlands was found in North Yorkshire. Such discoveries are revolutionising the study of the coinage at this period.

Whereas the coinage of the various independent kingdoms that comprised Britain at this early date is necessarily varied, in the medieval period proper, so to speak, the coins tend to be standardised, even to the point of having the name of the previous king, HENRICVS, when in fact the coins were issued in the reign of King Richard and King John and early in the reign of Henry III. It can be very difficult to tell which ruler the coin belongs to when the defining characteristic is the degree of curliness of the king’s hair! Rebecca drew attention to the P.A.S.’s LOST CHANGE project which has mapped find-spots of coins of different periods from prehistoric through to medieval.

Rebecca closed her talk by showing us some of the best finds: a gold brooch with hands clasped together in prayer; a finger ring inscribed with the name JESVS; a small hoard of silver pennies of Henry III and Edward I. But the Vale of York Hoard and the Bedale Hoard are some of the most spectacular discoveries. The Vale of York Hoard was found in 2007 and dates from the 10th century. It was found by two metal-detector users. The contents of the hoard reflect the wide geographical range of Viking trading contacts.

The Bedale hoard was found by metal-detectorists in 2012 and represents a Viking’s life savings. Not only does it contain unique styles of jewellery which have never been seen before, but the likes of the gold sword pommel, silver neck ring and neck collar in the hoard, have never previously been recorded. The full hoard consists of a gold sword pommel, the unique silver neck ring and neck collar, a silver armlet, 29 silver ingots, two other silver neck rings, gold rivets and half a silver brooch. The hoard also contained a piece of a ‘Permian’ ring, cut as hack-silver – a design of Russian origin. The finder back-filled the find-spot and called in the Portable Antiquities Officer at the Yorkshire Museum. Rebecca and a colleague from the museum went to the site and unearthed the rest of the hoard and recorded it in detail. The ingots had been placed at the bottom of the burial pit apparently in a box (though no remains were found) and tests of soil samples at the British Museum proved inconclusive. The sword and the jewellery were placed on top.

It is hoped that the Yorkshire Museum can buy the hoard to enable the staff based there to conduct research which will provide a better understanding of the people who lived in Yorkshire at the time the hoard was buried 1000 years ago, in the late 9th or early 10th century.

The Portable Antiquities Scheme has been the envy of archaeologists across Europe but it depends in part on the efforts of volunteers who record discoveries. In the current economic climate the budget can never be taken for granted and increasingly P.A.S. is looking to train the finders to record objects themselves.

The Medieval Section is very grateful to Rebecca and the Portable Antiquites Scheme for generously allowing the beautiful images of the objects to be reproduced on the blog.