Chapter XVI
Anglo-Saxon Period—Buckets—Drinking-cups of wood—Bronze Bowls—Bronze Boxes—Combs—Tweezers—Châtelaines—Girdle Ornaments—Keys—Hair-pins—Counters, or Draughtmen, and Dice—Querns—Triturating Stones, etc.—Conclusion.
Buckets, so called, and very appropriately, from their close resemblance in form to our modern vessels bearing that name, are occasionally found in Anglo-Saxon graves. They are small wooden vessels bound round with hoops or rims of bronze, more or less ornamented, and have a handle of the same metal arched over their tops. Of course in every case the wooden staves of which they were composed, and which were of ash, are decomposed, the hoops, handle, and mountings alone remaining. They vary very much in size; one from Bourne Park had the lower hoop twelve inches in diameter, and the upper one ten inches, and the whole height appears to have been about a foot; the handle was hooked at its ends exactly the same as in our present buckets, and fitted into loops on the sides; it had three looped bronze feet to stand upon. Other examples only measure four or five inches in diameter. The example here engraved (fig. 460) was found in Northamptonshire, along with other remains. It is composed of three encircling hoops of bronze, and has its handle and attachments also of the same metal.
The next example (fig. 461) is from Fairford, in Gloucestershire, and is three inches in height, and four inches in diameter. The hoops and mountings are of bronze. Another example, which I give for the purpose of comparison, is from Envermeu, in Normandy (fig. 462). Of the use of these utensils nothing certain, of course, is known, but it is conjectured they were used for bringing in mead, ale, or wine, to fill the drinking-cups—the objection to this as a general rule being their very small size. “The Anglo-Saxon translation of the Book of Judges (vii. 20) rendered hydrias confregissent, by ‘ꞇo-bꞃœcon pa bucaꞅ,’ i.e. ‘they broke the buckets.’ A common name for this vessel, which was properly called buc, was œscen, signifying literally a vessel made of ash, the favourite wood of the Anglo-Saxons.”
Drinking-cups were sometimes of wood. Of these, two examples are here given. The first of these has a rim of brass, the second a like rim attached by overlapping bands. It has also a number of small bands of the same metal riveted on to mend cracks in the wood. They were found in a barrow on Sibertswold Down, in Kent.
Bowls of bronze are occasionally also found. Some of these are plain, others enamelled or otherwise ornamented, and others, again, gilt. Many of them appear from their form to have been of Roman origin. Some remarkably fine examples have been yielded by the graves of Kent and other districts. The one here engraved (fig. 465) was found at Over-Haddon, in Derbyshire, along with the remains of a circular enamelled disc of the kind described on a previous page, and other relics. The bowl was seven inches in diameter, and had originally two handles. They are supposed to have been used for placing hot meats in, on the table. They range in size from four or five to twelve or fourteen inches in diameter.
Small boxes of bronze are occasionally found, and are of different forms. Some are plain upright boxes with lids, just intended to hold sewing materials—in fact, the work-boxes of the Saxon ladies—and others are rather large, and have been intended to contain the comb, etc.: they are, therefore, a kind of dressing-cases. The box engraved on fig. 466 was found along with other Saxon remains near Church Sterndale. The grave, which was cut in the rock, contained a skeleton of a woman; the lower bones were fairly preserved, but of the upper parts there were but few remains, the enamel crowns of the teeth being in the best condition. “At the left hip was a small iron knife four inches long, and where the right shoulder had been was an assemblage of curious articles, the most important of which was a small bronze box or canister, with a lid to slide on, measuring altogether two inches high, and the same in diameter. When found, it was much crushed, but still retained, inside, remains of thread, and bore on the outside impressions of linen cloth. Close to it were two bronze pins or broken needles, and a mass of corroded iron, some of which has been wire chainwork connected with a small bronze ornament with five perforations, plated with silver, and engraved with a cable pattern, near which were two iron implements of larger size, the whole comprising the girdle and châtelaine, with appendages, of a Saxon lady. Many pieces of hazel stick were found in contact with these relics, which were probably the remains of a basket in which they were placed at the funeral. All the iron shows impressions of woven fabrics, three varieties being distinguishable; namely, coarse and fine linen, and coarse flannel or woollen cloth. The box is very faintly ornamented by lozenges, produced by the intersection of oblique lines scratched in the metal.”
The next engraving shows a bronze box of quite a different character, found with Anglo-Saxon remains at Newhaven. It is two inches in diameter, but very thick. It has six vertical ribs and two bars for attachment of the lid.
Needles and pins are frequently met with. The two shown on fig. 466 will, however, be sufficient to call attention to these minute objects.
Combs of the Anglo-Saxon period differ but little from those of the Romans, or indeed from those of the present day. They were, both Roman and Saxon, sometimes toothed on one side and sometimes on both sides, and were made alike of wood, of metal, of bone, and of ivory. Boxwood appears to have been so much used for the manufacture of combs as to have occasionally given its own name to them. Thus Martial says:—
“Quid faciet nullos hic inventura capillos,
Multifido buxus quæ tibi dente datur?”
Wooden combs have naturally for the most part perished, but fragments have occasionally been found. Combs, both of bronze and iron, of the Roman period, have also been discovered. The greater part, however, both of that and of the Saxon period, which have been exhumed, are of bone and ivory. A good example of the single-edged or “backed” comb is given on fig. 469; they varied much in ornamentation. The next (fig. 470) is toothed on both its edges, and has guards or covers to fit on the teeth, in the same manner as common pocket-combs of the present day. The next is a comb with a handle, which was dredged up out of the river Thames. The period is somewhat uncertain, but I give it for the purpose of comparison, as I do also the three next figures, the first of which is from the mummy graves at Arica, the second a modern wooden comb from the same district, and the third an Indian scalp-comb. Combs from Rangoon, in the Burmese empire, and from China, are also very curiously illustrative of those of early races found in our own country.
Mirrors such as are found in Roman graves are occasionally, but very rarely, met with; they were, of course, articles for the toilet. Shears or scissors of iron, some of which are of precisely the same form as our modern sheep-shears, and others of the shape of scissors of the present day, are of not unfrequent occurrence. Tweezers, too, are occasionally met with. The usual form is shown on fig. 475. They are of bronze, and were, it is said, used for pulling out superfluous hairs from the body. They with the scissors were frequently worn attached to the girdle, along with other instruments, of which I shall now say a few words.
Châtelaines, or girdle-hangers, are among the most interesting of discoveries in the graves of Saxon females. They consist of a bunch of small implements of various kinds—keys, tweezers, scissors, tooth-picks, ear-picks, nail-cleaners, etc., and ornaments of one kind or other—hung on a chain, which being attached to the girdle hung down by the side to the thigh, or, in some instances, evidently as low as the knee. The various instruments are of silver, bronze, or iron, and are generally, the iron especially, corroded into an almost shapeless mass. The silver and bronze being more endurable, the instruments of these metals are better preserved. The example here given (fig. 476) is from one of the Kentish graves. Of some of the articles found the use is unknown, but most can be easily identified. A bunch of what is supposed to be three latch-keys is given on fig. 477, and on the next figure, 478, two curious objects, the use of which has probably been to hang small instruments on, to attach them to the girdle. For the same use, probably, are the curious and somewhat puzzling objects which are occasionally met with, and are here shown on fig. 479. They are found in pairs, attached at the top, and vary much in the pattern of the lower extremities. Probably the girdle passed through the upper part, and keys and other objects would be hung on the lower ends. Each side of the one here engraved is six and a half inches in length. A large variety of girdle ornaments have been found in different districts.
Hair-pins are of various forms and lengths. They are generally of bronze, but sometimes of bone. They are sometimes plain, but at others highly ornamented, occasionally being richly enamelled. Fig. 480 is of unique form, and has three flat pendants of bronze attached to its head by a ring. Besides hair-pins, numbers of metal pins for domestic purposes are met with.
Of locks and keys, scales and weights, and many other articles, it will not be necessary to speak at further length than simply to note that they are sometimes found in Saxon graves. Bells—small hand-bells—too, are found in the graves of women. They are of bronze or iron, and of the rectangular form so characteristic of Saxon bells of larger size.
One of the most curious set of objects which the Saxon graves of Derbyshire have produced is a set of twenty-eight bone counters, or draughtmen, some of which are shown on the following engraving (fig. 484) where they are represented of their full size. They were found by Mr. Bateman in a barrow near Cold Eaton, along with an interment of burnt bones, some fragments of iron, and portions of two bone combs. The draughtmen, as they are supposed to be, and the combs, had been burnt with the body. The following is Mr. Bateman’s account of this curious discovery:—
“The barrow was about twenty yards across, with a central elevation of eighteen inches, and was entirely composed of earth. The original deposit was placed in a circular hole, eighteen inches in diameter, sunk about six inches in the stony surface of the land on which the barrow was raised, so that the entire depth from the top of the latter was two feet. The interment consisted of a quantity of calcined human bones, which lay upon a thin layer of earth at the bottom of the hole, as compactly as if they had at first been deposited within a shallow basket or similar perishable vessel. Upon them lay some fragments of iron, part of two bone combs, and twenty-eight convex objects of bone, like button-moulds.
“The pieces of iron have been attached to some article of perishable material; the largest fragment has a good-sized loop, as if for suspension. One of the combs has been much like the small-tooth comb used in our nurseries, and is ornamented by small annulets cut in the bone; the other is of more elaborate make, having teeth on each side as the former, but being strengthened by a rib up the middle of both sides, covered with a finely cut herring-bone pattern, and attached by iron rivets.
“The twenty-eight bone objects (of which nine are engraved on fig. 484) consist of flattened hemispherical pieces, mostly with dots on the convex side; in some, dots within annulets. They vary from half an inch to an inch in diameter, and have generally eight, nine, or ten dots each; but these are disposed so irregularly that it would be difficult to count them off-hand, which leads to the conclusion that these counters would not be employed for playing any game dependent upon numbers, like dominoes or dice, but that they were more probably used for a game analogous to draughts. This is most likely to be the fact, as draughtmen have occasionally been found in Scandinavian grave-mounds; and we must assign this interment to the Saxons, whose customs were in many respects identical. All the articles found in this barrow have undergone the process of combustion, along with the human remains.”
In Yorkshire, some years ago, a stone, marked in small squares like a draught-board, was found at Scambridge.58 In a grave at Gilton, in Kent, two small dice, here engraved of their full size (fig. 485), were found. They were formed of ivory or bone.
Querns, or hand-mills, for grinding corn, have on many occasions been found in or about Anglo-Saxon interments. The one engraved on the next figure (fig. 486) was found in a Saxon grave in the grounds of Miss Worsley, at Winster, along with many other interesting relics. One half of the quern had been burnt along with the body, as had also many of the stones which formed the mound.
The next (fig. 487) is from Kings Newton, the same locality referred to under the head of Anglo-Saxon pottery. Portions of stones which have evidently formed triturating stones, or grinders, are occasionally found in the grave-mounds of different periods. These have doubtless been of the same general character with the two here engraved for comparison (figs. 488 and 489). Similar stones are found in Ireland.
Besides the objects here spoken of, a large variety of interesting remains of a miscellaneous character are found in the Saxon graves, but which, however interesting they may be, do not require in my present work to be specially noted.
I have endeavoured in the foregoing pages to give, in as brief a form as was consistent with a clear description of the objects, a faithful picture of the endless stores of treasures which the grave-mounds of our earliest forefathers open out to us, and to point out, with the aid of illustrations, the characteristics of each of the three great divisions, so as to enable my readers correctly to appropriate any remains which may come under their notice. I have purposely, and studiously, avoided theory and conjecture as far as was at all possible; contenting myself rather with bringing forward facts, which observations, personal or otherwise, into the grave-mounds and their contents have established, than speculating upon matters which can have no real bearing upon the subject.
It is said that “there is nothing new under the sun.” The researches which have been made into the grave-mounds of the three great periods—the Celtic, the Romano-British, and the Anglo-Saxon—tend immeasurably to show the approximate truth of this adage, and my readers, from the foregoing pages, will be able to judge pretty correctly how many of our so-called modern inventions and appliances were common to, and in use by, our predecessors of “centuries and tens of centuries” of years gone by.
Footnotes
1 Of this stone circle, one of the next in importance to Stonehenge, an account will be given in a future chapter.
2 This remarkable barrow was excavated by Mr. Warne, and a fully detailed account given by him in his valuable work, the “Celtic Antiquities of Dorset,” from which the illustration is taken.
3 See Crania Britannica, one of the most valuable ethnological works ever issued.
4 It will be well to bear in mind that when “rats’ bones” are mentioned, it must be understood that they are the bones, not of the common rat, but of the water-vole or water-rat. They are very abundant in Derbyshire barrows, and, indeed, are so frequently found in them, that their presence in a mound is considered to be a certain indication of the presence of human remains. “The barrows of Derbyshire, a hilly, almost mountainous, county, abounding with beautiful brooks and rills, inhabited by the water-vole, were made use of for its hybernacula, or winter retreats, into which it stored its provisions, and where it passed its time during the cold and frosty season. It is a rodent, or gnawer, or vegetable eater, and, as I have described elsewhere, has a set of grinding-teeth of the utmost beauty, and fitted most admirably for the food on which it lives. The part of the matter which is curious to the antiquary is, that the bones in Derbyshire barrows are frequently perceived to have been gnawed by the scalpri-form incisors of these animals. I have endeavoured to explain, in the note referred to, that all the rodents amuse themselves, or possibly preserve their teeth in a naturally useful state, and themselves in health, by gnawing any object that comes in their way. This is well known to every boy who keeps rabbits. I remember, some years ago, seeing a very fine black squirrel in the house of a workman in this town, which had been sent him by his son from Canada. It was found that it was impossible to keep this animal in any wooden house. He would gnaw a road out of the strongest wooden cage that could be made for him, in a few hours. In consequence, his owner made him a tin cage, in which he was kept securely. In confirmation of what I have said respecting the water-voles, vegetable feeders, gnawing the bones of the ancient Britons in barrows, I may refer to Linnæus’s most interesting Tour in Lapland. When in Lycksele, Lapland, June 1, he describes the Kodda, or hut of the Laplander, and incidentally remarks, “Everywhere around the huts I observed horns of the reindeer lying neglected, and it is remarkable that they were gnawed, and sometimes half devoured, by squirrels.”—I. 127. That is, if anything were truly devoured, it was the antlers, not the bodies. “The bones of the Arvicola, or water-vole, were found in the exploration of the colossal tumulus of Fontenay de Marmion, which was one of the galleried tumuli, opened in 1829, near Caen in Normandy. It belonged to the primeval period of the ancient Gauls.—Mem. de la Soc. des Antiq. de Normandie, 1831-3, p. 282.”—Dr. Davis.
5 See Note on the Distortions which present themselves in the crania of the Ancient Britons, by J. Barnard Davis, M.D., in the “Natural History Review” for July, 1862, page 290.
6 The elliptical form was evidently, in this case, the result of accident. The original mound had been circular, but the elongated form had been the consequence of successive interments.
7 Plate II., Decade 1.
8 Journal of the British Archæological Association, vol. i, p. 25.
9 “Ten Years’ Diggings,” p. 78.
10 There are in Derbyshire lead mines worked at the present day which were worked, at all events, in the Romano-British period. Roman coins, fibulæ, and other remains are occasionally found in them.
11 “Ten Years’ Diggings.”
12 Although I am describing the position in which the urns have been placed, it must not for a moment be supposed that they are often found in a perfect state, or in the position in which they have originally been placed. On the contrary, the urns are usually very much crushed, and not unfrequently, from pressure of the superincumbent mass of stones and earth, are found on their sides, and crushed flat.
13 This skull has been most skilfully figured in “Crania Britannica,” where it is carefully described and compared with other examples by Dr. Davis, who gives an admirable account of the discoveries at Long-Low, and of the characteristics of the different crania found there. Of the skull here shown Dr. Davis says it is “remarkably regular, narrow, and long; of good shape, medium thickness, and presenting few of the harsh peculiarities of the ancient British race; on the contrary, there is about it an air of slenderness and refinement. In some features it assimilates to the modern English cranium, although decidedly narrow, whilst its genuine and remote antiquity is determined by unquestioned evidence. It belongs, in an eminent degree, to the class of dolichocephalic skulls, and is the cranium of a man of about forty years of age.”
14 Described in the “Reliquary,” vol. ix.
15 For a full account of this discovery see the “Reliquary,” vol. vi. page 1.
16 This woollen cloth must be regarded as a woven texture, but whether it were woven in so artificial a machine as a loom may be questioned. A great variety of contrivances have been used for weaving, i.e., crossing alternately threads passed in opposite directions, the warp and the woof, by what are called savage races. Still it is not at all improbable that a people so advanced in pastoral habits, possessed some machine for weaving, bearing a relation to a primitive loom. Both warp and woof are composed, as might be expected, of a simply spun thread of one strand. Perforated stones are found in British and Danish barrows, and perforated pieces of earthenware in the Swiss Lake villages, even of the stone period, which are regarded as spindle-whorls.
17 It is worthy of remark, that this noble mound, with its very early interments, has been made a place of sepulture in more recent times, many Roman coins and remains of that period having been found there.
18 These immense monoliths have originally, it is estimated, been upwards of thirty in number, and to have been placed probably ten yards apart. The largest remaining stone stands between eight and nine feet above the ground, and is seventeen feet in circumference. It is estimated to weigh upwards of seven tons. Several of the stones have entirely disappeared, of others fragments remain scattered about.
19 For an excellent notice of this and other remains, the reader is referred to Mr. W. F. Wakeman’s “Handbook of Irish Antiquities,”—the best and most compact little work on the subject which has been issued, and one which will be found extremely useful to the archæological student—to which I am indebted for some of the accompanying engravings.
20 For the loan of these seven engravings I am indebted to the Council of the “Historical and Archæological Association of Ireland,” (formerly the “Kilkenny and South-east of Ireland Archæological Society,”) in whose journal—one of the most valuable of antiquarian publications—they have appeared. This Association is one of the most useful that has ever been established, and deserves the best support, not only of Irish, but of English antiquaries.
21 F. C. Lukis.
22 Vol. i. p. 142.
23 T. Wright.
24 “Archæological Journal,” vol xi., p. 315.
25 For articles upon this subject see the “Reliquary, Quarterly Archæological Journal and Review,” vol. ii., pages 61 to 70; and Mr. Bateman’s “Ten Years’ Diggings,” page 279.
26 This barrow has been admirably described in that magnificent work, “Crania Britannica,”—a work which every ethnologist and antiquary ought to possess, and which contains far more information than any other book extant. The following extract from the work explains the section:—
“Above this cist a cairn of fragments of sandstone had been raised
most likely before interments by cremation were practised on the spot. The dark horizontal line of our woodcut indicates the situation of a stratum of burnt earth traversing the barrow at this height. Funereal rites, by incineration, had evidently been celebrated on this surface; which was scattered over with a thin layer of wood-charcoal. In the centre of the barrow, and resting upon this carbonaceous deposit, stood a fine urn of dark British pottery, 11 inches high, and 9 at its greatest diameter at the top; not in the more commonly inverted, but in an upright position. It is ornamented in the usual style of lineal impressions, most probably made by a twisted thong of untanned leather, with rows of lines, alternately upright and horizontal, around the upper division; and in the middle the lines are varied into the zigzag, having distinct crosses and other impressions in the intervals. It contained calcined bones in a clean state, and mingled with them a portion of the jaw of some animal; bones of the water-vole (Arvicola amphibius, Desmar.), so common in the Derbyshire barrows; a bone pin, 4 inches in length, and finely pointed; and a flint arrow-head; all calcined. The urn was closed by a large flat stone, the two ends of which rested upon side walls, so as to protect the deposit, and secure it from superincumbent pressure. Did this urn contain the inconsiderable yet sacred remains of one whose devotion in life the distinguished dead below had oft experienced—one who held life itself subordinate to his fate? The fearful conjecture seems not by any means improbable.
“Interred in the soil above this portion of the barrow, and lying amongst loose stones, the remains of four other skeletons occurred, placed in the primitive flexed position. One of these had apparently been disturbed at no long period subsequent to interment, and the bones laid in order before they had become decayed—a practice adopted by some uncivilized people in more modern times.
“This barrow of the British period presents unquestionable evidences of very primeval times, and contained the relics of a true aboriginal inhabitant of these islands, piously laid in his last resting-place with great care, but in all rude simplicity. It is rich in instruction, and marked by precise phases of information. It shows almost certainly the contemporaneous adoption of inhumation and cremation—the latter, perhaps, yielding to the first a short precedency; or possibly, in this instance, a rite of the nature of a “Suttee,” and subordinate to the former.”
27 Warne’s “Celtic Tumuli of Dorsetshire.”
28 Celt, from Celtis, a chisel.
29 This is one of the largest examples which have been found. It is in my own collection, having been most kindly presented to me by the Hon. and Rev. C. Willoughby.
30 For a lengthened description and classification of the various forms of stone implements, the reader is referred to a new work, “The Ancient Stone Implements of Great Britain,” by that able antiquary, Mr. John Evans, the author of the admirable volume on “Ancient British Coins,” by which his name is so well known.
31 For a memoir, with portrait, of this remarkable character, and an account of his doings, see the Reliquary, vol, viii., p. 65, et seq.
32 “Ten Years’ Diggings.”
33 Reliquary for October, 1861.
34 “Nec habet quem porrigat ore trientem.”—Juvenal.
35 The skull of one of these, an excellent typical example of a Roman in the very prime of life, is engraved in “Crania Britannica,” pl. 30.
36 See example in the York museum.
37 “Collectanea Antiqua,” vol. iii., p. 45.
38 “Proceedings of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society;” Wellbeloved’s “Eburacum;” “Crania Britannica,” etc.
39 Now in the Bateman Museum.
40 See the Reliquary, vol. iv., p. 185.
41 In the Intellectual Observer.
42 See Mr. Roach Smith’s interesting account of this vase in the “Collectanea Antiqua,” vol. iv., pp. 82-89.
43 Wright.
44 Thomas Wright.
45 Wright.
46 For an interesting account of these potteries, see Wise’s “New Forest.”
47 For a detailed account of all the different pot-works and their productions, see my “Ceramic Art in England.”
48 C. R. Smith.
49 Shields.
50 Armour.
51 A detailed account of this discovery will be found, from the pens of Mr. Briggs, the Editor, and others, in the “Reliquary,” vol. ix.
52 Coat of mail.
53 C. R. Smith.
54 See the “Reliquary Quarterly Archæological Journal and Review,” vol. ix. p. 180.
55 “Ten Years’ Diggings,” p. 28.
56 “Vestiges,” p. 24.
57 For a more extended and fully illustrated account of penannular brooches, the reader is referred to the “Reliquary,” vol. iii.
58 “Ten Years’ Diggings,” p. 231.