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Early Anglo-Saxon Applied Disc Brooches. Part II: in England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

Vera I. Evison
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Summary

The development of the earliest Germanic applied disc brooches is followed from their beginning in the Elbe valley to the fifth century in England. Third-century types constructed with rivets on a flat background were produced in the Elbe valley, giving way in the fourth century to a type soldered on to a concave base, and they spread to the middle and lower Elbe valley, to Holland, the Rhineland, Belgium, and northern France, increasing in numbers at the end of the fourth century, but not surviving the fifth century. The main designs were concentric circles, star, floriate cross, scrolls, and animal ornament.

The series goes on in England without any break in continuity of form or decoration, and the earliest types belong to the fifth century, mainly the first half. With the densest concentration in the Upper Thames area, they are otherwise mostly distributed south of the Thames with some along the Icknield Way. As they are associated with a post-Roman stage of metalwork, the Quoit Brooch Style, they must indicate Germanic settlements, no doubt mercenary in the earliest stages.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 58 , Issue 2 , September 1978 , pp. 260 - 278
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1978

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References

NOTES

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66 Evison, V. I., ‘Quoit brooch style buckles’, Antiq. Journ. xlviii (1968), 232–40Google Scholar. In a later article Mr. Welch seems to be inclining towards earlier dating, but concludes that graves 201 and 205 at Mitcham containing floriate cruciform applied brooches cannot be dated before the middle of the fifth century: Welch, M. G., ‘Liebenau inhumation grave II/196 and the dating of the Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Mitcham’, Med. Arch., xx (1976), 134–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar. He also remarks that no one has yet suggested that the cemeteries of High Down and Alfriston begin before the middle of the fifth century. This is difficult to reconcile with his statements earlier in the same article (p. 134) that he considers the floriate cross brooches were made between A.D., 430 and 470 and also (p. 135) that the Mucking buckle shows that the Quoit Brooch Style workshops were operating in the first half of the fifth century, for High Down and Alfriston have more Quoit Brooch Style objects, inlaid metalwork, and glasses of the fourth and fifth century than most cemeteries.