In the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library of Columbia University in New York is an interleaved second (1819) edition of Thomas Rickman's An Attempt to Discriminate the Styles of English Architecture. This volume contains sixty-six relatively unknown illustrations of medieval architecture in Rickman's hand which can be dated to the later 1830s. It was discovered that many of these drawings in the Avery Library were either traced outright or modelled after plates from well-known contemporary works on architecture, in particular the works of John Britton. There is reason to think that Rickman may have purchased the rights to Britton 's plates and other sources, revised them, and had intended to reprint them as lithographs to illustrate afifth edition of An Attempt.

The Dean and Chapter of Durham Cathedral very kindly gave me permission to exhibit Flambard's crosier to the Society after it had been cleaned and repaired in the Laboratory of the British Museum during the latter part of 1937, and I am further indebted to them for allowing me to print the notes that I prepared for the evening of its exhibition. I must also record my gratefulness to them for sending Flambard's ring to London in order that the Society might have the pleasure of inspecting both these famous relics of the celebrated bishop.

The small Middle Bronze Age hoard from West Buckland, Somerset has been assumed to be lost since its publication in 1880. Plaster casts still exist of the objects in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford. Parallels are given for these objects and their chronology discussed. The way in which the casts may have reached the collection is considered. The circumstances of the find are also discussed, with the possibility that these objects may be from a burial, thus raising the question of our definition of hoards.

This article seeks to counteract the tendency of some recent historians to underrate antiquarian studies in medieval England. It demonstrates the flourishing antiquarianism of the fifteenth century, first especially among the monks and later among the clergy and even the laity. The monks did research on local history in order to prove the antiquity and legal rights of their houses, while the ‘seculars’ viewed the subject more broadly. It is usually impossible to assess exactly to what extent a scholar engaged in antiquarian studies for practical reasons, and to what extent his motive was objective, intellectual curiosity; however, the evidence suggests that by the end of the century the latter motive was gaining ground.

The Rose Ash bowl was found by Mr. B. M. Ayre of Munson Farm when he was cutting drainage channels in the corner of a marshy field in September 1959. It came up in the shovel of a mechanical digger and Mr. Ayre noticed it as soon as the load was turned out: it lay bottom upwards on the heap of sticky grey clay and ‘shone as though it were gold’. He took it back to the farmhouse, washed it under the tap, and the next day, since he was going to Barnstaple, took it into the North Devon Athenaeum and asked the Curator, Mr. A. Blackwell, to identify it. Mr. Blackwell very properly sent it to the British Museum, and kindly told me about the discovery.

The paper deals with a well-known group of Tudor bucklers (once thought to be Roman), made of leather reinforced with riveted iron or brass rings, sometimes accompanied by radiating strips. The evidence of a group of fifteenth-and sixteenth-century Welsh poems and other records is used to establish that they originated in Wales, and that Wrexham was a noted centre of production. A corpus of recorded examples is given.

The Benedictine Nunnery at Mailing, Kent, was founded by Bishop Gundulf of Rochester (1076-1107) c. 1090, and though there appears to be some evidence of a pre-conquest foundation here, it is to Gundulf that the medieval nunnery owes its origin, and much of the walling still remaining can confidently be ascribed to his period. Of particular interest is the eastern processional doorway (pl. xivb) constructed entirely in calcareous tufa and probably the earliest doorway of its kind in the country.

The primary object of the work of 1928 was to follow up the discovery in 1927 of the unexpectedly strong and heavy foundation underlying the north-east corner mound. As a result of this year's work it is evident that this corner mound represents some heavy structure which is best explained as a circular corner tower built into the town walls at their northeast angle; but even its foundations were so broken up that it was impossible to discover any outline or recover a complete ground plan. Oh the outside, instead of extending beyond the walls themselves, the circumference of the structure lay flush with the curved external angle of the walls, while on the inside its circumference projected slightly beyond the angle of the walls proper. It was thus rather an internal than an external tower, a fact which it is important to bear in mind.

Chastleton Camp, or Chastleton Barrow (pl. LIV, 1 and 2), as it is sometimes called, is situated at the south-east end of the parish, which projects like some huge spur from the north-west edge of the county and from the line of the road which on either side of the base of the spur for a short distance divides Oxfordshire from Gloucestershire on the one hand and from Warwickshire on the other. This road is an age-long trackway running diagonally across England by way of the Jurassic Belt from the Cotswolds to Northamptonshire, and is fringed by many remains of prehistoric man, in addition to the Rollright Stones and the dolmen known as the Whispering Knights. Along it must have moved the invaders of the early Iron Age to their conquest of the Midlands, establishing a line of strongholds of which Chastleton must in its original condition have been a formidable example.

The sanctuary ring on the north door of Durham Cathedral is one of the most striking achievements of Romanesque bronze casting. In 1977 concern for its safety was expressed by the cathedral authorities and the decision was eventually taken to remove the familiar animal head and replace it with a copy. There was no evidence on the door that the ring had ever been removed previously and so, for the first time, it was possible to give the ring a thorough examination in laboratory conditions. Preliminary metallurgical tests were carried out in the Victoria and Albert Museum while the British Museum was responsible for making the cast (see Appendix). The original is now displayed in the Durham Cathedral treasury while a copy hangs on the door.

The MS. exhibited this evening by the Provost and Fellows of Eton College belongs to a class of which very few now exist in this country. It consists of a collection of motets and magnificats for several voices, the music of each part being so written upon opposite pages that when the book is open the different parts can be sung by all the singers at the same time. This was the earliest method of writing part-music. It is found in the great collection of church music formerly preserved at Trent, a collection which contains numerous specimens of the English composers of the fifteenth century; it is also found in the Modena MS. (the chief source of our knowledge of John Dunstable) at Bologna, and, indeed, in all early MSS. of mensurable music. The system was even followed by the printers of the great editions of Orlando di Lasso and of Palestrina, the arrangement of the various parts being precisely the same as in those of the MS. now before us. Subsequently superseded by the use of part-books, from which each singer could sing his own part, it was not until the seventeenth century that full scores appeared; before then they are practically non-existent, even in MS. Though we know from the evidence of the Bologna, Trent, and Modena MSS., that the early school of composition of which Dunstable was the founder must have rapidly arrived at a high degree of elaboration, if not of perfection, the traces of it now to be found in this country are extremely slight. It is this fact which makes the Eton MS. so valuable, for the compositions it contains are without exception by Englishmen, several of whom, as I shall presently hope to show, were men of high reputation in their day. So rare have collections of this sort become, that I believe I am right in saying that there are now in England only two other MSS. of the kind which, for size and importance of their contents, can at all compare with the Eton volume. These are respectively preserved in the Libraries of Lambeth Palace and of Caius College, Cambridge, both dating from a little later than the Eton book.

This paper analyses the evidence relating to the heraldry used by the patriarchs of the de Bohun family (1066–1373) as preserved in seal impressions, rolls of arms, manuscripts, wills, inventories and personal objects held in private collections. It traces the development of the family’s coat of arms, as well as the adoption and use by the de Bohun earls of various heraldic symbols (such as the swan, the trefoil, the leopard and the wyvern) to serve as a reminder of the family’s glorious ancestry and its many royal and noble marital alliances. By analysing the unique heraldry adopted by each de Bohun earl, this paper concludes that the family’s noble identity evolved over several generations and that the choice of heraldic symbols by each earl was highly individual, providing a unique insight into their sense of identity and personal values, as well as their desire to ensure family memory.