Since 1983 a multi-disciplinary survey of buildings of the manor-house type in the historic duchy of Brittany has been undertaken. The present paper presents provisional results, chiefly based on work up to the 1987 season in two of the five modern départements of the province: Côtes-du-Nord and Ille-et-Vilaine. After a brief historical introduction discussing the political and social context of the manoirs, their relationship to earlier seigneurial dwellings such as motte-and-bailey castles or maisons-fortes, their origins and numbers are considered. Then the different forms of the manorial ensemble and existing types of building are surveyed, highlighting those where detailed archival, archaeological and dendrochronological studies have been carried out. The survey has brought to light a small number of standard forms originating in the Middle Ages. Their main features and variants are described and the general architectural evolution of this class of building down to the Renaissance is traced, concluding with a limited commentary on the broader historical context.

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.

This paper reassesses the transformation of Winchester Cathedral nave in the second half of the fourteenth century from the Romanesque to its present form. It argues for a more complex and earlier development than traditionally accepted, with the rebuilding of the nave itself beginning in the early 1370s rather than in 1394. After the construction of the new porches Edington had planned to rebuild the nave completely, but by the time of his death even the west end was incomplete. His successor, Wykeham, adopted a more cautious and staged remodelling, starting with the creation of a new great arcade which he began in the 1370s and resumed in 1394. Subsequently, Wykeham began to complete the rebuilding with remodelled aisles, the clerestory and the vault. The implications of this proposed earlier dating are explored, including providing a major work in the 1370s for William Wynford, one of the most important architects of the period.

This paper explores the cross-cultural portrayals of an unusual and striking musical instrument, the carnyx, on the coinages of the Romans and the inhabitants of Iron Age Britain and Gaul. Fashioned as a snarling boar, the carnyx was a war horn used by the Gauls and Britons that not only captivated the minds of their artists, but also those of the Romans. This paper studies the cross-cultural phenomenon of its appearance in the coin iconography of the late second to late first centuries bc. This simultaneous analysis of Roman, Gallic and British coinage reveals that while each culture had a shared belief in the carnyx’s military role, each culture also had its own interpretation of the object’s significance. To the Romans, it was a symbol of the barbarian, to be cherished as a war trophy after a Roman victory, but to those northern Europeans, it was a sign of pride and spiritual significance. An image’s meaning is, therefore, seen to transform as it crosses into a new cultural context.

Physical evidence of weapon trauma in medieval burials is unusual, and evidence for trauma caused by arrowheads is exceptionally rare. Where high frequencies of traumatic injuries have been identified, this is mainly in contexts related to battles; it is much less common in normative burials. Osteological analysis of one context from an assemblage of disarticulated and commingled human bones recovered from a cemetery associated with the thirteenth-century Dominican friary in Exeter, Devon, shows several instances of weapon trauma, including multiple injuries caused by projectile points. Arrow trauma is notoriously difficult to identify, but this assemblage shows that arrows fired from longbows could result in entry and exit wounds in the skull not incomparable to modern gunshot wounds. Microscopic examination of the fracture patterns and spalling associated with these puncture wounds provides tentative evidence that medieval arrows were fletched to spin clockwise. These results have profound implications for our understanding of the power of the medieval longbow, for how we recognise arrow trauma in the archaeological record and for our knowledge of how common violent death and injury were in the medieval past, and how and where casualties were buried.

The intentions expressed in William Sheldon's will of 1570 suggest an attempt to introduce tapestry weaving at Barcheston, Warwickshire. Interpreted in the 1920s as resulting in a commercial venture – the only production centre in Elizabethan England – tapestries were attributed to it without documentary evidence, without stylistic comparison with continental work and without study of the records of émigré Flemish weavers settling in London from 1559 onwards. Their presence and more easily available comparative material, in both documentary and tapestry form, combine W question the previous picture, never revised. On re-examination, the historical evidence used to link tapestries found at Chastleton House with Sheldon's enterprise appears weak. Challenging the time-honoured belief that those tapestries should be regarded as key pieces in the Sheldon corpus also calls into question subsequent attributions made by association, and opens the way for a new exploration of the tapestry industry in sixteenth-century England.

The life of Gildas by an eleventh-century Breton monk mentions his education at ‘Iren’. Though often taken to mean ‘Ireland’, this is more probably a corruption of ‘Cerin’, the Old Welsh name of ‘Corinium’ or Cirencester. If so, it implies the survival in sixth-century Britain of traditional Roman schools.

The chance discovery in 2007 at Pentire, on the outskirts of Newquay, Cornwall, of a leaded bronze neck-ring offers an opportunity to update our knowledge of other neck-rings of the ‘Wraxall’ class, predominantly from south-western Britain. The shared metallurgy and stylistic similarities of the neck-rings confirm previous opinion that the ‘Wraxall’ class belongs to a period when indigenous communities were being influenced by provincial Roman technology, while maintaining elements of indigenous art forms.

The Welshman Edward Lhuyd (?1659/60–1709), Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, was a naturalist, philologist and antiquarian. He wrote the Welsh additions to Camden's Britannia (1695) and undertook extensive research for an Archaeologia Britannica. He was part of the scientific revolution centred on the Royal Society and was influenced by the flowering of Anglo-Saxon studies in late seventeenth-century Oxford. Although many of his papers were destroyed, sufficient evidence survives to assess his methodology for recording early medieval antiquities – particularly inscribed stones and stone sculpture in Wales and other Celtic areas – as well as his analysis of them. His legacy is of considerable importance and he may be regarded as the founding father of early medieval Celtic archaeology.

Horace Walpole (1717–97) is well known for two important Gothic projects: his villa, Strawberry Hill, Twickenham (1747/8–80), and his novel, The Castle of Otranto (1764). These two manifestations of Walpole’s ‘Gothic imagination’ are frequently linked in critical literature on the Gothic Revival and medievalism more broadly; the relationship between Strawberry Hill, Otranto and manuscript illustrations visualising Otranto’s narrative has, on the other hand, received far less attention. This paper brings together a number of important and hitherto overlooked sources that help address this imbalance. In particular, it examines two large-scale watercolours by John Carter (1748–1817) that narrate some of Otranto’s pivotal scenes, allowing critically overlooked subtleties in their iconographies to emerge. The work establishes how Carter’s pre-existing interests – in particular, in Gothic architectural forms and heraldry – are harnessed to govern his representations of Otranto. These paintings, together with Carter’s other illustrations, demonstrate Walpole’s authorship of Otranto, expressed through codes hidden in plain sight. Unlike the frequently touted link between Strawberry Hill and Otranto in secondary criticism, Carter’s illustrations, the argument reveals, do not explicitly make this connection.

The investigation of the interior of the castle in 1925 resulted in the discovery of a series of furnaces in front of the well, the exploration of a circular house east of the well, and partial excavation of an area near the wall on the east side of the castle. The accumulation of debris from the wall, however, prevented continuation of this last piece of work right up to the wall itself. In 1927, therefore, with the kind permission of Mr. N. Matthews, who, since the first exploration in 1925, had acquired the property on which Chun Castle stands, it was decided to conduct further excavations in order to ascertain the nature of the site by the east wall and to investigate another portion of the interior of the castle.

Bronze bowls engraved in the interior with figure subjects during the Romanesque period are relatively numerous. But those with associated scenes or consecutive stories are few, and it is to this class that the two examples described in this paper belong, one having scenes derived from a Christian legend, the other subjects from classical mythology. The first, found in London, was formerly in the collection of Mr. W. Ransom of Hitchin; the second, brought up from the bed of the Severn very nearly a century ago, was presented by Sir James Agg Gardner, M.P., in 1920. We may begin with the example containing the Christian legend, the story of St. Thomas the Apostle.

I have the honour of laying before the Society, on behalf of my colleagues, a report of the operations carried out by the Executive Committee of the Silchester Excavation Fund during the year 1902, being the thirteenth successive season of the systematic exploration of the site.

Although the borough of Southwark abounds with subjects of historical and antiquarian interest, it has hitherto been greatly neglected by our metropolitan topographers and local historians; and we now know little more of that considerable portion of the metropolis than was recorded by John Stow, in his Survey of London, two hundred and fifty years ago.

The design and execution of the tomb of the Lady Margaret, with its recumbent figure, in the south aisle of the chapel of King Henry VII at Westminster, have long been attributed to Pietro Torrigiano, a Florentine artist. Until the documents here printed came to light in the Treasury, or Muniment Room, of St. John's College this seems to have been a matter of inference or tradition rather than a fact based on documentary evidence.

I now resume my consideration of the Architecture of England and part of France, and I intend in the present Paper to notice such Buildings in both Countries as are either known to be of a date prior to the year 1000, or in their clear difference from anything of later date, may, from that clear difference, and their relation to works known to be before the year 1000,— be well permitted to be considered of an earlier date, until proved to be of a later one.

Among the Manuscripts which were some time ago purchased by Government of the Representatives of Mr. Francis Hargrave, and which are now deposited in the British Museum, I have laid my hand upon the Transcript of an Order made by Cardinal Wolsey, as Lord Chancellor, for the regulation of the Household Expences and general Management of the Affairs of the young Earl of Oxford, then a minor. In the 15th year of King Henry the 8th. A.D. 1524.

The textile is not a wholly suitable material to receive lettering, at any rate in our Western angular alphabets; the stitches have to be very fine to preserve satisfactorily the characteristic forms of letters, and it seems difficult to work a word or sentence satisfactorily into the design. In the best ages of Western ecclesiastical embroidery, texts from Scripture and prayers were avoided; we may find the name of a saint, especially if his attribute is not very obvious, and, more often, the sacred monograms IHC and XP (). In later times examples of lettering in needlework, most familiar to us Englishmen in the ‘sampler’, usually seem to have something of the bizarre about them.