STRAP FITTING

A copper alloy hooked, or looped fitting of 'socketed hook' type, most likely to be late Anglo-Saxon circa 11th century in date. It measures 36.1mm in total length, above the incomplete hooked terminal there are two opposing bars, the front one of which bears incised decoration. At the open terminal the bars are joined by a 'D' shaped ring which forms the open socket 17.6mm in width and 16mm in thickness, the front face of the socket has a protruding quatrefoil boss and traces of incised radiating lines can be seen on this. The solid incomplete hooked terminal has a central longitudinal ridge running down the centre of the front face and its incomplete tip is angled forwards, it measures it measures 5.8mm in width and 6.3mm in thickness at its incomplete tip. This example was found near to another more complete example see SF-FCF566, other similar detached fittings are known from England, most of which have broken loops looking very like hooks. Their function has hitherto been mysterious, and so they have been known as 'socketed hooks'. However, an example has now been discovered in Lincolnshire, see LIN-F29FC4, which is the first to be found with the central disc and suggests the objects function as a strap distributor or junction. Examples of the fittings are known from south-west Wiltshire (Read, 2001, p. 8, no. 39), for other examples recorded on the Portable Antiquities Sceheme database see, ESS-A983B8, BUC-BD2E16, BUC-1C1BB6, KENT-134CE6 and HAMP-006A88. Norfolk has produced by far the most from any English county, with finds of fittings from Attlebridge (SMR 34326), Cawston (SMR 32896), Roudham (SMR 25921) and East Walton (SMR 25856), and discs from Barwick (SMR 28705) and Fring (SMR 1659). The late Sue Margeson at Norwich Castle Museum, recognised them as Anglo-Scandinavian from their style of decoration, and began recording them in 1990. She suggested that the decoration was in Ringerike style, and that the objects should be dated to the eleventh century. Circular strap-distributors with three perforations for strapends are well known from Scandinavia from the ninth century onwards, and occasionally turn up in English contexts (e.g. at Brighthampton in Oxfordshire and at New Fresh Wharf in London). In Scandinavia they adorn belts, and often only two of the perforations have strap ends attached. The development into ‘socketed hooks’, however, seems to be a distinctively English innovation.