BOOK FITTING

A gilded copper-alloy strap-end, probably from a book, of box-like construction. The part containing the strap is basically rectangular and flat, with a shaped end with a median notch; it is pierced by two dome-headed copper alloy rivets used to secure the strap. This area is inscribed IhC (for Jesus Hominum Salvator, Jesus Saviour of Mankind) on a hatched field; the lettering is the right way up when the object is held with the attachment end and rivets to the left.

The object then enlarges into a hollow box-like lozenge-shaped element, cast in the form of an elaborate quatrefoil in high relief. The lozenge shape ends in an animal-head terminal transversely pierced to form a loop. There is a separate back-plate with a perforation on the reverse of the hollow box.

The strap-end would have been fixed to a strap attached to the back cover of a book, and the circular perforation in the backplate would have fitted over a peg in the front cover to keep the book closed. The transverse hole in the projecting lug is likely to have held a string or cord to help in removing it from the peg. The religious inscription would fit a use as a book-clasp. Length 51mm, plate width 23mm, thickness of 'box' 7mm.

Cf. HAMP-C0F9E7, SOMDOR-A28111, LANCUM-7FCAC5 and SUR-322ED5. Norfolk examples include Narborough/Narford (HER 32309), and another example found in field-walking at Bunwell in 1981. Note that there are also examples without the hole and the loop, which appear to be strap-ends (e.g. GLO-1BE761). Fingerlin (1971,111, nos.174-8) dates this type of strap-end to the second half of the 14th century, but her grounds for assigning such a narrow date-range are unclear.