PURSE

Incomplete cast copper alloy purse bar, missing the central square-shaped block, with its swivelling loop and neck, and the other side arm, with its suspension loop. The central block is drilled and would have fitted the swivelling neck of the loop. There are the remains of niello lattice work or cross hatching around the circumference of this side arm, which would have been mirrored on the other side. There is a moulded, stylised, zoomorphic head at one end of the arm, which would have attached to the central block, gripping the side arm, which is circular in cross-section, in its mouth. The side arm that remains is stepped from the edge of the mouth and widens in diameter to its terminal, which would have been beaded and is now missing. The terminal would have had a drilled hole to allow the bar to protrude from the end of the bead. Between the edge of the arm and the bead would have been a slot where the pendent loop would have fitted, to hold the pendent frame, now missing. The attachment flange, which houses the two sewing holes to attach it to the purse fabric, still hangs from the underside of the side arm, along its middle section. The side arm is 63.7 mm in length; the width with the flange is 12.6 mm; the thickness of the zoomorphic end is 9 mm and the diameter of the opposite end, missing the terminal, is 8 mm. It dates from the late 15th to the early 16th century. LMMC type A1 (London Museum and Ward Perkins, 1993, pages 162-165). Read (2001) illustrates a similar example with a square shield block and zoomorphic mouldings on page 130, Fig.84, No.905, and another, No.906, which is a fragment of a side bar, similarly worn, which are both dated to c.1450-1500.