ROWEL SPUR

An incomplete cast copper-alloy rowel spur of Medieval date. The neck and box survive intact, the remainder of the spur missing due to old breaks. The neck is lozenge-shaped in section, expanding in all directions towards the box. The box itself extends half way along the neck on the upper surface and perhaps half as much on the lower. The sides of the box are sub-triangular in section and extend towards circular terminals that perhaps curved downwards and are perforated by the remains of an iron bar that would have held the now missing rowel in place. On the upper surfaces of the neck and box are traces of gilding that would presumably originally have covered the entire object. It measures 30.34mm in length, 11.08mm in width/thickness at the neck, and weighs 15.89g. Ellis notes that rowel spurs first appear in use in Britain during the 13th century AD and are favoured throughout the remainder of the Medieval and Post-Medieval periods (Ellis in Clark, 1995: pp. 127-130). In her examination of the development of the rowel spur she adds that from the 15th century rowel boxes becoming increasingly elongated and that the curved profile of the boxes become gradually straighter after c.1450 AD. This suggests that the current spur fragment with its relatively short and curved box is of probably 13th-15th century AD date, or c.1250-1450 AD, with parallels noted from Medieval London (Clark, 1995: nos. 327, 330, 335).