BROOCH

An early-medieval to medieval lead-alloy shield brooch dating from AD 1050 - AD 1175, of Weetch type 26. The brooch is an elongated drop shape, or kite shaped. The outer face is decorated with five pellets, the centre one larger, equi-distantly spaced, forming a saltire with a pellet in the centre. The central pellet is surrounded by a ring of smaller pellets, with similar arcs round each of the other main pellets. There is a vertical band of decoration in the form of a column of pellets with a high-relief double strand either side. There is a matching horizontal band crossing through the central pellet, and similar bands but with transverse ridges instead of pellets forming a cross saltire behind the ornate centre of the pellet cross. The border of the brooch is slightly raised and decorated with oblique raised lines. In profile the brooch is almost flat and is slightly undulating due to damage.

The fixing of the brooch is horizontally across the rounded end. It is in the form of the stub of an incomplete integral pin projecting from the reverse at one end, and a loop projecting to the side at the other end. On the reverse is a thickened rim round the edge of the brooch. The length is 47.7mm, the width is 26.7mm, the thickness is 5.5mm and the weight is 9.5g.

The brooch is very similar to WAW-4E7AB3 and LIN-0CD090. Other shield brooches of Weetch Type 26 on the database depict a lion: YORYM-840603 and NLM-AC67C6. Another possible example of a different design is SWYOR-988AA1. All the examples listed above are from Linconshire, the East Riding and Doncaster.

In her thesis, Weetch (2014) catalogues 5 examples of type 26 brooches, all from London, and part of the "London Series" of brooches originally only known from examples in London. All the London examples have the cross motif decoration, like this example, and Weetch notes that "The only other example is the gold shield-shaped brooch with an elaborate rampant lion motif from Folkingham Castle in Lincolnshire found in the 1860s, which has been dated art-historically to the late twelfth century (Cherry and Goodall 1985: 471-2). Whilst the Folkingham brooch is a similar length (c.40mm) to the London lead-alloy examples, and features a similar hatched border, there are numerous differences. The most obvious are the material and decoration. The gold Folkingham brooch has an engraved, complex
lion motif, compared to the simple, cast cross-shaped motifs of the London series."

The examples recorded on the PAS database (listed above) provide further examples of the lion decoration but on lead brooches, and provide further evidence of examples from outside London. It is interesting that there seems to be a Lincolnshire/Eastern Yorkshire distribution for these brooches.