A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



the surface.' Some of the bowls are engraved in Archceologia^ and do not 

 differ essentially in shape from some of the Irchester specimens, while 

 the discoveries were made in similar circumstances, which point to some 

 connection with Roman civilization. 



The general appearance of some of these bowls which are skilfully 

 made of thin metal, suggests British workmanship of the pre-Roman 

 period, but in the opinion of the late Sir Wollaston Franks, the set 

 from Irchester belonged rather to the Saxon period, and differed essen- 

 tially from the Roman ; " and though it is true that the burial in 

 trenches is unfamiliar, and may well be the survival of the Roman 

 custom, the character of the objects accompanying the Desborough 

 bowl warrants the attribution of the cemetery to the Christian-Saxon 

 period. It must however be admitted that some of the graves in 

 which skeletons have been found placed east and west,^ with signs 

 of fire in the vicinity, but without any characteristic weapons or 

 ornaments, may be those of Romanized Britons, and date from the 

 fourth century, when the practice of cremation had given way to simple 

 burial in coffins, or cists composed of stone slabs such as occurred at 

 Desborough. 



The closest of parallels is to be found in Northamptonshire itself. 

 At Cransley, about four miles from Desborough, several finds were made 

 by the ironstone diggers between 1879 and 1882, and put on record by 

 the local secretary of the Society of Antiquaries.* In one place human 

 remains were found, but were too much decayed to afford any indication 

 of the direction in which the burials had been made. With these was 

 an iron sword-blade, fairly well preserved, 2 feet 3 inches in length and 

 1 1 inches in breadth at the widest part, having at the hilt a cross-piece 

 which broke away. Besides two circular bronze brooches, a spearhead 

 and minor relics, a curious urn about 5I inches in height came to light. ^ 

 It has lugs or rudimentary handles at intervals round the widest part and 

 tapers towards the mouth, while the base is rounded with little precision. 

 A small cylindrical bronze case or canister apparently belongs to a class of 

 which examples have been found in Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Derby- 

 shire and in the East and West Ridings of Yorkshire. This specimen was 

 found in a decayed and fragmentary state, but it was furnished with a lid, 

 and the bottom had a punctured design in the form of a cross, the sides 

 being also slightly ornamented in the same way. It was 2^ inches high, 

 with a diameter of 2 inches ; and the use of this class of objects is now 

 fairly ascertained, as more than one specimen' has been found with traces 

 of thread and even needles inside, so that they may be regarded as the 

 thread-boxes of Anglo-Saxon women. The occurrence of the cross as 



1 Vol. xvi. p. 364, pi. Ixix. * Proceedings, Society of Antiquaries, vol. vi. p. 476. 



' Cf. Associated Architectural Zockties (1875), Northants, p. 113. 



* Proceedings, vol. ix. pp. 93, 94. 



* Figured in Proceedings, Society of Antiquaries, vol. ix. p. 92, where it is incorrectly said to be 

 from Twywell. 



* Inienlorium Sepukhrale, p. 81, pi. xiii. ; Jewitt, Grave-Mounds and their Contents, p. 285, fig. 466 ; 

 Catalogue of Mortimer Museum at Driffield (1900), p. 21. 



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