A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



suggests that four tongues were fixed to the hinges which were originally 

 four in number round the edge. It will be noticed that the leading motive 

 of the design is a Greek cross, on the arms of which are represented four 

 fishes. Comparison with continental specimens' shows clearly that both 

 the cross and the fish are here symbolic of the Christian faith ; the former 

 taking the place of the earlier Chi-Rho monogram, and the latter long 

 surviving the period of persecution in which it had its origin. 



Another highly decorated jewel was figured and described in the 

 Gentleman s Magazine^ just a century ago. It had been found five or six 

 years previously, but the locality is uncertain. The original account 

 says it was associated with some human bones at a spot somewhere 

 between Husband's Bosworth in Leicestershire and Welford which stands 

 on the border of Northamptonshire. Whether this brooch was found 

 within the limits of the county is therefore open to question, but the 

 late Sir Henry Dryden made a drawing' of it now among his papers at 

 Northampton and called it ' the Naseby brooch.' The site in that case 

 would still be on the road leading to Bosworth, and would justify the 

 inclusion of the object among the antiquities of Northamptonshire, but 

 no particulars of the discovery are given in the sale catalogue of the 

 Baker collection (1842) to which he refers, and it may be a simple error, 

 as Naseby occurs on the line above. The brooch is in the form of a flat 

 ring, the hollow centre being spanned by the pin. The front is of gold, 

 half an inch in width, with gold filigree and four pearls, each set with 

 a slab of garnet, and is fastened by gold wire to a thin plate of silver 

 which forms the base. But better than any description is the coloured 

 drawing in Akerman's Pagan Saxondom, pi. xxxii. fig. 2, 



Other minor discoveries in the county are a small urn and iron 

 knife from Thenford, not far from Marston St. Lawrence ; the objects 

 being figured and described as of the Roman period in Beesley's History of 

 Banbury (p. 31), and now preserved at Northampton with one of three 

 similar urns from Cranford. 



An interesting relic of the late Saxon period is a book-clasp (fig. 7) 

 found on the site of the Cathedral singing-schools at Peterborough 

 and now in the British Museum. It is of triangular form, with a 

 convex surface on which is a raised design of intertwined animals, which 

 constituted the leading ornamental motive in the art of north-western 

 Europe after the combination of Irish interlacing with the animal forms 

 of the Carlovingian Renaissance. 



A century and a half ago some remains, apparently Saxon, came 

 to light not far from Market Harborough, and are thus insufficiently 

 described in the Gentleman's Magazine : * ' In a gravel pit on the north- 

 east side of Little Bowden field near the river Welland were found several 



' Baudot, Sepultures Merovingiennes de la Bourgogne, pll. xii., xiii. and pp. 47, 92. 



* 1800, p. 121, pi. iii. fig. I, and 1815, p. 209 ; another drawing is given by de Baye, Industrial 

 Arts, pi. ix. fig. 5. 



** Communicated by the Curator of the Northampton Museum, whose Archaologual Survey of 

 Northants has been of much service. 



* 1757. P- 21. 



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