ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS 



ceased altogether. Such a disturbance of the road-metal would not of course 

 impede an advance from the south by this route, but burials with brooches of 

 the sixth century below the crown of the road illustrate in a graphic manner 

 the changes that had taken place during the century and a half since the 

 Roman officials withdrew from Britain and left the province to its own 

 resources in face of Teutonic invasion. 



The Trent is known to have passed through Mercia just as the Thames 

 passed through Wessex of the sixth century, the river no doubt affording the 

 easiest means of access and communication in both cases. Though in Saxon 

 times the lower valley of the Trent was practically one vast morass, access to 

 its course above Newark was rendered easy by the existence of the Fosse 

 Way from Lincoln, which was itself readily approached by river from the 

 coast. What slight indications there are of the manner in which this area 

 became English ground, suggest that the main body passed up the river past 

 the future Nottingham to the junction with the Soar, and there divided, part 

 going westward towards the site of Burton and burying their dead at Mel- 

 bourne, Foremark, and Stapenhill, 9 and others passing up the tributary and 

 leaving traces of their occupation in such burial-grounds as that adjoining 

 Kingston Hall. 10 Little more than ten miles southward along the valley is the 

 site of the first Anglo-Saxon discoveries recorded in Leicestershire. 



The value of discoveries at Rothley Temple has been much impaired 

 by careless excavation ; but there can be no doubt that the site was occupied 

 in early Anglo-Saxon times. As long ago as 1784 a number of Roman coins, 

 chiefly of the Emperor Constantine (306 37), and a circular piece of bronze, 

 being perhaps part of a brooch, were found by a labourer digging a ditch in a 

 field near Rothley Temple. A few yards distant, remains of a building and the 

 cruciform brooch here illustrated (coloured plate, fig. 3) were met with at a 

 depth of 2 ft. ; and 60 yards from the spot was a tesselated pavement about 

 4 ft. square, lying about i ft. from the surface and consisting of limestone and 

 burnt clay cubes, this latter of several colours. These discoveries were re- 

 ported to the Society of Antiquaries of London u by the occupant of Rothley 

 Temple, Thomas Babington, the uncle of Lord Macaulay, and the brooch 

 was presented by him in 1788 to the society, by whose permission it is 

 reproduced. 



This unwieldy and barbaric ornament is practically the final form in 

 England of the ' long ' brooch common in the Scandinavian countries and in 

 parts of England, but its parentage could hardly be divined, so extensive are 

 the changes introduced both in outline and decoration. The three limbs of 

 the head represent the knobs attached to the edges of the square or oblong 

 plate of the Scandinavian brooch, which was of stout bronze with faceted 

 foot terminating in a * horse's head,' and with the head sometimes raised 

 across the centre and lightly stamped with rings or other simple patterns. 

 The tendency in England was to flatten the knobs and the bow, and to 

 broaden the extremities. For the plain surface of the bronze was substituted 

 gilding, engraving, and silver plates or discs attached to the terminals and 



' V.C.H. Derb. i, 272-5. 10 V.C.H. Notts, i, 201. 



11 MS. Minutes, vol. xxii, 433 ; Arch, ix, 370 ; Nichols, Hist, of Leie. iii, 956, pi. 129 ; Akerman, Pagan 

 SaxonJom, pi. xx, fig. 2 (brooch), 40. For further Roman discoveries, see Leic. Trans, ix, 157, 239 (1901) ; 

 Proc. Soc. Antiq. xix, 245. 



i 225 29 



