A HISTORY OF HERTFORDSHIRE 



under proper supervision have added much more to our scanty knowledge 

 of the period. As it is there is nothing to indicate the direction in which 

 the body had been laid, or to substantiate the local story that the 

 ewer was full of coins. Of the objects known to have been associated 

 with the bronze vessel, the glass cup belongs to a type frequently 

 occurring in Kentish graves, but also represented in other parts of the 

 country, as at Desborough, Northants ; Clacton, Essex ; Southampton 

 and the Isle of Wight. The majority of these vessels are tumblers in 

 the true sense of the word ; for being footless, with more or less pointed 

 bases, they could not stand alone, but had to be emptied before being 

 set down. This may account for their popularity among a race whose 

 drinking habits were almost proverbial ; and the discovery of such a cup 

 with the bronze ewer seems to show that the funeral observances of the 

 Anglo-Saxons took a similar direction. 



With regard to the ewer, on the other hand, the Rhine district 

 furnishes the only parallels known. Three from the Alemannic terri- 

 tory have been figured and described, 1 and so far as one can judge from 

 photographs the Wheathampstead specimen is superior to any hitherto 

 published. Though all four clearly belong to one class, the clumsi- 

 ness and ill-proportion complained of by Dr. Lindenschmit are not so 

 noticeable in the Hertfordshire example. This however is probably 

 a mere accident, and would certainly not justify the inference that 

 bronze was better worked in Britain than abroad at that period. For 

 instance, a bowl from Walluf, which happens to be figured on the same 

 plate as the three ewers from Germany and is now preserved in our 

 national collection, is quite as well made as the best of the kind from 

 the graves of Kent, and shows at least a trade connection between the 

 inhabitants of both localities. 



The Alemannic vessel most like that from Wheathampstead is 

 about an inch less in height, and came from a woman's grave at 

 Wonsheim in Rhenish Hesse, about thirty miles south of Mayence. 

 With it was found a bronze bowl like the Walluf example just men- 

 tioned, and a similar bowl was associated with a second ewer at Mtinzes- 

 heim in Baden. The remaining ewer was found in a double grave at 

 Pfahlheim near Ellwangen in eastern Wiirtemberg, with typical Ale- 

 mannic relics, including a stirrup and spurs. The occurrence of a pair 

 of spurs in this interment is of importance as approximately marking its 

 date, as it has been ascertained that till the latter half of the seventh 

 century, at least on the continent, only a single spur was worn, and that 

 apparently on the left heel, so as to drive the horse to the right and thus 

 present the shield arm to an enemy. A similar argument as to date has 

 been drawn from the presence of a stirrup, which seems to have been 

 adopted about the same time as the pair of spurs. 



These Alemannic examples are enough to prove that the inhabi- 

 tants of Kent had dealings with the settlers on the middle Rhine during 

 the seventh century, and at least suggest that the district now called 



1 Lindenschmit, Alurthumer unserer heidnischen Vorzelt, vol. iv. pi. 58, figs, i, 2, 3. 



