ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS 



with red or white enamel like the ground, or with a gem of some kind. 



All the Chesterton discs may possibly have belonged to the same 

 bowl, as the second large one might have been fixed to the bottom 

 inside ; but no traces of the thin bronze vessel remain, and there is no 

 detailed account of the discovery. 1 This is much to be regretted, as 

 further light on this subject would be most welcome to archaeologists. 

 At present the evidence is a tangle of contradictions, and only a ten- 

 tative conclusion can be arrived at in dealing with the Warwickshire 

 specimens. Such enamelled mounts with or without the bowls have been 

 found in eleven English counties, 2 and apparently only two specimens are 

 known from Ireland ; a yet in spite of the occurrence of five in Romanized 

 Kent out of a total of sixteen, and of their scarcity in Ireland, it is hard 

 to believe that they were not imported from beyond St. George's Channel. 

 Again, though one such bowl has been found in an east-and-west burial 

 on Middleton Moor, Derbyshire, another had been placed near the head 

 of a skeleton at the north end of a grave 4 at Barlaston, Staffs ; and 

 though this would leave their Christian origin in doubt, the discovery 

 of the Lullingstone bowl in Kent, and the constant occurrence of the 

 disc-designs in the early illuminated manuscripts of Ireland, render their 

 connection with the Church a practical certainty, while a negative proof 

 is furnished by their absence from cremated interments. 



Assuming therefore, in spite of some indications to the contrary, 

 that the bowls were made or utilized by Christian ecclesiastics, it may 

 be conjectured that they were introduced into this country by the Celtic 

 priests of the Scotic mission, to whom we owe the conversion of the 

 greater part of England ; and if reliance can be placed on the accepted 

 date of the book of Durrow, the enamels may be referred to the seventh 

 century, when the earlier trumpet-pattern (fig. 8) was giving way to 

 the more purely Christian treatment of the spiral (fig. 9). But even if 

 all this be granted it still remains for the antiquary to specify the use 

 of these bowls and to explain why they are found not only in the 

 graves of men and women alike, but also with the arms and accoutre- 

 ments of the pagan warrior in England of the seventh century as well 

 as in a Norwegian grave-mound of the Viking period. 6 



Ten miles to the south-west, where the Fosse Way enters the county 

 by Halford Bridge, two separate discoveries have been made, but as the 

 accounts are not very explicit and are devoid of illustrations, it is 

 uncertain whether either of them should be attributed to the Anglo- 

 Saxon period. In November 1790, three skeletons were found lying 

 from south to north, with a bed of limestone above and below, about 

 2 1 feet below the surface. The most careful burial of the three con- 



1 Journal of Archtfological Institute, ii. 162 ; Journal of British Archaeological Association, iii. 282. 



2 In addition, a small fragment from Morden, Surrey, in the British Museum, and a bird-shaped 

 mount with part of bowl from Basingstoke, Hants. 



3 The designs are reproduced on title-page of J. O. Westwood's Facsimiles of Angk-Saxon and 

 Irish MSS. 



* A plan is given in Jewitt's Grave Mounds and their Content!, p. 259. 



6 A bowl of the same kind but without enamel is figured in O. Rygh's Norske Oldiager, No. 726. 



259 



