A HISTORY OF KENT 



brooch, though the pin is now missing, and the arms are ornamented 

 with leaves attached to a wavy stem, while the centre is raised and 

 slightly tapers. To the centre of each arm is attached a triangular silver 

 plate, engraved with a looped triangle filled 

 with niello, a favourite design in manuscripts' 

 and metal-work in the tenth and late ninth 

 centuries. 



Another relic of the Danish period is a 

 bronze-gilt penannular brooch' (fig. 23), with- 

 out its pin, found at the North Gate, Canter- 

 bury, at the end of 1901. The terminals were 

 moulded in relief with a geometrical design 

 and grotesque animal heads that are strongly 

 suggestive of Scandinavia, and it may be that 

 '^:L,t™S;a^^ ^^^ brooch was lost by a Northman in the 

 attack on Canterbury in 85 1, the year when 

 the heathen army wintered for the first time in England. 



At Canterbury also was found the largest 'coin-brooch' known, 

 (fig. 27) enclosing a medal in the style of Eadgar's coinage and bearing the 

 legend NOMINE DOMINI and 4pVDEMAN FECID.' The brooch is of silver, 

 over 3 inches across, and has twelve concentric rings forming a pearled 

 border, while the back is braced with V-shaped strips of silver. The 

 maker's name. Woodman, must have been common enough, and a 

 moneyer of that name was minting at Shrewsbury under Edward the 

 Confessor : the brooch was probably made about 970-80. 



A remarkable knife of the later Anglo-Saxon period from Sitting- 

 bourne was described by Sir John Evans in 1872.'' It is I2| inches 

 long and has a maximum breadth of i| inches, the tang measuring 3I 

 inches. From the single cutting edge the blade thickens, and the back 

 is inlaid with a strip composed of alternate pieces of silver and brass. 

 The principal face is inlaid with the same metals in panels with a 

 border below, and the owner's name is inserted in two parts : 

 + S GEBEREHT M eAh. On the other face the maker's name is given 

 in a continuous strip, + BIORHTELM ME pORTE, with inlaid borders 

 above and below. While the latter inscription was no doubt executed 

 at the time of manufacture, the former seems to have been inserted 

 subsequently, when the knife passed into the possession of one 

 Sigebereht, if that is indeed the true reading of the name. There is, 

 however, a wide space between S and G, and no signs of an intermediate 

 letter having dropped out. The S preceded by a cross recalls the 

 legends of seals in the middle ages, the letter standing for Sigillum ; but 

 in this connexion it could only have been inserted by mistake, and the 

 name may possibly be GEBEREHT, followed by the Anglo-Saxon for 

 ' owns me.' Here again the reading is uncertain, the more natural 



' As Brit. Mus. Egerton MS. 768, opening of St. John's Gospel. 

 = Proc. Soc. Antiq. xix. 298. 3 Ibid. xix. 210. 



* Arch. xliv. 331; Payne, Coll. Cant. in. 



