1906] 



The cruciform brooches of Norway. 



83 



the composition of the foot — the animal-heads excepted — are 

 certainly most closely related to the West-Norwegian series here 

 before us, I have preferred to introduce them at this place in the 

 description. It may be noted in this connexion that a similar 

 ornamentation of the foot is common among the cruciform brooches 

 in England, but there arranged in such a different manner that I 

 consider an iniiuence from that country excluded. 



We have now reached the last stage of development of the 

 cruciform brooches in Norway; from this point the cruciform type 

 ceased to be the fashionable ornament of the dress and was there- 

 fore subject to no more typological transformations. The large and 

 line brooches were now made after another type than the cruci- 

 form. Only a few of the smallest 

 and most worthless specimens 

 which will be mentioned in con- 

 nexion with the chronological 

 questions treated in the following, 

 may be of a later date than any 

 of the specimens mentioned in the 

 description. 



It would be a tempting task 

 to explain why the cruciform broo- 

 ches were used no longer in onr 

 country while they in England 

 produced a series of remarkable 

 variations later than all the broo- 

 ches found in Scandinavia. It is 

 difficult to answer a question of 



this sort. But I think the disappearance of the cruciform brooches 

 in Norway was partly due to the increasing taste for a surface 

 ornamentation in relief which became at that time predominant in 

 the Teutonic world. We are going to see that the latest develop- 

 ment of the cruciform brooches in England is directed by this taste, 

 and that the surface of the brooches becomes more and more covered 

 with complicated ornamental patterns; but the Norwegian brooches 

 were not lit for such ornamentation, as their attraction consisted in 

 the lively eontrasts of light and shadow produced by the sharp 

 facets and edges of the form itself; consequently they did not afford 

 such large and flat surfaces as were necessary for the decoration 

 with animal-ornaments in relief. 



Fig. 98. 



