484 Notes on Iron Objects of Eoman {T) Age in the Society's Museum. 



connection with objects of the Frankish and Carlovingian Ages 

 and in England in circumstances which point to its having been 

 in nse in the Norman period. Indeed he is inclined to believe 

 that in France at least such shoes were in use as late as the four- 

 teenth century, though he allows that Mr. Fleming is probably 

 right in attributing its origin to Celtic times. The General's later 

 excavations, however, carried out in the Bomano-British Villages 

 in the neighbourhood of Eushmore, on the borders of Wilts and 

 Dorset, led him to conclude that in Soutli Wilts, at least, these 

 shoes were undoubtedly in use in Eomano-British times, and that 

 they are certainly of British make. He illustrates specimens found 

 in the Eomano-British village of Eotherley, in the ditch of Wor 

 Barrow, and on Woodcuts Common, 1 and notes that they have 

 occurred at the Saalburg, in Germany. No shoes of this type were 

 found at Silchester. Gen. Pitt-Eivers regards it as a British, as 

 distinct from a Eoman, type, though in many cases, as stated above, 

 it is certainly of the Eoman period. A specimen found on the 

 site of the Eoman villa at Beckley has been recently placed in 

 the Ashmolean Museum. 2 



1 Excavations,!., p. 97, PL XXXL, Fig. 2 ; II., p. 139, PI. CVL, Fig. 13 ; 

 IV., pp. 84, 90, Plates 257, 258, Figs. 4 and 24. 



See also Journal of Brit. Arch. Assoc, VI., 406. 



2 The authorities of this Museum, however, hesitate to accept even this 

 latter example as of Roman date, and I am indebted to Mr. E. Thurlow 

 Leeds for the following letter : — " The keeper has desired me to reply to 

 your letter about the horse-shoe from Beckley. It is, of course, not im 

 possible, in view of Gen. Pitt-Rivers' finds, that some may be as early as 

 Roman times, and even the Beckley example might be classed in the same 

 category- The keeper's statement is based on the material in the Museum, 

 which tends to prove that they are in most cases later. During the drainage 

 works in Oxford in the seventies of last century, eight such shoes were 

 purchased for the Museum ; they were all found about 15ft. down, near 

 the old castle (Oxford), between that and New Road. Two of them are of 

 lead. As it is quite a common occurrence for baluster jugs of the thirteenth 

 and fourteenth centuries to be found as deep as 20ft. and more, nothing 

 seemed to warrant assigning these shoes to a greater age. Further, though 

 the shoe was found on the site of the Roman villa at Beckley, that cannot 

 be regarded as proof positive. . . . Unless there is evidence that the 

 horseshoe came from some distance beneath the reach of the plough . . . 

 It seems more prudent to call them post -Roman, except when, as in the 

 case of Gen. Pitt-Rivers' excavations, some very good evidence is forth- 

 coming for a contrary opinion." 



