V
MEDIÆVAL
ANTIQUITIES
CHAPTER V
MEDIÆVAL ANTIQUITIES
Domestic brasswork—Metal signs and badges—Ornamental trinkets—Arms and armour.
As the collector of copper and brass assembles his treasures and arranges them according to the different periods in which they were made, it is always the household utensils which predominate. As time goes on their number increases and the ornamental blends with the useful; but the increase in the variety is only in proportion to the gradual extension of the number of other household curios of contemporary dates.
The period under review, for convenience termed mediæval, extends in actual fact from the rougher days of the Norman sovereigns to those when bluff King Hal held court and Elizabeth made so many "grand tours" among the country seats of her people. At the beginning of this period the furniture of even the nobility and wealthy ecclesiastics was very scanty, and when the proud barons moved from one castle to another they carried with them all their household furnishings, even their more treasured culinary utensils of copper and brass. They stowed them away along with their jewels and their other belongings in oak coffers, which in the earliest days were made so that they could be carried on poles by retainers.