It has originally been set with amber or paste, and has been richly gilt and enamelled. The interlaced ornaments are most exquisitely and elaborately formed, and are of great variety, and the heads of animals are of excellent and characteristic form. The head of the acus, or pin, is large and beautifully ornamented, and, like the ring, has been set with studs. The pin itself, as will be seen by the accompanying engraving ([fig. 458]), is flattened and made thin at its upper end, and bent so as to allow of the free passage of the ring through it, and is riveted on to the ornamented plate in front.
Fig. 458.
It is remarkable that, in this fibula, the ring, which, like other examples of this form of brooch, has been made to play freely for half its circumference through the acus, has been riveted to the head of the pin in the position shown in the engraving. That it has been much worn in this position—across the breast or shoulder—is evident from the ring being much worn where the pin has pressed against it when clasped. I believe this is the only example on record in which the pin has been fixed to the side of the ring, and this was certainly not the original intention of the maker of the brooch, but was done subsequently. This will be seen by the engraving of the profile of the head of the acus, on [fig. 458]. On one or two examples of penannular brooches, inscriptions in Ogham characters have been found, and it is highly interesting to be able to add that, on the back of the Derbyshire example, faint traces of Oghams still remain.
Fig. 459.
Another brooch, of silver, found in England, though different in form from the expanded examples just given, and although of later date, is nevertheless of the same construction. It is engraved of a reduced size on [fig. 459]. “The acus has been broken off. There appears to have been a third knob, now lost, which should correspond with the knob B, the acus passing between the two. The upper knob A is very loose, and moves freely around the ring. The knob B turns, but much less freely, and does not pass over C, having merely a lateral motion of one-fourth of an inch.” The diameter of the widest part is nearly five and a half inches; the globular ornaments measure one and a quarter inches in diameter. The under side of each of the balls is flat, and is engraved with ornaments, as shown on the engraving. This brooch belongs to Mr. C. Carus Wilson, and closely resembles some of the Irish examples.
Of the mode of wearing penannular brooches, the late Mr. Fairholt says: “By the sumptuary laws of the ancient Irish, the size of these brooches, or fibulæ, were regulated according to the rank of the wearer. The highest price of a silver bodkin for a king or an ollamh, which, according to Vallancy, was thirty heifers, when made of refined silver; the lowest value attached to them being the worth of three heifers. From this it may be inferred, that the rank of the wearer might always be guessed at from the fibulæ he wore.” The rank of the wearers of the “Tara Brooch”—the most famous of all the Irish brooches at present known—and of the Derbyshire example, must, judging from their large size and truly exquisite workmanship, have been high.
The extreme rarity of brooches of this form in England, leads one, naturally, to the conclusion that they were not much worn by the inhabitants of this country, and that, therefore, they can hardly be considered to belong to the nationality, if I may so speak, of the Anglo-Saxons. Nevertheless, examples having been here found in close proximity to undoubted Anglo-Saxon remains, and the style of ornamentation being strictly in keeping with much belonging to that period, there can be no doubt that they must be included amongst our Anglo-Saxon antiquities.
Some of the most beautiful objects, along with the fibulæ, which the graves of the Anglo-Saxons yield, are the pendant ornaments of various kinds which were worn by that race of people. The objects of this class are extremely varied; but their beauty, like those of the richly studded and gilt fibulæ, and the enamelled studs and bosses, cannot well be understood without the aid of coloured illustrations. Of these a set of exquisite pendants were found along with several other interesting objects, in a barrow on Brassington Moor, by Mr. Bateman. Eleven of these pendants are large and brilliantly coloured garnets beautifully set in pure gold, two are entirely of gold, and the third, also of gold, is of spiral wire. Two beads, one of green glass, the other of white and blue glass, were also found.