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<p>[QUOTE="+VGO.DVCKS, post: 4900760, member: 110504"]...No, <i>really!</i> People have been posting artifacts on this forum for as long as I’ve been paying any attention. They’re unfailingly cool, not least in the Ciceronian sense. Meanwhile, for those of us who spend more time in the Middle Ages than Antiquity, the progression from coins to (sorry to get all bilingual --especially in contrast to what I can do with Cicero) ‘artefacts’ can be no less compelling and seamless.</p><p><br /></p><p> Heraldic harness furniture has to be one collective instance. The commonest examples, conspicuously from detector finds in England, are little shield-shaped decorations (pendants or studs), mostly made of bronze (‘latten’). They depict real, historic coats of arms, originally with their tinctures (colors) rendered in enamel. The run of them date from around the mid-13th century to the mid-14th, with “the peak period for the larger, shield-shaped pendants …[apparently] around 1280 to 1350.” (Baker p. 22; cf. pp. 6; 2 and note 5 regarding the earlier side of the chronology, as well as the survival rate of the enamel, especially as found in the field.)</p><p><br /></p><p> This picture is from a mid-13th century English manuscript, showing how they were used. In the right foreground, they’re suspended from the horse’s neck, below the reins. Along with the quintessentially 13th-14th-c. shape of the little ‘shields,’ they depict coats of arms, as do the ‘full-scale’ ones.</p><p><br /></p><p><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Eo5eG4zjXIV2rSIIVub-uCMtWQlRVqqqZEwaxS4yjrpeWOzwfcYwDAEFi2PISw6Y7Pv48Kg3oSy3gXnLisj_IiMDW-Wbtl56KT6KCmWYiOMvCPVbF76I7Rh_TRJs3Vxnd--6qqq" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>In virtual situ, from the website of Trinity College, Cambridge, you can click on this to enlarge the image:</p><p><a href="https://mss-cat.trin.cam.ac.uk/manuscripts/uv/view.php?n=R.16.2&n=R.16.2#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=48&xywh=1300%2C2099%2C1914%2C1211" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://mss-cat.trin.cam.ac.uk/manuscripts/uv/view.php?n=R.16.2&n=R.16.2#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=48&xywh=1300%2C2099%2C1914%2C1211" rel="nofollow">https://mss-cat.trin.cam.ac.uk/manuscripts/uv/view.php?n=R.16.2&n=R.16.2#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=48&xywh=1300,2099,1914,1211</a></p><p><br /></p><p>This is key to how cool they are. By the mid-13th century, the European take on heraldry was already a fully realized visual language --very intentionally denotive (in reference to specific families and feudal relationships, whether by marriage or subtenancy), rather than merely connotive. Along these lines, rules and, in effect, grammar were already in place. None of this was as formalized as it became in later centuries, when heraldry had already lost its original, distinctly utilitarian agendas. But the level of sophistication in place was very adequate to its initial context, with its more urgent martial and legal criteria. (Cf. esp. Keen 125-7, regarding both shields and armorial seals, from their origins in the 12th century. Some of the plates in Coss, between pp. 78 and 9, are especially good for showing early coats of arms, into the later 13th century, which were variously related by family and feudal subtenancy.)</p><p> Thanks to this, in any given example, if enough of the enamelling survives to show one or both of the heraldic tinctures, it’s possible to reconstruct the coat of arms, and often to assign it (with however many or few caveats, in any given instance) to a specific contemporaneous family. ...And, voila! This is the nearest you might get, as a collector, to an affordable representation of the Anglo-Norman aristocracy. By going only this far into the heraldic and genealogical weeds, it’s possible to effect a relatively seamless complement to the feudal coin series, as known from France and neighboring parts of continental Europe. (...Issues from the reign of King Stephen? Can we just not go there, for this minute?)</p><p>To begin with the easiest one ...which, being merely royal, already loses much of the appeal of the ones for the aristocracy and knightage. This is my best Edwardian one, with the <i>gules</i> [red], <i>three leopards or</i> [gold /yellow] of the Angevin dynasty, prior to Edward III’s adoption of the (quartered) French fleur-de-lis at the onset of the Hundred Years’ War. That alone narrows it down to Edward I, Edward II, or early in the reign of Edward III. This one has the mount that would have attached it to the horse’s livery. (And, sure, it could have belonged to any member of the king’s household ...of a certain, can we just say, class.)[ATTACH=full]1182537[/ATTACH]</p><p>The next one, a particularly well-documented, if otherwise indifferent detector find, is missing one of the tinctures. But a number of factors triangulate to suggest that it’s likely to be of the Warenne earls of Surrey. (Is ‘compelling circumstantial evidence’ an oxymoron? <i>there’s</i> an essay question.) The Warenne arms are <i>Checqy or and azure</i>; in this case, the latter tincture (azure /blue) is missing.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1182538[/ATTACH]</p><p>The Warenne arms show up at the end of the first line of this leaf from the <i>Liber Additamentarum </i>of Matthew Paris, c. 1244. (British Library, Cotton Nero D I fol 171verso.) Paris’s caption reads, in his inimitable Gothic cursive, ‘Comitis de Warenni.’ (Oh, right, then there's the Angevin coat of Henry III, as above.)</p><p><a href="http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/illmanus/cottmanucoll/h/011cotnerd00001u00171v00.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/illmanus/cottmanucoll/h/011cotnerd00001u00171v00.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/illmanus/cottmanucoll/h/011cotnerd00001u00171v00.html</a></p><p><br /></p><p>Back to the pendant, the record from the BM’s Portable Antiquities Scheme notes the findspot as Tadcaster, near Leeds, in West Yorkshire. It goes on to discuss the range of candidates for families that could be represented, in the absence of one of the two tinctures.</p><p><a href="https://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/209541" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/209541" rel="nofollow">https://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/209541</a> . (For the operant blazons, see also Humphery pp. 232 and 233.)</p><p>The salient geographic and heraldic details seem to triangulate, however circumstantially, with more anecdotal ones. Suggesting, in turn, that the pendant could have been from the retinue not only of the Warenne earls of Surrey, but, perhaps, more specifically, of John de Warenne, earl from 1240-1304.</p><p>He was the grandfather of Henry de Percy, Lord of Topcliffe (later Alnwick; fl. 1272-1314), having been a cohort of Henry’s eponymous father, in the inner circle of Prince Edward, from the 1250’s (Rose 95).</p><p>(Yes, these are same Percys, Shakespeare and all that, but well before they fell into the earldom of Northumberland, in the later 14th century. The operant genealogy is shown in Charles Cawley’s online document, <u>Medieval Lands</u> (Warenne, followed by Percy: )</p><p><a href="https://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ENGLISH%20NOBILITY%20MEDIEVAL.htm#_Toc21106869" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ENGLISH%20NOBILITY%20MEDIEVAL.htm#_Toc21106869" rel="nofollow">https://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ENGLISH NOBILITY MEDIEVAL.htm#_Toc21106869</a></p><p><a href="https://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ENGLISHNOBILITYMEDIEVAL3P-S.htm#HenryPercydied1272" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ENGLISHNOBILITYMEDIEVAL3P-S.htm#HenryPercydied1272" rel="nofollow">https://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ENGLISHNOBILITYMEDIEVAL3P-S.htm#HenryPercydied1272</a> )</p><p>John and grandson Henry were associated in Edward I’s Scottish campaigns. Both were in the occupying administration from the capture of Berwick in 1296 (Prestwich (473-) 474), going on to see action at the Battle of Falkirk in 1298, and the siege of Caerlaverock in 1300 (Denholm-Young 103-5).</p><p>Meanwhile, Henry held land in the pendant’s findspot, Tadcaster, as Percys had done since <u>Domesday</u>. In 1295, he was given “free warren” there. This amounted to a standing license to hunt in the adjoining royal forests; as such, a significant concession to any lord’s local autonomy (Speight (241-) 244). This far north, the Warrene earls’ principal castle was Conisbrough, maybe 35 miles due south of Tadcaster (from an old Shell road atlas).</p><p>...Right, lots of Percys up in this house. Back to, er, the harness pendants. There’s this one, fun for having significant traces of both tinctures. Including some of the unmistakably genuine gilding for the <i>or,</i> as in the first, facilely royal one that this more or less started with. (...Speaking of which, and whom --only especially in reference to Berwick-- is it just me, or is the best part of the movie, “Braveheart,” the arresting similarity of Edward I to Darth Vader? Tell me if I’m making it up. ...Something is telling me that none of these people would make good next-door neighbors.)</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1182547[/ATTACH]The arms are <i>or, a lion rampant azure</i> (Denholm Young p. 103; cf. Humphery-Smith p. 64).</p><p>Members are cordially invited to post, what, we might start with actual (oops) <i>coins</i> of the period, especially from either side of any of the frontiers of Angevin - Plantagenet England, whether British, Irish or French. ...Or, What? (--<i>not </i>a merely rhetorical question--) maybe any medieval coins, especially c. late 12th -14th centuries, featuring coats of arms. ...Or heraldry more broadly considered; for one random instance, the lion on some of the dirhams of Baybars.</p><p><br /></p><p>Stuff I looked at.</p><p>Ashley, Steven. <u>Medieval Armorial Horse Furniture in Norfolk</u>. East Anglian Archaeology Report No. 101 (2002). Also available as a free .pdf from the publication’s website: <a href="https://tinyurl.com/ycj5u5hg" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://tinyurl.com/ycj5u5hg" rel="nofollow">https://tinyurl.com/ycj5u5hg</a></p><p>Baker, John. “The Earliest Armorial Harness Pendants.” <u>The Coat of Arms</u> 3rd series, vol. 11 (2015), no. 229, pp. 1-24.</p><p>Coss, Peter. <u>The Knight in Medieval England: 1000-1400</u>. (1993/) 1996.</p><p>Denholm-Young, N. <u>History and Heraldry 1254-1310: A Study of the Historical Value of the Rolls of Arms</u>. Oxford, 1965.</p><p>Humphery-Smith, Cecil. <u>Anglo-Normany Armory Two: An Ordinary of Thirteenth-Century Armorials</u>. Canterbury, 1984.</p><p>Keen, Maurice. <u>Chivalry</u>. New Haven, 1984.</p><p>Prestwich, Michael. <u>Edward I</u>. 1988 /New Haven, 1997.</p><p>Rose, Alexander. <u>Kings in the North: The House of Percy in British History</u>. London, 2002.</p><p>Speight, Harry. <u>Lower Wharfdale</u>. London, 1902. (Accessed via Google Books: <a href="https://tinyurl.com/y6hmrprc" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://tinyurl.com/y6hmrprc" rel="nofollow">https://tinyurl.com/y6hmrprc</a> .)</p><p><br /></p><p>The article, “Harness Pendants,” on the UK Detector Finds Database (UKDFD) website, under “C J’s Metal Detecting Pages:”</p><p><a href="http://www.ukdfd.co.uk/ceejays_site/pages/pendanttitlepage.htm" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.ukdfd.co.uk/ceejays_site/pages/pendanttitlepage.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.ukdfd.co.uk/ceejays_site/pages/pendanttitlepage.htm</a></p><p>is also of considerable value.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="+VGO.DVCKS, post: 4900760, member: 110504"]...No, [I]really![/I] People have been posting artifacts on this forum for as long as I’ve been paying any attention. They’re unfailingly cool, not least in the Ciceronian sense. Meanwhile, for those of us who spend more time in the Middle Ages than Antiquity, the progression from coins to (sorry to get all bilingual --especially in contrast to what I can do with Cicero) ‘artefacts’ can be no less compelling and seamless. Heraldic harness furniture has to be one collective instance. The commonest examples, conspicuously from detector finds in England, are little shield-shaped decorations (pendants or studs), mostly made of bronze (‘latten’). They depict real, historic coats of arms, originally with their tinctures (colors) rendered in enamel. The run of them date from around the mid-13th century to the mid-14th, with “the peak period for the larger, shield-shaped pendants …[apparently] around 1280 to 1350.” (Baker p. 22; cf. pp. 6; 2 and note 5 regarding the earlier side of the chronology, as well as the survival rate of the enamel, especially as found in the field.) This picture is from a mid-13th century English manuscript, showing how they were used. In the right foreground, they’re suspended from the horse’s neck, below the reins. Along with the quintessentially 13th-14th-c. shape of the little ‘shields,’ they depict coats of arms, as do the ‘full-scale’ ones. [IMG]https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Eo5eG4zjXIV2rSIIVub-uCMtWQlRVqqqZEwaxS4yjrpeWOzwfcYwDAEFi2PISw6Y7Pv48Kg3oSy3gXnLisj_IiMDW-Wbtl56KT6KCmWYiOMvCPVbF76I7Rh_TRJs3Vxnd--6qqq[/IMG] In virtual situ, from the website of Trinity College, Cambridge, you can click on this to enlarge the image: [URL='https://mss-cat.trin.cam.ac.uk/manuscripts/uv/view.php?n=R.16.2&n=R.16.2#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=48&xywh=1300%2C2099%2C1914%2C1211']https://mss-cat.trin.cam.ac.uk/manuscripts/uv/view.php?n=R.16.2&n=R.16.2#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=48&xywh=1300,2099,1914,1211[/URL] This is key to how cool they are. By the mid-13th century, the European take on heraldry was already a fully realized visual language --very intentionally denotive (in reference to specific families and feudal relationships, whether by marriage or subtenancy), rather than merely connotive. Along these lines, rules and, in effect, grammar were already in place. None of this was as formalized as it became in later centuries, when heraldry had already lost its original, distinctly utilitarian agendas. But the level of sophistication in place was very adequate to its initial context, with its more urgent martial and legal criteria. (Cf. esp. Keen 125-7, regarding both shields and armorial seals, from their origins in the 12th century. Some of the plates in Coss, between pp. 78 and 9, are especially good for showing early coats of arms, into the later 13th century, which were variously related by family and feudal subtenancy.) Thanks to this, in any given example, if enough of the enamelling survives to show one or both of the heraldic tinctures, it’s possible to reconstruct the coat of arms, and often to assign it (with however many or few caveats, in any given instance) to a specific contemporaneous family. ...And, voila! This is the nearest you might get, as a collector, to an affordable representation of the Anglo-Norman aristocracy. By going only this far into the heraldic and genealogical weeds, it’s possible to effect a relatively seamless complement to the feudal coin series, as known from France and neighboring parts of continental Europe. (...Issues from the reign of King Stephen? Can we just not go there, for this minute?) To begin with the easiest one ...which, being merely royal, already loses much of the appeal of the ones for the aristocracy and knightage. This is my best Edwardian one, with the [I]gules[/I] [red], [I]three leopards or[/I] [gold /yellow] of the Angevin dynasty, prior to Edward III’s adoption of the (quartered) French fleur-de-lis at the onset of the Hundred Years’ War. That alone narrows it down to Edward I, Edward II, or early in the reign of Edward III. This one has the mount that would have attached it to the horse’s livery. (And, sure, it could have belonged to any member of the king’s household ...of a certain, can we just say, class.)[ATTACH=full]1182537[/ATTACH] The next one, a particularly well-documented, if otherwise indifferent detector find, is missing one of the tinctures. But a number of factors triangulate to suggest that it’s likely to be of the Warenne earls of Surrey. (Is ‘compelling circumstantial evidence’ an oxymoron? [I]there’s[/I] an essay question.) The Warenne arms are [I]Checqy or and azure[/I]; in this case, the latter tincture (azure /blue) is missing. [ATTACH=full]1182538[/ATTACH] The Warenne arms show up at the end of the first line of this leaf from the [I]Liber Additamentarum [/I]of Matthew Paris, c. 1244. (British Library, Cotton Nero D I fol 171verso.) Paris’s caption reads, in his inimitable Gothic cursive, ‘Comitis de Warenni.’ (Oh, right, then there's the Angevin coat of Henry III, as above.) [URL]http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/illmanus/cottmanucoll/h/011cotnerd00001u00171v00.html[/URL] Back to the pendant, the record from the BM’s Portable Antiquities Scheme notes the findspot as Tadcaster, near Leeds, in West Yorkshire. It goes on to discuss the range of candidates for families that could be represented, in the absence of one of the two tinctures. [URL]https://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/209541[/URL] . (For the operant blazons, see also Humphery pp. 232 and 233.) The salient geographic and heraldic details seem to triangulate, however circumstantially, with more anecdotal ones. Suggesting, in turn, that the pendant could have been from the retinue not only of the Warenne earls of Surrey, but, perhaps, more specifically, of John de Warenne, earl from 1240-1304. He was the grandfather of Henry de Percy, Lord of Topcliffe (later Alnwick; fl. 1272-1314), having been a cohort of Henry’s eponymous father, in the inner circle of Prince Edward, from the 1250’s (Rose 95). (Yes, these are same Percys, Shakespeare and all that, but well before they fell into the earldom of Northumberland, in the later 14th century. The operant genealogy is shown in Charles Cawley’s online document, [U]Medieval Lands[/U] (Warenne, followed by Percy: ) [URL='https://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ENGLISH%20NOBILITY%20MEDIEVAL.htm#_Toc21106869']https://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ENGLISH NOBILITY MEDIEVAL.htm#_Toc21106869[/URL] [URL]https://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ENGLISHNOBILITYMEDIEVAL3P-S.htm#HenryPercydied1272[/URL] ) John and grandson Henry were associated in Edward I’s Scottish campaigns. Both were in the occupying administration from the capture of Berwick in 1296 (Prestwich (473-) 474), going on to see action at the Battle of Falkirk in 1298, and the siege of Caerlaverock in 1300 (Denholm-Young 103-5). Meanwhile, Henry held land in the pendant’s findspot, Tadcaster, as Percys had done since [U]Domesday[/U]. In 1295, he was given “free warren” there. This amounted to a standing license to hunt in the adjoining royal forests; as such, a significant concession to any lord’s local autonomy (Speight (241-) 244). This far north, the Warrene earls’ principal castle was Conisbrough, maybe 35 miles due south of Tadcaster (from an old Shell road atlas). ...Right, lots of Percys up in this house. Back to, er, the harness pendants. There’s this one, fun for having significant traces of both tinctures. Including some of the unmistakably genuine gilding for the [I]or,[/I] as in the first, facilely royal one that this more or less started with. (...Speaking of which, and whom --only especially in reference to Berwick-- is it just me, or is the best part of the movie, “Braveheart,” the arresting similarity of Edward I to Darth Vader? Tell me if I’m making it up. ...Something is telling me that none of these people would make good next-door neighbors.) [ATTACH=full]1182547[/ATTACH]The arms are [I]or, a lion rampant azure[/I] (Denholm Young p. 103; cf. Humphery-Smith p. 64). Members are cordially invited to post, what, we might start with actual (oops) [I]coins[/I] of the period, especially from either side of any of the frontiers of Angevin - Plantagenet England, whether British, Irish or French. ...Or, What? (--[I]not [/I]a merely rhetorical question--) maybe any medieval coins, especially c. late 12th -14th centuries, featuring coats of arms. ...Or heraldry more broadly considered; for one random instance, the lion on some of the dirhams of Baybars. Stuff I looked at. Ashley, Steven. [U]Medieval Armorial Horse Furniture in Norfolk[/U]. East Anglian Archaeology Report No. 101 (2002). Also available as a free .pdf from the publication’s website: [URL]https://tinyurl.com/ycj5u5hg[/URL] Baker, John. “The Earliest Armorial Harness Pendants.” [U]The Coat of Arms[/U] 3rd series, vol. 11 (2015), no. 229, pp. 1-24. Coss, Peter. [U]The Knight in Medieval England: 1000-1400[/U]. (1993/) 1996. Denholm-Young, N. [U]History and Heraldry 1254-1310: A Study of the Historical Value of the Rolls of Arms[/U]. Oxford, 1965. Humphery-Smith, Cecil. [U]Anglo-Normany Armory Two: An Ordinary of Thirteenth-Century Armorials[/U]. Canterbury, 1984. Keen, Maurice. [U]Chivalry[/U]. New Haven, 1984. Prestwich, Michael. [U]Edward I[/U]. 1988 /New Haven, 1997. Rose, Alexander. [U]Kings in the North: The House of Percy in British History[/U]. London, 2002. Speight, Harry. [U]Lower Wharfdale[/U]. London, 1902. (Accessed via Google Books: [URL]https://tinyurl.com/y6hmrprc[/URL] .) The article, “Harness Pendants,” on the UK Detector Finds Database (UKDFD) website, under “C J’s Metal Detecting Pages:” [URL]http://www.ukdfd.co.uk/ceejays_site/pages/pendanttitlepage.htm[/URL] is also of considerable value.[/QUOTE]
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