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Description: | A copper-alloy fragment, probably part of a medieval circular mount, or roundel. Such discs were apparently quite common in secular medieval contexts (Ward-Perkins 1940, 120), and might have been used as mounts on objects ranging from horse harnesses to drinking vessels. This artefact, however, derives from an obviously religious context. The fragment, which constitutes approximately one third of the complete roundel, features an external border on the obverse face. Within this is an incised border line, and, on the top half, further border elements which include a dashed line formed by regular diagonal breaks, and two further incised border lines beyond this. The lower half lacks an additional border since figures are superimposed in impression where it would have been. In the lower half the main figure is presumably Christ; the upper body including the head has been lost. Perspective, or a lack of it, makes it difficult to tell whether this is a depiction of Christ entombed or of the Christ child. Around and above this figure, on the far right of the obverse, is a bishop wearing a mitre and cope. A nice detail is the quatrefoil brooch which fastens the cloak at the front. Adjacent to the bishop is another figure of whom all that is present is the left arm. The proportions of the disc fragment suggest that this second, partial figure is positioned centrally, flanked by the bishop to the right and by another figure to the left. A group of three figures around the infant Christ would probably be a representation of the adoration of the Magi, whereas a group around the crucified Christ would represent the mourning or lamentation of his death. The inclusion of a contemporary bishop renders such an interpretation somewhat problematic; the decumbent body might in fact be that of a saint. There is an 'exergue' below the horizontal figure which features the inscribed letter 'RE'; any other lettering has been lost in the same way the conjectured figures have. The reverse of the artefact is flat and undecorated. If the complete object featured any attachment holes these were presumably located in the section of the disc which has been lost following old damage. In the absence of any obvious means of attachment, the object may have been set into a recess perhaps in a book or an ecclesiastical vessel. The dating of the object has been based mainly on the style of the decoration, and partly by the style of the brooch depicted at one temporal limit and at the other by the English Reformation. | Format: | text/html | License: | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ | Publisher: | The Portable Antiquities Scheme | Rights holder: | The Portable Antiquities Scheme | Subjects: | archaeology | Temporal: | 1350
1525 | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Creator: | Robert Webley | Identifier: | http://www.finds.org.uk/database/artefac... | Language: | en-GB | Format: | text/html | Go to resource |
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