The result of forty years of study, this book offers an overview of the most common find, after coins, on sites in Roman Britain – the brooch. Used basically to hold outer clothing together, it was always on view and was usually decorative. This significant work is based on the study of some 15,000 specimens.
Following a discussion of manufacturing techniques, methods of study and the concept of dating, the book examines in detail the myriad style of brooches from the second century B.C., when the habit of wearing brooches really took off, to the early fifth century A.D. when newcomers brought their own types of brooch and imposed them on the rest of what was to become England. The final chapter is a synthesis of various strands mentioned in the body of the book and the social implications of the great change in brooch wearing which occurred in the third century.
Originally published as a two-volume hardback – split into a text volume and a second volume featuring author-drawn illustrations of some 2,000 examples – this combined paperback edition of volume 1 and 2 of Brooches in Late Iron Age and Roman Britain ensures that this important contribution to the field remains accessible to a wider audience.
Chapter 1. Introduction
Part 1. The Study
Part 2. Dating
Part 3. Typologies and Classification
Part 4. Selection and Bias
Part 5. Materials and Manufacture
Part 6. The Illustrations
Chapter 2. Late La Tène, Britain and the Continent
Part 1. The Stead, Birdlip, Nauheim and Drahtfibel Group, etc.
Part 2. The Rosette and Langton Down Group
Part 3. The Colchester
Part 4. The Aesica
Part 5. The South Western La Tène Series
Part 6. The Military La Tène II
Chapter 3. The Colchester Derivative
Part 1. The Harlow, Spring System
Part 2. The Rearhook
Part 3. The Polden Hill
Part 4. The Hinged Pin
Part 5. Polden Hill/Hinged Pin
Chapter 4. The Headstud and others
Part 1. Alternative Headstuds
Part 2. The Headstud
Part 3. The Wroxeter
Part 4. Colchester Derivatives, with Trumpet-style Knops
Chapter 5. The Trumpet and its Varieties
Part 1. Mainstream Trumpets
Part 2. Double-lugged
Part 3. The Knop Replaced by Flat Plates
Part 4. Hinged
Chapter 6. Continent Imports and Their Influence
Part 1. Alésia-Aucissa Series
Part 2. The Hod Hill
Part 3. The Durotrigan
Part 4. The Augenfibel and Relatives
Part 5. The Pannonian, Norican etc
Chapter 7. The Plate and Related, and Dragonesques
Introduction
Part 1. British
Part 2. Continental
Part 3. Objects and Animals
Part 4. Dragonesque
Chapter 8. The Knee, Almgren 101 and Interlopers
Part 1. The Knee
Part 2. Almgren 101
Part 3. Interlopers from Free Germany etc
Chapter 9. The Crossbow Sequence
Part 1. The Sprung-pin or Proto Crossbow Brooches
Part 2. The Crossbow and its Antecedents
Chapter 10. Penannulars
Part 1. Coiled
Part 2. Folded Over
Part 3. Knobbed
Part 4. Late-zoömorphic
Part 5. Others
Chapter 11. Usage, Tribes, Fashions and the Demise of the Bow Brooch
Part 1. Who Wore Brooches, Why and How
Part 2. The Problem of Military Brooches
Part 3. Religion
Part 4. Marketing and Money
Appendices
1. The Dating of the King Harry Lane Cemetery
2. The Dating of Applied White Metal Trim
3. South Cadbury the South West Gate